As part of our Vision 2030 strategy, CRS has identified land restoration as mission critical in improving the lives and livelihoods of rural people and has developed a land restoration platform to lead land restoration solutions at scale. CRS is supporting a landscapes and livelihoods platform, referred to as Landscapes & Livelihoods Strategic Change Platform, or SCP3. SCP3 is a farmer-centered land restoration platform with a goal to restore 1.6 million hectares of degraded land, reaching 1 million farm families with increased agricultural yields (40%) and increased income by 2030. The platform focuses on land restoration at scale – coordinating and facilitating catalytic roles we can play in scaling towards systems change. As part of this land restoration scaling platform, CRS has recently launched five country program pilots within CRS country programs that contribute to broader agency learning on land restoration and or scaling efforts. CRS has identified a need for external support for one of these pilots.

The consultant will provide technical assistance to the CRS Burkina Faso team on the design, implementation, and analysis of the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning (MEAL) agenda for the pilot. Specifically, that monitoring systems are designed and implemented to adequately respond to the learning questions set out in the pilot concept notes. The consultancy will be a mix of remote and in person support. French and English fluency required.

Burkina Faso Pilot

Background

Burkina Faso: See Annex 1. Concept Note for full Background Details.

The Burkina Faso pilot is located in the Central Plateau Region with a focus on the Province of Oubritenga where agriculture is the main economic activity of the population. The climate is Sudano-Sahelian in the northern part (Kourweogo and Oubritenga provinces) marked by a long dry season (October to May) and a shorter rainy season (June to September). Precipitation is irregular in time and space. The high climatic variability of rainfall does not facilitate water control for agriculture.

The pilot’s objective is to manage water by managing soils. The CRS Burkina Faso team will integrate 2 existing CRS frameworks to inform the pilot’s activities:

1. CRS’s SMART SKILLS – Smart Skills is a suite of training guides that include different Farmer Competency Modules. The following are a list of some of the modules that may be relevant for use in this pilot:
   1. Land Restoration and Climate Risk Management Planning
   2. Conservation and Regenerative Agriculture
   3. Integrated Soil Fertility Management
   4. Water Resources Efficiency
   5. Sustainable Pasture or Pasture Management
   6. Integrated Pest Management
   7. Continuous Learning and Innovation.
2. CRS Water Smart Agriculture (WSA) is a set of principles and practices to manage soil to manage water. WSA was developed by CRS in Central America context. This pilot will adapt these principles to the Burkina Faso context (WSA-Sahel). This new approach will support the adoption of WSA as an alternative to increase productivity and land health.

This project will prioritize a co-selection approach of restoration techniques based on WSA principes with beneficiaries using CRS’s SMART Skills model or a Guide to Sustainable Land Management in Burkina Faso.

Based on a literature review (Guide to Sustainable Land Management, National Land Restoration Strategy in Burkina Faso) and meetings with the main stakeholders at national level (BUNASOL, DGADHI, FAO, CNRST, GIZ, Grande Muraille Verte) the project will collect information’s on existing soil mapping, ongoing approaches, activities and resources available to not duplicate effort and see how to be member of existing platforms on soil restoration activities in Burkina. Five villages will be selected after this literature review and main stakeholder consultation.

In the 5-village project area, the project will evaluate in the existing practices, including any WSA techniques known and/or applied by the producers, and understand barriers in adoption of WSA practices. A separate focus group of women and men will be formed to conduct this study. In addition to the techniques already known to the beneficiaries, the project team and the agricultural technical service of the intervention area could complement or propose innovations to the various techniques already in place based on WSA principles. These innovations will focus on increased water retention capacity of soils, through promotion of production systems that promote permanent soil cover. Depending on their needs and abilities, each beneficiary, especially women, will be accompanied to apply one or more WSA techniques. This approach takes gender into account as it will allow women to choose techniques adapted to their abilities.

Once the restoration techniques have been chosen, 10 volunteer lead farmers will be identified in each village, including 5 women and 5 men, in each village for a total of 50 lead farmers. Leads farmers will be trained on key soil health principles from the Smart Skills Modules, WSA practices, and soil mapping. CRS will work with BUNASOL and FAO to take advantage of the soil doctors project to reinforce the capacity of the lead farmers. Lead farmers will set up demonstration fields where they will apply good agricultural practices including WSA that will be compared to fields where conventional practices are applied to generate evidence on crop yields. Each lead farmer will train 10 other producers. They will also supervise other producers at a rate of 10 producers per primary farmer for a total of 500 producers. The choice of these responsible farmers, who will be models, will consider the different restoration techniques applied by them to have demonstration fields for all the selected techniques. CRS will organize exchange visits bringing together the rest of the beneficiaries, agricultural technical services will be organized in the demonstration fields with the aim of bringing about changes in the behavior of the beneficiaries.

Pilot Objectives

Title: Project to improve household food production by restoring soil productivity in the Central Plateau region of Burkina Faso.

The overall objective is to improve the food production of producers in the Central Plateau region.

Specific objective 1: Introduce WSA in the targeted villages based on participatory the selection of appropriate techniques.

Result 1.1.: Key practices of adapted WSA techniques are selected and tested through a participatory process.

Specific Objective 2: Increase community and farmer adoption of WSA-adapted techniques and innovations.

Result 2.1. 75% of strengthened farmers have adopted WSA technique.

Specific objective 3: Promote learning, sharing and capitalization.

Result 1.3. Establishing lessons learned from the process of how to introduce WSA in Burkina Faso

Result 2.3. Organize and disseminate with stakeholders and partners success stories, lessons learned and evidence-based reports through sharing workshops and webinars.

Pilot Theory of Change

If beneficiaries are involved in the selection of good practices for sustainable soil fertility management, if beneficiaries are trained and adopt WSA-adapted techniques and innovations, then their food productivity will be improved because they will improve agricultural yields and the evidence will confirm this.

Pilot Location & Target Group

The project will be implemented in the Central Plateau region in 5 villages in the province of Oubritenga.

Villages will be identified based on criteria, such as the non-existence of land restoration projects and the potential for degradation of available land through discussions with agricultural services, the commune and community leaders, etc. In each village, in addition to 50 lead farmers, 450 vulnerable farmers will be selected according to criteria that will be defined with the agricultural services, community leaders and the project team; in the end, 500 farmers will be targeted. This will ensure that there are enough cases to learn from lessons and successes, but also to ensure close monitoring of the learning aspects. To encourage the involvement of husbands in their wives’ land restoration activities, the husband’s name will be registered in addition to the wife’s and vice versa.

Rationale for Consultancy

The pilot’s main aim is to contextualize CRS’ Water Smart Agriculture in the Sahel context. Given the short timeframe of the pilot, a well refined learning agenda and Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning (MEAL) framework is critical to evaluating effectiveness of WSA at the end of the pilot. This consultancy will provide MEAL support to the Burkina pilot. MEAL support will include development support of the MEAL plan and monitoring system, and capacity building for the CRS Burkina staff.

Deliverables, Estimated Timeline and Level of Effort

The consultant will provide technical assistance and capacity building to the CRS Burkina Faso team focusing on the following deliverables: