Project News Volume 32

The 5^th PSC meeting was conducted!

The 5^th Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting was held in Nairobi on 24^th March 2023. At this PSC meeting, in addition to the regular project progress report and explanation of the activity plan, the project design matrix (PDM) revision was discussed. The revision of the PDM was discussed at the 3^rd PSC meeting held in February 2022, but at that time it was put on hold because the relevance of the proposed indicators was not clear. It was decided to propose new indicators based on the baseline survey of SMEs which the Agribusiness component is targeting. The proposed indicators by Agribusiness component set quantitative and measurable indicators for each VC crop such as distribution volume, profit, cost, number of people, and number of VC platforms for each selected VC, were able to obtain approval.

There were also questions about the role that the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) should play in ensuring the sustainability of the SHEP Approach, as this is the halfway point of the five-year project. It is an important discussion to continue SHEP in Kenya, such as which department in the Ministry should retain the human resource development function for implementing the SHEP Approach, and necessary human resources and budget. It was agreed that stakeholders including the Ministry, JICA Kenya office and Project will continue discussions on how to internalize the SHEP Approach within MoALD.