The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) and the USAID Agricultural Extension Support Activity (Ag Extension Project) are working together in 26 Upazilas of 12 districts to strengthen the existing capacity of DAE to deliver effective, innovative and value chain-based extension services in the Central and Southwest Bangladesh.

For smooth and effective functioning of the field level activities of DAE, a joint monitoring tool has been developed by the DAE and the Ag Extension Project to initiate the digital monitoring systems of the upazila based activities. The developed M&E tool was officially launched in a workshop held at the BRAC Center, Jessore on June 02, 2016.

As a part of the joint monitoring initiative, the Upazila Agriculture Officers (UAOs) will fill up the monitoring template in each month and will send the filled up format to their respective Deputy Directors (DDs). The DDs on the other hand will check and validate the data and send to the DAE HQs at Dhaka. The DAE Focal Person will accumulate all the data of 12 districts and would prepare a brief on these which he will share with the Director, FSW, DAE, Dhaka and the Head of M&E of the Ag Extension Project in each month.

Kbd Mr. Chaitanya Kumar Das, Director, Field Service Wing (FSW), DAE, Dhaka graced the event as its Chief Guest while Kbd Mr. Chandi Das Kundu, Additional Director, Jessore Region, Jessore Chaired the Workshop.

The Chief Guest depicted the importance of the DAE-AESA joint monitoring activities and hoped that this will be a vehicle to know how the DAE officials can work better at field level and contribute more to the local farmers.

Md. Zakir Hossain, Deputy Director (PI&E), DAE and the DAE Focal Person to the project discussed the importance of training of the SAAOs and hoped that the SAAOs would use their technical and subject based knowledge from the training at field level. He also suggested the DAE officials to have ownership of project’s activities to serve the farmers better.

Six Deputy Directors (DDs), 4 District Training Officers (DTOs), local DAE officials of Jessore along with project staff including Shafinaj Rahman, Head of Monitoring and Evaluation, DAM, Hasib Ahsan, ICT Head of Operations, mPower, Md. Latiful Haider, Agriculture Extension Specialist and Apurba Deb Roy, Community Development Specialist from CARE Bangladesh and the Regional and District Managers were present at the Workshop.

Mr. Bidyuth K. Mahalder, the Chief of Party of the Ag Extension Project at first described the project progress to the audiences. He also discussed the collaboration and future plans of the project with DAE.