ifwfabs11

=2-Pager Abstract Template for NBDC Contributions to South Africa Forum=

1. Authors
Authors names: Catherine Pfeifer, An Notenbaert, Peter Ballantyne, Simon Langan, Lisa-Maria Rebelo Project Number: N3 E-mail address of lead author: c.pfeifer@cgiar.org

2. Forum session
Basin message session (2 or more basins together)

A session organised by the Nile to exchange with the other basins about selecting 'best bet' practices and matching them to local conditions.

3. Title
"Mixing and Matching" - how to combine "best bet" practices into rainwater management strategies suited to the local environment.

4. Key message/highlights
Combining the 'right' rainwater management practices across the landscape can be source of important synergies. The objective of this session is to let people discuss and discover the eventual synergies at landscape scale by using an interactive game format.


 * //Short abstract//** //(150 words) including://

A database of possible rainwater management practices for the Ethiopian highlands containing more than 80 crop, tree or livestock related practices has been developed. It contains information about the hydrological, bio-physical and socio-economic purposes as well as bio-physical, socio-economic and institutional conditions for successful adoption of each practice. Combining these practices at local and landscape scales and matching them to the local conditions allows communities to take synergies into account and come up with landscape specific strategies for rainwater management.

Our objectives are: 1) to present and validate our work so far - the results as well as the process; and 2) to explore and mobilize further experiences from the participants. The session will be in a game form. Participants will be asked to match their rainwater management practices to pre-defined landscapes and join up with others to form working strategies. With this game, acquired knowledge about the potential impacts of practices and the factors contributing to their success can be shared. It stimulates discussion about how to select and combine technologies at landscape scale. Issues of trade-offs and synergies also come up.

We hope to share previous experiences with the game, play it, and extent the discussion to how other basins address the emerging issues.

Rainwater management strategies should be combined at landscape scale, namely across the high, middle and lowlands. Different combinations might be relevant for different bio-physical, socio-economic and institutional conditions. In its final form, the game could be used for innovation platforms as a participative tool to learn about site specific solutions
 * //Your preliminary highlights for the Forum capitalizing sessions//**