Review of Agricultural Sector Development Support Programme (ASDSP) Inception Activities
The Agriculture Sector Development Support Programme, ASDSP is a programme for implementation of the Agricultural Sector Development Strategy (ASDS) which is aligned with the Medium Term Investment Plan (MTIP). It is a five year program (2012- 2016) and is being implemented in all the 47 counties in Kenya and at National Level. The programme is jointly financed between the Governments of Sweden and Kenya and the agreement between the two governments was signed in February 2012.
The programme commenced with a 6 months inception phase during which ASDSP should finalise its preparations and specify how the programme should be implemented to reach its objectives. The following were carried out during the inception phase: (i) Procure long term technical assistance; (ii) Set up ASDSP Decision making structure; (iii) Set up ASDSP management structure; (iv) Set up interim County coordination units; (v) Identify implementing agents for the main activities of the components; (vi) Establish links with other programmes and actors in the sector with special attention to the private sector; (vii) Develop an M&E framework and Define indicators for ASDSP; (ix) Initiate Baseline survey for ASDSP; (x) Identify prioritised and gender sensitive value chains to support; (xi) Identify and assess stakeholders with emphasis on the private sector that could form the basis for value chain forums; (xii) Identify programme activities to undertake based on the value chain approach; (xiii) Develop draft implementation guidelines/procedures for the ASDSP; (xiv) Strategically prioritise and schedule activities over the 5 year programme period; (xv) Prepare a work plan for the first financial year 2012/13; (xvi) Conduct a Strategic Environmental Assessment; and (xvii) Approvals of activities/measures by ASDSP programme steering committee.
In addition to these results the specific agreement states that Kenya shall develop an Action Plan for system audit recommendations and a Gender sensitized M&E framework.
The overall objective of the consultancy review of the inception phase activities and its outputs was to assess if inception phase activities had been implemented and the preconditions existed to allow the programme to proceed to the implementation phase.