Support to policy and advocacy work at CONAPAC The Eastern Africa Farmers' Federation (EAFF) is a regional farmers' organization whose membership consists of national farmer federations, national co-operative organizations and national co-operative organizations in ten (10) countries in Eastern Africa - Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda. of Confédération Nationale des Producteurs Agricoles du Congo (CONAPAC) is one EAFF's member organizations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The main purpose of this proposal is to build the capacity of Confédération Nationale des Producteurs Agricoles du Congo (CONAPAC) in the area of the policy and advocacy. The activities aim to support CONAPAC to prepare and submit proposals to the national and provincial  governments on the forth-coming National budget. The proposed actions build on other tools and capacity that EAFF has adopted and applied with her member organziations across Eastern Africa including the Farmers' Advocacy Consultation Tool (FACT). The FACT tool is a farmer-driven and farmer-owned approach to advocacy that emphasises the need for evidence to develop sound policy positions.

The proposal focuses on supporting CONAPAC to compile proposals that specify actions and investments to be included in the national and provincial budgets in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These actions will respond to the priority areas identified by their members, as well as the government investment priorities. The activities will include:

a.	Activity 1: Preparatory mission to Kenya: a team from CONAPAC will visit Nairobi for two days to discuss and understand how EAFF has undertaken studies on agricultural budgets. The team will have a session with EAFF and KENAFF staff to discuss the different aspects of national budgets, the process of budget making, and the impacts of budget statements on agriculture. The preparatory mission will also include policy officers from two other EAFF member organizations, who will work with CONAPAC to lay out a plan for policy and advocacy with respect to engaging in the national budget processes.

b.	Activity 2: Review of national and provincial budgets: Conducting a compehensive review of the DRC National and several provincial agricultural budgets. This review will include the specific expenditures on agriculture including special programs.  The findings are intended to inform CONAPAC's proposals to avoid duplication of what has already been done, and to provide information as to what is on-going. In addition, the review will also include special program being funded in other countries in Eastern Africa. A consultant will be hired to conduct this exercise.

c.	Activity 3: Peer-mission to work with CONAPAC to develop budget proposals: A peer mission consisting of four policy officers from EAFF members will meet with the CONAPAC management to review the findings from the budget analysis and develop budget proposals. The proposals are expected to include specific actions and investments; justifications for each actions and investments; proposals for implementation of these actions and investments (locations, mode of imeplementation, monitoring, etc) and comparisons with other countries where possible. This entails convening three provincial meetings and one national meeting. The team will participate in the Policy dialogue meeting (activity 4).

d.	Activity 4: Policy dialogue on national agricultural budget for DRC: CONAPAC will convene a three-day meeting to submit the budget proposals to the government. The meeting will have 30 participants including representatives from the national and rovincial government, representatives from farmer organizations and from civil society. the meeting will also be attended by the policy officers who will be conducting the peer mission to CONAPAC. They will share their experiences.
i.	Day 1 will be a think-tank session to validate the budget proposals, providing  for ech proposal
ii.	Day 2 will serve as the submission of the proposals to the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Finance. This will be a half-day session. 
iii.	Submission of the proposals for the provincial budget, to selected provincial governments.
iv.	Day 3: The discussion will focus on budget monitoring. CONAPAC will share their proposals for budget monitoring. The output from this day's session will be a

supporting CONAPAC to compile proposals that specify actions and investments to be included in the national and provincial budgets