Project News Volume 31

Sensitization for CECM and Upscaling Workshop for CDA were conducted!

Following the Kenyan general election in August 2022, County Executive Committee Members (CECMs) on agriculture were replaced in 16 out of the 20 project target counties. A better understanding of the SHEP Approach by CECMs, who are the policy leaders of the county agriculture sector, is essential for the continuation of agricultural extension.

CECMs of 14 out of 20 counties attended the sensitization meeting held on 21st March 2023. The participating CECMs concluded the workshop by stating that the SHEP Approach is an effective approach to increase the income of small-scale farmers and that the counties will continue SHEP even with limited agricultural extension budgets.

The following day, 22nd March 2023, an upscaling workshop for County Directors on Agricultural (CDAs) was held. At the workshop, the Project explained the definition of upscaling (which means counties continuously implement the SHEP Approach every year following 4 steps of Vision Sharing, Awareness Creation, Decision Making and Solution by mobilizing own resources) and the method to report and monitor upscaling. In addition, the Project requested the county to select the target farmer groups for upscaling and to assign extension officers for each group, and agreed the schedule for developing the action plan for each upscaling group. Further, the Project explained how to use Kobo Collect for reporting and monitoring of upscaling.

Based on the action plan, the upscaling by counties will start which is the indicator of the project purpose. This is an important activity that will be the result of the county human resource development carried out by the Project, and the Project plans to carefully monitor the implementation of upscaling.