aaworkshop

=ILRI Addis Ababa campus= Infocenter 12-13 March 2013

=An expert meeting to refine the Techfit tool=

In Sept 2011 we held a workshop in Dehra Dun to develop a tool for prioritizing livestock feed technologies. The meeting was fruitful in producing a prototype ranking tool which was subsequently applied in India by the ELKS project and in Ethiopia by the ACIAR ELF and USAID Africa RISING Quick Feeds project. The heart of the tool is a simple excel spreadsheet which takes a list of generic technologies and scores them for their requirements for land, labour, inputs, credit and knowledge. In a separate scoring exercise, the same attributes are scored for a particular context, e.g. a district in which interventions are planned. The tool then matches technology and context scores and suggests a shortlist of promising technologies. The tool was applied in both ELF and Quick Feeds projects and the results showed that there is still some work to do as follows:

- The list of technologies needs to be developed to be sufficiently generic to apply to a range of contexts but to be sufficiently specific to generate useful suggestions - The technology scores need to be refined to be more realistic and each score needs to be justified with a few words of explanation. - A methodology for cost-benefit analysis of individual technologies needs to be developed. - A web-based interface needs to be developed that would allow users to add technologies and scores could be developed.


 * Notes and Actions**

In groups we covered: cost-benefit analysis approaches the 'pre-filters' the 'scope for impact' measure the technoligy/interventions scoring the 'content' scoring approach/instrument what to improve in the tool - design, functionality ...

Some significant developments were: - more filters - the tool helps to prioritize interventions, not just technologies - CBA needs to be piloted to discover how to really use it - the intervention list was extended and refined - TechFit and FEAST can be adapted to better fit each other

Action list


 * Agenda**


 * Day 1**

Ice-breaker The story so far, hypothesis - why this tool?, overview of the tool as it stands || Alan Peter Alan || Results; issues arising; changes needed What's the 'tech' of techfit? challenges, practices, best bets ...Discussion || Adugna, Padma, Gemeda || - existing list - new list? || Ben Lukuyu ||
 * **Time** || **Topic** || **Lead** ||
 * 0900-1030 || Welcome
 * 1030-1100 || Break ||  ||
 * 1100-1230 || Field experiences – how and where has the tool been used?
 * 1230-1330 || Break ||  ||
 * 1330-1500 || Group work to revise the technology list
 * 1500-1530 || Break ||  ||
 * 1530-1700 || Plenary to finalize technology list || Peter Ballantyne ||


 * Day 2**
 * **Time** || **Topic** || **Lead** ||
 * 0900-0915 || Recap, agree agenda for the day ||  ||
 * 0915-0945 || Cost benefit approaches and options || Isabelle ||
 * 0945-1030 || 2 Groups:

1 - cost benefit approaches for techfit (isabelle) 2 - the pre-filters, weighting etc ||  ||
 * 1030-1100 || Break ||  ||
 * 1100-1230 || 2 Groups:

1 - cost benefit approaches for techfit (isabelle) 2 - the pre-filters, weighting etc

includes report back ||  ||
 * 1230-1330 || Break ||  ||
 * 1330-1500 || Groups:

1 - interventions - Developing scores and the explanatory narrative for each score. 2 - potential for impact - and scoring 3 - The questionnaire [Refining simple questionnaire to arrive at context scores] ||  ||
 * 1500-1530 || Break ||  ||
 * 1530-1630 || Next steps, including developing web tool, thinking about where and when to test. || Peter Thorne ||


 * People**


 * Name || From || e-mail address ||
 * Alan Duncan || ILRI || a.duncan@cgiar.org ||
 * Peter Ballantyne || ILRI || p.ballantyne@cgiar.org ||
 * Brigitte Maass || CIAT Kenya || b.maass@cgiar.org ||
 * Birthe Paul || CIAT Kenya || b.paul@cgiar.org ||
 * Michael Peters || CIAT Colombia || m.peters-ciat@cgiar.org ||
 * Ben Lukuyu || ILRI || b.lukuyu@cgiar.org ||
 * Danilo Pezo || ILRI || d.pezo@cgiar.org ||
 * Peter Thorne || ILRI || p.thorne@cgiar.org ||
 * Jane Wamatu || ICARDA || j.wamatu@cgiar.org ||
 * Barbara Rischkowsky || ICARDA || b.rischkowsky@cgiar.org ||
 * Padmakumar || ILRI || v.padmakumar@cgiar.org ||
 * Isabelle Baltenweck || ILRI || i.baltenweck@cgiar.org ||
 * Harinder Makkar || FAO || Harinder.Makkar@fao.org ||
 * Alexandra Jorge || ILRI || a.jorge@cgiar.org ||
 * Adugna Tolera || Hawassa University || atolera@yahoo.com ||
 * Lemma Gizachew || FAO || Lemma.Gizachew@fao.org ||
 * David Miano || KARI || DMMwangi@kari.org ||
 * Firehiwot Tesfaye || Send a Cow || firetsaceth@ethionet.et ||
 * Biruk Hailu || FAO || burew2@gmail.com ||
 * Gemeda Dhuguma || Horro ARC || gdjaallataa@yahoo.com ||
 * Tsehay Regassa || ILRI || tsehayregassa@yahoo.com ||