Regional Coordination Unit - Africa
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Introduction After the Africa Region Co-ordinating Unit had closed down
early 1998, the African partners met in August 1998 in Harare, Zimbabwe to
decide on the way forward. The partners felt that there was need to reopen the
ARCU to promote proper and adequate co-ordination of the programmes. The
partners discussed amongst themselves on the criteria to be used to identify the
partner to co-ordinate RCU. The factors considered were:
Appointment of the CoordinatorAt the August 20-21,1998 meeting, the partners anonymously agreed to offer Dr J.N.Mushonga the then ARAC member to co-ordinate the Africa Region Unit. Dr Mushonga accepted the offer. By kindness of Mr Mushita-partner and Director of CTDT, the co-ordinator was assisted with an office, secretarial services and a vehicle to use locally when needed at cost. The co-ordination office is therefore located in the CTDT office in Harare.Requirements for the Regional OfficeThe office acquired office furniture and stationary to facilitate its proper functioning which included executive desk, chair and other basic office requirements. The other furniture such as shelves, cupboards as well as office chairs were provided by CTDT.At the onset of opening this office, the co-ordinator acquired all the platform communication from Mr Mushita including other communications on activities to familiarise himself with the CBDC programme regionally and globally. The first few days in the office we spent on going through several communications from partners, PCC, ITP, RAFI and other communications related to CBDC activities including the transversal lines for phase II. The co-ordinating office has had several meetings with Mr Mushita discussing about Transversal Lines as well as identifying those lines relevant to Zimbabwean situation. The office has received guidelines on the T/Lines from PCC programme leader. These have been communicated to the Africa Region partners for them to take action meeting the stipulated deadlines. Technical Assistance to PartnersThe RCU has initiated request for outputs from the African partners which are Burkina Faso, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe in preparation for editing and compiling the region outputs for phase I. The Burkina Faso partner responded by sending a preliminary but comprehensive report in both English and French. The Sierra Leone also responded by sending 5 outputs including annual, mid-term reports and thesis chapters from two scholars doing work related to CBDC. The Kenyan programme submitted one document. The Zimbabwean partner submitted seven documents and there were no communication problems here as everything was at fingertips.The ARAC and ITP members started arriving into Zimbabwe from 27-29 April 1999. The technical assistance meeting began on the 29th of April at 9am. Present were Dr Melaku Worede-ARAC, Prof. Chweya-ARAC, Dr Sama Monde-partner but representing Prof. Cole-ARAC, Ms Conny Almekinders-ITP and Dr J.N.Mushonga-RCU. The team first worked on the inventory of submitted materials then categorized them into technical papers, mid-term and annual reports. The meeting agreed that the task was to assist the partners through editing of the outputs and suggestions. The final document will be put up by each partner so that there is no room for misrepresentation of facts. The team worked from the 29th of March to the 21st of April. However, ITP member had to leave on the 3rd of April as she had another workshop in Holland. The three members and coordinator continued to work on the outputs till the 20th of April. At the time of writing this report, the proceedings of the workshop on the assistance was at the last stage of compilation. The regional coordinator through the help of CTDT directorate and staff, arranged the field trip for the ARAC members and IPGRI representative to visit Tsholotsho district in Matebeleland North Province of Zimbabwe. Tsholotsho district is one of the several areas where CTDT is operating from on seed multiplication project. The team was exposed to Field Days as well as interaction with farmers. The co-ordinator would like to register his sincere thanks to the members of ARAC/ITP, for good but hard work done to complete the editing. These people worked at odd hours in-order to complete this work. I thank partners for submitting materials which the team worked on though some were not adequate. All the same, these submissions were very much appreciated. I particularly thank Mr. Mushita for his assistance to use his organization's facilities and staff who made sure that the visitors were comfortable and well taken care of. We hope this is the beginning of a fruitful working relationship within the Africa Region CBDC programme.
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