Presented by Richard Lamboll (NRI) at the Africa RISING East and Southern Africa Review and Planning Meeting, Malawi, 14-16 July 2015

1. About SAIRLA - Sustainable Agricultural
Intensification Research and Learning in
Africa
Richard Lamboll (NRI)
Africa RISING East and Southern Africa Review and Planning Meeting,
Malawi, 14-16 July 2015

2. Context
• To meet the global challenge of food security, and
in particular to support SSA’s growing population
with sufficient and nutritional food, agricultural
production must increase.
• Increased production needs to be achieved while
at the same time minimizing/ reducing
environmental impacts, given challenges such as
climate change, biodiversity loss etc.
• Social challenges are also key with continuing
areas of chronic poverty and rising inequality
around the world.

3. What is Sustainable Agricultural
Intensification?
The concept of sustainable agricultural
intensification (SAI) has emerged with a generally
accepted aim of:
– increasing agricultural productivity
– while maintaining or improving environmental
sustainability.
SAIRLA has a key focus on assessing how SAI can be
developed in ways that enable women and
poorer smallholders in Africa to participate in and
benefit from agricultural development through
SAI approaches

4. Overall objective
• SAIRLA will generate, share and facilitate use
of knowledge by policy makers and investors
to develop SAI in ways that enable women
and poorer smallholders in Africa to
participate in and benefit from agricultural
development.

5. How will SAIRLA work?
The programme will function through two processes:
– a competitive research call for grants,
– and facilitation of a Learning Alliance between research
organisations and other stakeholders.
Research and learning objective:
Commission research and facilitate multi-scale learning to
understand:
– different ways of achieving SAI,
– their development implications,
– and enabling women and poorer smallholders in Africa to
participate and benefit.

6. When and where will SAIRLA work?
• Five-year programme running from 2015 to 2020
• Sub-Saharan Africa with emphasis on 6 countries
– Burkina Faso
– Ethiopia
– Ghana
– Malawi
– Tanzania
– Zambia

7. Research Themes
• Social equity and participation of poor smallholders
and women
• Use of information sources and tools in development
of policy
• Environment/production trade-offs at local to national
scale
• Smallholder risk factors and agricultural risk
management
• Access to marketing information by smallholder and
women
• Smallholder sustainability strategies.

8. Learning Alliance Process
• National level between research projects and
stakeholders in sustainable intensification
– With a national facilitator
– Engaging with a national consultation group
• International level between research projects,
national LA facilitators, others in region
– Facilitated by NRI (initially)
– Engaging with donors and African policy forums

9. Local
Stakeholders:
Including
Smallholders
& Women
NationalLocal
Other
public and
private
actors
National
Consultative
Group
National Learning Alliances
Regional/Continental Global
Humid
Tropics
CRP
Regional Initiatives
Vital
Signs
Others
e.g.
FARA
Africa
Rising
Individual SAI Programme Research Projects
International Policy
Sustainable Agricultural Intensification Learning Alliance
DFID
NRI &
WYG
Other
donors

10. Research grant process
• Expression of interest call Oct 2015
• Orientation to selected EOIs by early 2016
• Full proposals contracted end first quarter 2016
• Grant recipients integrated into Learning Alliance
(mid 2016)
• At least 2, preferably, 3 countries
• Approx £5 million for max 8 projects
(indications are provisional)

11. Scoping of target countries
• Objectives:
– Inform about SIASSA and it’s objectives
– Validation and feedback on research questions
– Scope opportunities for national learning alliances
• Contact partner organizations with actions in each country
• Review and visits to each target country
– Visit key national and international research actors
– Overview of agricultural policy with focus on women and poor
– Map out policy forums around agriculture (and environment?)
– Identify potential for National Learning Alliance

12. Refinement of research questions
• Refinement of research questions based on
feedback from scoping visits
• Provide context and justification for research
questions
• Elaborate greater detail on outputs expected
from each research question

13. Provisional research questions
1. How can equity issues be best addressed in sustainable intensification
approaches, policies and tools to ensure that the needs of women and the
poorer smallholders are properly addressed?
2. What are the tools and metrics that would help decision-makers create an
enabling environment to support women and resource-poor smallholders
intensify agricultural enterprises in a way which is both environmentally and
financially sustainable?
3. How can the trade-offs between increased production and environmental
impact be analysed and managed?
4. What are key risk factors for smallholders in relation to market demand for
agricultural products produced in an environmentally sustainable way, and
what risk management strategies can be put in place to manage them?
5. What are the options to improve access to market information particularly for
women and resource-poor farmers, in the context of sustainable
intensification?
6. How do smallholder farmers manage the trade-offs between production and
sustainability?

14. Thank you!