cgiar csicgiar-csi.org
Dublin II: Enhancing CAADP and CGIARAlignment and Collaboration.Teagasc, Dublin17–19 September, 2012
Mapping & Aligning CAADP & CGIAR InvestmentsA Technical Platform PrototypeCommissioned by the Dublin Partners
Luz Marina Alvare, Nienke Beintema, Maria Comanescu, Zhe Guo, Joseph Karugia (ReSAKSS/ECA), Zahia Khan, Soonho Kim, Maction Komwa (GMU), Jawoo Koo, Stella Massawe (ReSAKSS/ECA), Nilam Prasan, Michael Rahija,
Ryan Whitley (SpatialDev), Ria Tenorio, Indira Yerramareddy, Stanley Wood
with inputs and collaboration fromThe Dublin Steering Committee, Godfrey Bahigwa (IGAD), Sam Benin, Polly Eriksen (ILRI), Adam Kennedy,
Athur Mabiso, Valerie Rhoe (CRP4), Pascale Sabbagh (CRP2 and Yield Gap Database), Heather Wylie
• What priorities have been established for technology and innovation investments in African countries?
• What is the aggregate landscape of planned investments across sub-regions or across Africa?
• What are CGIAR (& SROs/NAROs) investment plans? On what themes, where? (by CRP/all CRPs).
• How well do National and CGIAR investment plans align? Can we identify R&D areas that are over- or under-represented relative to national needs?
Driving Questions - 1
• Search: Can we provide on-line, low-cost services for; –R&D providers/Donors to scan innovation demands so
as to better target/market R&D investments, products and services, and identify critical investment gaps?
–National planners to find programs, projects and institutions (within and) beyond their borders that are developing/testing innovations they need?
• Coordination: What/where are opportunities to improve coordination among development actors; e.g., planning and implementation agencies, R&D and extension institutions, and development funders?
• Spillover: What entry points exist for technology/ innovation/knowledge providers beyond Africa (e.g. Australia) to offer their experience and insights?
Driving Questions - 2
• What additional data/information/knowledge can be brought to bear in order to;– Better characterize investment opportunities– Validate the impact potential of planned investments– Improve the identification of coordination opportunities– Inform detailed design of implementation– Help private sector, service providers, and other partners
recognize opportunities for engagement
Driving Questions - 3
Design of Stocktaking & Mapping Exercise
CAADP:National
InvestmentPlans (NIPs)
CAADP:National
InvestmentPlans (NIPs)
CAADP:Investment
Plans (IPs, Tech. Reviews), Sector
Plans, etc
CAADP:National
InvestmentPlans (NIPs)
CAADP:National
InvestmentPlans (NIPs)
ResearchInvestmentsCGIAR (CRPs),SROs, NARS
Regional Spatially-Explicit
Framework
TECHNOLOGY/INNOVATION REQUIREMENTS*
Countries/Sub-Regions/Value Chains/Themes
R&DACTIVITIES*
Agroecosystems/Sub-regions/
Valus chains/Themes
Characterization and Diagnosis According to sub-region, agroecosystem, and country dimensions, e.g., demographic,
agricultural potential, productivity, market access, poverty, natural resource use patterns and trends (HarvestChoice, CSI), national agriculture sector and donor investments
(ReSAKSS and various project mapping tools), and R&D capacities (ASTI)
R&DGaps?
Coordination & Investment Options
5
8
9
7
AdoptAgroecosystem/
Spatial Framework
Adopt Consistent Technology/
Innovation/ R&D Descriptors
Technical Working Group1
2
4
6
7 3
8
Geography as a Central Concept
Location, agroecology, and farming system context are key dimensions of agricultural knowledge;
• Need to identify and characterize key agroecosystems
• A spatial framework provides a rigorous means of understanding location context, and of recognizing and accounting for technology/knowledge spillover potential
• Provides a basis for assessing the potential scope for improved coordination and co-location of investment activities
Significant update well advanced(ACIAR/ICRAF)
Dixon et al. (2001)
African Farming System Domains (2001)
Principles & Learning
•Not a single-shot assessment, but a live, accessible platform that can be kept current and expanded to meet evolving/different needs
•Minimize development of new components, focus on integration and interoperability of existing databases and functionality
•Location-agnostic, open architecture that can readily be adopted by any participating institution (e.g., a federated implementation)
•Significant opportunity to add value by linking to other data and knowledge sources on development constraints and opportunities (including on-going investments and existing innovations) so as to better inform investment choices
ID1: Name, #, Description
ID2: Name, #, Description
ID3: Name, #, Description
Activity: #, Description
ID Level#: Outputs, Outcomes, Impacts, Targets
ID Level#: Partners
CAADP | CGIAR Source Reference, Time Period, Currency Units
ID Level#: Investment Cost
AEZ/Production System
Region/Country
Commodity/Value Chain
Country | CRP
Pillars | SLOs
Dictionaries
Need standardized theming (FAO, CABI)
CAADP Documents: Ethiopia (PIF), ReviewKenya (MTIP)*, ReviewUganda (ASDS), ReviewIGAD (Ethiopia, Kenya CPPs)Tanzania (G8)Ghana (G8)
CRP Documents: 1.1 Drylands1 Policies, Institutions, Markets3.1 Wheat3.2 Maize3.6 Dryland Cereals3.7 Livestock and Fish4 Nutrition and Health5 Water, Land & Ecosystems7/CCAFS Climate Change
Harmonized Investment/Activity Database Structure
Standard tags, & Themes
Matching/Aligning Concepts• Set: What set of investments need to be
compared? e.g., what specific combination of CAADP, CRP, SRO etc investments and activities need to be “matched”?
• Dimensions: What specific attributes of the selected investments (set) will form the basis for matching? e.g., their common themes, commodities, agroecosystems, countries, locations, or partners?
• Attributes: How can we measure the degree of matching or “alignment” along key dimensions? e.g., by the number of activities or investment amounts, or common priorities (e.g. share of activities or of cost assigned to similar dimensions)
Critical importance of Harmonized Vocabularies across the entire collection of information
Etc… other tags
Plant production & Protection
Crop & Crop management
Crop pests and diseases
Post harvest management
Plant genetic resources and
Breeding
Sustainability
Health
Nutrition
Biodiversity
Dryland farming Productivity
Etc… other tags
Upper level Theming with
Controlled vocabulary
Granular level Tagging with
AGROVOCkeywords
CRP2: 1.3.4 Assess & validate importance of agrobiodiversity species and products for diversification and improved livelihoods, nutrition and health
Two way Indexing
CRP2
Theme 1
Sub-theme 3
Activity #4
Report Alignment by Theme
Report Alignment by Agroecosystem (AES)
Linking Planned, Present, and Past Investment
Locate Activities
Relate Any Activities to Any Domains
Compare Locations to Key Indicators(live link into HarvestChoice database)
Compare Locations to Key Indicators(live link into HarvestChoice database)
Access functionality from other web platforms(live link into HarvestChoice database)
Findings/Summary - 1• Very wide variation among CAADP and CGIAR planning
documents in;– specificity/granularity of investment information– terminologies/vocabularies used to describe investment activities– articulation of focus commodities, geographies, partners and costs
• Design of CAADP-CGIAR core alignment database and spatial harmonization essentially complete and stable, extending beyond plans (programs) to encompass implementation (projects)
• Major effort, but an established process, to add standardized themes and tags/keywords (and soon, synonyms) to activity records in order to significantly improve the efficiency and reliability of retrieval and “matching” of investment activities of different actors
• Development requires access to a range of specialist skills; thematic knowledge, GIS, web programming, indexing, ontology, collaboration tools (library science/KM), web page design, content management systems, server infrastructure, etc.
• Technical challenges remain (e.g. backend “plumbing”), but largely a matter of formalizing best practices and providing tools to minimize future alignment challenges, reduce “costs of compliance” and maximize “interoperability” of investment data.
• Better, more open and harmonized investment data present major opportunities to align with other bodies of data and knowledge bringing significant additional benefits to the planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of investments.
• Success will rely on direct commitment and involvement of key CAADP and CGIAR planning and implementation actors, a technical team can support and facilitate
Findings/Summary - 2
• Consortium Open Data Access Policy/Regulations–MPL meeting mapped progress to May 2013
“Launch” of Open Data Access across the Consortium.
–Crop Breeding, Spatial Data and Project Management identified as priority areas for progress.
–Responding to this agenda will simultaneously advance the ability of the Consortium and its partners to deliver more harmonized/interoperable investment data
• G8 New Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition–Involves the design of a Technology Platform built
around CAADP priority commodities/value chains in focus countries
–Success depends on harmonization of CAADP planning with innovation/technology access and adoption
–FARA, CGIAR and AGRA are G8-nominated partners to support developing nationally-owned (& region-wide [virtual]) technology platforms
–Responding to this agenda will simultaneously advance the ability of focus countries and (public and private) innovation partners to test and directly apply alignment tools in evaluating innovation options
• WB/Development Gateway, KIS, ReSAKSS
Other relevant developments…..
Way forward – Some ideasFive parallel steps
• Establish willingness to explore adapting current investment characterization and documentation procedures, and to make such information accessible as part of a commitment to the data interoperability/alignment goal (CAADP, Consortium, SROs)Does CO or CAADP Secretariat agreement imply CRP/Center and National
CAADP team agreement, and if not, what needs to be done?
• Circulate prototype to relevant CAADP and CRP teams and other key
stakeholders for broader feedback, validation and updatingNeeds basic documentation
• Establish implementation phasing approach, e.g., agroecosystem (e.g., agro-pastoral, root crop, maize-mixed), thematic (e.g., animal health, sub-regional), commodity, and explore funder interest.Or initiative-based, e.g., plugging extended tool team into “mission”
teams for HoA, G8 TP, and other priority/funded initiatives that already link CAADP and CGIAR.
Recognize/utilize different partner/donor interests in order to accelerate implementation progress
Way forward – Some ideasFive parallel steps
• Expand participation in the technical design support team to engage more specialists from partners and individuals and tap outside expertize. Draw up a scope of work and implementation plan for this extended technical leadership/support team (including scoping long-term implementation needed by partners)Potential partners include CILSS/CSI, regional KM teams e.g., KIS,
ReSAKSS, WB/Development Gateway.
• Prepare initial best practice guidelines and investment data description guides and tools (e.g. standard vocabulary prompts, data format conversion routines) and “no-regrets” technical integration. Scope of these materials prioritized and conditioned by agreed phasing
approach