Task 12 - Manage and develop agro-info.net The objective of the task is to ensure in the first place that all agri-agencies and farmers organizations involved in Farmers Fighting Poverty use and can rely on agro-info.net for information sharing including reporting.
And secondly that interested agri-agencies and farmers organisations use jointly developed information management system(s).

Also mechanisms will be looked at on how to generate and convert data into IATI data (International Aid Transparency Initiative).

This means that agro-info.net needs to be upgraded. Further development of the system is necessary to allow agri-agencies and others, most notably farmers’ organisations, to participate more actively as users of the system. This has already started in consultation with AgriCord and the agri-agencies and with farmer organisations themselves.

1.	Proposed activities
The task consists of the following activities:
a.	An inventory on possible improvements and changes to agro-info.net has started amongst agri-agencies and will be continued. Both the possibilities of including more data as well as the retrieval of information and overviews has to become available. This refers to data such as: budget inputs, total funding or funding per back donor, detailed project expenditures and total expenditure per back donor, results related to deliverables and targets, etc.
Organisations with internal technical expertise and capacity may decide to generate their own mechanisms for converting their data into IATI data. This can be in terms of developing systems which automatically pull the necessary information together and then converts it into the IATI format, or having technical experts who can convert data into XML. 

b.	Additional elements will be designed and built in agro-info.net by IT-specialists. Linked to that mechanisms will be look at on how to generate and convert data into IATI data (International Aid Transparency Initiative). This can be in terms of developing systems which automatically pull the necessary information together and then converts it into the IATI format, or convert data into XML. 

c.	Supporting agri-agencies in gathering project data and financial information will be developed, either linked to agro-info.net or through separate systems which might eventually be linked to agro-info.net. . 

d.	A final financial health check tool, containing information regarding the financial management of organisations, will be formulated and documented within AgriCord, after which it will be built and linked to agro-info.net at the organisation database.
e.	A final profiling tool will be formulated and documented within AgriCord (see also task 14). The profiling tool will be finalised, after which it will be built and linked to agro-info.net, which means it will also become available at the organisation database. 
f.	Planning, monitoring and evaluation as set-up by regional and national organisations will be gathered through workshops (linked to project 5995 and task 14).  Some workshop already took place in which farmers organisations shared their use of monitoring and evaluation instruments, and more workshops will be held in Africa (English – French speaking) and in Asia. Further development of M&E systems at regional and national farmers organisation levels with support of liaison officers and monitoring and evaluation specialists. 
h.	A plan will be made in which all shared elements within monitoring and evaluation systems of farmers organisations are included. This plan  will be formulated and agreed upon within AgriCord, after which it will be built and linked to agro-info.net at the organisation database.

Time line
Activity a: January and February meetings with agri-agencies 
Activity b: permanent; Improvements to agro-info.net will be made permanently, both by Agriterra IT-staff and external IT experts.
Activity c: February and March Terms of references will be written for experts to be involved in finding solutions on systems to gather data and information.
Activity d: the financial health check will be finalised and put forward to AgriCord. It will be converted to an interactive tool within agro-info.net. 
Activity e: as soon as the profiling tool has been finished (see task 14) it will be built and converted to an interactive tool on agro-info.net.
Activity f & g: (through project 5995) workshops with farmers organisations will be organised to gather data. In the project proposals of farmers organisations the further development of their monitoring and evaluation tools will be included. These project activities will take place during the course of the project which could spread out over a longer period of time (one or two years).
Activity h: in the course of 2014 and 2015; based on the results of activity g.

2.	Envisioned outputs and outcomes
On the outcome level an agro-info.net version 2.0 is envisioned. This means that it is easy to add data to agro-info.net, while information and results are easily and systematically retrievable from the system, both for agri-agencies as well as back donors. Overviews both on project level as well as on organisation level can easily be found or build from the data available in the system. The inputs and results of projects are available
as well as insight in the strengthening of organisations. 
Monitoring and evaluation outcome of farmers organisations are partly linked to agro-info.net which means that the audit trail of the data is ensured and information does not have to be gathered twice. 

A differentiation has to be made between data necessary for the workflow of officers and data which as to be available in agro-info.net at the different levels. These differences are indicated in different work packages. 


Work package 1: Data for the workflow (to be called: “MYAIN”)
Most of the information can be gathered from the data that already is and has been added to agro-info.net. A start was made in setting up overviews that should become available per function group and per back donor. The information available focusses on project and mission data and on targets. 
Planning: Per 31 January : Overview of results and alerts of financial administrative officer is designed. A building company is assigned with the technical design of the product per 15 February.

Work package 2: Reporting to back donors where overviews on data are necessary, should be easily accessible through agro-info.net. Besides that an overview of back donor information is also necessary, that both the back donor and the agri-agency have an overview of projects and financial information linked to each back donor. Targets and deliverables have to aggregated at programme and back donor level, which have to be easy and real-time accessible through agro-info.net. The information per back donor focusses on project data and on targets.
Planning: Per 28 February: a functional design is made for overviews per back donor and agri-agency is available and approved by staff members within the AgriCord group. A building company is assigned with the technical design and development of the product per 15 March.

Work package 3: Data on organisation level
It was also requested to have overviews on organisation data. Especially the agri-business team wants to focus on economic progress of the cooperatives they work with. Information from audit reports (balance and results & expenditures) is gathered over the years, in overviews an impression can be given about the development of the cooperative (diagrams & graphics). Also information about the investment amount received from financial institutions should be filled in on Agro-inf.net. All these overviews should become available in agro-info.net. This will be focussed on separately as well.
Profiling will be built as a separate tool and linked to agro-info.net after documentation of the tool by AgriCord. Financial Health Check will be built as a separate tool and included within the AgriCord M&E system after approval of the tool by AgriCord.
Planning: Per 30 April: a functional design is made of the financial organisation data and documented within AgriCord. Per 30 April a functional design is made of the profiling tool.

Work package 4: Data on country level is available through internet (for instance FAO). Linking this information to agro-info.net and making it available to officers and to organisations will be looked at separately (see data dictionary ToR). 
Planning: Per 30 May: a functional design is made of the country database and approved within AgriCord.

Work package 5: M&E data from farmers organisations. Linking information available at farmers organisations to agro-info.net. Details of how this will be done, have to come from workshops organised in 2014 and follow-up given to selected farmers organisations in building onto their M&E tools. 
Planning: In 2014 and 2015 links will be established. 

3.	Involvement of other agri-agencies
Activities a & f: input for improvements to agro-info.net (user interface of officers and overview linked to agri-agencies and back donors) ; participation in workshops with national farmers organisations
Activity g: support to farmers organisations in the development of monitoring and evaluation
Activity h: assessment of data from farmers organisations that should be included in agro-info.net
Involvement of : TRIAS (Bart Stevens & Patrick Eeckloo); AFDI (Sophie Bastien); AgriCord (Paula Hokkanen); Assiadrrah (Cesar Belangel/Florante Villas); UPA-DI (Martin Couture); FERT (Steven Lenfant); CSA (Alex Danau).

Budget EUR 484, 417.
Contribution 14all EUR 375, 000
Contribution Agriterra and other agri-agencies 109.417

To ensure that all agri-agencies and farmers organizations involved in Farmers Fighting Poverty use and can rely on agro-info.net for information sharing including reporting.. To ensure that interested agri-agencies and farmers organisations use jointly developed information management system(s).