Project News Volume 10 (2021-07-13)

2nd Project Steering Committee was held!

The 2nd Project Steering Committee (PSC) was held on July 8, 2021. The three main agenda items were 1) progress report on project activities, 2) approval of activity plans for the next financial year, and 3) approval of target counties for Agribusiness components.

The project progress report was presented by Mrs. Malenge, the National Project Coordinator of the project. It's been about half a year since the project started in December 2020. Along the way, there was a partial lockdown for one month due to the spread of Covid-19, but it was reported that the activities were proceeding almost as planned. The PSC members were surprised at the progress, and the chairperson, Agriculture Secretary (AS) of Minister of Agriculture, showed his appreciation for the project team. Agriculture extension is recognized as one of the administrative services for production activities that cannot be stopped even by the COVID-19, and the project has been implementing activities in accordance with the precautionary measures of the Ministry of Health of Kenya and JICA while checking the infection situation in the project sites.

Kenya's financial year begins in July and ends in June, so the new financial year for Kenya will be from July 2021 to June 2022. Regarding the activity plan for the next financial year of the project, Mr. Orangi, the Head of SHEP component, announced that SHEP Component will continue a series of training and activities and plan to select 10 counties for the 2nd batch. For Agribusiness component, Mr. Nabea, the Head, reported on plans such as training for County government officers to support micro, small and medium agribusiness entrepreneurs and development of a value chain analysis report, etc.

It was also reported that the value chain analysis of 10 counties of Agribusiness component was completed and that it was approved that 5 counties namely, Busia, Homabay, Nakuru, Tharaka Nithi and Kilifi were selected for the pilot projects. The project will consider the details of the pilot projects will be implemented in 5 counties in the future.

After discussion and approval by PSC, the project will continue activities in Kenyan new financial year!