Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System

Screenshot of http://www.ReSAKSS.org.

The Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS) is a knowledge management platform offering easily accessible, high-quality analysis, data, and tools to farmers, researchers, policymakers, and development professionals to: promote evidence-based decisionmaking; improve awareness of the role of agriculture in poverty reduction and food and nutrition security; and promote dialogue and facilitate the review, learning and adoption of best practices associated with agricultural development strategies.

ReSAKSS was established as a direct response to the growing demand for credible information and analysis during the design of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) . As such, the knowledge management platform is oriented to promote dialogue and facilitate the review, learning and adoption of best practices associated with the CAADP Agenda. ReSAKSS operates as a multi-country network of collaborating partners represented by regional web-based platforms that provide access to open data sources, analysis, and readily-available tools and research evidence for informing agricultural and poverty-reduction strategies. It helps to strengthen ongoing policy dialogue at the continental, regional and national levels so as to influence the future strategic directions in African agricultural development for greater and better-distributed growth, poverty reduction, and food and nutrition security in the continent.

Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)

CAADP is designed to help African countries reach a higher path of economic growth. As an African-led and African-owned process, through the NEPAD, CAADP addresses policy and capacity issues across the entire agricultural sector and African continent.

CAADP aims to:

• Designate agriculture-led growth as a main strategy to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of poor and hungry people;
• Pursue a 6 percent average annual agricultural sector growth rate at the national level;
• Allocate 10 percent of national budgets to the agricultural sector;
• Use regional complements and cooperation to boost growth; and
• Promote partnerships, policy dialogue, review, and accountability to improve efficiency.

Basic Structure

1. Strategic analysis: provide data, tools and analysis for monitoring key growth and poverty-reduction priorities and assessing the impacts of interventions to address key questions, including: whether and how the interventions are having their desired impact on raising growth and reducing poverty and malnutrition; what sorts of environment enable successful implementation of agricultural policies and strategies; and which interventions can lead to greater and better-distributed outcomes.
2. Knowledge management: Develop a common pool of up-to-date information on key indicators at various levels to support policy planning, analysis, and dialogue; document lessons from past and ongoing research, policy analysis, impact assessment, policy processes, and practical experiences for improving future growth and poverty reduction strategies; and facilitate access to a variety of knowledge products to support assessment, review, and benchmarking of growth and poverty-reduction strategies.
3. Capacity strengthening and policy communication: collaborate and work closely with national and regional networks of partners in carrying out the above activities and in the exchange of skills, training, and practical experiences to strengthen local capacities; and communicate through various media and interactions with policy makers on key growth and poverty-reduction issues, analysis, and emerging challenges at all levels, as well as research findings associated with the performance and impact of growth and poverty-reduction strategies.

Organization

ReSAKSS is organized around four nodes of operation: one at the continental or Africa-wide level (ReSAKSS-AW) and three at the subregional level—eastern and central Africa (ReSAKSS-ECA), southern Africa (ReSAKSS-SA), and western Africa (ReSAKSS-WA). The operations of the nodes are facilitated by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Africa-based Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centers in partnership with the AU-NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA), the African Union Commission (AUC), the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and a network of national and other regional and international organizations. The Africa-based CGIAR centers and the RECs include: the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) for ReSAKSS-ECA; the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) for ReSAKSS-SA; and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for ReSAKSS-WA.

Technical Coordination and Governance

ReSAKSS has been established under IFPRI's program to promote evidence-based policy planning and implementation under CAADP. The program also includes the facilitation of analytical work to support the preparation of country roundtables and the African Growth and Development Policy Modeling Consortium (AGRODEP) . It has received funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. To ensure that ReSAKSS activities remain relevant to the priorities of CAADP and to help African countries achieve greater growth and faster poverty reduction, ReSAKSS is governed by Steering Committees that are chaired by the AUC and AU-NEPAD Planning and NPCA at the Africa-wide level and by COMESA, ECOWAS and SADC for ReSAKSS-ECA, ReSAKSS-WA and ReSAKSS-SA, respectively. The Steering Committees, whose members include representatives of the different CAADP stakeholders at the respective levels, provide political and strategic guidance to ReSAKSS.

Key Outputs

Monitoring & Evaluation of CAADP

Based on a monitoring and evaluating (M&E) framework, ReSAKSS monitors progress at all levels (continental, regional and country) toward achievement of the CAADP benchmark targets. Results are published annually in the ReSAKSS flagship Annual Trends and Outlook Report (ATOR).

Knowledge Support System

Through an established and growing network of farmers, researchers, policymakers, private and civil society groups, and development practitioners, including both state and non-state actors, ReSAKSS facilitates the exchange of information, tools, skills, and knowledge successful implementation of agricultural policies and strategies. This is achieved through a variety of portals including training workshops, internet platforms, conferences, and printed media.

Implementation

2007-2010

Since 2007 when it was established, ReSAKSS has provided strategic and monitoring analysis to guide implementation and track progress and performance of CAADP. Major accomplishments include:

• Created and maintained online platforms, including a website (www.resakss.org) and newsletter/blog (www.resakss.wordpress.com), where data, tools, analysis, news, knowledge products, and links to resources on CAADP implementation and other African agricultural and rural development strategies can be easily accessed.
• Developed a framework for monitoring and evaluating (M&E) CAADP at all levels and conducted data collection and analysis to monitor country level progress towards CAADP benchmark targets—published annually in a continental and three subregional flagship ReSAKSS annual trends and outlook reports.
• Assisted with the growth and investment analysis for the country CAADP compacts and technical reviews of the national agricultural investment plans during the CAADP country roundtable processes—by the end of 2010, 22 countries had signed their country CAADP compacts and 18 had developed national agricultural investment plans.
• Provided technical assistance to establish country SAKSS nodes in Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
• Established a Working Paper and an Issue Brief series that analyzes key growth and poverty reduction issues in Africa—by end of 2010, 30 Working Papers and 17 Issue Briefs had been published.
• Trained or facilitated training of several researchers, policy analysts, and development professionals on data collection and different topics related to agricultural policy analysis.

Workplan 2011-2015

ReSAKSS aims to continue working to produce timely and relevant information to guide the planning, implementation, and evaluation needs of CAADP at the continental and regional levels. To strengthen the capacity for addressing these needs at the country level, ReSAKSS aims to focus on: providing technical assistance for the establishment of country-owned knowledge support system (Country SAKSS) following signing of their CAADP compact and as part of implementation of their national agricultural investment plan (NAIP); and to provide technical and analytical support to the Country SAKSS for full operationalization of the M&E framework of the NAIP that is consistent with the overall CAADP M&E framework, for undertaking strategic analysis, and for preparing annual trends and outlook reports.