Insights from a Donor visit to Ethiopia

In October 2014, staff from nine Dutch embassies and The Hague travelled to Ethiopia to understand best practices for Food and Nutrition Security programmes and share their insights. During the three day event, they reflected on their own programmes in countries, shared experiences and interacted with partners of the Netherlands Embassy in Addis Ababa.

The initiative was to foster cross-embassy learning. The central question during the trip was “What is needed to ensure that Dutch supported food and nutrition security programmes reach the impact they strive for?”.

The agenda included key site visits to see two dutch-funded programs in action.

Integrated Seed Sector Programme

The seed cooperative visit helped participants see the Integrated Seed Sector Programme in action. It works closely with the Agriculture Transformation Agency which has been set up to develop and test ideas for the scale up and transformation of Ethiopian agriculture. The programme strengthens private sector partnerships by working closely with the Ethiopian Seed Growers and Processors Association and identifies that universities contribute as knowledge intensive institutions that provide the evidence base for system interventions. As part of the integrated seed sector programme, farmers supply their improved seed to smallholder farmers that take part in the Agricultural Growth Program (AGP). The AGP is a large scale government investment project which aims to boost food crop production and is led by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Capacity Building for Scaling Up Evidence-based Best Practices

A second site visit saw the Capacity building for Scaling Up Evidence-based Best Practices in Ethiopia project (CASCAPE) in action. The project helps validate best practices and makes them fit for scaling up in the AGP. CASCAPE supports the plans led by the Ethiopian government to increase agricultural productivity in a sustainable way in order to enhance agricultural growth and to achieve food security. During this site visit, participants were welcomed by officials from the local government and the Chief of the zonal Bureau of Agriculture.

During the trip, discussions with the partners aimed at helping participants understand the type of support is needed and expected from the Dutch embassy. These three brochures (PDF) containing insights were developed based on discussions and presentations during the learning journey:

#1 – On Approaches for Food & Nutrition Security Programmes
What can we learn from different approaches that Embassies use to achieve food security results?

#2 – On Scaling up of FNS Programmes
What do we know about the mechanisms and incentives for bringing good practice to scale?

#3 – On Aid & Trade in FNS Programmes
What are we learning in practice about Aid and Trade agenda?

Read more about the learning journey