Feed the Future Southern Africa Seed Trade Project Quarterly Progress Report: Q3 2021

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Southern Africa Regional Mission, the project is implemented by DAI Global, LLC (DAI). The primary goal of the project is to improve the availability of and access to high-quality seed in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. The project is designed to support SADC and Member States' leadership and provide technical assistance to harmonize policies and regulations governing seed trade in the region. The work facilitates seed trade across the region, integrating small and isolated national markets into one larger SADC-wide market for seeds. Traditionally, small national variations among regulations related to variety release, seed certification, and quality control, as well as quarantine and phytosanitary regulations, lead to increased transactional costs and duplicative procedures across countries. The Seed Trade Project's focus countries are Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. However, its work with the SADC Secretariat, including the SADC Seed Centre, as well as in these targeted project countries, has spill-over effects in the remaining 12 SADC Member States. The project taps into leading public and private sectors, universities, and other institutions to share technologies, innovations, and management practices with target countries to improve seed value chains and promote a more efficient seed system and subsequent farming systems. Cross-cutting issues, including private-public partnerships, gender and disadvantaged groups mainstreaming, civil society and partner institution engagement, and adherence to the Feed the Future principles, are integral to the success of the Seed Trade Project. The project's major partners include the Southern African Development Community Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources Directorate (SADC/FANR) and the SADC Seed Centre. In Quarter 3 of 2021, the project made significant progress in achieving its objectives. The Lake Agriculture sector made good on scale-up production and export, and the Seed Trade Project supported the SADC FANR in convening a virtual meeting of Member States for the SADC Technical Seed Meeting. The project also made progress in developing the SADC Seed Centre website, market portal, and informational videos. The project's progress is measured by several indicators, including increased seed trade across the SADC region, increased availability of improved seeds, increased availability of technologies, management practices, and innovation, and improved regional policies to support agricultural growth. The project's cross-cutting activities include program management, monitoring, evaluation, and learning, integration of cross-cutting issues and USAID forward priorities, stakeholder participation and involvement, and tasks/interventions for the next reporting period. The project's social media postings and trainings and workshops are also documented in the report. The institutions receiving U.S. Government technical support are listed in Annex D. The project's progress is summarized in Annex A, and the summary of trainings and workshops is provided in Annex B. The Seed Trade Project's social media postings are documented in Annex C.