The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) is a not for profit organization that facilitates and promotes public-private partnerships to access, develop, adapt and deliver appropriate agricultural technologies for use by resource-poor smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). AATF is collaborating in a public-private sector partnership project to promote technological interventions for the control of Striga in maize.

The Striga Control Project aimed at commercializing StrigAway technology to combat Striga infestation in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The study intended to explore the project’s success, gather estimates against the main expected outcomes, and determine the performance of the project with respect to the project’s planned activities.

The general objective of the study was to monitor, evaluate and document all key results and outcomes of the project’s interventions with respect to (i) the production and commercial sale of the IR-maize seed technology in the region, (ii) the size of land within Striga-infested areas that are producing maize using this technology, and (iii) the extent of establishment of markets and supporting technology supply chains in the region. Specifically, the study sought to answer the following research questions:

• Has the project effectively scaled the commercialization of IR-maize seed in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda?
• Has IR-maize seed been effectively and efficiently produced, distributed, and marketed to smallholder farmers by private seed companies?
• Has the commercial availability of the IR-maize seed to smallholder farmers enhanced the adoption of the technology in the project implementation areas?

AATF commissioned Research Support Services (RSS) to independently monitor, evaluate and document all key results and outcomes of the project’s interventions. Specific deliverables of the assignment were to:

• Document the technology’s delivery pathways and project outcomes, clearly identifying the progress achieved against the project’s objectives;
• Identify of any challenges and/or bottlenecks to the commercialization of the IR-maize technology, and assessing whether these differ across the region;
• Assess the rate of adoption of the IR-maize technology in the region, and document any reasons for success (or failure) in adoption;
• Document lessons learned, provide recommendations to inform project implementation strategies, and provide suggestions on any areas of improvement for future programming that may enhance IR-maize technology deployment to smallholder farmers in SSA.