PROGRESS REPORT

24 PROGRESS REPORT GTP I TRANSFORMATION AGENDA 25
The Agricultural Transformation Agenda
and the Agricultural Growth Program (AGP)
Further to its work with specific Transformation
Agenda deliverables, the ATA’s support to
the GTP I is also linked with the Agricultural
Growth Program (AGP), a multi-donor funded
program led by the Ministry of Agriculture. The
AGP is anchored in the government’s focus on
increasing sustainable agricultural growth by
increasing agricultural productivity and market
access for key crop and livestock products with
increased participation of women and youth. The
Transformation Agenda aims to leverage funding
provided by the AGP and outcomes related to the
AGP objectives in order to catalyze the process of
agricultural transformation in woredas prioritized
in the AGP program.
The ATA’s strategic work under the scope of the
AGP began with a focus on three areas but later
grew to encompass additional Transformation
Agenda deliverables.
1. The first area of initial collaboration with
the AGP was in strengthening strategy and
policy linkages, to ensure that the ATA’s policy
recommendations in areasof programmatic
overlap (i.e. seeds, coops, soil fertility, etc.)
were informed by input from AGP woredas.
Furthermore, the ATA helped to ensure that
policy recommendations that were approved
by the government were implemented quickly
in AGP woredas.
2. Secondly, the ATA coordinated and
accelerated the scale-up and adoptionof
household irrigation programs (including
manual and mechanized pump technologies)
in AGP woredas. Household irrigation in these
areas is undertaken based on comprehensive
analysis of productivity and commercial
potential, natural resource constraints, and
other farm-level incentives.
3. Finally, the work of the ATA and AGP initially
overlapped in the area of monitoring and
evaluation. The ATA has been working to
strengthen the M&E capacity of the MoA to
effectively collect, analyze and develop policy
recommendations by leveraging the outputs
and learning from AGP woredas. Furthermore,
the ATA supports the MoA in scaling-up
successful interventions from AGP woredas to
other parts of the country.
Successful collaboration between the ATA
and AGP in these initial areas has led to
expanded engagements, including three
flagship projects within the Transformation
Agenda – the Ethiopian Soil Information
System (EthioSIS), establishment of fertilizer
blending plants, and the cooperatives storage
initiative. All three projects have introduced
groundbreaking technologies and approaches
that enhance the production and productivity
of smallholder farmers and their ability to
aggregate and link their outputs to markets.
Engagements with the AGP have also ledto
a close working relationship with various
development partners providing support to the
overall program. In particular, some important
linkages have been created between
Transformation Agenda deliverables and USAID’s
Feed the Future program.
During GTP I, the primary area of engagement
with Feed the Future has been with the
Agricultural Growth Program–Agribusiness and
Market Development (AGP-AMDe) program.
This program aims to sustainably reduce poverty
and hunger by improving the productivity and
competitiveness of value chains that offer jobs
and income opportunities for rural households. In
addition, Feed the Future investments through a
Fixed Amount Reimbursable Agreement (FARA)
program have provided important contributions
to deliverables in program areas such as Seeds,
Cooperatives, Research, Input/Output Markets,
Mechanization and Special Projects.
Finally, as livestock became an area of work in
the Transformation Agenda during the final year
of GTP I, areas of collaboration were identified
with the Agricultural Growth Program–Livestock
Market Development program. Expanded
partnerships between the AGP, Feed the Future
and other relevant programs are expected to
play a major role in the implementation of the
Transformation Agenda during GTP II.