Blogs

The Africa RISING Ethiopia project held a two-day virtual workshop with its CGIAR partners from 18-19 November 2021. Top on the meeting’s agenda was a review of the implementation of 2020/2021 project activities and discussion of the plans for 2021/2022. The meeting was attended by 25 project partners from the International livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and the Africa RISING project.

Speaking at the start of the event, ILRI director general’s representative in Ethiopia, Covic Namukolo, welcomed participants and highlighted the role of Africa RISING in creating a multidisciplinary working environment for several partners to work together towards sustainably intensified smallholder farms in Ethiopia. She also spoke about the many opportunities Africa RISING has generated and how these contribute to sustainable food systems transformation, improved livelihoods, sustainable production, improved diet quality, and nutrition while mitigating against environmental degradation and climate change.

Partners presented eight posters and five PowerPoint presentations offering a broad summary of the project’s work in the previous year. Titles and links for the presentations are below:

• Strengthening best-bet practices in feeds and forage development
• Diversification of wheat-based cropping system in the highlands of Ethiopia
• Creating multifunctional climate resilient landscapes: Synthesis, packaging and exit strategy
• Scaling out small-scale mechanization in the Ethiopian Highlands
• Validation of landscape-based site-specific fertilizer recommendations and integrated soil fertility management practices for wheat production
• Operationalization of the private-led scaling pathway for irrigation technologies and avocado and vegetable in Lemo woredas
• Assessing the seasonal food availability and enhancing cultivar diversity of faba bean and durum wheat in Ethiopia
• Scaling up of high value multipurpose trees and their management practices at multiple scales: Homestead to landscape

Presentations

• An overview of Africa RISING project in the Ethiopian highlands: Achievements and challenges from 2017 to 2021
• Two assessments of Africa RISING: Sustainable intensification and return on investment
• Scaling assessment of Africa RISING Interventions
• Nutrition assessment results and lessons Learned
• Collaborative potato seed multiplication activity of Africa RISING and Debre Birhan Agricultural Research Center

While speaking to partners about their plans for the 2021/2022 season, the project’s Chief Scientist, Kindu Mekonnen, noted that this being the final year of project implementation, it is imperative for proposed activities to focus on identifying priority needs to support sustainable intensification of the farming systems, capturing and synthesizing results and lessons from project implementation and documenting them into legacy products, and outlining ethically sound exit strategies for the activities being implemented by Africa RISING in different communities.

Lively group and plenary discussions punctuated the whole event culminating in partners agreeing on some early/draft activity plans for the coming year. These plans will be refined further in the coming weeks with the help and supervision of the chief scientist before implementation starts in early January 2022.