CPWF Six Monthly Progress Report

CPWF Six Monthly Progress Report

[Proforma 2]

Challenge Program on
Water and Food /

SIX MONTHLY PROGRESS REPORT

01 Apr 2005 – 30 Sep 2005

1.PROJECT PROFILE(this information will appear once only as a header sheet to your reports when they are electronic)

PROJECT NO.:

PN - 35 /

PROJECT TITLE:

Community-Based Fish Culture

LEAD CPWF THEME:

Aquatic Ecosystems and Fisheries /

LEADCPWFBENCHMARKBASIN(S):

Indo-GangeticBasin

SECONDARY CPWF THEME(S):

(if any) /

SECONDARYRIVER BASIN(S):

(if any)

MANAGING CENTER:

The WorldFishCenter /

PROJECT DURATION:

01 April 2005 to 31 March 2010

LINKED QUARTERLY PROGRESS REPORT(this section of the report are your milestone tables, embedded in an excel spreadsheet. One three monthly section per page.You are required to provide comments against your milestones in this report period)

Table 1 - Embeddedspreadsheet of Milestone Plan: Year 1, 1st Quarter – April-June 2005

Table 1 presents a portion (embedded spreadsheet) of the Milestone Plan that covers Phase One of the Project (Year 1, 1st Quarter), also the called the Inception Phase. Phase One is the project “start-up” and it was during this phase that;

the research methodologies and development framework of the Project were firmed up
the partnership and collaboration among team members, participating institutions, and country partners were strengthened
the various activities necessary for the efficient implementation of the Project were identified
the roles and responsibilities of each institute and team member were clearly defined
the researchers and country partners were given orientation about project management, and administrative and financial arrangements for the successful implementation of the Project, and
an inception workshop was conducted with a Project Inception Report as major output

The milestones for this phase of the project include; the draft of the Memorandum of Agreements (MOAs) among partners; the conduct of inception workshop; a two-year Milestone Plan; a two-year Workplan; a five-year Financial Plan; an Intellectual Asset Audit; and formation of a Project Secretariat.

The Project is a collaborative research activity between and among WorldFishCenter (the lead institution), IFPRI, WARDA and partner institutions (NARES) in Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, China, Mali, and Vietnam. The MOAs formalized the relations among them. The MOAs further define their respective responsibilities and obligations with respect to the Research Project, and define the basis for the publication and dissemination of the research results.

A Project Inception Workshop participated in by principal researchers from WorldFish, IFPRI, WARDA, and NARES partners was conducted in 7-10 June 2005 at the WorldFish Center headquarters in Penang, Malaysia. It was during this workshop that individual IARC and NARES institution’s workplan, milestone plan, and financial plan were finalized. The workshop output was a comprehensive Inception Report which included an integrated project workplan, milestone plan, financial/budget plan, and intellectual asset audit.

At the WorldFishCenter headquarters a project secretariat was established. Together with counterparts (aside from principal investigators)at the NARES, they are to facilitate the implementation of project in the different countries and various field sites.

All these set milestones were accomplished on time and verified – and were taken into consideration in advising the Project to proceed with Phase Two.

Table 2 presents a portion (embedded spreadsheet) of the Milestone Plan that covers first quarter of Phase Two – the implementation phase. The period covered is from July-Sept 2005 (or Year 1, 2nd Quarter of the Project).

Three types of milestones are expected to be accomplished during this quarter. These are:

Short-lists of potential project sites:
for community-based rice-fish culture
for case studies on “contribution of aquatic resources to water productivity”
Survey design and instrument for baseline survey and appraisal.

Table 2 - Embeddedspreadsheet: of Milestone Plan: Year 1, 2nd Quarter – July-Sept 2005

Although all the country operations follow a general workplan of activities, the timing and activity details of each differ from each other, based on the type of the system (floodplains, irrigation), start and duration of rainy season and existing socio-economic and cultural conditions of the area.

The short-lists of potential sites for case studies on the “contribution of aquatic resources and services to water productivity” are due in August for Bangladesh, India, Cambodia and Vietnam. They are due in September for Mali and in October for China.

For all countries, short-lists of potential project sites for community-based fish culture are due in August 2005.

Once the sites are finally selected, baseline survey and appraisal would be conducted in the area. The design and survey instrument are due in September for Bangladesh, India, Cambodia and Vietnam. They are due in November for Mali and China.

All country activities/tasks and milestones were completed and continue to be undertaken according to schedule, except for Mali where project activities have to interface with other activities and projects in Africa (e.g., FAO and WARDA) and a new principal investigator and person-in-charge would be identified.

A graduate student to work on Activity 1 and 2 was also recruited earlier than schedule (due date is not until December)

The project milestones in Table 1 were all reported in the first Milestone Report (June 2005) while those in Table 2 would be thoroughly tackled in the next Milestone Report in December.

This Six Monthly Progress Report is linked to: / CPWF Quarterly Report Format-d06.xls (yet to be linked)

3.SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS IN THIS SIX MONTH PERIOD(some projects have not been running for six months - for those projects that require a quarterly report in December, please submit section 2 and section 6 only)

(a) Technical elements:
3.1. What are the project’s main technical achievements in this six months? / This is the first six-monthly Progress Report for the Project which covers Phase One (April-June) and the first quarter of Phase Two (July-Sept).
Phase One is the inception or the start-up phase of the project. On the technical aspect of the project, it is during this phase that the research methodologies and development framework of the project were firmed up and finalized, and agreed upon and accepted by researchers, partners, and principal investigators.
To operationalize the research methodologies and development framework, towards the culmination of the inception phase a workshop was conducted to produce several technical and management plans which included a five-year project workplan and five-year milestone plan, individually for each country and for the entire project.
After successfully completing the inception phase (Phase One), the project was advised to proceed with the implementation phase (Phase Two)
For the first quarter of Phase Two, the main technical achievements of the project include:

the identification and short-listing of potential sites for the two major activities of the project: community-based rice-fish culture trials, and case studies on “contribution of aquatic resources to water productivity”, and
development of survey design and instrument for baseline survey and appraisal of project sites

3.2. How will these findings contribute to the project? / The above “technical findings” are preparatory information for the effective and successful implementation of the project in the six different countries. Critical to site selection are the potential for rice-fish culture (or agri-aqua culture) and the potential for collective action (or community mobilization).
Major failure in recognition of these potential may negatively impact the field implementation of the project – especially in terms of efficient utilization of project resources. On the other hand, proper assessment of these potentials will have positive bearing to the efficient implementation of the project in the field.
3.3. What is the stakeholder uptake of these findings? Provide evidence to justify your answer. / As stated above, these findings are preliminary to project implementation and not direct results of the research project. As such they are not yet the kind of information or knowledge that stakeholders can directly benefit from.
But anything that can contribute to the efficient and successful implementation of the project has a indirect benefits to the stakeholders, and in this case, the indirect effects can be more conclusive results of fish culture trials… and technology more adaptive to the local or country situation.
(b) Project Management element:
3.4. How is the project contributing to the CPWF’s main research themes? / As indicated in the project proposal and inception reports, the project’s contributions to CPWF’s main research themes are as follows: Theme 1 – 10%; Theme 3 – 60%; Theme 4 – 20% and Theme 5 – 10%.
Theme 3 – Aquatic Ecosystem and Fisheries
Theme 4 – Integrated Basin Water Management System
Theme 5 – Global and National Food and Water System
The Project is aiming to developappropriate technical and institutional options for increasing water productivity at basin level through integration of community based fish production into existing floodplain and irrigation systems. Another objective is to develop a participatory diagnostic and stakeholder-involving diffusion approach for community-based fish cultured in shared water bodies.
The project is being conducted in river basins (3 benchmark basis – the Mekong, Indo-Gangetic, and YellowRiver basins; 1 non-benchmark – Niger basin) in six countries: Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, China, and Mali.
Theme 1 –Crop Water Productivity Improvement
Another major project activity is not only improving water productivity through rice and fish integration (or agri-aqua culture) but developing a comprehensive framework for measuring water-productivity itself and determining the contribution of aquatic resources and services to it.
3.5. Is the project following the principles of CPWF research? * / The community-basednature of the project makes the project pro-poor and equitable – it does not exclude the landless farm workers and women who would not ordinarily have rights to the land. The integrative nature of the project effectively prevents the exclusion of farm workers in fish production and floodplains and irrigation system management. The project focus is on the impact of increasing land and water productivity – in increasing the income of the poor and alleviating the poverty situation of the community.
As such, the project is in-line with the principles of CPWF research.
3.6. Any problems or constraints - deviations - in the past six months? / The processing of MOAs (with IFPRI, WARDA, and NARES partners) took more time than anticipated, resulting to initial delays in starting planned activities and the set milestone for the quarter (July – September).

* Pro-poor, gender equitable, in an integrated natural resources management framework, pro-active towards stakeholder integration and focused on impact.

4.SUMMARY OF OUTPUTS

SUMMARY OF OUTPUTS THIS PERIOD
Nature of Output / Details

Draft MOAs

/ Memorandum of agreements between and among the partner IARC and NARES institutions that will implement the project

Inception Workshop and Inception Report

/ Held in June 7-10 at WorldFishCenter headquarters at Penang, Malaysia. The major output was an inception report which includes various plans (workplan, milestone plan) and budget allocation (see next items).

Five-Year WorkPlan

/ Schedule and tasking of project activities by country and institutions for the duration of the project

Five-Year Milestone Plan

/ List of deliverables and schedule delivery by country and institutions, to monitor and track the progress of the project

Budget/Financial Plan

/ Sources and uses of funds for the project – for the entire duration.

Intellectual Asset Audit

/ List and uses of intellectual property (IP) required in the implementation of the project

Project Secretariat

/ Staff that will work full-time for the project at WorldFish headquarters and at the project sites

Short-list of potential project sites for
Community-based fish culture
Contribution of aquatic resources and services to water productivity

/ Shortlist of potential sites (high potential for fish culture and collective action): for all six countries, except Mali (see explanation above)
In addition to potential sites for fish culture, potential sites are those with aquatic resources and services other than for irrigation and fish culture – and those sites with different legal, cultural, and institutional arrangements in the use of water resources: for all six countries, except Mali

Survey design and instrument for baseline survey and appraisal

/ Identification of population and sample size – and preparation of questionnaires for the conduct baseline survey and appraisal of selected project sites: for Bangladesh, India, Cambodia and Vietnam
SUMMARY OF OUTPUTS EXPECTED IN NEXT PERIOD
Nature of Output / Details

Final selection of project sites for:
Community-based fish culture
Contribution of aquatic resources and services to water productivity

/ The selection process would continue until the most appropriate sites are finally selected – based on the objectives of the research project and target number of sites per country.

Baseline survey and appraisal of project sites

/ Baseline survey and appraisal would be conducted in each selected site. Focus is on socio-economic and cultural profile. Technical aspects of rice-fish culture and collective action

Recruitment of Graduate Students

/ Graduate students (one in each country) would be recruited or given assistantship for them to conduct their research in the project.

Detailed workplan

/ In each project site detailed workplan of activities would be drawn up by the researchers and implementing institutions and partner NGOs

Workshop: sharing of participatory approaches

/ Workshop-sharing of existing and local participatory approaches would be conducted in each country. Output of the sharing-workshop would be inputed to the design of institutional arrangements for community-based fish culture trials.

Annual Internal Review

/ Annual internal reviews would be conducted in all countries to evaluate the progress of the project in each site. Output of these internal reviews would also help in improving the country operations and the planning activities for the succeeding year.

5. COMMENTS ON PROJECT PROCEDURES

(a) Technical elements
5.1. Data collected: what is the extent of your data collection to date? / The project is still at the early stages of implementation. Data collection phases would be concentrated in the next three years of field trials.
Start of data collection for baseline information is in the next three months.
5.2. Data analysed: what is the extent of your data analysis to date? / The project is still at the early stages of implementation. Data collection phases would be concentrated in the next three years of field trials.
Start of data collection for baseline information is in the next three months.
No data analysis yet.
5.3. Information shared: what knowledge or information have you shared to date? / The project is still at the early stages of implementation. Data collection phases would be concentrated in the next three years of field trials.
Start of data collection for baseline information is in the next three months.
No knowledge or information shared yet.
(b) Project Management element:
5.4. What would you do differently as a result of lessons learnt? / The only setback and lesson learned from the few months of project implementation is the delay in processing the MOAs.
Alternatively, three things could have been done differently:

Accomplish the MOAs as part of the Project Proposal writing stage
Give ample time (2-4 months) for MOA processing
Don’t let succeeding project activities be dependent on signing of the MOA

6.status of expenditure and staff inputS:WHOLE project to date

EXPENDITUREUS$
Total project budget / 1,697,910.00
Funds received to date / 152,693.00
Total expenditure to date / 62,534.22
Funds committed / 14,363.00
Balance remaining / 75,795.78
Matching Funds
Cash/in kind / US$16,150.00 – in kind, as agreed
Comment on expenditure compared with project progress - is it on track? / Expenditure was lower due to delay in MOA processing and subsequent delay in the release of funds to country partners.
The progress of the project, at the very least, was not affected since country partners either utilized their own resources (to be counted into in-kind contribution later) or advanced some resources (for refund later) in the conduct of project activities.
Comment on time spent compared with project progress - is it on track? / Although there were some delays in the processing of the MOAs, the project is still on track relative to its targets as set in the workplan and milestone plan

7. CPWF ASSESSMENTS*

Assessment * / Basin Coordinator / Theme Leader / Managing Center Administrator / Consolidated assessment
1 / 2 / 3 / X / 1 / 2 / 3 / X / 1 / 2 / 3 / X
Is the Project contributing quality outputs towards Basin and Theme priorities?
Have you verified the progress and dissemination reported?
Is the Project working according to its plan?
Is the project sufficiently focused on CPWF objectives?
Does the project demonstrate a new research approach in the spirit of CPWF?
Are provisions for stakeholder and end user involvement adequate?
Are provisions for addressing gender issues adequate?
Are provisions for addressing environmental issues adequate?
Action suggested to resolve any inadequate assessments (to be supplied to Project Leader)
Other comments (expand below if necessary) (to be supplied to Project Leader)

* Assessment: (1) Good: a high standard of work; (2) Adequate: an acceptable standard of work, but improvements are possible; (3) Inadequate: this aspect of the project is not up to standard and must be improved; (X) Not known.

RECOMMENDATION TO CPWF SECRETARIAT:SATISFACTORY / UNSATISFACTORY / TERMINATE

Is there a need to change the plan of the project. If so, why and how?

Comments to Secretariat to support this recommendation (optional):

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