The Agricultural Productivity Programme for Southern Africa (APPSA) hosted a wrap up session for the World Bank Implementation Support Mission (ISM) while preparing for the last year of project intervention in the Republic of Angola and the Kingdom of Lesotho, with regional support by the Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA). The session, which was held virtually on the 26th of January 2024, was essentially for the World Bank to provide feedback to implementing partners on the last physical ISM hosted between November and December 2023.
The wrap up session was facilitated by CCARDESA led by the Executive Director and Head of Mission, Prof. Cliff Sibusiso Dlamini. The World Bank team was led by the Regional Task Team Leader (TTL) who is also the TTL for Lesotho, Daniel Gerber who was accompanied by the TTL for Angola, Aniceto Bila. Teams from participating countries were led by Eng. Sili Mateus and Dr Lefulesele Lebesa, Deputy Director for the Instituto de Investigação Agronómica (IIA) and Director of the Department of Agricultural Reseach (DAR), respectively.
During the session, it was stressed that APPSA is expected to end in January 2025, hence the remaining implementation period should have more focus on documenting and sharing of project impact. In this regard, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and Communications teams were urged to go beyond statistics and bring out the real project contribution in the region.
The World Bank team acknowledged that significant progress has been made when comparing with what was reported in the previous ISM (June 2023) mainly in relation to the construction of Regional Centers of Leadership (RCoL) for Cassava in Angola and Horticulture in Lesotho. Major contracts have been successfully signed and in Lesotho most of the works are at completion stage, whereas Angola is likely to complete construction by end of May 2024. It is worth noting that, when completed, both Cassava and Horticulture RCoLs are to join the list of the existing ones, namely for Maize in Malawi, Rice in Mozambique and Food Legumes in Zambia, which were also established through the support from APPSA from 2013 to 2019.
On another note, the World Bank applauded APPSA implementing partners for the remarkable progress on generation and dissemination of technologies as all anticipated Research and Development (R&D) sub-projects are being implemented. Aligned to this, the World Bank recommended the fast-tracking of procurement of required equipment and reagents for the successful completion of respective R&D sub-projects.
The wrap up session also discussed the need to continue complying with World Bank fiduciary procedures which include financial management, procurement and environmental and social safeguards.
