ASARECA
Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa
ASARECA – The Registered Trustees of the Association for StrengtheningAgricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa
The Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) is a not-for-profit inter-governmental sub-regional organization established in 1994. ASARECA comprises 11 member countries: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. It brings together scientists from the national agricultural research institutions (NARIs), national agricultural extension service providers and other strategic partners to generate, share and promote knowledge and innovation to solve the common challenges facing agriculture in the member countries. It also enables the member countries to work collectively to assist smallholder farmers to practice productive and profitable agriculture.
Dr. Cyprian Ebong (Interim Executive Director) currently heads ASARECA with support from Dr. Enock Warinda (Theme Leader: Knowledge Management, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning); Ms. Miriam Kyotalimye (Programme Officer – Policy Analysis and Market Linkages); Mr. Moses Odeke (Programme Officer – M&E).
Within the Eastern and Central African sub-region, ASARECA plays a critical role of enhancing agricultural research and scaling out of proven technologies, innovations and management practices. The organization is also guided/governed by a team of Patron Ministers drawn from the 11 countries. These are the current ministers of agriculture, livestock and fisheries (whichever is applicable). These ministers are also supported by a strong team of Board of Directors, comprising: the Director Generals of all the 11 National Agricultural Research Institutes, as well as representatives from CGIAR, NGO, Extension Services, Private Sector, Universities, as well as Farmer Organizations.
All the ASARECA team of scientists and researchers are involved in its core research themes, namely: natural resources management (especially promotion of climate smart agriculture), governance, efficient water resource management, integrated soil management, and staple crops programme (especially in intensification and conservation agriculture). ASARECA is recognized as a leading regional organization that has 23 years of experience in several emerging issues, such as regional diseases.
Activities
ASARECA will mainly contribute to Work Package 1 (Support to the FNSSA Partnership and the HLPD Bureau). It will specifically contribute to Task 1.3 (Studies: Analysis and Foresight) and Task 1.4 (Monitoring and Evaluation). Under Task 1.3, ASARECA shall contribute to Metaanalysis of existing studies (Activity 1.1); Studies and analysis (Activity 1.2); Expert workshop to elaborate analysis and foresight studies (Activity 1.3); and Coordination (Activity 1.4). ASARECA will be involved in Task 1.4, especially in designing and implementing tools and concepts in knowledge management, monitoring, and impact assessment.
People
Dr. Cyprian Ebong holds a PhD and MSc. degrees in Animal Nutrition. He has over 30 years’ experience in the livestock sub-sector and the agricultural sector in general. He is vast in data analytics and statistics, as well as project management and coordination. Dr. Ebong has huge experience in animal production research, where he has been involved in applied and systems research in livestock production, particularly in crop-livestock integration systems. He has mentored young scientists leading to co-authoring of several publications, besides writing awardwinning proposals in competitive grant projects across commodities and disciplines in agricultural research for development. Dr. Ebong worked in Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB) as senior scientist/expert in animal nutrition, and supported the Rwanda management identifying areas of investments in research in livestock especially feeds and feeding. Prior to this, Dr. Ebong served as the Deputy Director General in charge of Quality Assurance at the Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO).
Dr. Enock Warinda is a research scientist and evaluation specialist with over 20 years of professional experience in monitoring, evaluation, program management, and impact assessments at national, regional and international levels. He is intimately familiar with the issues impacting on agricultural development in Africa, and has excellent competence in designing and managing evaluations of complex, high-level research programs through mixed methods approaches and application of advanced techniques for causal inferences. He has practical skills in multivariate and cost-effectiveness analyses, and has experience in designing, developing and supervising userfriendly M&E tools and protocols. He was the Lead Specialist in charge of Monitoring and Evaluation in FARA, and has had a stint at the International Business and Technical Consultants Inc. (IBTCI) where he managed the Somalia Programme Support Services (SPSS). Prior to that, he worked for the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN)based in Pretoria, South Africa as the Work Package Manager responsible for the Design, Intervention, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Tools (DIMELT) portfolio. Before joining FANRPAN, Dr. Warinda was the Theme Manager and Head of M&E at ASARECA, where he was instrumental in the development of results-based multi-year projects and facilitated bi-annual and annual portfolio reviews. He led the identification of capacity gaps in M&E and trained stakeholders, especially scientists, program managers, project principal investigators, administrators, M&E officers and policy-makers. He holds a PhD degree in Agricultural Economics and Master of Arts degree in Monitoring and Evaluation. He is very familiar with reporting frameworks for the European Commission, the World Bank, USAID and ACIAR.
Ms. Miriam Kyotalimye holds a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Economics. Miriam brings on board over 13 years of experience in implementing policy analysis and advocacy projects to foster enabling environments for regional trade in agriculture. Specific skills include generating analytical evidence for advocacy; facilitating technical working groups on policy formulation, and convening stakeholder fora at all levels of the policy process for consensus building, advocacy and policy approval in relation to staple food standards and grades; biosafety; dairy policy; seed, climate change, food price volatility and sustainable land management bye-laws. Miriam also has over 9 years experience in gender mainstreaming in research for development programmes including specific skills in gender analysis, gender impact assessments, developing and tracking indicators to assess equality of outcomes for men and women; and use of quantitative and qualitative analysis for gender-responsive research including support to development of institutional level gender strategies and action plans; and coaching and mentoring project teams in gender-responsive research methods. Miriam’s project management skills include development of concept notes and proposals, project design, contract management, managing cross-country partnerships & convening of partners, technical backstopping for quality assurance; publishing project results; and monitoring and evaluation of technical and financial progress during implementation. Prior to joining ASARECA, worked as a researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute on the USAID funded Strategic Criteria for Rural Investments in Productivity (SCRIP) Program that focused on identifying best bet investment opportunities for the Ugandan agricultural sector.
Mr. Moses Odeke holds a Master of Science degree in Agriculture (Crop Science) and has over 15 years experience in implementation of monitoring and evaluation studies within Eastern and Central Africa. He currently works with ASARECA under the Knowledge Management and Information Theme where he is responsible for M&E and Environment and Social Safeguards. Prior to that, Moses worked with reputable research institutions such as International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Danish Institute of International Studies, and Department of Agricultural Economics where he participated in the implementation of several socio-economic studies. Over time he has acquired skills in data collection, management and analysis.