Major land restoration project in Dryland Africa tackles the challenge head on

By Ake Mamo

Recently, the IFAD-funded project hosted a research community of practice workshop with scientists, monitoring and evaluation experts, and communication specialist from the CGIAR in Nairobi, Kenya from 19-20 May 2016. The goal of the workshop was to develop a clear Impact Pathway and Monitoring and Evaluation Framework and collective understanding of the concrete actions required to help the project track its progress and effectively demonstrate the research and development outcomes and impact of its interventions. Hosted at the campus of the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) and led by ICARDA, workshop participants from these and other CGIAR centres (ICRISAT and ILRI) worked to:

(1) Clearly outline the theory of change that informed the development of the project Impact Pathway
(2) Identify the critical elements that the project implementation plans that will ensure success
(3) Outline the communication needs and opportunities to support uptake and effective delivery of project impact on intended beneficiaries and other stakeholders

Discussions centered around two fundamental issues:

The first is the importance of the underpinning lessons learned from previous research work and development intervention, and establishing a coherent system where consolidating local practices from various stakeholders in all the project target countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali and Niger) is more a matter of walking the walk than talking the talk. The second point relates to the notorious challenge of charting and effectively attributing the elusive impact that takes time to materialize in the context of long term interventions such as land restoration, and the complex factors that affect it along the way.
The overriding question in everybody’s mind was: “Which are the best SMART indicators that should be used to track and evaluate project outcomes and impact?”
Indicator sets were drawn from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG Framework), the IPCC, the CGIAR frameworks, among others in order to select an appropriate set of indicators that is aligned well with the overall CGIAR research strategy and the global development agenda. Rather than inventing the wheel, the value of this approach is about situating the project firmly in the wider context of the global research and development agenda in order to make its impact relevant and easier to communicate and demonstrate to the relevant local and stakeholders in a language they already understand
However, the project is very much premised on designing options for local contexts, which means, that its indicators must also be robust enough for the varying contexts at local level. An additional challenge is agreeing on the indicators where understanding of key terms and definitions varies depending on who you speak to – an ecologist versus a development partner, a policy maker versus a farmer; etc..

Mr Wambui shows off his seedlings. Machakos. Photo: Ake Mamo

For example, we spoke with some farmers who had been part of an ICRAF-led regreening effort in the county of Machakos, Kenya, in 2013. Mr. Wambua and his granddaughter, who had just finished watering their seedlings, proudly showed us around their well diversified, tree covered, terraced shamba, where pockets of seedlings were arranged by use, such as fruit, soil improvement, commercial sale, home use, etc.
Restored land would be precisely the types of impact both research and development would have hoped, but for the seasoned farmer and his young granddaughter, the livelihood impact they had anticipated when first joining the project, was primarily related to gaining extra income by selling seedlings.

On the other hand, Sumera Jabeen of World Vision Australia, an ICRAF development partner notes:
“ A major issues is that setting impact indicators is usually more of a top down exercise with little consultation at other levels.” Her colleague Ronald Ngetich agrees and adds that simply comparing baselines to endlines might give an idea; however, the systematic monitoring and evaluation of both quantitative and qualitative indicators is an inherently challenging and at times costly exercise.

Sumera Jabeen and Ronald Ngetich of World Vision Australia. Photo: Ake Mamo

He gives the example of better cohesion of communities of farmers, or farmers getting on with the work in other forms and with their own groups which may be difficult to track quantitatively.
“Sometimes, these ideas and groups (or communities of practice) are formed a few years later (after the ideas have been cooking and somebody has the bright idea to try and find a solution” he says.

“But that is precisely the idea of the project, says Leigh Winowiecki, project lead, “to engage in an iterative co-learning cycle with partners throughout the project. What has been lacking is a process of social learning whereby successes and failures are analysed scientifically, and where this is supplemented by the context based learning that has been gathered from the various communities and their experience socially. And that is exactly what we are trying to do here.”
Challenges aside, the workshop participants were able to define an Impact Pathway for the project which is already helping to establish a better understanding amongst project partners for developing site-specific impact pathways that are relevant to the actual situation faced by farmers on the ground in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali and Niger.

Acknowledgment:
The project on Restoration of Degraded Land for Food security and Poverty Reduction in East Africa and the Sahel is conducted under the framework of the CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems. The project is funded by IFAD and its implementation is led by ICRAF. The project on Restoration of Degraded Land for Food security and Poverty Reduction in East Africa and the Sahel: taking successes in land restoration to scale seeks to