FINAL REPORT

Preparing the Next Generation of Agricultural Entrepreneurs in Mali: A Capacity-Building Partnership between Michigan State University and the

University of Mali’s Faculty of Agriculture (IPR/IFRA)

Project Duration: April 2003 – December 2005

Report Date: February 2006

Report prepared by John Staatz (staatz@msu.edu) and

Brent Simpson (bsimpson@msu.edu) with contributions from Sue Nichols

IPR/IFRA students greeting dignitaries at the inauguration of the school’s VSAT high-speed Internet service, December, 2005.

i

Basic Information on the Partnership Partnership Title: Preparing the Next Generation of Agricultural Entrepreneurs in Mali: A Capacity-Building Partnership between Michigan State University and the University of Mali’s Faculty of Agriculture (IPR/IFRA) Development Field/Sector: Agriculture Lead U.S. Institution(s): Michigan State University Host Country: Mali Lead Host Country Partner Institution: Institut Polytechnique Rural et de Recherche Appliquée (IPR/IFRA) U.S. Partnership Director(s): John Staatz (staatz@msu.edu) and Dan Clay (clay@msu.edu) Host Country Partnership Directors: Fafré Samaké (samfafre@yahoo.fr), Mamoudou Seydou Traoré (mamoudoutraore@yahoo.fr), and Mamadou Moussa Diarra (madoumdiarra@yahoo.fr) Partnership project dates: 3/1/2003 – 12/31/2005 ALO funding: $127,994 MSU Cost Share: $76,647 Value of Other Leveraged Resources: $328,000 (Does not include substantial value of MSU faculty time counted in MSU cost share) Partnership Web Site: http://www.msu.edu/user/staatz/university_of_mali/index.htm

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ………………………………………………………………...…..1

1 PARTNERSHIP OBJECTIVES…………………………………………………..……3 1.1 THE PARTNERS ................................................................................................................... 3 1.2 THE PROGRAM.................................................................................................................... 4

2 DEVELOPMENT OUTCOMES………………………………………………………..4 2.1 A STRONG FOUNDATION OF IPR/IFRA-MSU FACULTY COLLABORATION ........................ 5

2.1.1 Faculty Exchanges ...................................................................................................... 5 2.1.2 Development of Joint Research Proposals ................................................................. 6

2.2 STRENGTHENED STAKEHOLDER RELATIONSHIPS AND CREATION OF NEW PARTNERSHIPS FOR IPR/IFRA.................................................................................................................... 6 2.3 LARGER ENROLLMENTS IN THE BAC+2 PROGRAM .......................................................... 10 2.4 ENHANCED LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES............................................................................ 11

2.4.1 Development of New Curriculum and Teaching Approaches................................... 11 2.4.2 Creation of Internships ............................................................................................. 12

2.5 STRENGTHENED IPR/IFRA FACULTY AND MANAGEMENT SKILLS................................... 12 2.5.1 English Language Training ...................................................................................... 12 2.5.2 Strategic Planning .................................................................................................... 13

2.6 BENEFITS TO MSU ........................................................................................................... 13

3 REMAINING CHALLENGES AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES…………………14 3.1 CHALLENGES SPECIFIC TO THE BAC+2 PROGRAM........................................................... 14

3.1.1 Insufficient Demand for Certain Specializations...................................................... 14 3.1.2 Lack of Adequate Complementary Resources to Move from a Curriculum to a Full Program .................................................................................................................... 15 3.1.3 Targeting of High-School Graduates........................................................................ 15 3.1.4 Weak Training in Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship............................................. 16

3.2 CHALLENGES INHERENT IN AGRICULTURAL HIGHER EDUCATION IN MALI ...................... 17 3.2.1 Separation of Responsibilities across Ministries...................................................... 17 3.2.2 Little Entrepreneurial Tradition ............................................................................... 17 3.2.3 Politicization of Higher Education ........................................................................... 18 3.2.4 Need to Invest in Developing a New Generation of Faculty Members..................... 19

3.3 FUTURE PERSPECTIVES..................................................................................................... 19

4 PROMOTING THE PARTNERSHIP (MEDIA COVERAGE)…………………….20

ANNEX 1: QUANTITATIVE INDICATORS OF PROJECT IMPACT………………….21

ANNEX 2: IPR/IFRA STAKEHOLDERS…………………………………………………...22

1

Executive Summary In March 2003, ALO (now HED) awarded funding for a partnership between Michigan State University (MSU) and Mali’s only university-level institute of higher education in agriculture and natural resources, the Institut Polytechnique Rural et de Recherche Appliquée de Katibougou (IPR/IFRA). The partnership aimed to strengthen IPR/IFRA’s "BAC+2," a post-high-school, two-year program in agricultural technology.1 BAC+2 is designed to educate a new generation of Malian farmers and agro-entrepreneurs to be scientifically trained and attuned to a market economy. The Partnership “twinned” the BAC+2 program with a similar MSU two-year agricultural program, the Institute of Agricultural Technology (IAT). MSU has a history of over 100 years of offering applied agricultural technology programs similar to the BAC+2 through IAT and its predecessors. Through faculty exchanges and collaborative work on curriculum and recruiting and funding strategies, faculty at the two schools worked to improve the effectiveness of the BAC+2 and its attractiveness to potential students. As it evolved, the partnership had much broader impacts than just the BAC+2 program. It also strengthened linkages between IPR/IFRA, NGOs, donor organizations, and the private sector, generating support for the BAC+2 program and the entire school, and opening internship opportunities for students. The Partnership enhanced curriculum and extra-curricular learning opportunities, strengthened the management skills of the IPR/IFRA staff, and established an agenda of, and generated support for, applied research that will buttress the BAC+2 and other teaching programs of the school. More broadly, the project helped IPR/IFRA develop stronger links with a wide range of stakeholders and with the collaborators around the world. It thereby bolstered the school’s ability to contribute to economic and social development in Mali and throughout West Africa through (a) producing skilled graduates attuned to the needs of the labor market and (b) conducting more effective research targeted to the pressing needs of Mali’s farmers, consumers, and agro-entrepreneurs. Key achievements of the Partnership include the following: • Enrollments in the BAC+2 program nearly doubled, from 115 students in 2003/04 to 206

in 2005/06. • The partners created a BAC+2 Advisory Board, made up of external stakeholders, to

provide ongoing feedback on the program and build broader external “ownership” of the program and the school. A key member of the advisory board is the Malian Agency for Youth Employment, which is partnering with IPR/IFRA to strengthen the BAC+2 program as a way of creating productive jobs for Mali’s young people.

• IPR/IFRA developed a BAC+2 marketing plan that targeted not only potential students, but also their parents and potential employers.

• The work with MSU markedly improved teaching methods at IPR/IFRA, including introduction of more active learning approaches and greater use of audio-visual tools (e.g., LCD projector, digital photos; PowerPoints) and new subject matter material that IPR/IFRA faculty members obtained during visits to MSU;

1 BAC refers to the high-school baccalaureate degree.

2

• The Partnership greatly strengthened relations between IPR/IFRA and USAID/Mali. As a consequence, in 2005 USAID/Mali financed the installation of a VSAT (satellite) high-speed Internet connection to IPR/IFRA, giving the school its first reliable Internet connection. This connectivity is revolutionizing teaching and research at the school and greatly expanding the possibilities for international collaboration. USAID/Mali has also provided 10 computers to the IPR/IFRA biotechnology laboratory.

• The Partnership helped build collaborative relationships between IPR/IFRA and other major development efforts in Mali, including Schaffer International’s huge new sugar project, the USAID-funded PRODEPAM agricultural intensification project, and the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC). These relationships have led to the commitment by these organizations to create 20 new internships annually for IPR/IFRA students and PRODEPAM’s investment of $20,000 in IPR/IFRA’s tissue culture lab.

• The Partnership helped broker contacts between IPR/IFRA and a number of other organizations (e.g., FAO, Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the USAID-funded Program for Biosafety Systems) that have expressed interest in exploring potential collaborative arrangements with the school.

• The project provided support for English language training to IPR/IFRA faculty members, which is facilitating their ability to develop collaborative projects with MSU and other colleagues around the world.

• As a result of contacts developed through the Partnership, MSU Philosophy Professor Steve Esquith developed MSU’s first study abroad program to Mali (focused on Ethics and Development) and is currently spending the 2005/06 academic year at IPR/IFRA as a Fulbright Fellow, where he is teaching a course on Research Ethics.

• Faculty research collaboration established through the project led to the award of two USDA awards to MSU to continue joint work with IPR/IFRA. One grant finances collaborative research on improved animal nutrition in Mali. The second will finance graduate study at MSU by two US minority graduate students interested in careers international agricultural development and who will carry out their doctoral research in Mali with IPR/IFRA colleagues.

Despite the progress, challenges remain for the BAC+2 program. Enrollments are very uneven across the different specializations within the program; consequently, IPR/IFRA needs to consider reconfiguring its offerings. The program has proved more popular among professionals than with those just leaving high-school, as many of the latter do not yet see agriculture and the food system as “modern” employment opportunities. Thus, marketing of the program still needs to be improved to attract this group of students. The low level of IPR/IFRA’s operating budgets also limits the school’s the ability to adopt all the active-learning, field-experiences (including funds for internship supervision), and job-placement and follow-up that would make the program truly a target destination for large numbers of Malian high-school graduates. IPR/IFRA and MSU believe, however, that the ALO/HED Partnership has laid the foundation for attracting additional resources to the school that will allow it to reap the full potential of the BAC+2 program.

3

1 Partnership Objectives In March 2003, ALO awarded funding for a partnership between Michigan State University and Mali’s only university-level institute of higher education in agriculture and natural resources, the Institut Polytechnique Rural et de Recherche Appliquée de Katibougou (IPR/IFRA). The partnership aimed to strengthen IPR/IFRA’s "BAC+2," a post-high-school, two-year program in agricultural technology. BAC+2 is designed to educate a new generation of Malian farmers and agro-entrepreneurs to be scientifically trained and attuned to a market economy.

1.1 The Partners Michigan State University (MSU) is unique among US universities in its breadth of capacity building programs in francophone Africa. In particular, MSU faculty members have a long history of involvement in development activities in Mali and are presently engaged in a number of important development programs in the country (particularly through the USAID-supported Food Security III Cooperative Agreement). In addition, MSU has a history of over 100 years of offering applied agricultural technology programs similar to the BAC+2 through MSU’s Institute of Agricultural Technology.

IPR/IFRA is one of the oldest centers of professional agricultural training in West Africa. Originally founded as an agricultural research station in 1897, it became an agricultural training center in 1902. It has served as a regional training center for professional agriculturalists from across Francophone Africa since that time, with currently more than 10 nationalities represented in the student body. In 1996 it became part of the newly created University of Mali (since renamed the University of Bamako), which brought together several existing institutes and colleges within a single university structure. IPR/IFRA is located on a 380 ha campus, including a teaching farm, in the village of Katibougou, 70 km from Bamako. The school also has an annex in Bamako, which focuses on teaching animal production. The school offers 3 academic programs: a 2-year agricultural technology certificate program (BAC+2), a 4-year program in Extension education, and a 5-year agricultural sciences (ingénieur agronome) degree. The school also has a continuing education center that offers short courses and specialized training.

Agriculture Hall, Michigan State University & the Administration Building of IPR/IFRA

4

1.2 The Program The overall objective of this higher education partnership between MSU and IPR/IFRA has been to strengthen IPR/IFRA’s post-high school two-year program in agricultural technology (“BAC +2”). Although IPR/IFRA had offered a two-year certificate program for many years, until 1998 the two-year program was oriented largely towards training government extension agents. Mali’s economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, however, greatly reduced the demand for government employees but at the same time created new demands for well-trained agriculturalists who knew how to operate in a market economy. IPR/IFRA, after studying these changes in the labor market, redesigned its 2-year program in 1998 to respond to this new market demand. The goal of the redesigned BAC+2 program is to educate a new generation of Malian farmers and agro-entrepreneurs, scientifically trained and attuned to a market economy. This is a high priority in Mali given the country’s persistent problems of youth under-employment and the nation’s strategy of making agriculture the engine of broad-based economic growth. In spite of the changes in the program, enrollments in the redesigned BAC+2 program initially fell far short of expectations. IPR/IFRA and MSU therefore proposed the partnership to ALO in order to re-examine the program and work together to modify it in a way that helped it sustainably achieve its objectives. The collaboration between MSU and IPR/IFRA has strengthened linkages between IPR/IFRA, key government agencies, the private sector, and civil society in building support for the program and creating internship opportunities; enhanced curricular and extra-curricular learning opportunities for students; strengthened the management skills of the IPR/IFRA staff; and established an agenda of applied, collaborative research between IPR/IFRA and MSU faculty that will support the evolution of the BAC +2 program in preparing a growing number of students for successful careers in agriculture-based professions. The Partnership initially “twinned” IPR/IFRA’s BAC+2 program with MSU’s 2-year post-high-school Agricultural Technology (Ag. Tech.) program, which has similar objectives and which has existed for over 100 years. The number of MSU academic units involved in the work with IPR/IFRA has broadened as the Partnership matured. 2 Development Outcomes The Partnership has strengthened the BAC+2 program and IPR/IFRA more broadly in five major ways. The Partnership: (a) built a strong foundation of collaboration between IPR/IFRA and MSU faculty that served as a critical input into strengthening the BAC+2 program and provides the basis for collaborative efforts that are continuing beyond the current ALO funding, (b) strengthened IPR/IFRA’s relations with its various stakeholders and brokered new partnerships for the school, which will be critical to the growth and improvement of its programs (c) helped to nearly double the enrollment in the BAC+2 program, (d) enhanced learning opportunities for BAC+2 students, and (e) strengthened the skills of IPR/IFRA faculty and management in key areas. The Partnership had several very important benefits for MSU as well, which are also discussed below.

5

2.1 A Strong Foundation of IPR/IFRA-MSU Faculty Collaboration Strong, collegial collaboration between faculty members of the two schools is the foundation upon which all other Partnership achievements are based. The level of collaboration and personal friendship that developed during the Partnership was extraordinary, building on the openness and welcoming nature of the cultures of both Mali and the American Midwest. The building blocks of this collaboration were faculty exchanges and the subsequent design of joint research proposals.

2.1.1 Faculty Exchanges The partnership supported 5 visits of IPR/IFRA faculty to MSU (including two month-long visits by Boubacar Dembélé and Paul Sanogo to work with and “shadow” MSU’s Agricultural Technology Program) and 17 visits of MSU faculty to IPR.2 Prior to the launching of the Partnership, USAID/Mali had supported an initial visit of 6 IPR/IFRA faculty members (the Director, all Department heads, and the head of the Biotechnology lab) to MSU in 2001; hence, the partners agreed to focus more of the exchange effort at bringing MSU faculty to Mali. These exchanges were critical in (a) helping the partners to understand each others’ two-year teaching programs and the contexts in which they are implemented—information critical to determining what lessons could be learned from the MSU program for the BAC+2; (b) permitting MSU faculty members to participate in key stakeholder discussions on the redesign of the BAC+2; and (c) fostering the development of joint research proposals that would help undergird the IPR/IFRA teaching program. As part of the faculty exchanges, IPR/IFRA Deputy Director and Director of Academic Programs Mamoudou Traoré visited MSU twice, in 2003 and 2004. On both occasions, he also attended the ALO Synergy Conference in Washington, DC. Information he gained at the ALO conferences on other ALO programs provided valuable input into redesign of the BAC+2 program. In addition, he used the visits to Washington to make valuable contacts with 2 Many of the visits to Mali by MSU faculty were co-financed by other projects or, in one instance, entirely paid for by MSU’s own resources. This co-financing leveraged the Partnership’s resources, allowing a large number of MSU-faculty to participate in the project. MSU participants in the Partnership came from a broad range of units,, including Agricultural Economics, Animal Science, Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, Crop and Soil Sciences, Forestry, Horticulture, Institute of Agricultural Technology, Institute of International Agriculture, Office of International Development, and Philosophy.

Professor Russ Freed of MSU’s Department of Crop and Soil Sciences with IPR/IFRA colleagues during the May 2003 workshop on the redesign of the BAC+2 program

6

USAID/Washington officials, a BIFAD team that was carrying out a study of agricultural training needs in Mali, and organizations such as the Partnership to Cut Hunger in Africa involved in food policy reform efforts in Mali.

2.1.2 Development of Joint Research Proposals The faculty exchanges supported by the Partnership have been instrumental in helping faculty members from the two schools to get to know each other’s teaching and research programs and develop proposals for collaborative research to undergird the BAC+2 program. For example, the 9 MSU faculty members who attended the May 2003 workshop in Katibougou on the redesign of the BAC+2 program also spent two days meeting with IPR/IFRA colleagues to discuss possible joint research. Mary Anne Walker of MSU’s Office of International Development visited the IPR/IFRA campus and presented a one-day seminar to IPR/IFRA faculty on designing effective research proposals for external funding. Follow-up visits by MSU staff to Mali and IPR/IFRA staff to MSU combined discussions of ways of strengthening the BAC+2 program with discussions of possibilities for joint research. Immediately following the initial visit by MSU faculty to the IRP/IFRA campus at the start of the Partnership, IPR/IFRA faculty involved in the BAC+2 program forwarded to MSU a set of revised research concept notes. Subsequent discussions led to the submission of several research proposals, two of which have been funded through the USDA International Science and Education and National Needs Fellowship programs for a total of $328,000. Other proposals are under discussion in the areas of horticulture development and biofuel generation.

2.2 Strengthened Stakeholder Relationships and Creation of New Partnerships for IPR/IFRA

Perhaps the Partnership’s greatest long-term impacts came through its helping IPR/IFRA to strengthen its links with various stakeholders and develop additional new partnerships with a wide range of development organizations. These stronger links will be critical to the future successes of IPR/IFRA’s programs. The initial impetus for the Partnership’s emphasis on

MSU Professor of Animal Science Mel Yokoyama and IPR/IFRA faculty member Boubacar Dembélé discussing plans for joint research. Under the Partnership, Yokoyama and Dembélé developed a research proposal that USDA has funded for $100,000 to support collaborative research between MSU, IPR/IFRA, and the International Livestock Research Center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on animal nutrition in Mali.

7

strengthening stakeholder relations grew out of the first workshop organized soon after the Partnership’s creation. In May, 2003, IPR/IFRA hosted a stakeholder workshop that brought together IPR/IFRA faculty, 9 MSU faculty members, and representatives of 25 Malian educational, governmental and civil society stakeholder groups to review the structure and past performance of the BAC+2 program. (See the Annex for the list of Malian stakeholder organizations that participated.) Based on the discussions, the workshop participants suggested changes in the program in the areas of curriculum, internships, placement, and alumni and employer support. One of the clearest messages that emerged from the workshop was the need for IPR/IFRA to develop tools, such as an external advisory committee, to provide ongoing stakeholder input into its program and to build a stronger external constituency for the school. The workshop particularly stressed the need to include potential employers of IPR/IFRA graduates on the advisory committee to assure that the content of the program responded to the evolving needs of the job market.

In response to these recommendations, IPR/IFRA organized a second stakeholder workshop in August 2003 that developed bylaws for creation of BAC+2 external advisory panel and identified members. Despite a nearly two-year delay in gaining official authorization for the committee, it is now functional and provides important feedback on and external ownership of the program.3 The IPR/IFRA leadership views this board as a key element in assuring that the BAC+2 program stays aligned with the evolving needs for trained entrepreneurs and skilled employees for farming and agribusiness, as well as means to deepen and solidify relations with key governmental initiatives.

The Partnership also played a critical role in helping broker new partnerships between IPR/IFRA and a range of development organizations that have a strong interest in promoting Malian human resource development in the areas of agriculture and natural resource management. Despite Mali’s remarkable economic and political progress since the early 1990s, IPR/IFRA had remained in some ways isolated from many of the key actors in this process, both Malian and international. In part, this isolation resulted from IPR/IFRA’s physical separation from the capital (Katibougou is 70 km from Bamako), a distance made more severe by poor telephone and practically inexistent Internet service. In part, it resulted from many of the key actors in rural development working mainly with the Ministries of Agriculture and of Livestock and Fisheries, while IPR/IFRA falls under the Ministry of National Education (see section 3.2.1 below). Prior to the ALO Partnership, these organizations either did not know of IPR/IFRA or had very little interaction with the school. Now several are involved in emerging collaborative arrangements that hold the promise of greatly strengthening IPR/IFRA’s programs. From the outset, the Partnership sought to broaden contact between the BAC+2 program and different organizations within the private and public sectors as a means of providing students with enhanced learning opportunities and generally attracting greater attention to the IPR/IFRA campus. Because MSU faculty were deeply involved in other USAID/Mali-funded agricultural 3 IPR/IFRA wanted the advisory committee to involve a broad range of stakeholders, including representatives from seven different ministries, given the multi-disciplinary nature of the program and the broad range of groups it serves. Under Malian law, creation of such a broad committee required an inter-ministerial decree, a very long process that was further delayed when the Malian government re-organized all its ministries and rural development services in 2004 and 2005, changing the offices that should be represented on the committee.

8

development and food policy reform efforts in Mali, the MSU staff were uniquely qualified to help broker these contacts.4 There was no way of anticipating, however, the exceptional results that were to follow. Particularly noteworthy have been the increased contacts between the school and USAID/Mali, which has made major investments in IPR/IFRA, including the financing of a new high-speed VSAT Internet connection, which is revolutionizing teaching and research at the school (see box), and investments in the biotechnology lab. Other key emerging partnerships (and areas of collaboration) are with the FAO (training in on-line research tools), Schaffer International’s huge new sugar project (internships and potential job placement of graduates), the USAID-funded PRODEPAM project (internships and a $20,000 investment in the tissue culture lab), the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (internships), the Program for Biosafety Systems (development of a course on biosecurity, food safety, and intellectual property rights), and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (interest in the BAC+2 program). Over the long run, these new partnerships will help bring to the school both the resources and the intellectual partners necessary for truly sustained progress.

4 Particularly important in this regard has been MSU’s ongoing work under the USAID-MSU Food Security Cooperative Agreements, supported by USAID/Mali, EGAT, and Africa Bureau. MSU faculty members working on these projects (particularly Dr. Niama Nango Dembélé, who is based in Bamako) played a critical role in facilitating contacts between IPR/IFRA, MSU campus-based staff (particularly before the installation of the new Internet connection at Katibougou) and other development organizations in Mali. USAID/Mali also financed the initial visit of IPR/IFRA faculty members to MSU in 2001 through this Cooperative Agreement.

Installing an antenna for IPR/IFRA’s high-speed satellite Internet connection.

High-speed Internet Comes to Katibougou by Sue Nichols

The ALO-MSU-IPR/IFRA Partnership played a key role in helping convince USAID/Mali to bring high-speed Internet access to Mali’s only university-level school of agriculture and natural resources, located in Katibougou, a small village 40 miles from Mali’s capital city of Bamako. Land-grant mission in Mali is far from an abstract academic idea. The stakes in agricultural science and research are high in this developing country in which more than 70 percent of the people live in rural areas. Mali’s leaders have identified modernizing agriculture and strengthening food security as crucial to the country’s future – but faculty and students at the school, IPR/IFRA – Institut Polytechnique Rural et de Recherche Appliquée in Katibougou – had to drive an hour to get access to e-mail. Scientific data access was relegated to a few shaky dial-up modems.

(continued on next page)

9

High-speed Internet Comes to Katibougou (continued) MSU faculty members discussed with USAID/Mali staff about how the lack of reliable Internet connections was stifling teaching and research productivity at the school. MSU also agreed to provide significant content to IPR/IFRA on line if a reliable connection could be established. USAID/Mali responded positively, agreeing to finance a VSAT (satellite) high-speed connection. Bringing high-speed access to IPR/IFRA was like pumping in oxygen to the school’s research and teaching community. On Dec. 15, 2005, some 700 people packed an amphitheater in Katibougou to see high-speed Internet pour onto the campus. Nearly all faculty and students of IPR/IFRA were there, many wearing custom T-shirts commemorating the event. Mali’s minister of education was on the stage, along with the governor, USAID/Mali officials and local dignitaries. The minister clicked a mouse and was connected, via video conference projected on the amphitheater’s screen, to MSU Agricultural Economics Professor Eric Crawford and Ph.D. student Goita Marthe Diallo, who were in Agriculture Hall in East Lansing, 5,000 miles away. The maiden voyage of the computer hook-up had an especially personal touch. Diallo was the top graduate from IPR/IFRA in 1998. Now she was back on the Mali campus, bigger than life courtesy of the new video conferencing technology. When she began to speak, the room in Katibougou burst into applause. Already, the collaborations are heating up. Mel Yokoyama, professor of animal science, is using Skype (voice over Internet) to communicate with his IPR/IFRA research partner, Boubacar Dembélé, who spent three months in late 2005 working in Yokoyama’s lab in East Lansing. Mathieu Ngouajio, an MSU assistant professor of horticulture, brought wireless routers to IPR/IFRA on his Partnership-sponsored trip later in December. The wireless connections will facilitate the school becoming a center for short courses, including using material online from MSU. Stephen Esquith, professor and chairperson of philosophy, is using MSU’s ANGEL system to conduct an ethics course and discussion groups at the Malian school while working there on a Fulbright scholarship. “This school was regarded as something of a backwater because of the lack of Internet access,” MSU Professor John Staatz said. “Now it will become a lot more attractive. There’s a lot to grow here.” (An expanded version of this story was published in the January 12, 2006 edition of MSU News Bulletin (the University staff newspaper) and the January edition of MSU Today (a publication sent to MSU alumni and friends).

10

2.3 Larger Enrollments in the BAC+2 Program Over the nearly 3 years of the Partnership, enrollments in the BAC+2 program almost doubled (table 1). The growth was uneven, with the largest enrollments in forestry, fisheries, and water management. This demand is partly driven by strong NGO involvement in projects involving natural resource management. Given the very large increases in irrigated agriculture projected for the Schaffer sugar project and the expansion of the Office du Niger (funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation), demand for training in this subject area is likely to continue to grow. Total enrollments in BAC+2 still are far below the program’s designed capacity of 420 students. As discussed below, IPR/IFRA is considering dropping or modifying some low-enrollment specializations and creating new ones where there is potential demand. A challenge will be to try to attract more women into the program, which focuses on professional fields where women have been historically underrepresented in Mali. Recruitment of Malian high-school graduates also remains a challenge, as the program has continued to be more attractive to older professionals and students from neighboring countries (see section 3.1 below).

Table 1. Enrollments in the BAC+2 Program over the Life of the Partnership Types of Specializations*

Year

Crop Production

Livestock Production

Forestry, fisheries, and water management

Total

2003/04 Men 26 25 54 105 Women 0 0 10 10 Total 26 25 64 115 2004/05 Men 30 33 65 128 Women 3 1 7 11 Total 33 34 72 139 2005/06** Men 68 48 74 190 Women 4 5 7 16 Total 72 53 81 206 * The 3 categories shown here summarize 7 separate specializations: 3 in the area of crop production (food and industrial crop production, plant improvement and seed production, and horticulture), and 2 each in animal production (poultry, meat production), and forestry, fisheries, and water management (management and improvement of forest and fisheries resources, and irrigation and water management) ** Preliminary figures

11

As part of the effort to expand high-school graduates’ enrollment in the BAC+2 program, the Partnership supported IPR/IFRA’s development of new recruiting materials, such as brochures, and two annual recruiting trips by IPR/IFRA faculty to high-schools (lycées) across Mali to publicize the program. In response to feedback received during the recruiting visits, IPR/IFRA made the following modifications to its recruiting and enrollment strategies to make the program more attractive to potential students: (a) broader targeting of teachers as well as administrators in the high-schools about the programs; (b) targeting parents and employers as well as students with information about BAC+2; and (c) negotiating an agreement with the university central administration to allow IPR/IFRA to notify students earlier of their conditional admission to the program (pending official certification of their high-school graduation exam results). Plans for the future include using the advisory panel to help publicize the program to potential students. These caveats notwithstanding, it is encouraging to see the strong growth of the program within a short period. The development of new internships and other linkages with potential employers promises to fuel future growth in the program.

2.4 Enhanced Learning Opportunities The Partnership markedly increased the quality of learning opportunities available to BAC+2 students by encouraging new teaching methods and creating internship opportunities that will offer students greater opportunities to gain practical experience to complement what they learn in the classroom.

2.4.1 Development of New Curriculum and Teaching Approaches

Historically, teaching at IPR/IFRA was largely lecture-based and theoretical, with a heavy emphasis on recitation. Through exposure to more participatory, hands-on teaching methods at MSU, many IPR/IFRA faculty members have shifted to a more active-learning approach. Thanks to audio-visual equipment that the Partnership helped IPR identify for purchase, IPR/IFRA faculty members have incorporated greater use of audio-visual tools (e.g., digital photos, some taken at MSU’s botanical gardens; PowerPoint presentations) in their courses. IPR/IFRA faculty members identify this change in teaching techniques as one of the biggest impacts of the Partnership. The shift to even more active learning modes, involving greater field work and other hands-on activities, however, has been constrained by limited operating funds of the school. The development of new linkages

IPR/IFRA Director of Academic Programs Mamoudou Traoré and Gretchen Sanford of MSU’s Institute of Agricultural Technology (IAT), in Katibougou. Dr. Traoré coordinated the Partnership for IPR/IFRA, while Sanford played a key role in coordinating the linkage between MSU’s IAT program and the BAC+2 program.

12

between IPR/IFRA and other organizations discussed above offers the potential to attract the additional resources needed to overcome this constraint.

2.4.2 Creation of Internships One of the key efforts in the MSU-IPR Partnership was to establish an active program of external internships for students in the BAC+2 program. Modeled after MSU’s two-year Agricultural Technology program, which places students in quality internships as their capstone learning experiences, the Partnership sought to replicate a similar approach in the BAC+2 program. Visits to the MSU campus by Boubacar Dembélé, Mamoudou Traoré, and Paul Sanogo offered the IPR faculty the opportunity to study the internship program in detail. These investments are beginning to pay off. Two agreements were signed in December, 2005, making formal commitments to support students from the BAC+2 program. In the first instance, PRODEPAM, an agricultural intensification project financed by USAID, agreed to offer internships to 6 BAC+2 students this year. In the a separate agreement, Schaffer International, which is just starting to establish a new sugar production and processing facility in Mali, agreed to support 12 BAC+2 interns starting in early 2006, to be followed by new groups of interns in succession for several years to come. Ultimate employment targets for the new sugar facility are for 10,000 jobs. The BAC+2 program is now seen as an essential partner in helping the new facility to become operational by training irrigation technicians, agronomists, and management personnel. In addition to these agreements, in late 2005 the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center’s station in Bamako also promised to create at least two internships beginning in 2006 as part of a broader program of collaboration with IPR/IFRA in the field of horticulture.

2.5 Strengthened IPR/IFRA Faculty and Management Skills

The Partnership helped strengthen faculty skills through provision of English language training and support of IPR/IFRA’s strategic planning process.

2.5.1 English Language Training One of the major factors contributing to intellectual isolation of both faculty and students at IPR/IFRA has been their limited knowledge of English. This has restricted their access to much of the scientific literature and teaching materials in English and made it more difficult to build collaborative relationships with colleagues in Anglophone countries. IPR/IFRA faculty identified the need to strengthen their English as an important priority. The Partnership therefore provided teaching materials (tapes and CDs of English language study materials, along with players), which IPR/IFRA used to establish small language labs at both the Katibougou campus and the Bamako annex. IPR/IFRA used its own funds to hire an English professor to offer a course using these materials to faculty and students, and this course remains an ongoing program at the school. The Partnership also provided IPR/IFRA with software for automated French/English and English/French translation of electronic documents.

13

2.5.2 Strategic Planning As part of its overall programming, in 2003/04, IPR/IFRA created a strategic planning task force and developed a draft plan for the school focusing on five components: (a) staff development needs; (b) the teaching program; (c) the research program; (d) the outreach program; and (e) physical facilities. MSU faculty provided feedback on the draft and helped broker contacts between IPR/IFRA and a BIFAD study team, which used the plan as input into proposals to USAID/EGAT for human capital strengthening needs in Mali in the area of agriculture and natural resources. These recommendations in turn eventually led to a second ALO long-term training project for Mali that is currently being implemented by Montana State University, partnering with Mali’s national agricultural research service, IER (Institut d’Economie Rurale) and IPR/IFRA.

2.6 Benefits to MSU The MSU-IPR/IFRA Partnership has not been a one-way street. Major benefits have also flowed to MSU as a result of this collaboration. These have included:

• Payoffs to MSU’s Agricultural Technology Program. MSU’s Institute of International Technology (IAT) has benefited in two important ways from its involvement in the partnership. First, the presence of the IPR/IFRA faculty visitors to MSU (especially Dembélé and Sanogo, who each spent a month with the IAT program) added an important international exposure to students in the program, most of whom have had little or no international experience. Second, IAT’s involvement in the partnership has been very beneficial in gaining broader recognition by the IAT program’s clientele base and by University officials of the contributions the program can make overseas as well as in Michigan. This has in turn increased the visibility of the program to potential students and employers in Michigan.

• Joint Research Programs. MSU faculty members obviously benefit from collaborative research with their IPR/IFRA partners. The two USDA-fund programs that grew out of the Partnership will allow continued MSU-IPR/IFRA joint faculty research in the area of animal nutrition and will fund the studies of two MSU doctoral students (one in Animal Science and one in Agricultural Economics) who will carry out their dissertation research in Mali in collaboration

IPR/IFRA faculty member Boubacar Dembélé and Donald Rosette (visiting MSU scholar from Bangladesh) at a fall harvest festival in Michigan in 2005. Dembélé traveled to Michigan during the partnership to study MSU’s 2-year Agricultural Technology program and to develop joint research programs with MSU faculty.

14

with IPR/IFRA colleagues. One of the USDA grants will also establish a linkage between IPR/IFRA faculty in animal nutrition and the International Livestock Research Institute in Addis Ababa, which is likely to lead to future collaborative research opportunities. The other joint research proposals currently under development offer the potential for similar mutual benefits to MSU and IPR/IFRA.

• Development of MSU’s First Study Abroad Program to Mali. Contacts established between MSU and IPR/IFRA through the Partnership were instrumental in the development of MSU’s new study abroad program in Mali, which began in 2004 and is funded entirely through MSU’s own resources. Led by Dr. Steve Esquith, Chairperson of MSU’s Philosophy Department, this program focuses on Ethics and Development. Esquith worked with IPR/IFRA faculty who visited MSU under the Partnership to help plan the program, and the MSU students visited IPR/IFRA as part of the program.

• Fulbright Fellowship. As a further outgrowth of the Study Abroad program, Dr. Esquith is spending the 2005/06 academic year in Mali on a Fulbright grant. Among other activities, he teaching an ethics course at IPR/IFRA (both the Katibougou campus and the Bamako annex). This responds to a strong desire expressed by IPR/IFRA faculty to have a stronger program on research ethics. Dr. Esquith will also receive the second cohort of MSU study abroad students in Mali during the summer of 2006.

• Future Collaboration in the areas of Biosecurity, Food Safety, and Intellectual Property Rights. As a result of contacts made during the Partnership, a team from MSU’s Institute of International Agriculture that is working on the USAID/EGAT-funded Program for Biosafety Systems traveled to IPR/IFRA in early 2006 to discuss plans for collaboratively offering a course at IPR/IFRA in biosecurity, food safety, and intellectual property rights. The course will likely also include a module on research ethics, building on the work begun by Dr. Esquith at IPR/IFRA.

3 Remaining Challenges and Future Perspectives In order to evaluate progress made during the Partnership and identify remaining challenges, the Partnership engaged a Malian higher education specialist, Dr.Moctar Koné (Ph.D. in Education, University of Connecticut), to carry out an external review of the project in 2005. The evaluation concluded that while the Partnership had resulted in some very significant achievements, important challenges still remained. These challenges are of two types: those specific to the BAC+2 program itself and more general challenges related to the structure of agricultural higher education in Mali.

3.1 Challenges Specific to the BAC+2 Program

3.1.1 Insufficient Demand for Certain Specializations Enrollment among the seven specializations offered by the BAC+2 program has been very uneven. Some specializations, such as land and water improvement and management, attract substantial numbers of students, while others, such as poultry production, have not succeeded in

15

attracting many students. IPR/IFRA leadership agrees that there needs to be a regular review of specializations offered and a process for modifying/eliminating those for which demand is insufficient and creation of new ones for which there is strong potential demand. The advisory committee, which is now functional and which includes representatives of the Malian Youth Employment Agency and of potential employers of IPR/IFRA graduates, is one way that IPR/IFRA plans to get more timely feedback on shifts in potential demand for various specializations.

3.1.2 Lack of Adequate Complementary Resources to Move from a Curriculum to a Full Program

A strong academic program is more than a curriculum, especially for an applied program like the BAC+2. A strong program also involves strong student recruitment; out-of-the-classroom hands-on experiences through field trips, lab experiences, and the like; strong internships with faculty and employer supervision; job placement assistance; and follow-up with program graduates to assess the effectiveness of their education and build a strong alumni base. The Partnership has made important contributions to the curriculum and in building links between IPR/IFRA and its potential stakeholders, but the non-curricular aspects of the program still need substantial improvements. Over the long-term, building a strong external constituency for the program (beyond the traditional funding line from the Ministry of Education) is crucial to attract the resources necessary to improve the non-curricular elements of the program. This is why the Partnership put such an emphasis on helping IPR strengthen its links with stakeholders (through creation of the advisory committee, building links with potential employers such as Schaffer International, etc.). The creation of 20 new internships with such employers as a result of these new links indicates that progress is being made. The installation of the high-speed Internet connection in late 2005 has the potential to create lots of “virtual” hands-on activities to complement the coursework. But further work on resource mobilization and reinforcing links with stakeholders is needed to make the program truly attractive to a broad range of Mali’s best students.

3.1.3 Targeting of High-School Graduates One of the motivations for the creation of the BAC+2 was to reduce the high unemployment rate among Malian high-school graduates. The government perceived that employment opportunities for these graduates were growing slowly in urban areas and believed that creating a modern agricultural and agribusiness sector, based largely on self-employment, offered a promising way to deal with the unemployment problem. The hypothesis was that upon graduation, most BAC+2 students would set up their own farms or other agriculturally related firms. In reality, this model has not worked for several reasons:

• Many Malian high-school graduates still perceive agriculture as “traditional” and backward, something to escape rather than a field with modern and remunerative opportunities. IPR/IFRA’s physical distance from Bamako and its lack of Internet

16

connection until recently probably reinforced the image that attending the school would not lead to cutting-edge careers, as students were more attracted to the study of business, computers, and telecommunications in Bamako. The development, under the Partnership, of new internships with modern agribusinesses such as Schaffer International and the high-speed Internet connection will likely begin to change this perception about the opportunities for modern, high-tech jobs within the agricultural and agribusiness sectors. Job placement is key in changing these perceptions. Convincing more employers to visit and recruit at IPR/IFRA will be a critical challenge for the school.

• It is unlikely that most graduates of the BAC+2 program who entered directly from high school will have the experience or “bankability” to set up their own businesses immediately upon graduation from the program. MSU’s experience with its Agricultural Technology program is that most graduates either return to the family commercial farm operation or go to work for someone else in order to gain further practical experience and income. Only later, when they have some capital and can convince lenders that they are a solid business risk, do some of them set up their own businesses. In Mali, where access to capital is even more difficult for agriculturally related businesses, it has been very difficult for BAC+2 graduates to enter directly into self-employment.

• In contrast, the program has appealed to more experienced professionals, who through their prior experience in the job market see new opportunities in Mali’s growing agribusinesses, and who may have the capital to set up their own enterprises after graduation. The program has also appealed to both professionals and some high-school students who see it as a “back-door” way of entering the 5-year agronome ingénieur program rather than going through the more standard route of taking their first two year’s of basic sciences at the University’s faculty of Science and Technology and then passing an entrance exam to IPR/IFRA for the remaining three years.

As a result of ongoing discussions with MSU staff during the Partnership, IPR/IFRA is rethinking the original model of the BAC+2. More focus is being placed on developing strong internships with agribusiness firms in order to place more graduates with such firms, rather than seeing the goal as producing graduates who mainly go into business for themselves. At the same time, highlighting the opportunities for such jobs will help to change the image of agriculture in the minds of potential high-school students. Over the longer run, IPR/IFRA hopes to develop the capacity to track its graduates over time and perhaps offer technical assistance to those who, later in their careers, want to establish their own firms. While attracting high-school students remains an important objective of the program, the leadership also recognizes the important contribution the program is making to Malian professionals who are not recent high-school graduates and to non-Malians (both high-school graduates and professionals) who are strongly attracted to the program.

3.1.4 Weak Training in Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship While IPR/IFRA’s curriculum in technical areas of agriculture, animal science, and natural resource management is well-respected throughout West Africa, the school’s course offerings in the areas of agricultural economics, agribusiness, and entrepreneurship remain

17

weak. Without a stronger program in these subjects, graduates will continue to lack some of the skills necessary to set up their own successful businesses or be successful managers for others. The school has identified strengthening this area as a top priority.

3.2 Challenges Inherent in Agricultural Higher Education in Mali Several characteristics of the way higher education is organized in Mali continue to pose challenges for the BAC+2 and other IPR/IFRA programs. These include:

3.2.1 Separation of Responsibilities across Ministries IPR/IFRA, as part of the Malian university structure, is governed through the Ministry of National Education. Most government and donor efforts aimed at promoting agricultural development or environmental management, however, fall under the Ministries of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, and the Environment and Sanitation. The nation’s national agricultural research institute, the Institut d’Economie Rurale, also falls under the Ministry of Agriculture, tending to separate research and higher education (although almost all IER scientists are IPR/IFRA graduates, and IPR/IFRA faculty members also carry out research). Historically, when funds have become available through government or donors for actions to promote agricultural development, they have flowed to the Ministry of Agriculture, with IPR/IFRA being “out of the loop” in spite of the importance of developing skilled human resources to promote agricultural development. In addition, when efforts have been made to promote a more integrated approach, the administrative costs and time delays in trying to coordinate actions across several ministries are often high, as evidenced in the long time required to get approval for the BAC+2 external advisory committee. Nonetheless, IPR/IFRA has made some major progress over the past 3 years, in part due to the ALO partnership. The school has become much more visible to donors such as USAID, the World Bank’s PASAOP program (for rural development), and the FAO that are promoting rural development, and as a consequence it has attracted some important outside resources. It has also signed a joint research accord with IER so that the two organizations now collaborate on many activities rather than just compete with one another.

3.2.2 Little Entrepreneurial Tradition IPR/IFRA historically has been dependent for its funding from the Ministry of National Education. Although individual faculty members have done private consulting and a few had attracted external funds to their programs (e.g., the biotechnology lab), there has been no broad-based tradition within the institution of seeking outside funding for programmatic development. Historically, most graduates went into government service (e.g., as extension agents); therefore, there also was little tradition of developing strong links with the private sector. Thus, the school tended to be a passive recipient of meager funding from the government rather than an active entrepreneurial unit that was dynamically creating new funding and programmatic opportunities for itself. Through the activities undertaken by the partnership (e.g., the workshop on writing successful research proposals; joint efforts to obtain external funding; brokering of relationships

18

with new stakeholders), behavior is clearly beginning to change. The concrete examples of securing externally funded research opportunities for faculty and internship opportunities for students have planted the seed among IPR/IFRA faculty that by reaching out it is possible to mold one’s own future. For example, by December, 2005, IPR/IFRA was running its own workshops for its faculty members and for IER researchers on how to write effective research proposals. It will be important that such a perspective be maintained long enough for it to become incorporated as part of the ‘business as usual’ outlook of the institution. There are positive signs in other areas of the emergence of a more proactive, hands-on management style. For example, the different specializations with the BAC+2 program, established following a survey of employment opportunities among key agribusinesses, are in the process of being revised to the reflect the obvious preferences among incoming students. In a program designed to meet the needs of the marketplace, continual reassessments and, as necessary, revisions, will be critical to maintaining a high degree of relevance and student interest. After the first two years of promoting the BAC+2, the IPR/IFRA administration has come to realize the importance of speaking more directly to parents and helping them to understand the transformations that are taking place within the agricultural sector, and that new agribusiness careers are opening up that are radically different from those associated with the traditional vision of drudgery and manual field labor. The ability to correctly identify potential problems and take appropriate actions to improve the BAC+2 program will be key to its future success, and will need to be accompanied by new leadership skills and attitudes that appear to be taking hold.

3.2.3 Politicization of Higher Education Ever since Mali’s transition to a democracy in 1991, the university system has been a scene of frequent unrest, with student and faculty strikes and calls for various reforms. IPR/IFRA has been spared most of these problems in recent years, but it has not escaped one important problem. Many actors within the university structure have used their positions to advance the agendas of the political parties with which they are affiliated. This behavior has made most students and alumni suspicious of those who propose creating school-affiliated organizations, such as alumni associations, because many fear that the organizers will use these organizations for narrow political ends rather than to support the broader interests of the school. Yet it is exactly this type of broad-based school-affiliated organization that IPR/IFRA needs in order to now build stronger links with various stakeholders, develop internship and job placement opportunities for its students, and raise outside funds for the school. Fortunately, the overall university environment seems to be improving, with the signature of a national agreement in 2005 among faculty, students, leaders of the university system, political leaders, and civil society leaders to move away from a confrontational approach in efforts to reform higher education. The environment is becoming much more welcoming of efforts to build alumni associations and other school-based organizations that have the general welfare of the school, rather than narrow political interests, at their core.

19

3.2.4 Need to Invest in Developing a New Generation of Faculty Members A long-term view needs to be taken as IPR/IFRA prepares for its future. In Africa, beginning in the 1980’s donors began to abandon support for institutions of higher learning, particularly in the area of agriculture. As a consequence, there is a “missing generation” of younger-level faculty with strong training in certain disciplines. The draft IPR/IFRA strategic plan identifies several key disciplines where the school does not currently have adequate staff, and others where in a few short years, due to retirements, new staffing shortages will emerge. A majority of the IPR/IFRA faculty are within 10 years of retirement. The costs and time lags associated with human resource development demand that steps be undertaken soon in order to begin securing a future for an institution that will be essential if Mali is to pursue an agriculture-led growth path.

3.3 Future Perspectives The ALO Partnership has laid a strong foundation for future development of the BAC+2 program and other research and teaching programs of IPR/IFRA. The ALO Partnership was IPR/IFRA’s main international collaboration during the period 2003-05, but it has opened the door to several new collaborative arrangements (with Schaffer International, PRODEPAM, MSU, and potentially with organizations such as FAO and the Millennium Challenge Corporation). The gestation period for several of the ALO Partnership’s initiatives seemed long, with several key ones being realized only near the end of the project in December 2005. Yet these are important structural achievements that promise important ongoing returns. Among the most important of these achievements were the:

• creation of the external advisory board, which will be the first formal structure in

IPR/IFRA’s history to provide ongoing customer feedback on the school’s programs and external stakeholder “ownership” of these programs.

• commitment by Schaffer International, PRODEPAM, and AVRDC to create 20 new internships for IPR/IFRA students and build ongoing research links and potential job placements for graduates.

• brokering the arrangement with USAID/Mali that led to the high-speed Internet connection at the school, which is, in the words of the IPR/IFRA Director, “revolutionizing teaching and research at IPR/IFRA.”

• working with IPR/IFRA staff to develop joint research proposals that have led to two USDA-funded projects that will permit continuation of collaboration between IPR/IFRA and MSU in the areas of animal nutrition and livestock production and marketing. These proposals also helped demonstrate to IPR/IFRA staff the scope for external financing of the school’s programs.

In addition, as a result of the collaboration and collegial relations among faculty members of the two schools that developed during the Partnership, MSU and IPR/IFRA anticipate that it will be easier to build future collaborative efforts. Already in early 2006, for example, a team from MSU that was not involved in the ALO Partnership built on these ties to travel to Katibougou to discuss future joint work, financed by USAID, in the areas of biosecurity, food safety, and protection of intellectual property rights. MSU faculty are also putting IPR/IFRA faculty in touch with FAO and Cornell University to explore the possibility of IPR/IFRA hosting the

20

training on the AGORA electronic resources system planned for Mali and Burkina Faso in March 2006.5 IPR/IFRA has also expressed a strong desire to work with MSU in strengthening its programs in agricultural economics and horticulture, and the two schools will work together to try to attract the resources necessary to achieve these goals. 4 Promoting the Partnership (Media Coverage) The Partnership has been promoted through the Partnership website, a presentation at the 2004 ALO Synergy conference, and press coverage in Mali and the US. Malian national television provided extensive coverage of the May 2003 Katibougou workshop on redesign of the BAC+2 program (including interviews with key participants) and of the 2005 inauguration of high-speed Internet service to the school, which the Partnership helped broker. On January 12, 2006, the lead article of MSU’s faculty and staff newspaper, the MSU News Bulletin, described the project’s role in facilitating the high-speed Internet connection to IPR/IFRA (see http://newsbulletin.msu.edu/jan1206/index.html for the electronic version). The article was also reprinted in MSU Today, a publication that goes to over 90,000 MSU alumni and friends (see http://msutoday.msu.edu/research/index.php3?article=13Jan2006-2 for the electronic version). The article is also linked to the HED website, and a version is currently being finished to submit to USAID’s Frontlines magazine.

5 The AGORA system allows researchers in low-income countries free on-line access to over 700 scientific journals in the areas of agriculture and natural resource management.

Gretchen Sanford, of MSU’s Institute of Agricultural Technology (IAT), explaining to workshop participants in Katibougou how IAT works with its stakeholders to build internships and job placements for its students. The workshop was covered by Malian national TV.

21

Annex 1: Quantitative Indicators of Project Impact

Annex Table 1. Selected Quantitative Indicators of Project Impact Indicator Value Comments Number of exchanges supported for host-country participants

5

USAID/Mali funding prior to Partnership supported an initial visit of 6 IPR/IFRA faculty members to MSU

Number of exchanges supported for host-country participants

17

Many of these trips took advantage of MSU faculty traveling to Mali on other funding, allowing the Partnership to take advantage of their presence in Mali at low cost.

Internships created 20 These represent internships to with Schaffer International, PRODEPAM, and AVRDC that are scheduled to begin in 2006

Nationals trained a. Females b. Males c. Total

a. 50 b. 318 c. 368

Figures include students in BAC+2 program plus participants in specially organized Partnership workshops.

Additional Funds Leveraged

$328,000 Figures represent: USDA/CSREES joint research grant on livestock nutrition: $100,000) USDA National Needs Training Fellowship (incl. research at IPR/IFRA): $138,000 USAID/Mali V-SAT internet connection to IPR/IFRA: approx. $70,000 PRODEPAM investment in the IPR/IFRA biotechnology lab: $20,000 Figures do not include very significant contribution of MSU faculty time that was not included as a cost share in the original proposal.

22

Annex 2: IPR/IFRA Stakeholders

Annex Table 2. List of Malian Organizations Participating in the May, 2003 “Workshop on Revitalizing the IPR/IFRA BAC+2 Program: Preparing the Next Generation of Agricultural Entrepreneurs.”

• Direction Nationale d’Enseignement Supérieur (National Direction of Higher Education, Ministry of Education)

• DNESG : Direction Nationale de l’Enseignement Secondaire Général (National Direction of Secondary Education, Ministry of Education);

• Haut Commisariat de la Région de Koulikoro (regional governor’s office) • Rector’s office, University of Bamako • Office du Niger (Main rice development production zone/agency in Mali) • ADIDE : Association des Demandeurs et Initiateurs d’Emploi ; (national association of

employers and those seeking employment) • APRAM • OEF/ANPE : Observatoire de l’Emploi et de la Formation/Agence National Pour

l’Emploi (Center for the monitoring of employment and training/National Agency for Employment)

• APCAM : Assemblée Permanente des Chambres d’Agriculture du Mali (Permanent Assembly of the Chambers of Agriculture of Mali)

• Chambre Régional d’Agriculture de Koulikoro (Regional Chamber of Agriculture of Koulikoro)

• AOPP : Association des Organisations Professionnelles Paysannes (Association of Professional Farmer Organizations);

• GIFA : Groupement des Intervenants dans la Filière Avicole (Association/cooperative of farmers/firms involved in the Poultry Subsector)

• UNCPM : Union Nationale des Cooperatives des Maraîchagers et Planteurs (National Union of Vegetable and Fruit Producers’ Cooperatives)

• FEBEVIM : Fédération du Bétail et de la Viande du Mali (Malian Federation for Livestock and Meat);

• CNPI : Centre National de Promotion Industrielle (National Center for Industrial Promotion);

• OMAES : Organisation Malienne d’Aide des Enfants du Sahel (Malian Organization to Help Children of the Sahel) ;

• CCA ONG : Coordination des Organisations Non Gouvernementales (The Coordinating Organization of NGO’s in Mali)

• PISE : Projet d’Investissement Sectoriel de l’Education (The World-Bank funded Education-Sector Investment Project);

• DNAMR : Direction Nationale de l’Appui au Monde Rural (The National Direction to Support Rural Areas—Ministry of Rural Development);

• DNCPN : Direction Nationale du Contrôle de la Pollution et des Nuisances (National Direction for the Control of Pollution and other Hazards)

• ORTM – (Malian national radio and television)