Kick start of the Formulation Mission for support to PAEPARD – Third Phase

Isabelle Martin and Hubert Cathala
at the CTA office in Brussels

30th October 2012. Brussels. Meeting with the two consultants who were assigned by DevCo for the Formulation Mission for support to PAEPARD – Third Phase.

The Mid-Term review for the programme was launched in January 2012 and was completed in April 2012. The principal recommendation was to go for a one year no cost extension (17/12/2012-16/12/2013) in order to implement all the activities foreseen by the initial plan of activities.

An overarching finding has been a mismatch between the research proposals prepared by multi-stakeholder partnerships and the available funding instruments which usually rate scientific excellence over development relevance. The MTR recommended the formulation of a third phase of PAEPARD, which would capitalise on the investment in capacity and partnerships in PAEPARD 2 but also explore better matching of research proposals to sources of funding. The possibility of having a competitive research fund embedded in the project, should be considered along with the need to nurture and sustain the partnerships already created in PAEPARD 2.

The assignment is structured in three phases: a desk/inception phase, a field phase and a synthesis phase.

1. At the beginning of the assignment, a kick off meeting was held in Brussels in DG DEVCO premises on Tuesday 23/10.
2. A meeting was held with the European co-manager on Tuesday 30/10. Following issues were discussed: (i) Administrative management ; (ii) Fund to be managed by PAEPARD ; (iii) What needs to be consolidated in year 4? ; (iv) Collaboration of SROs ; (v) Are new consortia to be supported? ; (vi) Users led approach (in Skype conference call with the  African co-manager)
3. The location for the subsequent field visits is Ghana (Accra), Nairobi (Kenya) and Brussels. The expected output from the field mission is the submission of a mission Aide-Memoire with a resumé of the interviews carried out and all other relevant outcomes of the mission. 

At the end of the field phase, the team is expected to submit:

• a draft of the action fiche 
• an agreed draft log frame (revised by PAEPARD co-managers) 
• an agreed five year budget (revised by PAEPARD co-managers) 
• a draft of the relevant documents to submit to the QSG (see the list in the reporting paragraph) 
• aide memoires from the field missions and interviews