Feed the Future Innovation Labs Community of Practice Semi-Annual Report

Key milestones achieved over the past six months include the facilitation of several meetings, with the gender and capacity development groups now meeting separately to support their individual workplans and needs. The gender AG meetings take place on the second Thursday of every month at 11AM EST, with AG leads for gender and local capacity development taking the lead in facilitating and directing the conversation and engagement to support co-creation of the community's work products. The AG Leads have stepped up and begun to own this process with light facilitation and coordination support from the GKI team. The AGs are currently working on articulating their vision for the future of this community, as well as the change they'd like to see in the behaviors of key audiences as a result of this group. In addition to the AG meetings, the CoP has also hosted a regular monthly Steering Committee (SC) meeting that has continued to garner consistent participation and engagement from the SC members. Members of the SC have presented at the monthly IL Directors meeting in September, and more individuals from the network are getting engaged in CoP activities and expressing interest, particularly in the work of the AGs. The CoP members also came together to put together a presentation for the Cultivating Equality conference, hosted by the CGIAR Gender Platform, in October 2021, with GKI providing light facilitation and coordination support. The GKI team has also supported the development of a quarterly newsletter released in September 2021 with a focus on cross-sector collaboration. Furthermore, the team worked closely with Jessica to continue strategizing and collaborating on a plan to ensure a smooth transition of ownership of the CoP to the governance structure designed, with the SC and AG Leads taking direct and steering the CoP. The team has put together a Key Documents and an Admin and Operations document for the CoP to give more visibility on the work they've been supporting and to facilitate knowledge transfer and practical instructions for handoff and transition to CoP-led management. Despite the progress made, challenges remain, particularly in adapting goals and objectives and facilitating the transfer of ownership to support long-term sustainability. The team has noted a confusion on the roles and goals of the AGs, and there seems to be a confusion on their audience and purpose of the meetings as well as the structure of the CoP. However, the team has met with each group with Jessica to help clarify roles and goals, and they are continuing to keep a close eye and support as they take ownership of the AG and CoP as it continues to evolve.