Quarterly Progress Report: October – December 2012 for Kenya Feed the Future Innovation Engine

- International Development Division under a hybrid fixed price contract with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Kenya Mission. The program aims to harness innovation for cutting-edge results through private sector-oriented strategies to generate significant measurable increases in household income and/or nutrition. The KFIE contract requires Land O'Lakes to submit quarterly progress reports to USAID. This report describes the implementation progress made towards rolling out KFIE during its third calendar quarter period (1st October to 31st December 2012) following contract signature. The program's overarching goal is to support innovations through various stages from "proof of concept" (Stage 1) through "pilot roll-out" (Stage 2) to "transition to scale-up" (Stage 3). KFIE will select promising innovations, coach and cultivate selected innovations to support their development and adoption, apply evidence-based testing to determine movement from one stage to another, and leverage USAID resources with other public and private resources to grow innovations to scale. The program will focus on selected agricultural value chains, including horticulture, maize, ruminant livestock, and staple food crops. During the third calendar quarter period, KFIE made significant progress in implementing its activities and innovations. The program identified and selected promising innovations, including those that support food security and nutrition, and began to coach and cultivate these innovations to support their development and adoption. KFIE also applied evidence-based testing to determine movement from one stage to another and leveraged USAID resources with other public and private resources to grow innovations to scale. The program's focus regions include the High Rainfall Zone 1 (HR1), Semi-Arid Zone 2 (SA2), and the arid counties of Garissa, Isiolo, Marsabit, Turkana, and Wajir. KFIE encourages experimentation and rewards proven success, seeking projects that represent game-changing methodologies and approaches that, at their maturity, materially and beneficially affect a significant number of Kenyan households. Some of the illustrative activities and innovations supported by KFIE include identifying agricultural varieties that are disease, pest, and drought resistant, facilitating access to farm inputs, reducing transaction costs, buying down the risks of providers, selecting and/or co-financing infrastructure, technologies, and other capital goods, and spurring on- and off-farm employment. KFIE will support the business case for nutrition by catalyzing the private sector to produce nutrient-dense foods, encouraging households to adopt healthy practices, and sourcing innovations that promote local-level processing of fortified foods. The program will apply independent review to verify outcomes and test the reliability of results, incorporating randomized control trial methodologies as appropriate. It is expected that KFIE will select promising innovations, coach and cultivate selected innovations, apply evidence-based testing, and leverage USAID resources with other public and private resources to grow innovations to scale. The program aims to establish a sustainable and scalable model to meet the needs of Kenyan households and support the country's development goals.