SARD-SC project wins 2014 IITA Excellence and Outstanding Team Awards

The Support to Agricultural Research and Development of Strategic Crops(SARD-SC) project,  has  won  the International Institute  of Tropical Agriculture  2014 Awards  for Excellence. The award  was also conferred  on the project for being an Outstanding Team by  the IITA  Board of Trustees who appreciated and commended the  tremendous  work a  complex and multi-national CGIAR –led  SARD-SC project  is doing to enhance  food and nutritional security  in 20 selected African  countries.

The awards were announced during the IITA Town Hall meeting held during the  recently concluded R4D meeting on Friday November 27,2015. Dr.  Chrys Akem, Project coordinator, received a certificate and a plaque on behalf of the SARD-SC project.

Dr. Akem articulates the   significance of  the  award thus: “This award tells me that persistent hard work do pay off. We are dealing with a very complex project involving a number of institutions, crops and partners; It has been a challenge uncomplexing the project. Thank God we have demonstrated that this can be done and also appreciated by colleagues who voted the project as the most outstanding at IITA for 2014.”

The award is an   indication that project staff’s   hard work and diligence in implementing project objectives  are appreciated  by the executing agency. Therefore, according to Dr. Akem, “ the  award  is really a morale booster  to the whole project team. They feel rewarded for a job well done in delivering on project outputs. It gives the team the confidence to start looking towards and working hard for a second phase of the project in order to upscale and out scale outputs of the first phase of the project.”

Dr. Akem said  the conferment of the  award  was  spurred  by some reasons. He said:  “SARD-SC project is the largest project in the Institute. Its complex nature made many to doubt if the project team would deliver. After getting to the mid-way of the project implementation with a financial disbursement rate of about 62% as against the expected 50% it was good to highlight achievements in a complex AfDB project of this magnitude. The other glaring achievement such as infrastructural development across the different Hubs where the project is being implemented was also a salient achievement.”

He commended his staff for the award. “I could not have been working with any better team in the world than the current team that has been working very hard to achieve project outcomes and in the process got recognized with the best team award for IITA in 2014.”

The  project is  funded  by the African Development Bank and its focus is on raising  the productivity  of  and income  from  the  four  value chains  of cassava, maize, rice and wheat on a sustainable  basis.