In Ethiopia, Policy LINK Hosts Joint Annual Work Planning Workshop with Key Stakeholders

Participants in the August 10, 2023 work plan validation workshop.

Policy LINK’s team in Ethiopia, known as Champions for Food Security (C4FS), organized a meeting on August 10, 2023 with federal and Oromia region stakeholders to solicit their input into the activity’s FY 2024 work plan. C4FS is a five-year (2021-2026) activity implemented by USAID’s global Policy LINK program.

Attendees reviewed, validated, and prioritized Policy LINK's planned activities in Ethiopia.

The workshop aimed to jointly plan, prioritize, and validate the activity’s planned FY 2024 activities through a participatory process engaging regional and federal stakeholders. Since the activity's inception, C4FS has carried out its mandates to support collaboration, capacity building, evidence-based policymaking, and facilitation in agriculture and food security policy systems.

The planning workshops included more than 30 participants from a variety of federal and regional stakeholders. Participants reviewed and validated the planned activities through a participatory group consultation process. They also prioritized and, in some cases, suggested new activities to be taken into consideration for the upcoming fiscal year.

Appreciating C4FS for initiating such a participatory process of joint planning, the attendees underlined the significance of collaboratively implementing these policy system activities in FY 2024.  “I am grateful and impressed by the diversity of the institutional stakeholders for joint planning,” one participant commented. Similar joint planning workshops were also conducted with Amhara region stakeholders on July 31, 2023 and with Sidama and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ (SNNP) region stakeholders on August 4, 2023 for a total of 38 attendees, bringing the total participants to 70.

C4FS has so far conducted studies on the food security landscape in Ethiopia, on policies required to incentivize agribusiness investment, and on the institutional architecture (IA) of Ethiopia’s agricultural policy systems.

Demands from various stakeholders are increasing for the activity’s leadership skills development training, known as Leading for Change. More than 340 individuals, of whom 36 percent are women, have completed the training since November 2022. The training serves as a guide for the leadership capacity development of policy system stakeholders in the Amhara, Oromia, SNNP, and Sidama regions.

In May 2023, the team, in collaboration with key policy system actors, formally established a policy research and analysis network known as Network for Ethiopian Policy Analysis and Research on Agriculture and Food Systems (NET-PARAF). The network is expected to ensure participation and inclusiveness through joint planning and learning activities among policy system actors and facilitate evidence-informed policymaking in the agriculture and food systems sectors in Ethiopia.

Resources

With USAID Support, Policy Research and Analysis Network Launched in Ethiopia