Meeting+4

MINUTES OF CPWF MONTHLY MEETING


 * Date**: January 26, 2011
 * Venue**: Info Center
 * Time**: 8:30am-12:00am
 * Participants**: all available N2-5 project members in and out of Addis, Communication supporters (from KMIS)

**1. Common approach in action research**
Katherine chaired this session on action research. The idea was to have a common understanding on what action research is and what is possible to do. Accordingly participants expressed their views on the subject. Alan gave a short presentation on his experience from the Fodder project where he described sustainable innovation and intervention mechanisms as a result of action research that enabled the community to continue functioning the lessons even after the project is phased out. He noted that the essence was to strengthen emerging innovation and techniques from the ground through the action research. Tilahun on his part gave a presentation on Jeldu's landscape where three different groups exist (soil &water, irrigation and forage groups) with their respective priorities and demands. Therefore the issue is to bring these together in a way that one supports the other. This is said to be facilitated by local actors like different non-Governmental organizations and Farmers' Research Groups that are to be set up and coordinated by the national partners; universities and research institutes who receive funds from NBDC. The facilitation task has to consider that different FRGs could have different interests depending on their respective micro-environment which needs to be coordinated and come together through a platform. The role of the project will be to help these partners support the community to learn, innovate and backstop their action when the need arises.

Participants agreed that the concept of action research is well articulated in both presentations. However the exemplary method given in Alan's presentation could possibly be tricky to apply to the subject of rain water management which is vast and wide. Therefore note was made that results of the action research should be in a way that links the process of innovation and what happens on the ground so as to make it evidence supported. The evidence could be a physical one to be clearly seen on the ground (eg. constructing a dam) or empowering a group of people to organize themselves and involve in an activity that raises their income so that they can practice to the objective of the project; better rain water management. Therefore it is important to clearly define the evidence. In addition national partners should be oriented to do both types.

Another approach taken to define action research was as a participatory collective research taken by different stakeholders to bring change. Thus it is essential to know for whom the research is made, its objectives and how it is going to be made. In this particular case as well, it is said to be of a great importance to clear differences on these elements. To simply highlight the responses to this concern, general statement was given that NBDC is a landscape project that works on rain water management, water storage and increasing income of people at this landscape to better practice the objective. Remark was made that the concept of innovation must also be seen from the perspective of hydrology and bio-physical aspect. The innovation to model should be looked at from different aspects. In addition the integration between the modeling and information from the innovation platforms must be strengthened to make the research evidence based and transfer knowledge. The interlinkage between different factors to address at a large scale and at an individual concern levels is also said to be an essential element in modeling.

It was stated that better focus should be given to how to link with connect with the community on the ground. Organizing the innovation platforms and addressing landscape through them was said to be one methodology. More general queries were raised discussed as to who is going to determine research issues and how the innovation plat forms act in answering research questions. At the moment there is research on process for the larger scale but ways will be looked at for the platforms to involve. The other approach which needs to be discussed further is that research ideas may come from the platforms to be researched through the national partners and then be reported back to the platforms to be drained to the community. ODI and some of the group inclined to support the latter approach. Effort will be made for the platforms, (currently the set up is for one local stakeholder per site with other sub working groups) to have many entry points to influence their addressing in answering research questions.

Finally suggestion was given to form a group from the different technical theme like modelling, innovation, livelihood etc to get together and define the action research approach the project is following as it turns too hard to come to conclusion on the meeting. In addition Tilahun is given the assignment to consolidate and send a response to Larry's comments.

**2. Strategies to link NBDC with local actors and communities**
Discussion was made on the strategies required to aware the community on the NBDC projects and show how it works. It was agreed that communication shall start with district leaders who are familiar with the project since they were invited for the workshops and had many interactions earlier already. The leaders will then pave the way to get to the communicty through different hierarcichal stages and advice on best strategic forums like church gatherings etc. Abera and Gerba can also help on this area while Tilahun will take the lead to start up the process which needs to be done the soonest possible. It was suggested that the community meetings shall be composed of all concerned stakeholders; local actors, national partners, IWMI, ILRI etc.

**3. Updates from Basin leaders meeting in Vientiane; demand-led working groups**
Tilahun gave a briefing on the take-home messages and some of his important observations from the meeting. He noted the following points
 * Focus was given to new spectrum; learning to innovate
 * Monitoring and Evaluation tools and how to strictly work on them was another issue raised
 * Coordination of projects to better focus and integrated outcome
 * Push and encouragement to engage in working groups
 * Better engagement with African basin leaders
 * Involvement at the field sites and improve team building
 * Working groups are on Global drivers to be led by Simon Cook, resilience to be led by a Swedish Institute, Modeling to be led by Charlotte and spatial analysis to be led by An
 * CPWF management has assured that the project will not be interrupted by any CRP or other activities coming up
 * Mid term level review 2012
 * Support budget is available with the Knowledge management team led by Boru for learning to innovate activities and other unplanned works in that regard. The budget is USD 350, 000/year.

Comments and suggestions were given on the update points;
 * It was noted that some projects like N4 that have no budget for field trip can reallocate budget and be able to justify or use the support budget, preparing a proposal.
 * Suggestion was made to provide the list of working groups so that people will identify which ones to join and also process information flow through the communication tools
 * Announce the basin leaders' meeting in advance so that the group may have nile project wide discussion on the message to take to the meeting

**4. Fixing dates for the NBDC science workshop**
Communication was circulating on proposed dates to decide the dates for the NBDC Science Workshop.The inclination from the outcome of the interaction is towards beginning of May. Accordingly all participants have agreed on and fixed the dates of May 4-6. The workshop is expected to last for three days with interested and close partners participating. The objective is to show where the project is in its journey so far interms of research. The days are planned to be dedicated for a reflection workshop, technical meeting and team meeting. A bigger workshop for all external bodies is planned to be either last week of October or beginning of November.

**5. Update on projects and other planned meeting in Feb**
Kees updated the group that he led a small group discussion on project level meeting. Points mentioned are:
 * Communication is made with Ministry of Agriculture and that the Ministry is ready to provide support in the areas of land management and irrigation. It is also planned to seek its involvement in building platforms. Tilahun may take up the communication to proceed further.
 * Idea is discussed to set up a steering committee that will serve as advisory committee to support in showing how to do things and who to contact to facilitate issues. No clear way forward is designed but will soon be worked out. It is suggested for the committee to be formed and participate in the May meeting
 * Seife is working on mapping involved stakeholders at all levels and expects to finalize by the end of the coming week

Charlotte gave update on Modeling and landscape theme
 * The team is working to sort how to do modeling as a thematic activity encompassing livelihood issues, poverty, productivity and economic factors as well.
 * Kindie is working on economic aspect with an effort to link to targeting where Catherine will join
 * Meeting was held with SEI and Cornell partners on many research issues
 * Effort is being made to sort data storage and accessibility with all projects and concerned partners

Jemimah updated participants on Monitoring & Evaluation
 * All M & E tools are put together including indicators of Poverty and Livelihood on the wiki. An ILRI document on the same will soon be sent out
 * Suggestion to join the data team to ensure the content and inclusion of baseline data
 * Suggestion was made if Jemimah can look at the checklist for posted on the wiki and compare with the Global ones to see if the required information is being collected to which she agreed

Catherine updated on the works of N3
 * The team is going to work on Similarity analysis on landscape scale. Therefore to identify the current demands of researchers a questionnaire is posted on the wiki to be filled out the soonest possible. The results of the questionnaires will be compiled to feed the analysis work as per what is required. Catherine asked for everyone to take few minutes and complete the questionnaire as the analysis will be a great use after completion to all projects.

Tilahun shared Upcoming Meetings Fegus gave the below points of update
 * IWMI Share fare of projects is planned for the 3rd of February. (**Request is made to have a person in the project who can speak for NBDC on the share fare as Tilahun will be occupied with another must-do committment.)**
 * Ambo Conference to be held at Ambo University, Feb 10-12, where a speacial session on RWM is going to be organized. Many important figures and stakeholders will participate. Tilahun is one of the paper presenters and other staff members like Teklu will also participate.
 * Conference organized by multiple Belgian Universities with Mekelle University will be held at Mekelle University on Sept 19. A speacial session on RWM and Crop-Livesticl system will be organized. Papers are invited until January end. Tilahun and Bruno are in the organizing committee that anyone interested can contact them.
 * He is coming to Addis in the next couple of weeks
 * The data on land cover change and targeting will be ready by the end of April
 * Access team will be in Addis next week and there is a need see each of the three CPWF sites in Ethiopia
 * Two MSc students will be working on characterization
 * Developing connection with National partners is in plan

The following queries were raised for Fergus
 * Is it possible to look at the checklist for livelihood and comment?
 * Will there by any qualitative information avaliable on trees from the farm for the students who will be assigned to collect data by N2?
 * It would be a good idea to make the students work jointly?

6. Update on Data Managment
 * Peter gave the update on data management.**
 * Charlotte, Ian, Kathryn, and Peter held a meeting to discuss on altenatives to better store and access data commonly. The effort is to bring all stakeholders together to contribute to the solution; IWMI, ILRI, ICRAF, SEI, Cornell etc.
 * A temporary solution is proposed to store the GIS and other data avaliable on a server.
 * There will be produced a full proposal to brief people on the availbilty of the data during the May workshop. More detailed and permanat solution will continue to be searched though it will not be easy as it involves many technical, access, property issues.
 * Data issue is considered as a cross project/Institute issue.

7. Communication update


 * As a continuation to the data management update Peter briefed on some of the major activities being carried on communication
 * An introductory poster is designed which will be commented by project members
 * A brochure will be designed
 * A powerpoint presentation template is on the process
 * A bi-monthly newsletter is also planned. The first issue will soon be printed and project members are invited to send stories, updates etc.
 * Suggestion was made to send request inviting members to forward two words catching phrases for each project with which official communication will be made instead of the ones that are being used now.

8. Review of Action Points**The action points assigned from the previous meetings were displayed and responsible persons have given their updates. Updates are found at Action Point Tracker Table for Monthly Meetings

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