MEAS Support for WLI Work
Sandra L. Russo
University of Florida
WLI Annual Planning Meeting
11-13 November 2014
What is MEAS?
• MEAS = Managing Extension and Advisory
Services >>>> focus on extension
• USAID funded cooperative agreement (until
2017)
• University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
(UIUC) is the leader.
• University of Florida and University of
California-Davis are partners
MEAS and WLI
• UF has three awards in MENA:
– With Samia Akroush and NCARE
• MEAS and MEPI, working with women’s groups in the
badia
– With Samia Akroush and NCARE
• Fertigation adoption studies in the Jordan Valley,
working with researchers, extension and farmers
– With Beza Dessalegn, WLI and ICARDA
• WLI adoption studies in WLI countries, working with
researchers, extension and farmers
Focus initially on extension training and peer-to-peer
training with women’s coops in the badia of Jordan
• Low levels of
education and literacy
among rural women
• Inability to participate
in training with men
• Inability to work with
male extension agents
• May need different
types of information
and skills training
NCARE-UF-MEAS training
with women’s coops
Focus now on linking research and
extension along impact pathways
Assessing Researchers’ and Extension Agents’
Perceptions, and Farmers’ Willingness to Adopt WLI
Proven Technologies
Objective
Improve technology dissemination strategies
and approaches that promote adoption of
proven water and land management
technologies by identifying researcher,
extension, and farmer-based perceptions and
constraints.
Timeline
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Surveys and interviews through December
Data analysis – Jan-March 2015
Mid-term report – March 2015
Workshop – May or June 2015
Final report – August 2015
New MEAS award!
• Over $7 million from 2014-2018
• UIUC, UF, UC-D and Cultural Practice (private
company)
• Focus on gender, nutrition and extension
• Initial focus on FtF countries but….
InGeNAES – Integrating Gender and Nutrition
within Agricultural Extension Services
INGENAES Theory of change
Synergies
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MEAS + WLI
INGENAES + MEAS + WLI
CCAFS + MEAS
CCAFS + WLI + MEAS + INGENAES
CCAFS CRP
Senegal, Kenya, India, Nepal
Gender & climate/weather
information services
• Identifying the end users
• Farmers can understand
probabilities, forecasts &
technical information
• Researchers need to know
who grows what crops &
manages what livestock?
• Factor in country & cultural
differences
• Don’t reinvent, use
communication technologies
that work for specific end
users
Models, ICTs, apps….????
Participatory decision-making
approaches
• Work with NARES, NMET,
extension agents and farmers
“How can we improve equitable
delivery of climate and other
technical services?”
• Outcomes:
– Encourage multidirectional sharing of
information
– Better understand
gendered constraints to
accessing information
– Identify entry points in
communities and
institutions for improved
equity in use of technical
information
Linkages and Synergies
• WLI and MEAS projects can achieve synergies by
linking previous work with upcoming activities.
• Good practices from CCAFS activities can inform
approaches for WLI.
• Other development partners can be brought in.
• The results of the WLI adoption studies could be
fed into INGENAES to support additional work, if
the country teams are interested…..