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On the initiative of CORAF and as part of the Partnership for Agricultural Research, Education and Development in West Africa(PAIRED) program, some twenty monitoring and evaluation specialists are meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, from May 9 to 11, 2022, for a training session on data collection tools, to assess the program's impact in the field.

With funding from the West Africa Regional Mission of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), CORAF has been implementing PAIRED since 2017, in six West African countries - Benin, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.

The participants, most of whom come from PAIRED implementing countries, will acquire mastery of data collection and processing tools, especially digital tools.

The training workshop is being held as a prelude to a survey to be carried out to collect data on technology adoption and the impact of PAIRED.

"Collecting high-quality, usable data is essential for assessing the impact of a project, as reliable, relevant data provides information on achievements and informs financial partners and other stakeholders. That's why mastering the process of collecting and processing these data is so important", says Dr Hippolyte AFFOGNON, PAIRED Coordinator at CORAF. 

PAIRED is a five-year program which, in addition to strengthening CORAF's institutional capacity, aims to facilitate the scaling-up and adoption of technologies and increase the production and availability of quality agricultural seeds for farmers in West Africa.

The survey will enable us to assess the project's impact by generating knowledge and information on the dissemination of technologies over time and space, and their adoption by small-scale farmers in all the countries where the project is implemented.

"For the survey to provide useful information and data, it is necessary to have harmonized collection and processing methodologies, to avoid discrepancies", stresses Mr. Zinsou Ellénite KPAVODE, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist at CORAF. 

This is why the training workshop will also be an opportunity for participants to review, test and finalize the tools that have been developed to ensure data collection, and which will be used in all countries.

It is expected that the national partners who take part in this training will in turn train interviewers in their respective countries.

They will act as intermediaries before the start of the data collection phase in the field.