RIC-NET PARTICIPATES IN THE M&E TRAINING FOR PLANT CLINICS

With the increasing number of farmers realizing the importance of the plant clinics, CABI in partnership with plant wise held a two days monitoring and evaluation training for the partners promoting plant clinics in Africa. Participants in this training were invited from six countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Sierra Leone. 

  Links of stakeholders to the farmers.

RIC-NET program manager, kyomuhendo Joselyne    attended the training that was held at world Forestry centre in Nairobi on 14^th – 15 December 2012. While opening the training the Director CABI, Mr.   Morris Akili noted that the plant clinic project was initiated two and a half years ago and as such there was need to assess the past work and know if the farmers were accessing the clinics with ease, what factors are within their means to change that, what were the commonly reported cases, how can the plant doctors handle the cases and how do the farmers perceive the plant clinics? He remarked that it was possible to know about farmers issues through a clear M&E tool that would not only target farmers but equally inform the National systems to ensure sustainability.                                                           

 During the training participants developed the vision and a picture for the plant clinic project by 2015, identifying key stakeholders as farmers, ministry of Agriculture, plant doctors, CABI, NGOs/CBOs, research institutes, Agro-input dealers, By the end of the training participants had generated   links of each stakeholder to the farmer needs that will guide development of a   final M& E tool by January 2013.