RAN• RAN is one of 7 university
development labs under the (HESN) OST of USAID
– RAN will bring together a network of 20 African universities in 16 countries
– Makerere (Lead), Stanford University (Innovations), Tulane University (Resilience), and CSIS as core partners
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Background
• Rationale for RAN: Although development efforts have saved lives, they have not sufficiently built resilience of target communities; the same shocks/stresses recur with similar consequences
• RAN seeks to break these negative cycles by tapping into the adaptive capacities of communities to develop solutions
Theory of Change
‘The resilience of people and systems in Africa will be strengthened by leveraging knowledge, scholarship and creativity in RAN to incubate, test, and scale innovations that target capabilities and reduce vulnerabilities identified by an evidenced-based resilience framework for sub-Saharan Africa’………
Methodology and Philosophy
• Resilience can be tackled through innovations• 2 approaches to sourcing innovations:– Acceleration of existing promising ideas– Ideation of new ideas
• Design thinking and Human centred design• Failure is good; failing fast is even better
Objectives of RAN• Objective (1) Design resilience
framework for Sub-Saharan Africa
• Objective (2) Strengthen
resilience of communities through innovations
• Objective (3) Enhance resilience-related knowledge generation and sharing
RAN definition ofResilience
• Resilience is the capacity of people and systems to mitigate, adapt to, recover and learn from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces vulnerability and increases well-being.
Stakeholder engagement, ownership,
Sustainability and institutionalization
Stakeholder engagement, ownership,
Sustainability and institutionalization
Step 3. Resilience Interventions
What innovations would most
effectively address resilience in this
community?
Step 3. Resilience Interventions
What innovations would most
effectively address resilience in this
community?
Step 1. Context AnalysisResilience of Whom, what, where and when?
Step 1. Context AnalysisResilience of Whom, what, where and when?
Step 2. Resilience Dimensions
What makes communities
capableWhat makes them
incapable?
Step 2. Resilience Dimensions
What makes communities
capableWhat makes them
incapable?
Step 4. EvaluationTo what extent did
interventions improve capacities and address
vulnerability?
Step 4. EvaluationTo what extent did
interventions improve capacities and address
vulnerability?
RAN’s resilience framework
4 RILabs, 6 Resilience Themes
• RAN’s centres for ideation, development, and testing of innovations– Eastern Africa (Makerere, Gulu, Rwanda, Kinshasa, Muhimbili):
• Resilience to the effects of climate variability and chronic conflict
– West Africa (UDS-Tamale, Winneba, Mali, Senegal): • Resilience to the effects of rapid urbanization and food insecurity in marginal
populations
– Southern Africa (Pretoria, Limpopo, Lilongwe, Zimbabwe): • Resilience to food and income insecurity in HIV high burden communities
– Horn of Africa (Jimma, Addis, Benadir): • Resilience to the effects of drought and conflict
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Building the network
• A solid network of 14 university partners that cuts across 4 regions in Africa created to tackle resilience challenges
• Immense resource of over 100,000 students, faculty, scholars and brains
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Engagement of students, faculty and stakeholders
• RAN has started intense engagement of faculty and students at Central level and regional levels
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Generating the evidence base to inform innovations
• A massive data collection drive launched across Africa to develop a solid evidence base for RAN’s innovations agenda
• Starting with qualitative data collection on the community’s understanding of resilience, what makes them resilient and indigenous adaptation
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RAN’s approach to solutions will be driven by community needs......
What makes people resilient? What is the current state of vulnerability? Can we learn from the way communities
are adapting? What solutions do they propose?
Innovations agenda
Taken to RILabs, torn apart and built innovations with feedback
loops with community
Taken to scale in the community04/19/23 13
Understanding the university environments
• Understanding the environment in partner universities is crucial to understanding their role in resilience programming
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RAN’s innovation pipeline
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Thematic priority
Dimension 1
Dimension 2
Dimension 3
EvidenceQualitative
Quantitative
P1
P2
P3
P4
S1
S2
S3
S4
Developthrough a resilience
lens
Intervention 1
Intervention 2
More resilient
communities
From pathways to solutionsDesign thinking
Human-centred designRapid prototyping
Resilience InnovationTestingScaling
EVALUATION
What is a resilience innovation?
• A ‘technology’ or ‘science based approach’ with the potential to demonstrably impact on a dimension of resilience in a community
• 3 ways of sourcing innovations– Existing ideas at prototype level, needing a ‘push’– Completely new ideas developed out of ‘ideation sessions
and human centred design processes’– Design and implementation of collaborative platform
projects
At the centre of RAN’s interventions……
• The community
• 18 ‘test’ communities across Africa
Examples of emerging ideas
• Matibabu: Revolutionising the diagnosis of Malaria• Unearthing the potential of earth-worms• Root IO (Radio in a box) – every phone owner is a
potential resilience broad-caster• Improved Push and Pull: Scaling a natural approach
to nuisance weed and pest repulsion• Low cost optimized solar pump to change farming in
semi-arid areas
Next steps
• Resilience data has been analysed to feed into an intervention strategy process
• Each RILab is developing a set of evidence based intervention pathways and innovation challenges
• University faculty will mentor and nurture new ideas; successful ideas will be taken to scale in target communities
RAN Team• Chief of Party: Prof. William Bazeyo• Deputy Chief of Party: Dr. Roy William Mayega• Executive Director Resilience: Prof. Ky Luu, Tulane• Senior Technical Advisor: Prof. David Serwadda• Director Innovations: Dr. Wanjiku Nganga• Director Resilience: Ms. Deb Elzie, Tulane• PI Stanford: Prof. James Fishkin• M&E Manager: Dr. Harriet Namata• Communications Manager: Ms. Harriet Adong• Engagement Manager: Ms. Deborah Naatujuna• Research Officer: Mr. Nathan Tumuhamye• RAN Administrator: Ms. Deborah Namirembe• EARILab Director: Dr. Dorothy Okello• EARILab Program Coordinator: Dr. Julius
Ssentongo• EARILab Innovations Officer: Ms. Carol Kamugira• EARILab Technical Officer: Ms. Sheila Agaba• EARILab Administrator. Ms. Ann Burugu
Other RILab teams•HoA RILab team led by Prof. Kifle•SA RILab team led by Prof. Lekan Ayo-Yusuf•WA RILab Team led by Mr. Denis Chirawurah