Strategy Development and Operationalisation
Our strategy development and implementation portfolio cover:
- Developing new strategies
- Conducting strategy refresh
- Developing result frameworks and work plans
- Supporting implementation at the early stages, including building the technical capacity of staff/ teams as may be needed to deliver.
Our strategy development approach seeks to oversee a process of high consultation and collaboration, exploiting synergies while minimizing duplication. We are keen on creating a strategic plan that is fully owned, and which embodies the current trends in agriculture and related fields. Our experience has taught us that ownership of a strategy is critical to its successful implementation; and ownership does not happen if the strategy development is delegated to a consultant – as often happens. In order to create full ownership, we ensure that the strategic plan is co-created by a task team consisting of principal stakeholders of the institution concerned, supported by the external facilitating consultant team. Our process also consists of a combination of data/information analysis (internal & external) and the collation and synthesis of expert stakeholder opinions and validation to inform the strategy document.
Projects we have supported
Africa Women in Agricultural Research (AWARD)
AWARD invests in women’s leadership to foster equality in Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D), equipping AR4D professionals to integrate gender in their work, strengthening institutions to adopt gender-responsive policies and practices, and impacting the enabling environment to enhance gender responsiveness.
In 2017, as part of its strategic expansion, AWARD developed and launched a 5-year strategy designed to build gender-responsive AR4D. In 2019, ECI-Africa supported AWARD to do a Strategy Refresh which was prompted by emerging challenges and new opportunities that called for strategic rethinking of the organization’s plans.
In 2023, ECI-Africa supported AWARD to develop its next five-year strategic plan for 2023–2027 through a series of processes that entailed consolations with key stakeholders and AWARD’s internal team to strengthen the content and operationalization of the strategy. The new AWARD Strategy is now in place.
Development of Guidelines for Informal Sector Engagement Towards Improved Food Safety and Nutrition in Africa |International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
In 2021, Member States identified commitments to advance the Continent’s agriculture and food systems through the Africa Common Position on Food Systems Transformation, which was adopted and presented at the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS). In 2020/2021, the African Union, through a highly consultative process, developed the Food Safety Strategy for Africa (FSSA) intended to provide a harmonized framework to implement activities that mitigate various food safety threats that negatively impact consumers’ health.
As part of this process, the African Union Commission (AUC) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), recognized the importance of the informal food sector and the need for a ‘legal framework’ that includes key actors within Africa’s diverse food system. A workshop was held in Bellagio on August 30 – September 1, 2023, to develop guidelines that national governments can adopt, to incorporate informal food markets into their country-specific food safety strategies and ongoing food systems programs. This meeting was designed and facilitated by ECI-Africa.
The AUC and ILRI are progressing with this initiative by planning a series of consultative gatherings to collect feedback from stakeholders throughout the continent. On June 10th-12th 2024, ECI-Africa facilitated a meeting with actors of informal markets from across the continent to obtain their input and insights to ensure that the developed guidelines reflect the diverse challenges and realities that they face. Inputs from this workshop by the informal sector actors will be used to shape relevant and practical guidelines.
Assessment of the International Foundation for Science (IFS) “Towards the Next Chapter”
The assignment sought to assess the experiences of IFS and its partners, and to examine other global trends considered relevant in shaping IFS’s Next Chapter to help define content, geographical focus, functions and structure (including considerations for relocation of operational base to the Global South, and possible hosting arrangements) of a ‘next generation’ IFS (or “IFS 2.0”) that is able to partner with a greater diversity of donors, including those from the Global South. The assessment also considered approaches to mentoring early-career scientists and organizational and operational models informed by increasing possibilities of remote engagements as has been experienced in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic – a situation that has become a new normal and is defining contemporary operational practices. The role that the ever-evolving communication infrastructure and modes can play in facilitating support of early-career LLMIC scientists was considered an important part of the evolving operational landscape.
The overall objective of the assignment was to examine options for, and to make recommendations on developing a program that better supports early-career researchers (ECRs) in LLMICs in line with specific requirements and expectations of LLMIC partner institutions and scientists, and with evolving donor landscape – with different thinking – as reflected in approaches and mechanisms. In essence, the program content and operational design should reflect the changing needs and institutional contexts that are relevant for IFS’s mission and mandate. While the outcome of the process was not expected to be a Strategy Document, the assessment was intentional in identifying ingredients that IFS should consider in formulating its new strategic direction as IFS New Chapter.
The Biosciences eastern and central Africa- International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI) Hub Stakeholders Convening
The BecA-ILRI Hub is a center for excellence in biosciences in Africa co-created by the Africa Union and ILRI. It sought to mobilize biosciences for Africa’s development to best serve its primary clients the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS), Universities, and small and medium size enterprises in Africa. Following a stakeholder meeting in October 2018, the BecA-ILRI Hub ordered the evaluation of the program to map achievements, challenges, and lessons learned during the period 2014-2018 and identify areas of opportunities or constraints to consider in the next phase of the program 2019-2024. This was with the goal is to develop a new Biosciences for Africa (B4A) poised to deploy demand-driven applied biosciences and capacity development with renewed impetus to accelerate and transform research and innovation for food systems in an integrated way.
The process of repositioning the BecA-ILRI Hub into B4A was conducted through a highly engaging and consultative process, facilitated by ECI-Africa. It involved strategic high-level participatory engagement with key CG and NARS leaders and managers, demand-side, supply-side and intermediary organizations as well as key policy institutions that led to the development of a comprehensive value proposition document, business case for a sustainability pathway and culminated in an end of project stakeholder workshop.
Improved Regional Seed Trade in Common Market of East and Southern Africa and East African Community Region Project 2020-2022
The Improved Regional Seed Trade in Common Market of East and Southern Africa and East African Community Region Project (2020-2022) aimed to strengthen regional seed trade by addressing challenges and promoting harmonized seed laws and regulations. The project had three main objectives: strengthening national and regional dialogue forums, developing regionally aligned seed laws and regulations, and creating information guides to facilitate seed movement. The project was implemented by a consortium of organizations, including ECI-Africa, African Seed Trade Association (AFSTA), New Markets Lab (NML), CellSoft, and AgCUITY Consulting. ECI-Africa’s key contributions included developing an online Information Guide with import, export, cost, and documentation requirements for cross-border seed trade and conducting a seed system audit based on COMESA harmonized seed regulations. The audit identified gaps and provided corrective measures to improve seed certification, variety release, and import/export procedures.
a) Strengthening Seed Trade Systems for Increased Seed Trade in the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) Region.
Funder/ Partner: Africa Lead II
Geographical Coverage: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Zambia and Rwanda.
Duration: Feb-Dec 2019
Description of services: Africa Lead II was a program dedicated to supporting and advancing agricultural transformation in Africa working in accordance to CAADP and the USAID’s Feed the Future Strategy with the main aim of improving institutional capacity, strengthening management of policy change and alignment processes and enhancing capacity and engagement of non-state actors, including the private sector. Africa Lead, informed by the recent (2018) seed trade assessment report developed the ‘Seed Activity’, the pilot project aimed at improving trade within the COMESA in 2019. ECI-Africa supported Africa Lead by facilitating conversations among seed stakeholders in the region ‘to identify the key bottlenecks hindering seed trade and go beyond diagnosis by exploring the opportunities presented by these challenges. This led to the formation of the seed sector SWAT team with representation from the 6 countries engaged in the ‘Seed Activity’. The inspiring conversation led to the development of AGRA’s Improved Regional Seed Trade in Common Market of East and Southern Africa and East African Community region Project to address the issue of limited dialogue between seed stakeholders, cross-border seed trade requirement information asymmetry and lack of trust in seed certification and inspection process by supporting convenings to enable dialogue between actors, development of cross seed information requirement information guide and establishing a seed sector audit system.
b) The African Chicken Genetic Gains (ACGG)
Funder/ Partner: ILRI funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Geographical Coverage: Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania
Period of implementation: January 2015- October 2019
Description: The ACGG project, implemented in three countries (Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania), sought to increase access of poor smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to high-producing and agro-ecologically appropriate chicken genetics and inputs needed to make the flocks productive. ECI-Africa supported the overall design and implementation of the partnerships and institutional engagements component through innovation platforms. These innovation platforms (IP) served as the means for value chain diagnosis, challenges identification and solution co-creation to ensure the development of delivery models that work best for smallholder farmers. This enabled the delivery of the most appropriate and farmer-preferred genotypes and their successful entry into the local chicken value chains (VC) (smallholder chicken keepers, most of them women) and other VC actors.
Particular focus towards the end of the project period was the transformation of the national IPs into self-sustaining associations commonly referred to as Forums to drive the agenda beyond the ACGG project. ECI-Africa worked with the national stakeholders in each country to undertake background work that facilitated the initial stakeholder engagement design and subsequently supported the series of dialogues (using the IP approach) to concretize the vision, mission and the agenda which underpinned the formation of these on-going Forums or Associations. ECI-Africa also trained and mentored the local Forum facilitators to be able to design and run functional and effective Forum processes including how to design Forum meetings to ensure they are sufficiently participatory and effective to deliver on the objectives, shadowing them during actual processes and supporting them to develop mechanisms for on-going analysis/review and identification of critical Forum issues that speak to the priorities of stakeholders.
c) Leadership for Agricultural (L4Ag)
Funder/ Partner: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)
Geographical Coverage: Tanzania, Kenya, Burkina Faso and Ethiopia
Period of implementation: April, 2019 – July, 2019
Description: The Leadership for Agriculture (L4Ag, 2017- Ongoing) is an African ministerial-level peer-to-peer network that promotes strategic engagement and policy action among African Ministers, private sector and other stakeholders. The main aim is to increase commitment to investing in agriculture and boosting agricultural productivity. It is hosted by the African Development Bank.
The objective of L4Ag included creating a platform to enable shared learning and knowledge creation, contributing towards economic growth and facilitating engagement and partnerships between African policy makers and investors. For phase one of the initiative, BMGF joined AfDB and the Rockefeller Foundation in 2019 to support the L4Ag concept and the Platform was re-designed to be more effective, with additional focus on change champions and emphasis on peer-to-peer learning on specific thematic areas, the idea being to help countries leapfrog agricultural transformation based on lessons learned from, and best practices by other countries. In addition to stronger thematic focus, the re-designed Forum sought to mobilize government ministers responsible for finance, agriculture, livestock and fisheries and senior leadership in these ministries including permanent/principal secretaries, and directors who were in charge of operationalizing government strategies and plans.
d) Building Research Leadership and Management Capacity of CCRP Communities of Practice in Sub-Saharan Africa
Funder/ Partner: McKnight Foundation
Geographical Coverage: Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania.
Period of implementation: 4 years, August 2014- October 2018
Description: The McKnight Foundation’s Collaborative Crop Research Program (CCRP) is a competitive grant program that seeks to increase food security for resource-poor people in developing countries.
The overall purpose of the project was to strengthen leadership and management capacity for agricultural R&D in East and Horn of Africa and Southern Africa Communities of Practice (CoPs) through a facilitated monitoring and coaching process targeting early career professionals. By building the leadership capacity of early career professionals, the project seeks to fill the current and future leadership gap that is eminent due to the lack of systematic skills-enhancement process to replace the drying pipeline of leaders in ARD in Africa. The expectation was that the project would create a cadre of individuals that have leadership and management competencies needed to put together and lead functional teams, are ‘leadership aware’, and are able to effectively deliver AR4D outcomes in the complex and ever-changing institutional context in which they work.
ECI-Africa’s supported the design and execution of a series of leadership training workshop, implemented in two cohorts; each lasting a 2-year cycle, to mentor and coach early career professionals from the national agricultural research systems (NARs) in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. The process revealed phenomenal transformation in the mentees. Their self-esteem and ability to influence others increased. They caused change at institutional and system levels and developed new models of collaboration within their institutions. Through activities carried out as part of the project (mini-projects), and lessons learned from project-driven processes, some of the mentees increased their visibility, were recognized and assumed positions of seniority.
e) Project: Africa-Brazil Agriculture Innovation Marketplace (AIM-Dairy)
Funder/ Partner: EMBRAPA Dairy Cattle
Geographical Coverage: Kenya, Homabay County
Period of implementation: Dec 2012 – May 2015
Description: The Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace was an international initiative supported by different donors aiming to link Brazilian and African experts and institutions to develop cooperative projects. AIM-Diary worked with smallholder dairy producers and other actors that served the dairy value chain in Homa Bay County, a traditionally non-dairy area in Kenya. The intention was to address the production, support services and market challenges that constrain dairying in the area and was seen to be curtailing growth of an otherwise promising sector with significant potential for income generation. ECI-Africa organized Innovation Platform meetings, demonstrations and exchange visits and provided technical support to the stakeholders in the identification of challenges and co-creation of solutions; continuously highlighting successes and learning from what worked or did not work. The IP forums led to the establishment of the Kasbondo AIM Dairy Cooperative Society Limited which has seen more farmers being involved in commercial dairy farming and has been growing ever since. At the centre of the success of the project were three factors that ECI-Africa paid attention to during the early stages of the project: commitment to empowering the local community, building ownership, and inspiring the members to keep trying even in the face of challenges.
f) Network for Enhanced Market Access for Smallholders in East and Southern Africa (NEMAS)
Funder/ Partner: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
Geographical Coverage: East ad Southern Africa region
Period of implementation: April 2011 – December 2014
Description: NEMAS was premised on the recognition that a knowledge management operation embracing the diversity of organizations and linking up all players in the market is necessary to improving the efficiency and inclusiveness of agricultural markets.
The overall goal of the project was to increase the impact of public and private investments in inclusive market access by smallholders in East and Southern Africa through improved market efficiency and inclusion particularly targeting smallholder farmers; Scaling up proven practice; and enhancing returns on investments. NEMAS aimed at attaining a transparent, competitive and inclusive market for agricultural inputs and produce. ECI-Africa supported knowledge management to strategically deliver more efficient and inclusive agriculture markets, scale up proven practices and policies, and get better returns on investments. A key underpinning of the project was the development of win-win-win solutions to agricultural value chain challenges: the farmers and other value chain actors who sought to get value from their investments; business development service providers which develop/facilitate value chains and seek to get value through commissions, and public-sector investors that help create enabling environment for sustainable businesses.
g) Dairy Genetics East Africa (DGEA)
Funder/ Partner: ILRI and the University of New England funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
(BMGF)
Geographical Coverage: Kenya and Uganda
Period of implementation: Sep 2010- Mar 2013
Description: The DGEA project entailed research into what genotypes best fit different smallholder systems plus the investigation of and facilitating development of partnerships and businesses designed for delivery of germplasm services to smallholders. In the first phase, the project facilitated a local dairy innovation platform aimed at catalyzing home-grown transformation in the smallholder dairy industry in Kenya and Uganda. ECI-Africa used the “Innovative Platform (IP) Approach” to facilitate processes. The IP processes aimed at helping identify business opportunities in the smallholder dairy VC. This formed the basis for business process planning and partnerships for delivery of dairy genetics in Eastern Africa. ECI-Africa facilitated the development of the innovation platform and mentored the emergence of a number of businesses aimed at addressing the delivery of support services for the dairy industry. The process also helped identify and address policy bottlenecks that threaten dairying. Supply of quality heifers appropriate for the different systems, Artificial Insemination (AI) and animal health delivery as well as availability of quality and affordable feeds were central issues. ECI-Africa is currently working with other actors to develop a Phase 2 intervention which will focus on addressing the next set of issues, including multi-country on-farm recording and genetic evaluation.
