Day 2 – Tuesday 29th November 2011: Facilitation of ARD Partnerships
The theme for Day 2 was “Facilitation of ARD Partnerships” and the aim was that all participants know about the role of a facilitator in a multi-stakeholder partnership. Day 2 started with the welcome note from Mr. Richard Hawkins, who also went through the agenda for the day. Like I said in my blog post yesterday on Day 1, each morning will start with the output from each process monitoring group’s output. Mr. Richard Hawkins highlighted the positive and negative points of the previous day, while the leader of each process monitoring group presented about the content reflection (lessons learned) and areas of improvements. 

At the same time, the output from each sub-workshop of the open-space session were being put on the walls (both in english and french) so that even if someone did not attend a specific workshop, he/she will know about the topics that have been discussed and can also put additional ideas or comments to it.

Mr. Francois Stepman showing the participants the output of the open-space on the wall
The presentations of the day were about:
  • PAEPARD Call 1 and Call 2
  • Selection of consortium
  • Selection of Agricultural Innovation Facilitators
The 3 facilitators for the presentations were Mr. Francois Stepman, Mr. Richard Hawkins and Dr. Jonas Mugabe. These presentations were quite long ones, but the participants really appreciated them because by the end of each presentation, it was very transparent and clear about:
  • The first and second call and the challenges faced
  • How many proposals were obtained and how many were finally selected and WHY
  • Some selection criteria (some proposals were good, but applicants did not read instructions well)
  • Profile of the applicants (anglophones v/s francophones, number of applicant in each country and region – both African and European etc.)  
Presentation by Mr. Francois Stepman
Presentation by Mr. Richard Hawkins
Presentation by Dr. Jonas Mugabe
After the presentations, we went for a 15 minutes tea-break and when we came back, the next session was explained to us by our facilitators: Everyone was going to work in pairs (country-wise) and this was to be done not in the plenary, but outside by the Victoria Lake. Each country had to go over the concept note that has been selected from their country, read some other documents on brokerage provided to them. Then what needed to be done was each country had to go over the Terms of Reference and see how it can be made more accurate and in-line with the concept note. To do this activity, participants were also asked to have a look at the output of the open-space as many valuable information and experiences were there.

The participants went for lunch after these explanations and each country pair got into action near Victoria Lake at 14:00. They were called in the plenary at 16:00 for a tea-break and then it was time for presentations. 3 countries were selected and the others had to send their output in Power-Point format by mail. One participant from the selected countries had to make a presentation on how he/she will convince the consortium that they actually need a facilitator. 
The team from Cote D’ivoire discussing over their Consortium and Terms of Reference
As the last activity for the day, each participant had to join their respective process monitoring group to give their feedback on Day 2, which will be presented the next day!

Stay tuned for Day 3! 🙂
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2 Comments

  1. zvavanyanger3 11/30/2011 at 15:15

    Interesting updates Nawsheen. Keep on and enjoy as well!!

    Reply
  2. Mwesigwa David 12/02/2011 at 10:19

    Thank you very much for keeping us abreast with what transpired in the AIF workshop. From what I have read, it was quite engaging, practical and highly interactive. I believe this is what has been missing in Africa’s agricultural sector.

    Please. let is continue with the dialogue. We would like to see what happens after this very innovative workshop. We who are in CURAD (Consortium for Enhancing University’s responsiveness to Agricultural Development) who were among the 6 successful UNIBRAIN projects, we are optimistic that this knowledge acquired will enable us to be more focused and able to handle the different stakeholders in the coffee value chain in Uganda.

    James Kizito-Mayanja
    Uganda Coffee Development Authority

    Reply

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