Week 2-Question 2: Relevant criteria for deciding where to focus?
Do you think that the criteria used for deciding where to focus the Mega Program are the most essential and relevant?
Please comment on any specific criterion you feel is non-essential or is missing.
Share your comments below:
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CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish 
The criteria for deciding where to focus are relevant
Is it possible to emphasize also on straightening the post conflicts countries because these development actions are useful to link peoples and be favourable for a sustainable peace.
Yes the criteria where quite relevant and essential, may you should also have considered easy of cross border people movement and relations to other countries in the region.
I agree.
I feel people centered program will get quick results. We have some pocket where dairy farming getting promise, likewise goats, poultry etc.
Netra P. Osti
Senior Scientist (Animal Nutrition)
Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC)
Nepal
The criteria are all essential and relevant, but I miss the overall significance of a specific subsector (e.g. aquaculture, cattle, poultry) for the overall agricultural GDP. How important is smallholder aquaculture in Uganda – speaking in % of Ag-GDP? Vs. cattle (mind the East African cattle corridor)? Or the emerging poultry industry?
The criteria sounds but may also consider country socio-political dimension and country development program in each country.
I agree that the criteria for deciding where to focus are relevant
1. Innovation capacity and inbuilt systems to scout and document the same at all level.
2. Governance e.g. in service delivery
Following my answer to question 1 (on difference in objectives between the Concpet Note and the ILRI study in relation to nutrition/malnutrition, I wonder why there is not a criterion related to nutritional value?
I also wonder whether the approach misses opportunities for impact from any emerging scientific advances as indicated in the hypothesis in the Concept Note?
I think also that the focus is relevant
Yes, the criteria are quite relevant. Criteria for nutritional values may be given importance. Govt. policies of respective country may be considered.
The following is one of several comments shared by Jimmy Smith and a group of his colleagues at the World Bank:
“It is somewhat surprising to see the need to “identify target beneficiaries (Theme 1)”, “work within a systems approach to identify achievable goals” in Animal Health (Theme 2), and ‘select a limited number of value chains”. After about 35 years of ILCA-ILRI, and a clear pro-poor focus, we should know enough to select the beneficiaries, health priorities and value chains.”
This is an interesting point. When a major donor approached us a year or two ago to provide guidance on where to target their livestock development investments, we realized that the data and frameworks for such an exercise were largely lacking, and this is being partly addressed now by a project ILRI, FAO, and the World Bank are just beginning to implement. Also, the context has been evolving and continues to be dynamic, which is why we believe that focusing our work within a value chain framework will be the best way to identify current constraints and opportunities in a more meaningful way. What also came out of our study for the donor was that no systematic attempt has been made to evaluate the relative importance of health constraints vis-à-vis breed, feed, and other constraints in the productivity gaps faced in major livestock and fish systems – we see this again as a challenge that needs to be addressed within a value chain framework. Even when the focus is only limited to health constraints, there is still no clear consensus on how to evaluate priorities – see, for example, Perry and Grace’s recent review on this issue in the Phil Trans Roy Soc B (2009) 364:2643-2655.
I agree with the comment ( by Maggie Gill) to go for more inclusive set of criteria. For examples criteria related to environmental welfare, food safety, and poverty reduction targets ( e.g. minimum wage, improved farm gate prices). I beg your attention to the newly developed Cattle Standards( by SAN of the RainForest Alliance)
Near my opinion, the filter ‘supply constraints’, in particular of feed resources requires much more attention in the identification of high-impact value chains. Countries with a rapidly growing population and a constant low per ha yield of food crops should give all the possible priority to increasing per ha yield of food crops (and to birth control). They do not have suitable conditions to sustainably increase smallholder livestock production. As an example: Viet Nam realized a yield increase of cereals from 1746 kg/ha in 1978 to 5064 kg/ha in 2008 (> 100 kg per ha per year!), whereas the population increased from about 52 to 87 million in this period. This created good conditions for improvement of livestock production. As a contrast, most African countries mentioned in this document had a more than 100% increase in population between 1978 and 2008 and hardly any increase in per ha yield of food crops (mean cereal yields in these countries vary between ca. 800 and 1500 kg/ha). This caused a strong increase in the area cultivated, causing severe environmental damage (deforestation, destruction of grasslands, soil degradation). And increasingly less resources for livestock production (although the livestock population increased). This situation requires special attention and I am afraid that the proposed ‘Livestock-Fish’Mega Program does not adequately address the problems mentioned. Too much livestock-oriented!