Milestone Progress 1 Report

The agreement was finalized in approximately 45 days after the award date, with the Government of Ethiopia's Bureau of Finance and Economic Development (BoFED) signing the agreement on behalf of the government. A separate MOU is being signed between PCI and WFP, which is still in the process of being completed in Rome. PCI's internal Review Board approved the project's study methodology on September 11, 2013, after reviewing and responding to a series of questions. The team developed an updated marketing and communications plan, including a proposed logo and branding strategy, which was attached to the report for USAID's review. The project's name was changed to SAPARM, and the logo was designed to reflect partnership involvement. The woreda field assessment and final confirmation of case/comparison woredas were completed, with a list of 30 woredas in Afar being narrowed down to six candidate woredas. The selected woredas were Telalak and Simurobi, with Telalak assigned as the intervention community and Simurobi as the comparison. However, due to overlapping migration patterns, Simurobi was replaced with Megale as the comparison community. A detailed assessment is being conducted for both communities, which will serve as the basis for integration with the LEAP platform. The project implementation plan was updated with an evaluation strategy, including the development of a baseline instrument. The baseline instrument was developed by field and IO team members and submitted for review by Dr. Jay Angerer at Texas A&M's Center for Natural Resource Information Technology (CNRIT). The baseline will be field tested and finalized in the next three weeks. The baseline assessment was completed in October 2013, with a survey conducted among 697 residents in the case and comparison communities. The survey aimed to collect information on average herd loss, use of technology for herd movement decisions, current capacity measures of government staff and clan leaders, and potential confounding factors. Focus group discussions were also conducted to triangulate information obtained through the survey method. The focus group discussions revealed key findings, including migration patterns varying based on season, onset of rain, and type of animal, with distances ranging from 3-14 days. The discussions also highlighted the importance of evaluating current information sources for migration, with Dagu rated best on cost, Scouts ranked best on reliability, and Previous experience ranked best on cost and speed but very low on reliability. The participatory mapping exercise used the Proportional Piling method to assess average herd losses over the last three years. The results showed that pastoralists in Megale do not shepherd cattle, while those in Telalak do. Telalak cattle suffered the greatest losses of all species, with more than two-thirds dying. The mortality rates between the two communities were similar, with a variance of only 2-6 percentage points. More than one third of all herd species died over the last three years primarily due to lack of pasture.