MASDAR is currently preparing a major proposal to provide a Technical Support Team to the IFAD-funded Smallholder Agribusiness Promotion Programme in Zambia.  The role of the TST will be to undertake value chain analysis for 8-10 commodities and then to devise intervention plans which will have the maximum impact on small-scale producers.

MASDAR has now mobilised a multi-disciplinary team to prepare a Master Plan Study for the Oil Palm Industry in Ghana.  Working with the "Programme for the Promotion of Perennial Crops" the study aims to provide a basis for proper targeting of support to the industry over the next 15 years.  The study will involve a 7 person MASDAR team and will be undertaken over the next 5 months.

MASDAR and DEV (University of East Anglia) have completed their assignment for UNICEF to develop a social development policy framework for Botswana.  UNICEF rates this as "excellent work, which contained the best situational analysis of the Botswana social protection environment ever produced" and complimented the team on the excellent quality of their work.

MASDAR has mobilised the second phase of the M&E data collection assignment for the Millennium Development Authority in Ghana.  Base data in the fields of Land Tenure Facilitation, Community Services and Procurement Capacity Activities were collected last year.  The same MASDAR team has now been remobilised to complete a second round of data collection.  The data is proving invaluable to the management of the US$ 450 million programme in determining effectiveness and impact of project interventions.
 

Building on the success of social development assignments throughout the SADC region, MASDAR has submitted proposals for the evaluation of Child Grants in Lesotho (for UNICEF) and a major household survey for the World Bank in Zambia.

MASDAR has been requested to provide staff to help farmer groups and irrigation water users to organise themselves into registered cooperatives and to provide training on the establishment, registration and operations of cooperatives.

MASDAR's sister company emapsite has commenced work on a major consultancy assignment in Saudi Arabia to undertake baseline studies of coastal and marine resources along the Red Sea Coast.

MASDAR is providing management support services to emapsite on this exciting new development.

MASDAR is completing its consultancy services in Decentralised Planning and Capacity Building to the Community Driven Development Project.  A final report on Decentralised Planning Processes has been prepared and a very successful and well attended, workshop has been held.

Smallscale biogas production in The Gambia

In The Gambia MASDAR has established a demonstration village at Sintet to promote small-scale biogas and the use of improved stoves and fuel-briquettes made from waste materials.

Social Protection in Southern Africa

Reducing poverty, hunger and malnutrition remains the overriding development challenge across Africa.  MASDAR is proud of the leading role it has in managing the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme (RHVP) funded by DFID and AusAid.

In The Gambia a MASDAR irrigation engineer designed 25 appropriate irrigation schemes for horticultural production.  He evaluated many different systems and pumps of which solar-powered submersible pumps were by far the most popular.

Agricultural Marketing in Malawi

In Malawi MASDAR has commenced Phase II of our Marketing Assignment with the Smallholder Crop Production and Marketing Project.  This phase covers the next 15 months and will train farmers in "farming as a business" and various aspects of improved, irrigated farming.