LIVES Steering Committee members and LIVES staff members during the 4th PSC meeting at ILRI Campus, Addis Ababa (photo credit: ILRI\Aklilu Bogale).
The 4th meeting of the Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders Project (LIVES) Steering Committee was held on 12 June 2015 at the ILRI Campus, Addis Ababa. The meeting was chaired by Siboniso Moyo, program leader for Animal Science for Sustainable Productivity (ASSP) and director general’s representative in Ethiopia. Participants of the meeting included representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) of Canada, the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), Regional Agricultural Research Institutes (RARIs) and Regional Bureaus of Agriculture (BoAs).
During the meeting, the annual progress of the project in the areas of value chain development, capacity development, knowledge management, promotion, research and documentations at all levels were presented. In addition, committee members discussed the annual work plan and budget for the upcoming fiscal year April 2015 – March16.
The LIVES project manager Azage Tegegne noted the past year was a year of consolidation and expansion as LIVES moves into its third year of implementation. To this effect, there have been a series of revisions to key strategic directions, approaches and interventions. In particular, the Performance Monitoring Framework (PMF) was revised to make project targets more realistic, achievable and easier to monitor. In the upcoming fiscal year, project activities and interventions will be intensified further; and results and lessons learned will be scaled out beyond project areas. In addition, new beneficiaries will be selected and included to reach project targets.
Azage Tegegne (LIVES project panager) explaining about the new milking technology introduced through LIVES (photo credit: ILRI\Aklilu Bogale)
During the meeting which also consisted of plenary sessions, committee members provided productive thoughts and inputs on the way forward. It was stressed that further efforts need to be put in place to strengthen gender balance in capacity development and knowledge management activities of the project. It has also been noted to further align project strategies and interventions with the work plans of the Woredas.
LIVES ultimate outcome is increased economic well-being for male and female smallholder producers in the regions of Oromia, Amhara, Tigray and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) through the development of livestock and irrigated value chains .
