planning2013_agenda

=NBDC Planning Workshop 2012-2013= toc Go back to the main event page
 * Infocenter break out room, ILRI Ethiopia, Addis Ababa**
 * 15-16 November 2012**

=**Agenda**=

Capitalizing on assets and on major opportunities / big issues ( group exercise ) || Parking lot of (cross-cutting) issues and concrete opportunities to seize ||
 * **Time** || **Session** ||
 * || **Day 1 - Thursday 15 November** ||
 * 09.00 || * Welcome
 * Participants profile & activities
 * Objectives and agenda for this workshop
 * OLM presentation[[file:Revisiting the OLMs Nov NBDC Reflection Workshop.pptx]]
 * Introduction of the NBDC timeline ||
 * 10.30 || //Coffee / tea break// ||
 * 11.00 || Reviewing the N-project OLMs ( group exercise ) ||
 * 12.30 || //Lunch break// ||
 * 14.00 || Presenting OLM reviews and teasing out key patterns ||
 * 15.30 || Coffee break ||
 * 16.00 || Commentary on the key patterns
 * 17.30 || Close ||
 * || **Day 2 - Friday 16 November** ||
 * 09.00 || Presenting previous day's group work and prioritizing work ||
 * 10.30 || //Coffee / tea break// ||
 * 11.00 || Action planning ( group exercise ) ||
 * 12.30 || //Lunch break// ||
 * 14.00 || Action planning and presentation ( group exercise ) ||
 * 15.30 || Coffee break ||
 * 16.00 || What needs to be assessed/evaluated/documented/communicated?
 * 16.00 || What needs to be assessed/evaluated/documented/communicated?
 * 17.30 || Close ||

=**Day 1**=

Intro exercise

 * Group 1:**
 * Global data set is on line
 * Half of the metrology equipment is stolen
 * Student has been sent to Texas by Charlotte


 * Group 2:**
 * Incentive for participation of people – high level meetings and involve them more
 * Installation for hydrological monitoring –
 * Termites


 * Group 3**
 * Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the project

What is it that NBDC should have done at the end of the project (What to achieve?)
//Participants were asked to think (in table groups) about what they saw as ultimate outcomes that should absolutely be achieved by the end of the program.//
 * Group 1:**
 * Proof that research can lead to positive outcomes on development – we need to demonstrate our work
 * Integrating qualitative and quantitative research
 * Connecting scales through both innovation platforms and one-to-one discussions
 * Gap in N2 about working out the science element – what works well where is missing – link with N3 in validating and engaging internally


 * Group 2:**
 * Better understanding of bio-physical and socio economic conditions/factors
 * Thematic special issues on the research on what is being done in NBDC
 * Identification of political and institutional constraints – that are taken up at policy level
 * Sustainability / institutionalization of the national platform
 * Equipment in the field handed over to the ministry, integrated in national hydrological M & E system and universities
 * A plan for catchment area and follow up proposal - integrated in CRP 5 (including local platforms)
 * Modelling used across scales
 * Capacity in place to use tools
 * Ownership among partners and stakeholders to work after NBDC
 * Landscape planning properly implemented/used


 * Group 3:**
 * Impact analysis being presented to planners, policy makers and potential investors for possible interventions
 * Outputs: thematic reporting – how this can be made into a more synthesized report
 * Increasing the confidence of partners to use modelling tools and data sets (they’re already using the tools)

>
 * Group 4:**
 * Evidence that this project influences agricultural water development in terms of productivity, livelihoods and sustainability (evidence in changing behavior of government, implementers, planners and extension workers and farmers and communities + investors)
 * Targeting information to tailored interventions rather than blanket approaches
 * Ecosystem services and flows
 * ENM's capitalized
 * Diagnostic tools
 * Target interventions - innovative landscape analysis - Independence (mosaic of use types) - Scenarios what will/might change

Reporting back - OLM’s
//Each N-project team reviewed their outcome logic model (OLM) to see what has been achieved or not, what is still relevant, what is missing...//

**Group 1: N5**
__Comments & Q&As__:
 * We need to get together more intensively to get more impact – how do we merge the different products from each project?
 * Key players within the NBDC – within the N3/N4 – what kind of knowledge and changes we have seen and how do we bring this together?
 * Influence policy makers – we haven’t achieved much and we're not sure how much we can achieve...
 * Engage policy makers in the process – national consultant at high level who can work at policy level should help
 * How do we do R 4 D – we would like to document lessons learned and change stories – what we have done and why?
 * What are the products and lessons learned?
 * What kind of issues do we want to address? What actually do we want to address at the end of the year? What have we done? What are the higher level questions we want to address?
 * Development actors – find smart ways to communicate to decision makers
 * What is feasible to achieve in a year time and what is practical?
 * The job of N5 is to tell the story of the program
 * We should support 'information value chains' for specific actors, looking at the outcome we want to achieve with specific audiences and drilling down on information etc. to get there? What can be done around specific themes?
 * How do we get these messages through. How could we have a big impact for policy makers?
 * The story we tell should be an NBDC story not e.g. an N2 or N3 story

Group 2: N4
__Comments**:**__
 * Assisting in portfolio analysis and we plan to do that – The Ministry have a SWAT model but they lack the ability to do it for different scenarios
 * Federal and regional level government (Ministry of water and energy) – we speak the same language
 * Donors – making them aware of our tools
 * Disseminating our tools (World Bank and USAID are aware of them)
 * Ambo, Arbaminch, university – Bahir Dar PhD student is working full time
 * The only big change – merging outcomes 2 and 3 as they have the same outputs
 * Outputs – synthesis of knowledge tool is done. Policy analysis is being done by ILRI
 * Information and data supports other institutions
 * Analysis – crop modeling, process and water modeling is being done
 * Analysis of productivity – green and blue water
 * Improvement of farm …. Productivity is on track
 * Indicators for planning – will come after the MCA is complete
 * Livelihood analysis – has not been done
 * Challenge**
 * How do we take the community of practice and how do we give them voice within the national planning agenda?
 * How do we integrate and implement at different scales – we have been collecting data – how do we validate the assumptions that we made?
 * How do we integrate social and technical issues?
 * Not everything needs to be integrated
 * Clear about not mixing social work going on at small scale and technical work going at a large scale

**Group 3: N2**
Diverse skills and projects. 3 sites.
 * Tools:
 * Innovation platforms
 * Participatory video
 * Water game
 * Eco system services
 * Peer assist
 * Digital stories
 * Map the tools against opportunities and outputs
 * Who is the tool for, and what for?
 * There is a gap between policy makers and farmers
 * We were not sure what we can do – as staff are moving – increasing self reliance of the farmers
 * Barriers to innovation
 * Community engagement…… in our 3 sites
 * Internally, cross basin – the work of Catherine and Beth, Peer assist – Video and IP’s sharing knowledge.
 * We need to work more with Awash people outside of the Nile

Group 3: N3
3 main blocks of outputs
 * RWM strategies – database, maps, tool that helps you do the mapping
 * Policy level – water management domains – strategic areas where do we see water mgt. makes sense
 * Building blocks for that are almost ready – this will hopefully fit into the national platform by next year
 * Priority setting – can fit into national platforms and other channels

Taking stock of NBDC assets
//At the end of day 1, all participants were clustered in mixed groups to come up with a list of assets that we should be capitalizing on for the remainder of the program, in terms of tools, mechanisms and approaches, networks and relationships, capacities and finally other types of outputs and evidence. This table features the list of assets identified.//
 * ===Tools===
 * Wat-a-game: tailored strategies / change to planning + implementation processes
 * Mapping tool
 * ESS impact
 * Polyscape ESS mapping tool
 * Happy strategies game à application with IP’s
 * SWAT model
 * CROPWAT model
 * Aquacrop model
 * Open source GIS tools
 * Digital stories: outputs that document + monitor / knowledge sharing & communication cross-site, local to national
 * Wiki, Website, social media
 * Priority setting framework || ===Mechanisms & approaches===
 * Online peer assists
 * Participatory video (trigger tool for identifying community key concerns and communicating them – power dynamics!
 * National platform
 * Farmer field days
 * Action research: termites, fodder (community buy-in) / evidence for bottom-up processes
 * Models: biophysical and economic at: household / catchment landscape / basin level
 * Innovative mechanism e.g. HS, PU for engaging development partners ||  ||

Networks

 * National platform
 * Thematic groups (national)
 * National steering committee
 * Relationships with Ministry of Ag and Water
 * Partnership and reputation among GOs (MoA / MoWE)
 * Community observers (see hydro-met monitoring)
 * MSc students (Ambo, AAU, Bahir Dar)
 * Network of students that __were__ trained
 * Links with universities (Ambo, Woleta, Bahir Dar, Cornell etc.)
 * Practitioners trained from different organizations (GIS)
 * RWM local buy-in
 * Catchment coordinators
 * Links with basin organizations
 * Partnerships among the IARs
 * Linkage with UNEP / RIU / ICRAF / FAO (check with Tilahun) || === ===

Capacities

 * Suitability mapping capacity
 * IP facilitation skills
 * Quantitative survey skills
 * Event facilitation skills (us)
 * Economic modeling skills at plot / HH / basin level
 * Integrated systems modeling skills
 * Capacity building of NGOs + local government in participatory tools and processes
 * Local capacity in hydro-met monitoring ||  ||

Other information outputs and research evidence

 * Demand for NBDC products
 * Maps:
 * Water management domains maps
 * Feasibility maps (incl. adoption)
 * Suitability maps (practices and strategies
 * Erosion risk map
 * Ecosystem services
 * Data sets:
 * RMD database
 * Special database on Bio-economic data sets (IWMI-ILRI)
 * Biophysical datasets (site/basin)
 * Landscape sampling (soils, LU)
 * Data on farmers crop management
 * Soil and sediment quality data
 * Soils + trees + land cover data sets
 * Qualitative information on livelihoods, adoption à complement quantitative data
 * Hydro-met time series of data
 * Surveys:
 * Household surveys (adoption of RWMS)
 * Survey on local knowledge on trees
 * Baseline studies:
 * Baseline economic characterization (field level)
 * Baseline diagnosis – planning, implementation, innovation livelihoods: evidence at landscape scale
 * Articles and papers:
 * Livelihoods scale + time journal article
 * Unpublished data / papers
 * Reports:
 * N1 report – overview of past approaches
 * 3x reports – livelihoods: what they look like at sites.
 * Documentation from key players on “constraints” but…
 * Institutional analysis – landscape level
 * Other evidence:
 * Water productivity (evidence)
 * Fire frequency
 * Crop water demand
 * Cost of erosion
 * MSC stories
 * Photographs
 * Presentations (PPTs)
 * Videos
 * Web articles / blog posts

**Day 2**
//Groups were formed (according to their interest) around specific target groups: farmers / researchers (one group), planners / policy-makers (one group), integrating it all (one group). The groups used the following to report their work. Those presentations are most helpful to see the details of this meeting. The groups did an initial feedback-giving session which is captured below. The presentations are from the final session when they presented final results.//

**Group 1: Integration**
Looked at 3 elements – team, other CPWF basins and wider stakeholders: __Comments__:
 * [[file:Group work action plan NBDC - Integration.pptx|See the presentation]]**.
 * Team**:
 * The monthly meetings are very important
 * We suggest formulating a steering committee (which consists of contract holders) which is open agrees with a template and for reporting – with different actors and assets.
 * Wider stakeholders**:
 * In the February meeting what does the landscape look now and in the future (livelihood, governance and the environment)?
 * Cross basin:**
 * Monthly meeting between leaders
 * Briefing paper about Africa – share with other basin leaders - provide information for the institutional history
 * Basin leaders meeting virtually through web ex calls and share information with CPWF and basin leaders and could discuss e.g. about the Africa Forum happening next year. We need to work on the details though...
 * Steering committee would distract us from our current direction. Am cautious about making big changes in this direction. You have to agree what you’re going to report on which is difficult to achieve within a year.

**Group 2 – Farmers and researchers**
If a product is used by researchers and not used by farmers it is not useful. How direct is the use of our information by different groups? How are our outputs influencing them?

We have to think carefully how different products are being used to affect decisions at farm level. __Comments__:
 * 3 dimensions
 * Spatial scale
 * Time scale
 * Concept of newness
 * Spatial scale
 * Suitability map from N3, some hypothesis needs to go on for products at different scales for interaction with farmers.
 * Key activity we need: **Produce a flow chart (map) that looks at different products** being utilized within IPs at farm level.
 * We have information on what farmers need to know and identification of gaps in knowledge within the farmers e.g. to have university people involves in IP. Indicators such as ability to turn up may not fit the requirement.
 * Information from the farmers: what they need and what information researchers have; but the participatory mechanism may/may not connect them up. From our basic analysis we have to develop pathways that are solid and good and identify gaps, products etc. along the way. This involves interaction within the N’s.
 * The flow chart is good for other groups to consider also, to identify what is there and where are the gaps
 * Data is limited
 * Simple data is less sophisticated. We need to be clear on what we can provide. How much sophisticated modeling is needed to make a decision anyway?
 * The conversation was hard cause there wasn’t agreement but it was very constructive, which is extremely valuable.

Group 3: Planners and policy makers

 * [[file:Group work action plan NBDC - planners.pptx|See presentation]]**

Planners: local level, regional and national. Politicians – at national level. Planners and politicians may be the same people and we don’t know. Tools:
 * What is relevant for local level planners – and regional level
 * For some tools we don’t understand what they meant (from the list of assets - because the people that came up with those tools were not in the group)
 * GIS: to what extent would it be relevant?
 * Use of participatory video: was it useful or not? It needs to be targeted and needs sophisticated thinking.
 * How can we influence powerful people who have key decision-making power?
 * Action planning: think about planners at the local level.
 * What can we feasibly do? The flow chart will help to get what fits into where.

=Final reporting back= //After some additional group work, the groups presented their final version of the work using the template attached (except the group on farmers/researchers).//

Group 1: (Charlotte) Kees: (Planners/policy makers)[[image:nilebdc/IMG_4534.JPG width="480" height="638" align="right"]]

 * Planners – decision makers – to address connectivity b/n the scales and within the scales and to see whether NBDC is addressing this obstacle
 * Planners at different levels require different tools – how do we connect at different levels?
 * We’re not rewriting the activities – we discussed the key agreed points.
 * Focusing on N3 and N4 and add in activities that are missing here.

Ongoing tools
 * GIS tools, training of trainers
 * We will continue to support planners with data management

Collectivity
 * How can we bring the tools together?
 * Thematic working groups – it is difficult to get these going. Shall we not use existing groups (rather than create new ones) and support that further to make a structuring proposal and get it going by next year?

Where
 * Besides the regional people to connect regional issues
 * How does the local fit into the regional?

Packaging:
 * How do we need to package and fit our evidence?

Integration:
 * How do we address integration at regional level? What kind of evidence do we have that matters at that level?
 * How important is it to reach the politicians? We can work on this through the national consultants and the steering committee
 * How can we increase connectivity?

__Comments and questions__
 * Q: What was new that came out of the group?
 * A: Marshaling the evidence and rethinking the national platform.
 * Comment: It has not gone as far as hoped
 * Q: What was the purpose of the basin scale work if you want connection between biophysical and socio-economic scales? What is it that you’re expecting to use this and social economic actors that is going to take part?
 * A: Large scale economic planners and it is not social but it has social benefits. It is about scaling down rather than scaling up.
 * Q: How is NBDC changing the way anybody is looking at evidence? What are the consequences?
 * A: Looking at the basin scale we should be able to say what has changed.
 * Q: We’ve improved the existing capacity to take results to others for a positive impact. Why do we engage Masters students? Because they are future decision makers. When we set up this project we had some plans. We need to focus. We have to adjust the OLM. What if the imposition of large scale decisions doesn’t address what local decisions are?

Group 2: Farmers and researchers

 * There is a lot of opportunities to integrate
 * A lot of interventions taking place at local level – how well is the diversity of the farmers represented in IPs?
 * Integration and how does it work – not all know the tools – we could do a sketch
 * Different tools are relevant to different farmers – the IP could help show this diversity of tools and perspective and develop a strategy. High level planners are missing in this picture.
 * Get people knowledgeable on the different tools and work together.
 * Incorporate elements on biophysical map…conversation needs to happen soon
 * What are the time scales in applying the tools?
 * Data set – which is not a tool – we have to find a sharing mechanism
 * Mapping existing tools etc. – quite urgent activity

Farmers perspective:
 * Wat-a-game
 * Institutional constraints
 * Farmer representation within the platforms: Equity issues – observations participatory video – platform is at woreda level. How could it reach the farmers – how to reach those
 * Guidance: Wat-a-game – give some kind of guidance

Going ahead – what elements of learning will continue – take 3 levels (woreda, regional and national level). What constraints would farmers / researchers see coming. Conversations need to start around this.
 * Key messages need to be documented.
 * Tools to be mapped
 * Institutions to be brough along
 * All of this is not easy to tackle

__Comments and Q&A__:
 * There is some overlap with previous groups
 * Where is the research into action? We need this to impact attitudes
 * What are the new activities that are coming up

Group 3: Integration group
Looks at 3 different aspects – within NBDC, within CPWF, with other CRP’s

**NBDC team**
> ======
 * Synthesis**:
 * Attend the monthly meetings consistently
 * Active groups updates
 * Participation of the national consultant that is going to be hired
 * Every second month we have thematic meetings – have cross fire debates – presenting conflicting perspectives
 * Before every monthly meeting, hold a peer meeting with all contract holders, Simon and Alan. This group will have to think about the reporting mechanisms
 * Every monthly meeting there will be updates from Alan, Simon and Doug
 * We need to finalize the ToR for the national consultant and s/he needs to be recruited urgently
 * What does NBDC bring in integrated matter? Landscape scale?
 * Communication**:
 * We need get updates on yammer, photo stories etc. if we want to integrate all works
 * Hold regular seminars about the work (Diagnostic seminars)
 * Map the activity plans and see connections with the monitoring approach: Pamela with the national consultant should monitor activities against these different target groups and KAS changes – internal and external stakeholders – different activities happening with the different actors – where the changes have been in terms of knowledge…
 * Stakeholder meeting**:
 * See diagram with integration N2-N3-N4
 * Landscapes build on N2, N3 and N4 work
 * N2 – on decision making side
 * N4 – on work at basin level
 * N3 – at a larger level
 * Government / policy makers
 * Each day we will have discussion what we’ve achieved and where we are going
 * 2nd day repeat that process
 * We could ask for what the stakeholders need and adjust what we already did

Cross basin learning and sharing

 * WebEx basin discussions
 * Report back in January from the missions to Penang, from the basin leaders' meeting etc.
 * Africa … forum – we need to find out quickly if there is money to follow up with this

CGIAR integration
__Questions and comments__:
 * IWMI annual research meeting – closely related to //Water land and ecosystems// CRP – what are the possible implications for CPWF?
 * Ibadan meeting for the launch of the CRP 1.2 on humid tropics – (Alan to report possible implications). At this stage it is difficult to find out what those might be
 * Seminars would be good – having seminars as part of community of practice. (to open it up beyond NBDC)
 * What are some of the institutional constraints? How do we deal with institutional constraints?
 * Cross basin – local innovation platforms have been implemented in different basins. Some IP work has been done in other basins so organize WebEx to share experiences cross basins. There is one such meeting planned to start with the NBDC leading.
 * [[file:nilebdc/Group work action plan NBDC - Integration.pptx|See the presentation]]**.

Cross-cutting issues
//In the forelast session, participants had a chance to contribute to four different topics: gender, M&E (Most Significant Changes), the sunrise strategy and finally the upcoming stakeholder workshop in Feb 2013.//

Gender
What can we do to make gender more explicit in the NBDC?
 * Ensure gender reporting at different levels: IP, research reports etc.
 * Appropriate facilitation (question: of who? Where?) in capturing views/reflections
 * Design gender-responsibe interventions (which interventions are responsive so far?)
 * Assessing existing mechanisms / tools / processes from a gender point of view
 * Collecting gender and sex-disaggregated data (question: for what? why?)
 * Capacity development of our staff in bringing gender in a smart way?
 * Interview / survey women more systematically
 * Develop woman mentoring process
 * Highlight existing gender cases/stories and organize a seminar around this?
 * It's not too late! Or is it?
 * Already a gender element to political economy of interventions and IPs may generate lessons
 * Livelihood reports incorporate gender
 * Include women's affairs office people on IPs
 * We plan a gender audit using an external consultant
 * Quotas for trainings
 * Dealing with attitudes
 * Gender doesn't just mean __women__!!! Relationships between men and women and implications

M&E / MSC

 * **What** || **For whom** || **How** ||
 * * Tools/models
 * Data
 * Games (as tools || * ourselves
 * CPWF / donors
 * partners
 * Users || WP, wiki, research publications, M&E (for CPWF/donors) ||
 * MSC 3rd round (Feb. 2013) || Stakeholders ||  ||
 * Progress M&E ||  ||   ||
 * * Cross-learning on platforms between basins.
 * Analysis of process/lessons
 * Distillation of 10-15 key messages with tangible illustrations
 * N2-N4 needs for successful RMS (cross-sectoral, evidence, based, participatory etc.) --> Why are these important and what have we done? || Development people ||  ||

Sunrise strategy[[image:IMG_4533.JPG width="480" height="638" align="right"]]
Process - opportunities - NBDC added value - unfulfilled outcomes - concept notes. What have we done already?
 * We have to look at engagement with various stakeholders
 * E.g. secondments, shadowing approaches
 * What are potential sources of funding and activities?
 * ACIAR trees for food security
 * Technical consoritum on Horn of Africa (26 Nov. concept note)
 * Africa RISING
 * CRP5 (WLE)
 * CRP 1.2 (Humid tropics)
 * Think outside CGIAR:
 * Gates
 * USAID
 * ADB
 * WRC
 * Link with exit strategy: how to deal with ongoing commitments? Relations are at stake. We may need risk management/mitigation to identify this.
 * What happens to IPs? High expectations
 * Are they effective? Document evidence about this
 * Can we institutionalize them?
 * Either people like IPs because of the thematic content addressed there --> then we can identify thematic interest from programs mentioned above.
 * Or they are liked because they offer good coordination mechanisms --> then we can work on capacity development for improved coordination.
 * Link with phase 3 of NBDC
 * Our information / outputs (to be consolidated through e.g. CPWF cross-basin work), network and capacities inform this.

Upcoming stakeholder meeting

 * Focus on what we have learned, what is our evidence
 * Check with stakeholders about its usefulness and how it should be changed/modified
 * Move beyond classic NBDC stakeholders (question: classic to whom?)
 * Use it to begin to think about sunrise strategy (yes!)
 * Send outlook meeting request to core team
 * ShareFair format: posters for each tool, videos, digital stories
 * Can we invite farmers?
 * Involve future stakeholdres and leaders (i.e. students, graduates)
 * Involve more **__women__** / men+ youth / social categories
 * Involve more farmers / farmer representatives
 * Create more space for their involvement
 * Consider language
 * Involve more local platform stakeholders for cross learning purposes between local and national stakeholders
 * Assess the stakeholders' needs and requirements of NBDC withing NBDC outputs
 * Joint action planning for the remaining period of the NBDC

Final participants' reflections
//In the final session, participants were grouped and thought about what they saw as promising, as challenging etc.//

Group 1

 * Lots of overlap between groups
 * Today tough but necessary discussions
 * Lack of understanding of what others are doing across projects

Group 2

 * True listening took place – still lack of coherence – there is a disconnect and we need a good NBDC action plan to bring it all together
 * Concern over many people that are leaving (N3 is finishing)

Group 3

 * We did get into some of the key issues but we need more time. Pick the key issues
 * The scale issues and lack of integration of N’s
 * We never talked about it until now. We should have spent more time discussing these big issues rather than follow this workshop's agenda.

Alan:

 * The meeting yesterday felt easy but today was difficult because we moved out of our comfort zones
 * The fact is: it was difficult but positive, fruitful and necessary
 * There is a much clearer sense of urgency – a certain panic to justify the 6 million dollars over 5 years
 * Integration is needed at many scales and the group did a good job, across basins within NBDC and within groups
 * Impact needs to be our focus.
 * Word of thanks to Ewen, Meron and Doug

Simon:

 * We are starting a change in operation – this will be led by us all not by basin leaders only
 * Change in how we operate with other stakeholders and we need more of that.
 * We have a stakeholder meeting in February
 * I enjoyed the shared vision
 * It's a change from separate work streams through the parallel programs and this is just a start
 * The change in tempo and time scale is a challenge
 * We have to change the amount of impact for adaptation

Agenda for organizers