Dual-purpose cowpeas make hay for Jos cattle
29 October 2010

An increasing feature of the RIU programme is the way that the different parts of the portfolio are increasingly working together in creative and mutually beneficial ways, many of which were not immediately obvious...

For example, when the team behind SOS-Uganda secured funding from the BBSRC-CIDLID funds to adapt their approaches to control trypanosomiasis and other diseases in the Jos Plateau of Nigeria, they asked the RIU communication team to facilitate the launch meeting.

Utiang Ugbe, RIU research fellow and Coordinator of RIU Nigeria, spoke at the launch meeting of what is now called SOS-Nigeria. He explained the RIU approach with the objective of seeing how this could be applied in this new project. The participants at the meeting, however, quickly seized on one particular aspect of Utiang's presentation:

"To explain how RIU worked I used the example of our dual-purpose cowpea project and described how baling the cowpea hay made it more portable.

Rather than asking me about the RIU working methods there was suddenly a flurry of interest in the fodder being produced by the programmes we had supported.

The Fulani cattle herders experience recurrent clashes with agrarian farming communities as they migrate to secure feed for their livestock during the dry season when feed is scarce. The thinking is that our fodder source can help alleviate this problem - by offering a great source of feed for the dry periods."

As a direct result, RIU Nigeria is currently establishing suitable micro-business and employment opportunities based on fodder sales to the Fulani on Jos Plateau.

Ian Maudlin, RIU Director, commented:

"Most development projects are very good at delivering agreed work programmes as set out in their log frames. Some even manage to share bits of learning at the end of their time which influences practice, often in rather nebulous ways.

What continues to happen in the RIU programme is that different bits of the programmes find more creative ways of working together to increase impact or reduce costs.

This is partly because we have strong brokers working at every level of RIU and partly because there is a feeling that we have been robust in the selection of our investment portfolio. This helps to reduce the transaction costs - because there is more trust between the parties.

The partnership working between the RIU-Nigeria and the SOS-Nigeria is just such a case in point. I anticipate even more of these collaborations in the future."