AGRA

Four years ago, we started this journey together as freshmen in CS03. Today, after finishing our last finals at the United States Air Force Academy, we jumped into the fountain together. A small tradition, but a moment that was four years in the coming. This chapter closes with immense gratitude for the friendships, challenges, failures, growth, and the opportunity to be shaped alongside some of the most incredible people I know. Proud to have shared it with my best friends from day one. Having completed my last final in ECE on Tuesday, I’m also incredibly thankful to finish these past 8 semesters with a 4.0 academic GPA in a wide variety of business management, political science, engineering, physics, and law courses. This semester, I had the opportunity to present and attend conferences and engagements including the CADCA National Leadership Forum, Academy Assembly, TFAS Annual Conference, Western Political Science Association Annual Meeting, and the UK Embassy’s Air and Space Partner Engagement Reception. I had the privilege of serving as captain of the Air Force Club Lacrosse team. As the team’s leading goal scorer and assist-maker, I was proud to help lead our team to a Rocky Mountain Lacrosse Championship alongside an incredible group of teammates and friends. Now, just two weeks remain until graduation on May 28 and the next chapter begins! I am excited to commission as a 2nd LT in the Space Force, participate in Truman Summer Institute in Washington DC over the summer, and prepare to move to London for graduate school. Grady Pennington Raj Raghulan Thomas Newell Nathan Windell

The era of "aid and dependency" could be over. That is the main message coming out of the #AfricaForwardSummit that took place this week here in Nairobi. The conversation has shifted toward something far more sustainable: sovereign equality & mutually beneficial investment. Co-hosted by President William Samoei Ruto, PhD of Kenya and President Emmanuel Macron of France, the summit announced US$27 billion worth of investments - a clear signal that the Africa-France engagement is entering a new chapter. The #BusinessForum , which convened over 1,500 CEOs, global investors, SME leaders and young entreprenuers, targeted tangible project development, trade linkages, and investment mobilization across agrifood, energy, trade and creatives. It was an honor and privilege to represent AGRA in the #Agriculture Pillar Roundtable, co-hosted by His Majesty King Letsie III of Lesotho and His Excellency President Ghazouani of Mauritania. Our conversation, covered a wide range of topics including, nutrition, soil health, blended finance, shared risk, agro industrial parks, local fertilizer production, & championing women and youth agripreneurs. The main outcome is a shared #commitment to move from dialogue to investment, anchored in the #NairobiCompact on Africa-France Agri-Food Value Chains. The most talked about topic at the summit was the New African Financial Architecture for Africas Development. Spearheaded by the African Development Bank, #NAFAD is designed to align African financial institutions, pension systems, development banks, & private capital to tap Africa’s estimated #FourTrilion dollars in long-term domestic savings for Africas development. Listening to this inevitably got me thinking about how #NAFAD could work for agrifood systems. For example, if we could eliminate Africa’s US$115 billion annual #foodimport bill by connecting food surplus zones to regional markets via #FoodCorridors ," we could keep those savings on the continent too and achieve #CAADP ’s target of tripling intra-africa trade through the #AfCFTA . The #AfricaFoodCorridors Initiative, which AGRA and partners are supporting, is already working towards this. The East Africa Upper Rift corridor alone is a US$ 25 to 32 billion opportunity, reaching 12 to 14 million farmers and creating up to 500,000 jobs. Africa has several such corridors including #Lobito & #Nacala which need the same coordinated financial firepower NAFAD is designed to mobilise. And this firepower can make African savings work for African #farmers . We can do it! AGRA is ready to partner.. come join us! Finally, in the true summit spirit of #connect and #inspire ” I had the distinct pleasure of reconnecting with many friends including Dr. Alvaro Lario ,, Kristalina Georgieva Makhtar Diop , Amina J. Mohammed , Lionel Zinsou , Sidi Ould Tah Grace Ananda & many more . Read the summit declaration here: https://lnkd.in/dyGYEZSv Onwards from Nairobi to #G7Evian ! #AfricaForward #AGRAat20

One of the most underrated tools in development programming, in my opinion, is the Portfolio Clinic. If you’ve worked with international non-profits long enough, you’ll notice that many monitoring systems are heavily focused on tracking indicators, budgets, and work plans. Important? Absolutely. But portfolio clinics go far beyond reporting. They create a space for honest conversations, reflection, problem-solving, adaptive management, and shared learning between funders, technical teams, and implementing partners. Unfortunately, portfolio clinics are sometimes misunderstood. Many partners see them as fault-finding missions or mini audits they begin to envisage the reputational damages. But that’s not what they’re meant to be. A good portfolio clinic is really about learning together and improving results together. From my experience in performance information management, portfolio clinics become especially valuable when they help answer practical learning questions that funders and investors genuinely care about, such as: • Are our interventions and investments translating into high-level outcomes for beneficiaries? • What implementation bottlenecks keep showing up across projects? • Which partners need targeted technical support and why? • Are there gaps in digitization or data systems affecting decision-making? • What innovations or lessons are worth scaling across the portfolio, and how do we track them from the beginning? What I’ve consistently observed is this: when portfolio clinics are done well, project performance usually improves naturally. You begin to see implementing partners shift from “reporting for compliance” to actually using quality data for decision-making and building a stronger data culture within their organizations. You also see greater ownership of results, not just activities. Projects become more responsive to realities on the ground, especially in rapidly changing economic landscape across Nigeria and Africa. And sometimes, the biggest value comes from what the clinics uncover: gaps in M&E systems, weak digitization roadmaps, data quality limitations, safeguard issues, financial tracking gaps, or weak outcome measurement tools. These clinic conversations then create opportunities for technical assistance, mentorship, institutional strengthening, and even stronger alignment with government and funders priorities. At the end of the day, strong projects are not built only on great proposals and funding. They are built through continuous learning, evidence-driven adaptation, and honest performance conversations among stakeholders. #MonitoringAndEvaluation #ICT4Ag #PerformanceManagement #AdaptiveManagement

There's nothing like going to the field and coming back genuinely inspired 💡 Visited Anan Dairy whilst in Hawassa, Ethiopia last week. A 300-heifer dairy operation that has quietly built one of the most thoughtfully integrated farming systems I've seen. Biogas for electricity. Slurry recycled into #organicfertiliser , all on 2 hectares. And he's not working alone, whilst using semi-autonomous and autonomous tractors handling silage, ploughing and planting alongisde local farmers brought into the feed supply chain. The whole thing is circular: the waste becomes input, inputs become output, and the community is part of the loop 🔄 . But, what struck me most wasn't just the technology. It was the look on the farm owner's face. You could just see it. The satisfaction of someone doing hard, meaningful work that actually adds up financially and ecologically. Although AGRA doesn't work directly in livestock, visits like this are a reminder of what's possible when farmers localise #regenerativeagriculture or #sustainablefarming practices on their own terms, for their own communities. This is what we're working towards. #ItIsInOurHands Alice Ruhweza Tilahun Amede Kindie Tesfaye

I often refer to this example of onions in Sierra Leone in my political economy discussions. This company used to be a powerbroker (as per Deals and Development book which is free online) by solely importing onions. 3 years later, courtesy of Covid and much smart industrial policy by the government and IFC support, it has become a ‘magician’ (an anchor firm), pioneering competitive, market led local Sierra Leonean production of onions. Many magicians can often be converted powerbrokers…particularly importers conveyed to market based local producers. Well done SL Government.

It was great to return to Malawi last week. Thank you to MwAPATA Institute , LUANAR-Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources , and National Planning Commission of Malawi for inviting me to be key note speaker in its Eminent Speaker series. Malawi has struggled with policy implementation for economic and agriculture transformation for decades, since the 1970s. Policy ambition is set, but little moves. We are all familiar with how it goes. I ran through the political economy study I had done back in 2013 with Khwima Singini . This became a chapter in the Deals and Development book by Lant Pritchett, Eric Werker and Kunal Sen, FREcon , which in turn inputted into Stefan Dercon 's Gambling on Development book. We had concluded that Malawi is stuck in a political economy trap, with the competitive clientelistic system of rents and deals meaning elites have little incentive to consistently invest in state capability, coordination and structural reforms. We had a frank discussion on this in the session, indicating that to move forward we must identify the champions of change (progressives in private sector (magicians & anchor firms), govt, banking, research, NGOs, dev partners) and support them to organise themselves around an impactful agenda. They are fragmented and isolated, losing out after 2 years of reform efforts to the status quo. It's game theory, prisoners dilemma. One key tool AGRA is support to address this is the commodity cluster approach which takes a deal specific and end-to-end value chain approach (in this case on groundnuts and soybean because they can be bigger than tobacco in terms of net exports and can move the needle on Malawi's persistent forex, debt and inflation issues) around specific sub-regions and corridors. It's not about traditional donor projects. It sets a shared vision (e.g. take soybean from 200k tonnes annual production to 1m so powerbrokers stop fighting over a tiny pie) and then is clear on their binding and major constraints (eg seed, aflatoxin, rust, farmer-offtaker mistrust (inc side selling) & powerbroker shenanigans). Finally, it brings champions at the industry level with vested, genuine interest to fix them, to be facilitated to do so, through local contextual solutions. All of this, through a market systems, industrial policy and deliverology approach. As part of my visit, we met with Centenary Bank (an anchor bank), TevAfrica (an anchor firm in gnuts), PS Industrialisation and Trade, State House, PS2 of Agric, Growth Poles. We've been here before, but learning from past mistakes & some changing dynamics, we must keep trying. There is a political window of opportunity so we must push. It's the least Malawian farmers, youth, women & the poor deserve. Eluphy B. Nyirenda, PhD Valentine Miheso Chipo Kachiwala Odd Eirik Arnesen

These are conceptual evolutions with no practical change or added value. For me the M&E include the A, the "L", the "R", etc. Using a concept depends on what an organisation wants to emphasize on. That’s it!