Fourth ACDP Technical Committee Meeting held at Source of the Nile Hotel, Namanve

 The 4th Project Technical committee was held in September 2020 and chaired by the Under-Secretary MAAIF,  Mr Gyagenda Ssegawa.  These committee meetings are held twice a year and are aimed at keeping the Technical team abreast of the project implementation and progress.  It is also at these meetings that the technical team proposes ideas for improvement. The meeting was attended by the Technical Committee, composed of  MAAIF Commissioners,  Top policymakers from  NIITA-U, Ministry of Local government and the Project Implementation Team.  The team noted that the Project is commendable and strategic thereby, making it very important to the Ministry.

Objectives of the meeting

  • Presentation and adoption of ACDP performance 2019/20
  • Presentation of highlights of approved Financial year 2020/21 work plan
  • Presentation and adoption of Mid-term review and the Issues paper
  • Presentation of the upcoming Mid-term review and World Bank support mission

Discussions and deliberations

There was a general appreciation of the commendable progress in project implementation which was at 45%  with 201,556 farmers enrolled in the e-Voucher Management system out of the targeted 450,000 farmers.  In the field, there is a general observation that the five project crops ( coffee, maize, beans, rice and cassava)  are doing well especially coffee in the Kalungu cluster. The team advised that the project looks into the crops that are not doing well like cassava and transfer the success factors and experiences from the districts that are doing well to the ones that are not doing well.

Other good initiatives noted are the Farmer education, where the project has engaged with the private sector like the Uganda Cooperative Alliance and Enterprise Uganda to increase farmer awareness on the e-Voucher system and enrollment. 

The e-Voucher Management system being an innovation in the agricultural sector, it was noted that farmer responsiveness has been commendation.  The project traceability of poor seeds supplied to farmers, like the instance where poor germinating seeds were supplied in one district, and farmers were compensated by the input supplier.

Some of the challenges noted are the weak market linkages, worsening road conditions due to the heavy rains and the e-Voucher system issues that affect input redemption by farmers. Most of the challenges are being solved with proposals to bring on board alternative e-Voucher management systems.

ACDP M & E Specialist presents the 2019/20 Project performance to the meeting

 

 


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