Innovation platforms in the aquaculture value chain in Egypt

Innovation Platforms in the Aquaculture Value Chain in Egypt

National Aquaculture Innovation Platform Workshop, Cairo, 19-20 February 2014

Malcolm Dickson and Remco Mur

The program

• A collaboration between CGIAR centers (CIAT, ICARDA, WorldFish, ILRI),

• Within selected value chains across Africa, South and Southeast Asia and Latin America

• To foster the growth and inclusivity of livestock value chains around the world and to achieve, at scale, more meat, milk and fish, by and for the poor.

See: http://livestockfish.cgiar.org/ and see http://www.ilri.org/home

CGIAR Livestock and Fish Research Program

Why Livestock and Fish?

• Animal-source foods provide critical inputs to the health of women and children

• Nearly 1 billion (70%) of the world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people depend on livestock;

• two-thirds of the world’s livestock keepers are rural women

• 400 million people in Africa and South Asia depend on fish for most of their animal protein

• 156 million landless people keep livestock

CGIAR Livestock and Fish Research Program

Expected outcomes

• Aquaculture: increase fish consumption by 20% in target value chains

• Goats and sheep: increase productivity to double incomes in target value chains

• Dairy and pigs: double productivity and incomes in target value chains

CGIAR Livestock and Fish Research Program

COLLABORATE

Sustainable Development Goals - Linkages 01 End poverty

02 Empower girls and women and achieve gender equity

03 Provide quality education and lifelong learning

04 Ensure healthy lives

05 Ensure food security and good nutrition

06 Achieve universal access to water and sanitation

07 Secure sustainable energy

08 Create jobs, sustainable livelihoods and equitable growth

09 Manage natural resource assets sustainably

10 Ensure good governance and effective institutions

11 Ensure stable and peaceful societies

12 Create a global enabling environment & catalyze long term finance

The IEIDEAS project

Improving Employment and Income through Development of

Egypt’s Aquaculture Sector

The aquaculture value chain in Egypt

• Provides significant benefits for the Egyptian people; • Economic activity ($ 1.5 billion)• Employment (100,000+ FTE)• Food security (one fish per person per week)

• Relatively simple value chain

ProducersTransporters

& wholesalers

Retailers

~ 6,000 fish farms ~ 800 wholesalers ~ 5,000 female retailers, ?? male

Medium scale businesses

Medium scale businesses

Small-scale businesses

High feed costs, declining profits

Low margins but high volumes

Low margins, high risk

Aquaculture production and markets

Productionfocused in aqua zones

Markets widelydispersed but within Egypt

Characteristics of the aquaculture value chain in Egypt

• Other stakeholders; feed mills, equipment suppliers, hatcheries, ice suppliers, restaurants, fish fry shops

• Hardly any processing or exports of farmed fish

• Continued expansion possible if profitability maintained

• Opportunities for sustainable and equitable growth, including for women

• Sector has developed despite poor support and negative policies

• Environmental issues need to be considered

Innovation Platforms

• a network of organizations, enterprises, and individuals• Focus on ‘innovation’ in a sector rather than on “production”• Innovation is a combination of ‘hardware’, ‘software’ and

‘orgware’ • Actor oriented• Breaks with the idea that research is the major source of

knowledge • Knowledge is generated (from different sources) and learning

takes place through stakeholder interaction• Complementing roles of multiple actors and the importance

of linkages among them• The demand side must be included in the innovation process• Policies are important to innovation

Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS)

• A way to make AIS thinking more concrete and actionable

• Groups of stakeholders who come together to discuss and address challenges and opportunities

• Members represent organizations or groups that have different but often complementary objectives and interests

• Working with different stakeholders may lead to new fields of enquiry

Innovation Platforms (IP)

Innovation platforms and value chains

This workshop

Objectives

To contribute to aquaculture value chain development by: • Facilitating a process of engagement to develop clear

ideas to stimulate growth of the Egyptian aquaculture sector

• Identifying challenges in the national and local institutional policy environment pertaining the aquaculture value chain and a way forward

• Provide input to an agenda for the development of the aquaculture sector

Innovation platforms in the aquaculture value chain in Egypt

National Innovation Platform workshop

Objectives

• To develop clear ideas to stimulate growth of the Egyptian aquaculture sector by identifying, exploring and addressing value chain challenges

• Start up working groups working on specific prioritised issues related to the Aquaculture Value Chain

• Identifying capacity needs related to innovation platforms’ performance

Outputs

• key challenges and opportunities identified, prioritised and explored

• different working groups established

• an initial assessment of the capacity needs related to innovation platforms

National Innovation Platform workshop

Workshop Programme – Wednesday 19 February09:30 Opening and introduction of participants10:00 Context of the workshop10:15 Presentation on Innovation Platforms and how they work10:30 Presentation of Governorate-level issues from the preparatory meetings11:00 Coffee break 11:15 Categorizing issues and linking them to impact pathways11:45 Prioritizing issues and deciding on working group process12:15 Analysis of the issues, identify causes and effects and stakeholders who

need to be part of the solution – Round 113:00 Lunch break14:00 Round 1 cont’d14:30 Analysis of the issues – Round 215:30 Coffee break15:45 Round 2 cont’d16:16 Reporting back from working groups17:15 Closure 19:30 Dinner on the Nile

Workshop Programme – Thursday 20 February

08:30 Opening and recap of day 1

08:45 Stakeholder group work to identify what each can do to address the issues

10:00 Developing initial action plans

10:45 Coffee break

11:00 Action plans cont’d

11:30 Reporting back action plans

12:00 Establishing working groups for future work and organising the process

12:45 Evaluation of the workshop

13:00 Lunch break

14:00 Summary presentation of workshop to high-level stakeholders and discussion

15:00 Closing remarks

16:00 Closure

Market place (30 min)Issues defined at Governorate level

• Presenting the posters from the Governorate-level meetings

• At each poster: at least one representative from the respective Governorate

• Other participants are asked to start at any poster (not their own)

• Governorate representatives clarify issues on the posters

• Participants circulate the room until they have viewed all posters

Prioritizing issues

Process:

• Each participant is provided with 2 stickers

• Stick your stickers on the two issues you find most important (you can also stick both stickers on one issue)

• The number of stickers (votes) will be counted for each issue

Keep in mind the following criteria:

• Relevant to more than one governorate

• Urgent

• Severe

• Impacts the sector as a whole

• From the list of prioritized issues the top 10 will be addressed

• Two rounds will each address 5 issues• Participants select an issue and table to attend• Exploring the issue:

Clarify the issue (opportunity / challenge) What are the possible causes and effects? How severe / urgent is it? Who is/are affected? Who has to be part of the solution?

• Document answers on flipcharts / cards on the tables• First round: 30 minutes• After 30 minutes: opportunity to change groups • Following rounds are 15-20 minutes each

World Café: Analysis of the issues

• Participants are regrouped into stakeholder sub-groups

• Answer the following question:

What can you do about the issue / how can you contribute to a solutions?

How feasible are your suggestions (time-wise, budget-wise,…)?

• Write your feasible “strategies” on cards and stick them to the issues

• In what issue / working group do you need to be a represented?

• Indicate where they need representation by sticking the name of the group at the poster

Stakeholder group work

• Working groups are established to work on these issues in the coming months / years

• People are asked to create Working Groups by committing themselves to one (or more) of the themes by writing their names on the flipchart

• Please only commit to a working group if you are able and willing to do the work

• Stakeholder groups can discuss who should represent the stakeholder in what Working Group

Establishing working groups

• according to identified working groups

• identify potential strategies to address the issue by answering the following questions:

o What are effective strategies to address the issue? (based on the cards of the actor groups)

o Who should be involved?

o What is feasible?

• After 45 minutes, participants are asked to develop an action plan based on a provided format

Developing initial action plans

• Formalising the IP (leadership)

• Facilitation of Working Groups

• Coordination

• Documentation

• Feedback

• Reflection mechanisms for the working groups

Organising the process

• Each participant takes two cards

• On one card write one thing you liked about the workshop

• On the other card write something that did not go so well during the workshop

Evaluation of the workshop

CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food secure future. The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish aims to increase the productivity of small-scale livestock and fish systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and fish more available and affordable across the developing world.

CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish

livestockfish.cgiar.org