At the initiative of CORAF and within the framework of the Partnership for Agricultural Research, Education and Development in West Africa (PAIRED) program, some twenty monitoring and evaluation specialists are meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, from May 9 to 11, 2022, for a training session on data collection tools for the assessment of the impact of the program in the field.
With funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) West Africa Regional Mission, CORAF is implementing the PAIRED program since 2017, in six West African countries —Benin, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal.
The participants who come mostly from PAIRED implementing countries, will acquire the mastery of data collection and processing tools, especially digital tools for data collection.
The training workshop is being held as a prelude to a survey to be conducted to collect data on technology adoption and impact of the PAIRED program.
“Collecting good and quality data is vital to assess the impact of a project because reliable and relevant data provides information on the achievements and informs donors and other stakeholders. That is why mastering how to collect and process these data is important,” says Dr Hippolyte Affognon, PAIRED Coordinator at CORAF.
The PAIRED program is a five-year program which, in addition to strengthening CORAF institutionally, aims to facilitate the scaling up and adoption of technologies and to increase the production and availability of quality seeds for farmers in West Africa.
The survey will make it possible to assess the impact of the project by generating knowledge and information on technology diffusion over time and space and adoption by smallholder farmers in all implementing countries.
“For the survey to provide useful information and data, it is necessary to have harmonized collection and processing methodologies, which would avoid discrepancies,” emphasizes Mr. Zinsou Ellénite Kpavode Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Specialist at CORAF.
In this regard, the training workshop will also be an opportunity for participants to review, test and finalize the tools that have been developed to ensure data collection, and which will be used in all countries.
It is expected that the country partners who attend the current training will train the enumerators in their respective countries.
They will play this relay role before the inception of the data collection phase in the field.