Zambia January 2016 Newsletter in PDF
INGENAES ZAMBIA: JANUARY NEWSLETTER
This is the second edition of the quarterly newsletter for the INGENAES Zambia program.
ZAFAAS EXTENSION ORGANIZATION LAUNCHED
As of January 15, ZAFAAS, Zambia Forum for Agriculture Extension and Advisory Services (ZAFAAS), the country-level affiliate of the Global (GFRAS) and Southern Africa (SAFAAS) extension forums, will play a role in coordinating agriculture extension in Zambia. The mission of the Forum is to create harmonization, standardization and add value to initiatives in agricultural extension and advisory services through inclusive sharing of information and increase professional interaction. ZAFAAS has committed to gender-responsive and nutrition-sensitive approaches in its constitution.
ZAFAAS will hold a member meeting combined with a capacity-building session in early February to initiate activities for members. If you or your organization are interested in being involved or would like more information regarding ZAFAAS, please contact Martin Sekeleti at martin.sekeleti@weeffect.org
HARMONIZING NUTRITION MESSAGING
The Ministry of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Unit is partnering with INGENAES to harmonize the nutrition-related messages that extension officers disseminate to farmers. Linking nutrition messages to agriculture activities that extension officers already promote will help ensure farmers understand and can act upon the messages. The First 1000 Most Critical Days messages are prominent among nutrition themes. Key stakeholders will be convened at a Ministry-led workshop in late January to share experiences and work toward better harmonized messages across NGO and government-led efforts.
Ms. Bertha Munthali serves as the INGENAES liaison to the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Division. Bertha draws on strong experience integrating nutrition within agriculture extension in both Malawi and Zambia. For more information, please contact Bertha at blmunthali@gmail.com or Edye Kuyper, at emkuyper@ucdavis.edu.
MUTUAL MENTORING PROGRAM BEGINNING THIS FEBRUARY
Everyone, regardless of age or professional level, has something to give as well as to learn. This principle underlies the concept of mutual mentoring. The INGENAES team is facilitating mutual mentoring groups in Zambia in two geographic-centered cohorts: one based in Lusaka, another centered in Chipata.
After receiving more than 100 applications from very qualified students and professionals throughout Zambia, we have selected final candidates. We will be hosting two meet-and-greet events this February, one for each cohort – selected candidates can expect to receive an email invitation in the coming week. If you applied to the program and did NOT receive any information or have other questions, please contact Nikki Grey Rutamu: ngreyrutamu@ucdavis.edu or Amanda Crump: acrump@ucdavis.edu.
TREADLE PUMP GENDER AND TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT POSTER
The results of the gender and nutrition assessment of the treadle pump technology, promoted through the Feed the Future CASH Project for horticultural production in Eastern Province, is available in poster format on the INGENAES website (http://ingenaes.illinois.edu/apply/technology-profiles/) .
Cultural Practice, LLC (CP), a consortium partner of the INGENAES project, developed a methodology to assess whether agricultural technologies are gender-responsive and nutrition-sensitive in terms of design, use, and dissemination. The technology assessment will develop recommendations to make technologies more attractive to men and women farmers, to increase men’s and women’s benefits from the use of technologies, and to design distribution models for extension agents, input suppliers, and mobile devices to get the technologies into men’s and women’s hands. Students and researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of California, Davis, and the University of Florida piloted the technology assessment in Zambia focusing on treadle pumps and PICS bags in mid-2015. The methodology will be extended to interested local Zambian organizations during the INGENAES project period. For more information contact: Kristy Cook (kcook@culturalpractice.com) or Cristina Manfre (cmanfre@culturalpractice.com).
ONGOING SUPPORT TO ORGANIZATIONS
An upcoming project will map USAID implementing partner and other donor activities throughout Zambia, particularly in areas of extension, gender equity, and nutrition. We are developing an interactive map so that extensionists and other implementing partners can better coordinate efforts and communication.
We are also providing services to several agencies to improve implementation of extension, gender and nutrition activities. While in Zambia in December, our team conducted an analysis of the extension efforts of the Feed the Future Commercial Agribusiness for Sustainable Horticulture (CASH) project. The report on this analysis is forthcoming.
INGENAES CONTINUES AFLATOXIN RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP WITH PROFIT + AND IITA.
INGENAES work related to aflatoxin will continue this quarter when Dr. Alyson Young of the University of Florida returns to Zambia. In late July and early August she pretested the technology assessment methodology examining gender and nutrition impacts of the 2013 AflaSafe distribution. With the help of PROFIT+ staff, she also talked with farmers, extension agents, and district women’s associations about knowledge related to AflaSafe and best practices for reducing aflatoxins. She is partnering with IITA and PROFIT+ in upcoming work that builds on the information from the summer, focusing on the gender sensitivity of extension activities and trainings related to aflatoxins, the knowledge shared and retained during farmer trainings about aflatoxins, and constraints on use of best practices.
U.S.-BASED TEAM MEMBERS RETURNING TO ZAMBIA
KRISTY COOK of Cultural Practice, Zambia Team Lead, will be returning to Lusaka, 27 January – 4 February 2016. She will focus on the INGENAES activities of harmonizing nutrition messaging as well as gender training topics. If you would like to meet with Dr. Cook while in country, please contact: kcook@culturalpractice.com
NIKKI GREY RUTAMU of UC Davis, co-Zambia Team Lead, will be in country 1 – 12 February 2016 to host the mentoring workshops, pilot mapping activities, and work directly with agencies receiving advising services. She will be in Lusaka and the Eastern Province while in country; please contact her at: ngreyrutamu@ucdavis.edu for more information.
MARK BELL of UC Davis. Dr. Bell is an expert facilitator with a wide agriculture subject matter expertise ranging from extension methodology, soil science, and ICT for Ag. He will be in Lusaka 3-5 February and in Eastern Province 7- 9 February to facilitate trainings and meet directly with several organizations receiving advising services. Please contact ngreyrutamu@ucdavis.edu if you would like more information.
ALYSON YOUNG of University of Florida plans to return to Zambia for Aflatoxin technology research and work involving mapping extension services in relation to health clinics. Dates are being set soon. For more information, please contact Dr. Young directly at alys.yng@ufl.edu.
Our local representatives, Bertha L. Munthali (blmunthali@gmail.com) and Vincent Akamandisa (vmakamandisa@gmail.com), reside in Zambia and be contacted for further information.
The USAID funded Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Agricultural Extension Services (INGENAES) project is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). INGENAES is designed to assist partners in Feed the Future countries (www.feedthefuture.gov) to build more robust, gender-responsive, and nutrition-sensitive institutions, projects and programs capable of assessing and responding to the needs of both men and women farmers through extension and advisory services. Please email kcook@culturalpractiec.com with questions or comments.
View the September Newsletter
