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Message from the Program Manager

We are delighted to share with you our esteemed reader the second issue of the Bio-Innovate Program newsletter. In this issue, we are sharing the progress in the Program implementation and the achievements made by our inno-vation partners in eastern Africa. Bio-Innovate has invested heavily on partnership as its strategy to deliver bioscience innovations to the end-users. Each of the consor-tium projects is designed carefully to include key partners that span the innovation value chain from the laboratory or experimental field to the farmers or industrial partners. We are also delighted to share our success stories and achievements from the consor-tium projects in partnerships with the private sector in the region.

We have featured one of our flagship project on ‘integrated process for sustainable agro-process waste treatment and climate change mitigation in eastern Africa’ which is producing unique innovations while providing solutions to environmental pollution and securing fresh water sources in partnership with industrial sector in the region. The outcome from this intervention will be the

Bio-Innovate Waste Management and Bioenergy Production

the state of pollution, which has also affect the ground water..

“….the discharge of domestic and industrial wastes from the town highly limits the applicabil-ity of surface water and also the quality of the groundwater in the area is deteriorated by infiltration of polluted water”.

Communities living near this river con-tinue to suffer. Health problems like skin blisters, diarrhea, gastroenteritis, urinary tract infections, and liver diseases affect both adults and children who use the water for domestic purposes. Animals too have not been spared as those that

Voices 02Bio-Innovate

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Agro-industrial wastewater treatment at Mojo Tannery

Seyoum Leta, Bio-Innovate Program Manager

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JANUARY-MARCH

2013

Developing Innovations for Integrating

in Ethiopia’s Tannery Industry

Seventy kilometers away from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, lays Mojo or Modjo as inhabitants of

this town call it. The town got its name from Modjo River that passes through this industrial town. Modjo River is a water source for many inhabitants in Ethiopia but is one of the most polluted rivers. The river whose source is from the Awash Basin is in a region that over the past years has experienced high levels of agro-industrial development. Both agriculture and industrial processes drain their agro-industrial toxic waste containing high levels of phosphates, nitrates, chromium, lead and dioxin compounds into the river. In a study done by Berehanu (2007), he describes

A polluted River Modjo

Treated wastewater

Tannery wastewa-ter (inset) before treatment.

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mentation unit shall either be precipitated due to the high pH level of the effluent and/or adsorbed by the system and thus not available to microbial actions in the anaerobic digester system and in the final treated effluent. Because the sludge from the digester effluent may contain Cr, it will not be used as fertilizer but rather recovered and landfilled while the biogas will be collected and used for cooking and later on used to generate electricity for the tannery. The treatment process will ensure the waste is fully treated and the resulting treated water safely released into the Modjo River or recycled and reused in the industrial processes.

The Forum for Environment and Devel-opment Action (ENDA), a partner NGO is currently conducting a cost benefit anal-ysis of the system and will publish their findings at the end of 2013. Once these technologies are ready, ENDA-Ethiopia and other regional NGOs will dissemi-nate the benefits of the technology to oth-er similar industries. With more industries taking up these innovations, there will be less pollution of Modjo River and many other rivers in Ethiopia.

The benefits projected from this partner-ship are both short and long-term. Short-term benefits will result in a significant reduction in pollutants disposed from the Tannery to the Modjo River. In addition, the biogas generated from the biogas digester to be used for electricity gener-ation will remarkably reduce the energy bill at the factory. Long-term benefits include the transfer and adoption of these technologies to similar industries in Ethi-opia and the region in general, leading to a significant reduction in pollution levels and greenhouse gases emitted throughout the country and the region as a whole.

transfer and adoption of the innovations to similar agro-processing industries in the region leading to a significant reduction in environmental pollution levels and mitigation of greenhouse gas emission.

The Program also recognizes the strengths of the different actors along the innovation pathway and is working to leverage on these strengths to deliver innovations to the market place. Through its innovation policy project, the Program is providing policy support, which is necessary to move research ideas and products to the market,

and ultimately lead to a vibrant bio-economy in eastern Africa.

To increase efficiency and relevance of the Program implementation, Bio-Innovate has in place an effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) strategy, based on the results-based management; that is participatory and involves all the partners in a consortium right from the beginning in developing an effective M&E system. This approach has helped the teams and the Program to think deeper and beyond outputs and design outcome indicators as a means of tracking progress.

The regional scientific conference scheduled for 25-27 February 2013 at the United Nations Conference Centre-Economic Commission for Africa (UNCC-ECA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia will provide Bio-Innovate project implementing partners and collaborators an opportunity to share their innovation activities and achievements to date and foster closer regional cooperation among biosciences innovations actors through information and experience sharing. This will strengthen regional biosciences networks within and beyond the eastern Africa region.

From previous pageMessage from the Program Manager

water treatment, biogas production and reuse of treated water. Addis Ababa Uni-versity has installed a pilot level integrat-ed anaerobic-aerobic sequencing batch reactor (SBR) and constructed a wetland system for tannery wastewater treatment and biogas production at Modjo Tannery. Treated effluents from the biological pro-cesses will be treated in the constructed wetland (CW) systems before discharging into the environment or recycling by the industries. The team is also investigat-ing the removal of chromium (Cr) from the enriched slurry that will result from this process and find use for it. To avoid toxicity of Cr on biological systems in the biogas digester, a segregation system installed at Modjo Tannery that separates chromium rich effluent from the rest of tannery effluent will be used to deliver Cr-free effluent into a sedimentation unit located upstream of the anaerobic digest-er. Chromium that might reach the sedi-

drink from the river have suffered loss of hair and sometimes become crippled and even died. Any farming done using water from the river produces food crops con-taining high levels of toxic compounds further compounding the problem. With this level of pollution, Modjo River in the near future will be an environmental catastrophe.

Project 5 on ‘integrated process for sustainable agro-process waste treatment and climate change mitigation in eastern Africa’ is a consortium under the Bio-In-novate Program working with the private sector in developing innovative solutions to agro-industrial wastewater problems. Addis Ababa University (AAU-Ethiopia), a partner in project 5, is working with Mod-jo Tannery Share Company to manage the Tannery’s 122,700m3 of wastewater generated annually by developing an integrated process that combines waste-

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Constructed wetland at the Modjo Tannery at Modjo

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Bio-Innovate has adopted this concept in conducting its capacity building activities. The Program is supporting both MSc and PhD students whose outputs are directly linked to specific project activities. Scientists are sent out for short-term attachments to special-ized laboratories outside their countries to acquire specific skills required in delivering particular project compo-nents. This ensures that the scientist acquire skills but at the same time generates data that contributes to the development of innovations and execu-tion of a project. It also counters the ever-increasing brain drain, satisfying the skills versus competency gaps, and equipping scientists from developing countries with the requisite skills to provide solutions to the continent’s development challenges.

One such capacity building initia-tive involves the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) Nairobi, a partner in project consortium 1 ‘delivering new sorghum and finger millet innova-tions for food security and improving livelihoods in eastern Africa’. ICRISAT hosted three students from Ethiopia (Dagnachew Lule, PhD student), Tanza-

nia, (Ismail Mohamed, MSc) and Uganda (Isaac Dramadri, MSc) in March-June in 2012. The students received hands on skills on DNA extraction; Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) genotyping using 20 simple sequence repeats (SSR) mark-ers and allele scoring as well as data analysis for sorghum varieties diversity assessment for project 1. The students further authored publications on finger millet genetic diversity for their respective countries.

The three students also participated in a two-week training course on “the application of molecular markers in crop improvement” from 29 May to 6 June 2012 organized by the CAPACITATE East Africa project and conducted by ICRISAT at the Biosciences eastern and central Africa-International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI) Hub in Nairobi. The course was a plus for the students for it complemented the experience gained during the three months with extensive theoretical and practical training on all aspects of the application of molecu-lar markers in crop improvement. The students are now sufficiently equipped to use this technology within their own insti-tutions in their home countries as well as support research activities in the region.

They were also able to establish strong collaborative ties within the Bio-Innovate project, which should facilitate future re-gional collaborations, within and beyond the Bio-Innovate projects.

Santie Devilliers a scientist with ICRI-SAT-Nairobi and a co-principal investiga-tor in project 1 supervised these students. “Training these regional scientists in ICRI-SAT’s laboratories, provided them with international standard training in research methodologies an DNA extraction and re-lated technologies. I believe that this type of training that also supported interaction amongst scientists from different coun-tries and institutions lays the foundation for enhanced scientific networking and research capacity for future regional col-laborations,” Santie articulated.

For eastern Africa countries to transform into bio-economies, it would require collaborative capacity building efforts to create a critical mass of scientists in the field of biosciences. However, for these capacity building initiatives to be

effective, they must be linked to the development of particular innovations address-ing specific problems. This ensures impact and relevance of the capacity building programs to institutions and the region in general.

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From left is Santie Devilliers from ICRISAT-Nairobi with the three students Dagnachew Lule (Ethiopian), Ismail Mohamed (Tanzanian) and Isaac Dramadri (Ugandan) with Seyoum Leta, Bio-Innovate Program Manager discussing the progress of their training at BecA-Hub

Ismail Mohamed loading DNA on gel at the BecA-Hub lab.

to Product Development Linking Capacity Building Activities

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Continuous and Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation is Key to Successful Project Implementation

Another beneficiary of the capacity building activities within the Program was Adey Desta, a PhD student from Addis Ababa University (AAU-Ethiopia). Adey was at BecA-ILRI Hub from February to May, 2012. Her research focused on the use of DNA based techniques in investi-gating microorganisms useful in the treatment of agro-in-dustrial wastewater at Modjo Tannery under project 5 on ‘integrated process for sustainable agro-process waste treatment and climate change mitigation in eastern Afri-ca’. In her research, she has identified the presence of 31

bacterial phylotypes in the anaerobic and aerobic reactors and the constructed wetland system at the Modo Tannery. These microorganisms have been associated with the re-moval of organics, nutrients (N and P), sulphide and deg-radation of aromatic compounds found in the tannery’s wastewater. These findings will help the project design strategies that will harness these microbial communities to optimize and efficiently remove the pollutants in the wastewater before being release into the Modjo River.

While it is well known that the logical framework matrix commonly known

as log frames, are among the most effective monitoring and evaluation tools, the way they are designed and implemented have a bearing on how effective they will be. Bio-Innovate has adopted a partic-ipatory approach that involves all the partners in a consortium right from the beginning in develop-ing and fine-tuning the log frame throughout the project cycle. The teams have also been facilitated in transforming their log frames to

reflect the results-based manage-ment approach whose focus is on results and outcomes as opposed to outputs. This approach has tasked the Program and the project teams to think deeper and beyond outputs and design outcome indicators and forms of verification as a means of tracking progress.

The lead scientists at the different partner implementing institutions provide the first line of monitor-ing support. Consortium principal investigators (PI) then support these lead scientists and provide the second level of monitoring and

overall coordination responsibility that includes making field trips to monitor activities on the ground and convening two planning and review meeting each year for the consortium team members to assess progress. This constitutes of the internal M&E component. The Pro-gram Management Office (PMO) in conjunction with Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) provides the third tier of monitoring and review, constitutes of the external component.

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Between May and October 2012, the PMO in conjunction with the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC)

participated in the monitoring and review of projects to assess progress made during the first year of implementation. This in-volved listening to technical presentations of all the partnering institutions within a consortium followed by a field visit to view progress of activities on the ground. This first review exercise was an eye opener on the progress made thus far and the chal-lenges encountered. Some of the lessons learnt are:

(a) Project initiation bottlenecks

The projects have made commendable progress in achieving results during their first year of implementation. However, it was apparent that the Program underestimated the initial project set up period for the consortia that included institutional signing of contractual documents, setting up requisite administrative systems and conduction of first inception and planning meetings. This period varied from 2-4 months depending on the institution and consequently delayed project activities.

(b) Addressing Procurement

Challenges at Public Institutions

Procurement of equipment, chemicals, and reagents has proven to be the biggest impediment for timely execution of project activities. The cumbersome and bureaucratic procurement processes at the implementing partner institutions has significantly affected project timelines across the board. This was a common problem in many public institutions in the region where procurement of equipment can take up to six months before delivery. This would not work for short-term projects. In addition, the rate of fund utilization for the first year for projects procuring heavy equipment was below expectation simply because these funds have been tied up in procurement processes.

To address the procurement issue, Bio-Innovate has instituted a system that is geared at circumventing these cumber-some processes. The Program has started

making international purchases on behalf of the implementing partner institutions. All the partners need to do is furnish the PMO with an official request, the exact specifications of the items and the name of a credible international supplier. The supplier then invoices the PMO who in turn makes the payment directly on behalf of the partner with the items being shipped directly to the partner institution. Bio-Innovate has also entered into an agreement with Sigma-Aldrich to make bulk purchases of chemicals and reagents and stock them in the region, which will drastically cut down on delivery down time and ensure quality reagents at favor-able prices.

(c) Consortium coordination challenges

The multidisciplinary partner arrangement that Bio-Innovate has adopted requires a very dynamic and proactive principal investigator (PI) to coordinate consortium activities effectively. The PMO works closely with the PI who in addition to coordinating the consortium’s activities is required to send consolidated annu-al reports twice a year on behalf of the consortium partners to the PMO. This is

proving to be a challenge to some of the PIs who also have component activities to deliver. The project budget has a coor-dination budget line, which the PMO is encouraging the PIs to activate to recruit a project coordination staff to assist in the coordination responsibility. In instances where this has been done, results have been evidently better.

(d) Funds disbursement and accountability issues

The Program disbursement system requires that the projects submit activity plans and corresponding budget twice a year for action. Disbursements are only made when the previous funds have been exhaustively retired. With such a varied group of partners with different systems and approaches to financial management, there have been difficulties experienced by the Program in supervising project funds management despite a manual developed and send to the institutions to guide them. The Program has had to train financial managers at the implementing institutions to ensure compliance and further make visits to these institutions during the M&E sessions to provide extra support.

from the Monitoring & Review 2012

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Project consortium members listen attentively during the monitoring and evaluation meeting at Eldoret on August 2012.

Lessons learnt

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Bio-Innovate has invested heavily on partnership as its strategy to deliver bioscience and bio-resource

innovations to the end user. Each of the consortium projects is carefully designed to include key partners that span the innovation value chain from the laboratory or experimental field to the farmers or industrial partners. A consortium will typically be composed of a team of scientists, private sector player, NGOs working with farmers, and other development practitioners depending on the nature of the project. In addition, Bio-Innovate is also collaborating with policy makers in the region recognizing the critical importance of an enabling policy environment that supports the uptake and adoption of innovations in the region.

The Program recognizes the strengths of the different actors along the innovation pathway and is trying to leverage on these strengths to deliver innovations to the market place. Through these partnerships, there will be transfer of technologies to small and medium enterprises operating in the region and smallholder farmers. The Program

strongly believes that this is a workable and productive formula if carefully and effectively executed.

However, working with such a heterogeneous group is fraught with numerous challenges simply because of the nature of the partners involved and the starkly different ways in which they operate. The Program has to carefully balance the interests and mode of operation of these different partners to ensure smooth and synergistic functioning of the consortium working towards a common goal. On one hand, you will have a team of scientists drawn from different research institutes and universities coming up with the innovative ideas to solve a specific problem and who derive satisfaction

in generating new knowledge. On the other hand, you have industrial partners whose modus operandi is very different and who are more interested in practical quick answers leading to a product or solution and make a profit in the process. These widely varying interests have to be balanced to deliver results.

Bio-Innovate is addressing this challenge by first having all partners commit to the course through contracts at the inception of the projects. The program has also developed a manual that covers all aspects of the project implementation process that all project partners are required to abide by. In addition, these partners are actively involved in in the project implementation from inception to the end to participate in shaping of project activities to ensure the innovations developed are relevant and market friendly and in a form that can easily be adopted. Each of these partners including the private sector has a clear role and activity plan to deliver on, with a corresponding budget and is required to participate in all annul planning and review meetings coordinated by the PI and monitoring and evaluation exercise conducted by the Program.

Creating Effective Partnerships Along the Innovation Value Chain is Key to Delivering innovations to the end users

Each of the consortium projects is

carefully designed to include key partners

that span the innovation value chain from

the laboratory or experimental field to the

farmers or industrial partners.

Adolf Olomi, CEO of Banana Investments Limited (foreground in spectacles) explains to Program Management Team and project 5 members his challenges in managing agro-industrial waste emanating from his factory in Tanzania.

Albert Mwangi/Bio-Innovate

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1Improved Seed Systems of Appropriate Varieties of Cassava, Potato, and Sweet potato Resilient

to Climate Change in Eastern Africa

Project 2 scientists are working with BIOCROPS (U) Ltd to scale up the production and multiplication of clean sweet potato planting material in Uganda. The scientists provide pathogen free sweet potato plants/cuttings to the BIOCROPS (U) Ltd who will in turn commercially produce clean vines that are especially useful for the initial multiplication of disease-free material of existing varieties and newly bred clones. International Potato Centre and HarvestPlus, an international NGO then deliver the multiplied volumes of clean vines to farmers through farmer groups.

2Value Added Bean Technologies for Enhancing Food Security, Nutrition, Income

and Resilience to Cope with Climate Change and Variability Challenges in Eastern Africa

Scientists in this consortium are developing bean varieties that have superior canning properties preferred by the industry and that are resilient to drought and diseases. The consortium is working with Trufoods (K) Ltd in conducting tests on industrial processing of selected market preferred canning

beans from their breeding activities and linking canning beans growers to the processors via contract farming. Trufoods is therefore the fulcrum in the bean innovation platform linking the various actors including retailers, wholesalers, supermarkets, hotels, and financial institutions with the research teams.

3Use of Biosciences for Value Addition and Di-versification to Enhance Commercialization of

Sorghum and Millet Products in eastern Africa

The challenge in promoting sorghum and millet, two important traditional crops in securing food security in the region due to their ability to withstand semi-arid conditions and relatively low input requirement, has been the lack of a ready market for these grains.

Examples of Bio-Innovate

partnershipsThis can change dramatically if value added products can be produced to diversify the use of these grains. Scientists in this consortium are currently working with Lisha products Ltd in Uganda to produce and market malt drinks and extruded snacks among other products from sorghum and millet. Lisha products will provide market information to advise on product and technology development, take part in the product and process development process, and eventually commercialize the products.

4Integrated process for sustainable agro- process waste treatment and climate

change mitigation in eastern Africa

The project’s objective is to integrate agro-industrial wastewater treatment with the production of biogas and bio-fertilizer for enhanced industrial agro-processing and agricultural productivity in the region. The consortium is working with Banana Investment Limited (BIL) in Tanzania, a company producing wine from banana, to install and operationalize a full-scale integrated system with an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor to treat the effluent combined with a constructed wetland, sludge management, and an irrigation system. A cost-benefit analysis of the integrated wastewater treatment and resource reuse system will be conducted by 2014. Banana Investment limited has invested $USD150,000 of its funds into the project.

Ssetumba Mukasa takes the Program Management Team (PMT) through the Biocrop facilities in Uganda

Banana Investments Limited has provided USD $150,000 as matching funds to Project 5

One of the sorghum fortified products from Peak Value Limited a private sector partner in project 6

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Bio-Innovate Program will organize the first regional scientific conference at the United Nations Conference Centre – Economic Commis-sion for Africa in Addis Aba-ba. The conference will begin with an official opening cere-mony that includes key note guest speakers on the topic “bio-economy and translating bioscience innovations into socio-economic develop-ment” with experiences from South Africa, Europe and Brazil and a panel discus-sion, and interactive session thereafter. The second day will be dedicated to scientific presentations with parallel technical and poster sessions covering “Crop Productivity

Improvement and Climate Change Adaptation” and “Waste Management, Inno-vation Incubation and Value addition, Innovation Policy Analysis”. A total of 35 oral presentations and 22 posters will be made. The third day will be an engaging interac-tive session where partici-pants will attempt to distill and identify action points on how to create and sustain an enabling environment in the region to support the uptake and adopting of Bio-Innovate innovations. Participants will also have an opportunity to visit one of our industrial private sector partners, Mod-jo Tannery, Modjo after the conference.

Upcoming events

www.bioinnovate-africa.org

The Bio-Innovate Voices is a quarterly publication of the Bio-Innovate Program Management OfficeP.O. Box 30709-00100, Nairobi, Kenyaemail: S.leta@cgiar.org ; Tel : +254 (0)20 422 0000; Fax: +254 (0)20 422 3001Editors: Albert Mwangi, Allan Liavoga and Seyoum LetaDesign & Layout: Conrad Mudibo, Ecomedia

5 The purpose of the consortium on ‘Bio-enhanced Seeds and Seedlings for Eastern Africa’ is to develop bio-en-hanced seeds and seedlings within a re-

gional, commercial setting to reduce the impact of biotic and abiotic production constraints in crops, for the ultimate benefit of resource-poor farmers, while at the same time reducing the amount of pesticides used in agriculture to safe guard the environment and the operators.

Scientists from this consortium are working with Real IPM Ltd and Alpha seed Ltd companies to develop and test bio-en-hanced seed technologies and commercialize bio-enhanced seeds for maize, tomato, and eggplants. Real IPM specializes in developing and marketing bio-control technologies and is an agent for the registration of bio-pesticides in Kenya. Alpha seed is a seed company specializing in producing and marketing of seed in eastern Africa.

6Bio-Innovate Program has partnered with the key science and technology pol-icy making bodies in the region including the directorate of science, technology

and research, Rwanda, Kenya National Council of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ethiopia, Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology and Uganda Na-tional Council for Science and Technology.

This consortium on ‘Biosciences Innovation Policy Analysis for Eastern Africa’ aims to provide policy support services necessary to move research ideas and products to the market, and ulti-mately lead to a vibrant bio-economy in Eastern Africa. More specifically, the team will identify and try to resolve bottlenecks that might impede the diffusion and adoption of innovations developed by the Program.

PARTNERS

1st Bio-Innovate Regional Scientific Conference, 25-27 March 2013

Mid-Term Review - 19 February to 31 March 2013Bio-Innovate is planning a Mid-Term Review (MTR) to measure and report on performance to date of the Program and supported projects in meeting set objectives and milestones, and recommend adjustments where necessary to ensure successful implementation and sustainability of the Program. The MTR is intended to interrogate the progress, achievements and challenges encountered thus far with reference to

the original stated objectives for both the Program and supported projects, and the extent to which the Program is fulfilling its mandate and delivery of expected results. The lessons drawn from the MTR are intended to inform implementation of the Program in the remaining period and beyond. The process beginning in mid-February is expected to take six weeks to be completed end of March 2013.