The document summarizes a workshop that brought together participants from 18 African countries to review experiences with the PAEPARD program's Agricultural Innovation Facilitators (AIFs) and multi-stakeholder partnerships, identify best practices and challenges, and discuss ways to improve support for AIFs and consortia in the next phase of the program. Participants engaged in group work and discussions to share lessons learned from their experiences with AIF facilitation and partnership building. The workshop concluded with recommendations to strengthen the selection process and contractual agreements for AIFs, better define roles and responsibilities, and continue supporting the development of multi-stakeholder consortia

1. Burkina Faso
PAEPARD capitalization workshop
Highlights from the AIF reflection
meeting
By Monica Kapiriri
1

2. Introduction
Drew participants from 18 countries:
Burkina Faso; Burundi, Cameroon,
Congo Braz, France, Ghana, Malawi,
Mali, Netherlands, Nigeria, DR Congo,
Zimbabwe , Senegal, Togo, Zambia,
Kenya, Uganda, Benin
 PAEPARD staff, AIFs, Coordinators,
Partners, representatives from WP
leading institutions

By Monica Kapiriri
2

3. Purpose of the workshop
To review experiences of AIF’s, what did
we learn?
 To review AIF’s action plans for MSHRQD
workshops, the implementation
 The way forward: what will be the way
forward for PAEPARD? And what does it
mean for the AIF’s?
 To explore what ideas for PP III mean in
terms of capacity building and support for
AIF’s, consortia and the 5 ULP platforms.

By Monica Kapiriri
3

4. The process

Highly interactive and participatory
◦ Personal reflection and synthesis
◦ Group work
◦ Plenary feedback
Day 1: Harvesting
 Day 2: Brokerage in Multistakeholder processes
 Day 3: Way forward

By Monica Kapiriri
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5. Experience sharing
Sharing experiences focusing on building
partnerships.
 Drawn from the process up to and during
the inception workshops.
Common “best” experiences
 Stakeholder mobilization and bring
together producers, researchers, and
agro-industry to form successful consortia,
 Mobilization and engagement of decisionmakers and successfully worked with
multi-stakeholder platforms.

By Monica Kapiriri
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6. Harvesting





Participation/ engagement, consensus
building, conflict resolution and mediation.
They participated in lobbying and
advocacy, building teams, ensuring
equitable sharing of tasks,
Ensuring appropriate institutional
arrangement, and achieved good
collaboration between facilitators and
coordinators; created awareness,
Participated in documentation of
expériences and
Promotion of farming for business
(entrepreneurship).
By Monica Kapiriri
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7. AIFs specific best experiences





Stakeholder/ partner mobilization,
Inception meetings,
MSRQDW,
RUFORUM workshops,
Multi-stakeholder partnership brokerage
events and facilitating meetings events
(funding, coordination,
facilitation/moderation).
By Monica Kapiriri
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8. Coordinators specific best
experiences
Partner mobilization and brokerage,
 Trust and good working
relationships
 Once the consortia and
partnerships were established it
become easier to interest partners
in response to a call.

By Monica Kapiriri
8

9. Conclusion on “best”
experiences
Face-face meetings such as
inception workshops generated
most of the positive experiences.
 E-partnerships seem to be
superficial
 Need for more face-to-face
meetings until the partnerships are
solidified, then e-communication
can add value.

By Monica Kapiriri
9

10. Challenges - AIFs




Consortia not able to bring together all
the required stakeholder,
Failure to finalize concept notes for
timely submission in response to
calls,
Poor communication - timely response
to
emails/collaboration/communication.
AIFs noted that the of weak
development partnerships prior to
calls for good synergies,
By Monica Kapiriri
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11. Challenges - Coordinators
Funds had not been secured for
proposals submitted,
 Absence of pre-funding to facilitate
concept/proposal developments
meetings,
 Managing partners dynamics when
there was dominance by a few
 Poor communication, collaboration,
and input (balanced) by partners

By Monica Kapiriri
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12. Conclusion on challenges
Communication outside of face to
face meeting emerged from both
the AIFs and Coordinators as
affecting the partnership building
process the most
 Demoralization from not receiving
funding,

By Monica Kapiriri
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13. The function and person of
AIFs

Heated discussions about AIFs
◦
◦
◦
◦

Selection process
Matching
Performance
M&E
Core issue was not the
roles/function of AIFs as it was their
competencies, relevancy to
consortia and costs.
By Monica Kapiriri
13

14. AIFS – views by Coordinators
Are they best external or internal?
 Advantages: Familiar with the
thematic area, cheaper, sustainable
 Disadvantages: Not neutral, liable to
manipulating the process and biases,
affects sense of ownership by
members, and the levels of
participation.
 The first cohort used Coordinators
and ownership was weak, generating
lessons that led to the birth of AIFs

By Monica Kapiriri
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15. AIFs: Views by AIFs

These were divided into three
categories based on their
contractual process.
◦ Clear TOR and signed contracts: Seen
and effective, motivated and satisfied
◦ TOR/Contract not signed: Frustrated,
some seen as incompetent
◦ ULP AIFs: Several satisfied, but a few
felt marginalized by the Coordinators
By Monica Kapiriri
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16. Reflections on the mini review
Discussions mainly focused on the
TORs
 Develop and negotiate the TORs
 Encourage full participation by all
stakeholders
 Promote mutual understanding
between partners
 Promote social learning among
partners
By Monica Kapiriri
16

17. Reflections on the mini review
Promoted and guided joint reflection
by the partners such that the partners
learned from the process and
improved their own ability to work in
partnership with other organisations
or interest groups
 Promoted the documentation by the
partners, both of the results and
outcomes of the research but also of
the partnership process itself and
lessons learned

By Monica Kapiriri
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18. Mini review - Indicators
Indicators of success included
 Develop and negotiate the TORs
◦ The TORs of AIF were clearly formulated
◦ The TORs of AIF were discussed and
negotiated with the Project Leader
◦ The AIF know very well their
mission/TORs and roles
By Monica Kapiriri
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19. Mini review – indicators

Promote mutual understanding between
partners
◦ The AIF guided the partners to agree on
well-defined and shared objectives, the roles
and responsibilities of each partner
organisation
◦ The AIF promoted communication and
information sharing between partners
◦ Encouraged the adoption of behaviour by
stakeholder representatives that is
conducive to an environment of mutual
respect and trust
◦ Ensured that group norms or organisational
culture do not oppress individual thinking,
creativity and innovation
By Monica Kapiriri
19

20. Mini review - Indicators

Promote social learning among
partners
◦ Ensured that group norms or
organisational culture do not oppress
individual thinking, creativity and
innovation
◦ Promoted consensual decision-making
by partners, and mutually inclusive
solutions;
By Monica Kapiriri
20

21. Conclusion
TORs were not shared a cross the
board
 Coordinators and AIFs adopted a
process based on assumptions that
were not clarified.
 The role of PAEPARD/ WP institutions
in the contractual process was
peripheral
 Recommended a tripartite
arrangement

◦ AIF
◦ Coordinators
◦ PAEPARD WP Institution
By Monica Kapiriri
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22. Proposed improvement
Support by PAEPARD
 Money for
◦
◦
◦
◦
partnership building process
consolidating partnerships
consortia projects
Resource Persons support responses
to calls
Defines rules for funding consortia
and AIF activities
 Focus the capacity building of AIFs
to consortia needs

By Monica Kapiriri
22

23. Proposed improvement
M&E

Performance indicators developed
and shared among all the three
parties to review the effectiveness
of;
◦ AIFs,
◦ Coordinators and
◦ PAEPARD institutions against
By Monica Kapiriri
23

24. AIF selection process
The process needs to be designed
to draw out and align the
competencies of AIFs to consortia
needs.
 Coordinators must take part in
selection and appointment of AIFs

By Monica Kapiriri
24

25. Proposed improvement
TORS/ contract of AIFs

Contracts should
◦ Be explicit
◦ Be developed and signed between
AIFs, Coordinators and the
PAEPARD representatives
◦ Harmonize roles and responsibilities
of AIFs and Coordinators in all
regions
◦ Make facilitators neutral to avoid
any biases
◦ Commit more time for synergy
building between coordinators and
facilitators
By Monica Kapiriri
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26. ULP
Conduct seminars to define and
clarify the roles and responsibilities
for Coordinators and AIFs in the Call
and User-led process.
 Orientation and training for AIFs to
better address the innovation
process.
 Write-shops based on Open Calls,
not just for learning skills.

By Monica Kapiriri
26

27. The extension of PAEPARD
Presentation by Jonas generated
discussions around:
 Drawing from lessons of prior Phases
◦ Competitive funding
Involvement of private sector,
 Fear that research would take the
upper hand in accessing the funds;
and
 Consortia membership coverage regional or country based partners

By Monica Kapiriri
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28. The extension of PAEPARD
Value chain approach to enable
private sector find an attractive niche,
 Provision of resource persons to
guide the proposal writing and
address the disparities in proposal
writing abilities,
 Flexibility in partnership building to
enable ULP and consortia to solicit
and build wide partnerships at
country and sub-regional and
regional levels in response to calls

By Monica Kapiriri
28

29. The extension of PAEPARD
 Capitalization
workshop would
further consolidate lessons and
inform the final design of the
extension.
 Proposed expertise and roles
of AIFs and Coordinators for
the next 4 years of Phase II
extension (Report)
By Monica Kapiriri
29

30. World Café session

Merits and Demerits of a consortia
facilitator10

ToR of facilitation (role, objectives,
needs and expected results) 13

How to sustain interests of all
stakeholders in a consortium10
By Monica Kapiriri
30

31. World Café session

How to make a consortium
sustainable – obtain funding without
PAEPARD support13

Role of members of core group and
AIF Coordinator8
By Monica Kapiriri
31

32. World Café session
1. Terms of Reference for facilitators;
Discussed:
 The process of recruitment of AIFs
 Roles/Duties of AIFs in Phase II
 Contract
 Production/Deliverables
 Recommendations
By Monica Kapiriri
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33. World Café session
2. Role of members of core group
and AIF Coordinator
 Composition of the core group
 The AIF role to the Core group
 Functions of the core group
 Recommendation
By Monica Kapiriri
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34. World Café session
3. Merits and Demerits of
Facilitator
 Attributes of a good facilitator
 Why the Coordinator was better
placed
 Plenary divided
By Monica Kapiriri
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35. World Café session
4. How to sustain interests of all
stakeholders in a consortium
 Co-ownership
 Institutional arrangements
 Communication
 Funding sources
 Capacity Building
By Monica Kapiriri
35

36. World Café session
4. How to sustain interests of all
stakeholders in a consortium
 Contributions from plenary
◦ AIF should play a role in mediation
◦ Federating themes or topics that interest
members
◦ RUFORUM stakeholder platform be
adopted
◦ Consortia members need to share their
interests with no hidden agenda/motives.
◦ time span of the consortia
By Monica Kapiriri
36

37. World Café session
5. How to make a consortium sustainable –
obtain funding without PAEPARD support

Funding approach that ensures
continuity after PAEPARD:
◦ members contribution finances,
◦ detailed funding and activity plans,
◦ projects with clear exit strategies

There should be mechanism to exploit
the internal strength and explore
possibilities of having members
consortia fund priority activities.
By Monica Kapiriri
37

38. World Café session
Joint learning between African and
European researchers and nonresearchers
 Effective ownership by consortium
members
 Clear roles and responsibilities of
stakeholders to ensure clear and
balanced participation between
actors

By Monica Kapiriri
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39. World Café session

Participants felt ULP stand a better
chance to be sustained than
Consortia
◦ Themes are broad
◦ central to members work

Consortia are motivated by calls
◦ Threatened if not funded
◦ Short lived – limited to project life
By Monica Kapiriri
39