reflection1_theme3

= = =NBDC Science and Reflection Workshop= =4-6 May 2011=

Theme 3: Livelihood Impacts
Thursday 4 May: 08:30 - 10:30 Organizer: Katherine Rapporteur: Josie. CPWF Reflector: ????

This session will first start with an overview of how livelihoods are defined, discuss the sustainable livelihoods framework, some of its weaknesses and ways to advance work on livelihoods by focusing on specific analytical issues (Katherine). After this overview, we will move to discussion on the sub-themes below and then spend the second hour focusing discussion on thorny issues - such as how to integrate the livelihoods work well throughout the projects.


 * People, Presenters, Process**

Presentation by Katherine: Addressing Livelihoods within the Landscape in the Nile Basin

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Presentation by Jemimah: Gender in the NBDC

Presentation by Kindie: Livelihood and Poverty Impacts of RWMs: Analysis using Indexing Approach

Presentation by Nancy: Livelihood impacts in the NBDC

Second hour: Discussion will be directed towards key questions and issues such as:

1) How to include long-term environmental and agrarian change in our analyses? 2) How and whom to target for interventions? 3) How to integrate the livelihoods work with work being done in other projects outside of N2.


 * Questions for Discussion**


 * Question No. 1**
 * Who should we target for interventions and what criteria should we use to identify them (land size, vulnerability, gender etc?)**


 * Understanding the system
 * Poor, rich vulnerable, resilient
 * Understand the interaction, resource flow
 * Understand what linkage to strengthen (market)
 * Looking for some commonly owned resource (CPR)
 * Increasing the productivity
 * Equality
 * Capacitating
 * Multiple livelihood and finding niches for the different common with different livelihood
 * Integration is not only bio-physical we need to have social
 * Innovation platform – Intervention specialized combined with targeting


 * Question No. 2**
 * How do we integrate (sequencing issues, indicators, data needs) the livelihoods work with the rest of the project (and modelers, mappers, process people)?**


 * We have best models but most of them have a disciplinary approach
 * This project has to bridge this modeling g….
 * The hydrological model has to include some of the livelihood issues
 * Integration of livelihood issues might need prioritization of the livelihood indicators based on social needs e.g. crop productivity or key ecosystem service can be taken as an indicator
 * Linkage between the biophysical models and the social models can be achieved by:
 * Incorporating new modules into models
 * Coupling models or
 * By transferring from hyd….. grid models into social models or vice versa
 * Integration should also exist between the project ideas with the stakeholder needs. The group argued that it shouldn’t be a top down approach
 * Resource and vulnerability mapping should be continuous and the project aims and processes should be updated continuously


 * Question No. 3**
 * What are the key gender issues (access to land, division of labor, etc) to consider to achieve the goal of improved livelihoods and environmental sustainability?**


 * Women involvement in decision making on the management of HH assets.
 * Recognition of women contribution in the management and production (agricultural) activities
 * Distribution of benefits arising from HH activities – women have little contribution
 * Recognition of workloads among the gender segments
 * In respect to RM – labor aspects in RM e.g. water harvesting technologies. Some of them are labor intensive have to be done by men- need to be … of the labor. Inputs to ensure ..
 * Income distribution arising from farm-based activies ensure blance
 * Access to land – on-going policy reforms taking cognizance of gender p….
 * Access to knowledge and skill building – women tend to be left
 * Decision- making hierarchy on adoption of RM innovations
 * Water sources, storage and distribution
 * Seasonalities of RM particularly on labor demands
 * Water scarcity implications on gender segments – coping with situation – women … focused on domestic supply of water
 * Location HH plots in respect to strategic water source points
 * Irrigation patterns – seasonal .. particularly in search of livestock pasture – June to September who … has implications on labor input (farm)
 * Perceptions, culture and norms e.g. culturally defined roles hence sensitization on benefits of equitable distribution of labor
 * Effects of labor demands on …
 * Access to …. and … extension agents tend to talk to men, women tend to get information from neighbors
 * Representation of women and men in conservation/development committees
 * Location of water investment facilities


 * Question No. 4**
 * How do we integrate gender into the innovation platforms, the action research, the modeling and the mapping?**


 * Innovation PF
 * Involving women in the PF – getting the voices training, skill training, facilitation
 * Considering local level farmer women development agents in the field – baseline survey
 * On how to bring the voice of women in the planning of the innovation
 * -Basing on databases literature disaggregated into gender
 * Action Des
 * Involving women in the research system
 * Training activities
 * Facilitation role
 * Modeling
 * Disaggregation the variables by gender
 * Employing backward analysis
 * Scenario development
 * Modeling impacts intervention of RWM on men/women * suitable more for qualitative management
 * Mapping:
 * Census data is for targeting employed o aggregation to gender
 * On data generated in the impact assessment disaggregated into gender at landscape scale
 * Influence of gender on uptake/adoption technologies of RWM


 * How do we integrate gender into innovation platforms, action research, modelling and mapping?**Some reflections on group work from Alan Duncan

The first point is that we need to be careful not to be slavish about incorporating gender into each area unless it is necessary. There is certainly a need to deal with gender issues in the establishment and functioning of **innovation** platforms. We need to find ways to make sure all voices are heard: women, men, marginalized, youth etc. This might involve some training on facilitation of groups to make sure dominant actors don’t hijack the agenda. There could also be scope for having sub-groups e.g. women’s groups, youth groups etc to meet outside main innovation platform to allow articulation of their views. Coming to **action** research, different actions are likely to emerge from innovation platforms. Here again, gender is a key issue. Different actions will benefit women and men differently and will be more or less attractive to different groups. Here there is scope for some positive selection of actions which benefit women and which are favoured by women (or other groups). For modelling and mapping there may be less need for a gender perspective. This depends on the extent to which there is variation across the basin in gender elements. We need to know more about how gender roles vary across the basin to help us work this out. For example, **mapping** is meant to help with targeting of RMS – is the influence of gender on uptake of RMS relatively similar across the basin – if so do we therefore need to have a gender component for the mapping work? For **modelling** the issues are more complex. One approach could be to consider gender in the development of scenarios e.g. by developing scenarios separately with men and women or by considering the impact of different scenarios on women and men. These could then be modelled. There could certainly be a role for modelling the impacts of different RMS on labour for women and men. The key overall issue in my mind is the role of gender in uptake of RMS and the way in which different elements of RMS differentially benefit the livelihoods of women and men.


 * Question No. 5**
 * What changes do you think the project will achieve at the landscape, farm scale and what are the implications for household livelihoods within the time frame of the project?**


 * Livelihood impacts will depend on scale of platform 2 – 4 kebeles
 * Establishing scope
 * Longer term impacts – other projects, ex-ante
 * Changes in practice of RWM planners – will be done
 * This was really about changes in the KAS and practice of farmers
 * Outcome Narrative
 * Using water resources more efficiently, developing new resources, sharing more, converting resource into livelihood benefits.
 * Bring people on common platform, to improve access to water, collective thinking is converted into action to improve the situation.
 * Improve access and use of water.
 * Livelihood impacts will depend on what platform will do
 * Foster common action
 * Remove constraints
 * Market analysis and linkages
 * Provide information through exiting channels, already happening
 * Critical gaps, quick wins
 * Change will happen anyway – road coming – ensure change has livelihood benefits for our target groups
 * Livelihood impacts will depend on scale of platform 2 – 4 kebeles
 * Scaling out will be kebele to kebele not Woreda to Woreda


 * Will start in June – sense of urgency
 * Measuring changes – establish existing tajectories
 * Control kebeles?


 * Question No. 6**
 * What should the project do to increase its impact at the landscape, farm and household level within the time frame of the project?**

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 * Experience sharing from successful RWM practices area
 * Capacity building – landscape – farmland
 * Understanding and prioritizing grass root problems 1. SWC 2. Erosion
 * Learning from past experiences successes and failures
 * Linking the NBDC project with – national activity SLM – Universities Program – Research Centers
 * Providing incentives – market access e.g. Kigali and Lesotho – getting community - TZ facilitators and rewarding – institutional support
 * Value chains – bring actors together – bringing items in volume – price increase
 * Offering evidence based on output to national policy
 * Minimizing negative impacts of RWM interventions – tree species, - ponds killing cattle – malaria
 * Performance evaluation of impacts

**Theme Reflection**

To what extent is the science presented so far or from this session progressing the Nile BDC? gaps, omissions?
 * 1) Livelihood index needs more thinking
 * 2) Appreciated trajectory perspective operational
 * 3) Science is addressed at a generic level and needs to down to contextual level to a actually understand the value of the ground
 * 4) Need more on how hydrology can influence crop growth and from there system productivity and livelihood
 * 5) Clarity on livelihood concepts and approaches
 * 6) What are the options for incorporating gender and livelihood data in SWAT and other biographical models
 * 7) Problem on modeling and livelihood synergy science programs required
 * 8) Too many how’s but really little on fixing the problem on the ground to promote livelihood and environmental security
 * 9) Issued on aggregation of data from district level to landscape level, geographical basin formulation may include digital audio of surface of each district
 * 10) Good science concept different to estimate RLP1, many need the involvement of all stakeholders
 * 11) The framework on livelihood clear but in the context of RWM needs further development as well as how to integrated in genera NBDC framework
 * 12) Climate change adaptation is not well addressed
 * 13) Science is limited conventional type of approach
 * 14) On rural livelihoods and poverty how are the 2 components ( livelihoods and poverty ) managed
 * 15) RLP1 index sound promising, want to see literature review/ context vrs science

What can we take forward so far or from this session to strengthen project complementarities?
 * 1) Good farming of integration issues next is what to do about it
 * 2) Approach more clearer on paper but needs cautions during implementation
 * 3) Between livelihoods modeling other interventions not clear yet
 * 4) Good approach on integrating different project on livelihood issues
 * 5) No clear strategy for coordination at community level, what changes will happen in N2 that will they set to the community
 * 6) Fully understood past and ongoing experiences
 * 7) Needs to define mechanism for synergistic link as is not clearly indicated
 * 8) The plan to introduce LH into modeling is a good way to cross project complementarily
 * 9) Strongly interrelated with other projects (NGO’s Go’s)livelihood index offers an opportunity to kick projects
 * 10) Livelihood index offer an opportunity to link projects
 * 11) Introduce gender into mapping and modeling remains unclear
 * 12) Need urgently to plan how we will integrate livelihoods work with models (hydrological crop, livestock,... etc models) suggest identifying a group to sit together and work.

What progress have we made so far or in this session on core concepts and approaches? suggestions?
 * 1) The project concept emphasis on impact, would be successful
 * 2) RWMs(livelihoods) need to be internalized by the community through training, workshop to local farmers
 * 3) Link between water management change and livelihood improvement not well distributed
 * 4) Integration from top-down to down- top
 * 5) Integration is planned but not happened yet
 * 6) Why are we using the livelihoods framework? Is it the most appropriate? What other frameworks might be more appropriate for RWMs strategies
 * 7) The concept is appreciated
 * 8) Concepts clear
 * 9) Should be summarized and narrowed down
 * 10) Clearly communicated, up to date
 * 11) Mapping livelihoods into special scale or getting homogeneous units of a place is not similar to mapping biophysical resources – needs some conceptual improvements
 * 12) The qualitative livelihood index and frameworks made the approach and integration more clear
 * 13) Good progress on livelihood but other needs still very general need to move to operational
 * 14) Going beyond the SLF suggested by Katherine was interesting
 * 15) We need to look more at success stories


 * Rapporteur Notes from this session**

First Katherine introduced us to the livelihoods concept, and challenged us to remember that livelihoods are multi-faceted and dyamic, and are mediated by context in terms of institutions, resource access patterns, politics and power. Jemimah reminded us that we must differentiate between the livelihoods of different people within a community and household, particularly remembering gender. Any intervention which NBDC might make will have different impacts on different households and on men and women. The challenge for us is to capture this complexity, and translate it into analysis which we can use at landscape as well as local scale in shaping RMS.

Kindie and Nancy then tackled the thorny question of evaluating livelihood impacts of RMS or of the project as a whole. Should we use an index of livelihood and poverty impacts to allow comparison of before/after RMS piloting or implementation, and between sites? Will the projects implement at sufficient scale within the project timeframe to undertake impact assessment of the RMS, or should we focus on monitoring outcomes rather than livelihood impacts?

Group discussions focused on practical issues relating to how NBDC as a whole could take on board livelihood and gender issues, and what kind of livelihood impacts we foresee. Fruitful discussion took place to identify the areas where livelihoods and gender need to brought into both the development of RMS (by ensuring the strategies which are used as inputs to models are based on good livelihood understanding) and project processes such as innovation platforms, and for how we can maximise livelihood impacts. Now NBDC needs to turn these ideas into concrete plans for integration of the project components.