SI Appendix Linking research knowledge with action: Lessons from sustainable development livestock projects

SI Appendix

Linking research knowledge with action: Lessons from sustainable development livestock projects Authors: Patti Kristjanson, Robin Reid, Nancy Dickson, William Clark, Dannie Romney, Ranjitha Puskur, Susan MacMillan, Delia Grace Table of Contents CASE STUDY SUMMARIES AND METHOD......................................................................... 2 CASE MEMO QUESTIONS ....................................................................................................... 3 CASE STUDY SUMMARIES ..................................................................................................... 5 CASE STUDY 1: RETO-O-RETO PROJECT ─ BETTER POLICY AND MANAGEMENT OPTIONS FOR PASTORAL LANDS: ASSESSING THE TRADEOFFS BETWEEN POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION ...... 6 CASE STUDY 2: POVERTY AND ECOSYSTEMS SERVICES MAPPING ..................... 13 CASE STUDY 3: CONFIRMING VETERINARY DRUG RESISTANCE IN WEST AFRICA, DESIGNING APPROPRIATE RESPONSE STRATEGIES, AND PROMOTING THEIR UPTAKE ............................................................................................. 17 CASE STUDY 4: ENHANCING LIVELIHOODS OF LIVESTOCK DEPENDANT POOR PEOPLE THROUGH INCREASING USE OF FODDER IN INDIA................................... 22 CASE STUDY 5: IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY AND MARKET SUCCESS OF ETHIOPIAN FARMERS........................................................................................................... 27

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Case Study Summaries and Method \body A workshop entitled ‘Bridging the gap: Translating livestock research knowledge into action for sustainable development outcomes’ brought together ILRI and Harvard researchers to focus on the question of how scientific and practical knowledge can better be linked with action in pursuit of the goals of sustainability: meeting fundamental human needs while preserving life support systems. The workshop objectives were threefold: i) networking─getting familiar with the teams and projects’ experiences; ii) reflexive─participants’ reflections as to what makes some teams/projects more successful than others in linking knowledge with action; and iii) methodology─exploring approaches, tools and strategies of successful programs/projects. The overarching goal of the workshop was to better understand how to more thoughtfully design and implement action-oriented research that contributes to real change and positive social, environmental and economic outcomes. Five ILRI project team case studies were examined, each representing a major challenge of harnessing science and technology to advance sustainable development. The cases were selected to reflect a wide range of geographic focus, type of partners, type of research outputs, and length of time since the start of the project. They cover five different broad problem areas with data gathered from multiple regions within each of nine countries, and can be described as: • Better policy and management options for pastoral lands (Kenya, Tanzania) • Fodder and natural resource innovations for smallholders (India, Nigeria) • Poverty and ecosystem services mapping (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda) • Improving productivity and market success of smallholders (Ethiopia)1 • Improving the management of trypanocide resistance in West Africa (Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali) Thus this set of case studies allows us to make comparisons and learn across a wide range of cultural, socio-economic and agroecological systems. Workshop participants included: Hippolyte Affognon, University of Hannover, Germany William Clark, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Nancy Dickson, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Delia Grace, People Livestock and Environment/Market Opportunities Themes, ILRI Patti Kristjanson, Innovation and Learning Unit, ILRI Ogeli Makui/Dickson Kaelo, People Livestock and Environment Theme, ILRI Julius Nyangaga, Outcome mapping team, ILRI Paul Okwi, Poverty mapping team, ILRI Vishnubhotla Prasad, Fodder Innovations project, ILRI Ranjitha Puskar, IPMS project, ILRI Tom Randolph, People, Livestock and the Environment Theme, ILRI Robin Reid, People, Livestock and the Environment Theme, ILRI Dannie Romney, Innovation and Learning Unit, ILRI Mohamed Said, People, Livestock and the Environment Theme, ILRI Shirley Tarawali, People, Livestock and the Environment Theme, ILRI Admin and logistics: Joyce Wanderi and Martin Njorge 1

This project was included at the last minute and thus did not complete a case study summary prior to the workshop.

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Case Memo Questions Participants were requested to reflect upon their own project/program experience and consider the tentative findings reported below regarding what appears to help increase the likelihood that research efforts will generate knowledge that leads to actions contributing to sustainable development (arising from work by the Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability of the US National Academies; Clark and Holliday, 2006). They were asked to briefly address the following questions about their cases in advance of the workshop (the case studies summaries are found in section 2 below). Definitions. The cases and examples are in general complex systems involving the production and utilization of scientific or technical knowledge. For convenience we simplify that complexity by referring to producers and users of knowledge. Producers are meant to encompass the scientists, engineers, and practitioners who through their experiments, observations, and trialand-error probing create knowledge about how the world works. Users are those who may use knowledge in shaping actions that change how the world is working. This category includes decision makers, such as policy makers, managers, extension agents, farmers, executives, householders, and citizens. Of course, the experience of such users also is a source of knowledge and in good collaborative arrangements the distinction between producers and users of technical knowledge may become (intentionally) blurred. End-to-end systems link research inputs with impacts to create end-to-end integrated systems that connect basic scientific products such as observations and predictions with decision-relevant impacts and options. Questions guiding case study summaries: 1. Project Description: What is a short, descriptive title for the team/project you are presenting? Is your research attempting to link knowledge with action, and, if so, what knowledge and action does it now link? 2. Problem definition: Tentative finding: Successful research linking knowledge with action requires dialogue and cooperation between the scientists who produce knowledge and the decision makers who use it. Especially important is that the problem to be solved be defined in a collaborative but ultimately user-driven manner. Question: What is the problem to be solved by your research? How─if at all─did the development of the research provide for a user-driven dialogue between scientists and decision makers to shape problem definition? How─if at all─did the ultimate problem definition differ from initial formulation by scientists and decision makers, respectively? 3. Research management: Tentative finding: Successful efforts to develop research linking knowledge with action generally adopt a "project" orientation and organization, with dynamic leaders accountable for achieving use-driven goals and targets. They avoid the pitfall of letting "study of the problem" displace "creation of solutions" as the research goal. Question: Was your research developed in such a "project" mode? Did it have specific, measurable goals and targets? If so, what? To what extent and in what ways was goal and 3

target definition driven by scientists or decision makers, or both? To what extent and in what ways were research leaders held accountable for achieving those goals and targets? 4. Program organization: Tentative finding: Successful research linking knowledge with action include "boundary organizations" committed to building bridges between the research community on the one hand, and the user community on the other. These boundary organizations often construct informal and sometimes even partially “safe spaces" in which project managers can foster user-producer dialogues, joint product definition, and end-to-end system building free from distorting dominance by groups committed to the status quo. In order to maintain balance, most effective boundary organizations make themselves jointly accountable to both the science and user communities. Question: Did your research involve a boundary spanning function or organization? If not, how did you organize the dialogue between producers and users of research knowledge? If so, where and how was the boundary organization or function created? What did it do? To what extent was it accountable to both users and producers for achieving its goals? 5. The decision-support system: Tentative finding: Successful programs linking knowledge with action create end-to-end, integrated systems that connect basic scientific predictions or observations to decision-relevant impacts and options. They avoid the pitfall of assuming that a single piece of the chain (e.g., a climate prediction) can be useful on its own, or will be taken care of by "someone else". Question: To what extent is the decision support system developed by your program an end-toend system? What are its discrete elements (e.g., i. a weather forecast; ii. an impact model converting climate forecasts into yield forecasts required by decision makers; ii a discussion roundtable’ or ‘feedback workshops’)? Which were the hardest elements to put in place? Why? What changes in research, decision-making, or both have occurred as a result of the system? 6. Learning orientation: Tentative finding: Successful research linking knowledge with action are designed as systems for learning rather than systems for knowing. Recognizing the difficulty of their task, such programs are frankly experimental, expecting and embracing failure in order to learn from it as quickly as possible. Success requires appropriate reward and incentive systems for risk-taking managers, funding mechanisms that enable such risk-taking, and periodic external evaluation. Question: Did your research have an expressly experimental orientation? How did it identify which risks to take? How did it identify success and failure? How did it engage outside evaluators to help it reflect on its own experience? What are the most important lessons you have learned regarding pitfalls to be avoided, or approaches to be followed in the future? 7. Continuity and flexibility: Tentative finding: Successful research linking knowledge with action must develop strategies to maintain project continuity and flexibility in the face of budgetary and human resource

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challenges, such as: the dual public/private character of knowledge-action systems (needs more explanation, not sure what this is); budgetary pressure to highlight short-term, measurable results; uncertainty regarding future budgetary priorities in a dynamic political environment; shortages of people who can work effectively across disciplines, issue areas, and the knowledgeaction interface; and evaluation criteria that do not measure the less tangible tasks of maintaining these links (e.g., attending meetings, responding to requests for information). Question: How do budgetary requirements and/or human resource pressures influence your program? What, if any, collaborative funding mechanisms have you developed to ensure continuity and relevance to users' needs? If applicable, how do you maintain public funding, or incorporate private funding for the provision of a partially private good. What, if any, innovative approaches have you developed for enhancing human capacity in your program area (e.g. providing incentives to reward interdisciplinary activities or training in team building / facilitation)? How does this translate into the characters you look for in people who you recruit to join your team? 8. Other insights? Question: What other insights or conclusions emerge from your experience about the factors responsible for success and failure in activities designed to link knowledge with action? 9. Other issues? Question: Are there any other issues that you would like to discuss during the workshop? 10. Contact information: Question: Could you please list for the case presented the key contact person (presumably but not necessarily yourself), with title and contact information? 11. Representative publications / products: Question: Could you please list a couple of key publications or products that would help us to understand the program you have described, including web sites? (If possible, please append electronic copies Case Study Summaries The case summaries are included here as supplementary information because they: provide valuable information about the programs represented at the workshop and how they contribute to sustainability; offer specific examples of and lessons from program managers’ efforts to link knowledge with action; and include resources for additional information, such as program URLs and program managers’ contact information. These cases may provide the reader with a more thorough and nuanced understanding of the breadth and depth of the case study ‘projects’. Note: Participants’ case summary responses are included here as submitted for the workshop without substantive editing. They represent the perspectives of the individual authors, and not necessarily those of the authors of this working paper or the organizations that employ them. 5

Case Study 1: Reto-O-Reto Project ─ Better policy and management options for pastoral lands: Assessing the trade-offs between poverty alleviation and wildlife conservation Dickson ole Kaelo, Ogeli ole Makui, Mohammed Said, Robin Reid, and Patti Kristjanson Short description of the project This 4-year project that commenced in 2003 was designed to create the knowledge and relationships to enable poor agro-pastoral communities to influence local and national land use policies affecting their livelihoods (access to pasture, water) and the sustainability of biodiversity (wildlife) in the areas where they live. Researchers aimed to work with these communities to generate new knowledge that contributes to: a) understanding the impact of livestock-wildlife systems on biodiversity and the implications of changing land-use practices for pastoralist livelihoods and the environment; and b) processes and actions that empower local communities to better manage their livestock and landscapes and to contribute to policy changes that help alleviate poverty and conserve natural resources. The project focused on four principal large landscapes and the communities within them: 1) Kitengela / Nairobi National Park, Kenya; 2) Amboseli / Longido, Kenya and Tanzania; 3) Mara / Trans-mara, Kenya; and 4) Tarangire / Simanjiro, Tanzania. The research is carried out by an integrated community – facilitator – researcher team. The information from the project is being exchanged with communities and policy makers through various means: feedback workshops, target group presentations, conferences and workshops, community meeting, posters, policy briefs, and through radio, and exchange visits of local community, field visits of pastoralist from other parts of the world. Problem definition In many of the pastoral areas in East Africa there has been a need for better and more usable information that allows a wide range of stakeholders to work together to manage land and water more sustainably, equitably and productively. Although there is significant research on this issue, this research is rarely linked to the problems or information needs of pastoralists in local communities. From another perspective, the policy makers make changes in policy without seeking the participation of both the community and researchers. And communities are not taking advantage of the existing knowledge and information to better manage their land. Across the region, pastoral groups, government land managers, and policy makers alike expressed the need for objective evaluation of the short and long-term economic and ecological returns to various policy and land management options. To address these issues the team had a series of meetings with a number of stakeholders during the proposal formulation process and prior to the start of the project to set the research agenda. Once the project was funded and started, this research agenda was fined tuned by a new team of community facilitators who worked closely with communities and policy makers at local and regional level and also the ILRI research team. Research management The research project was designed to put communication and community / policy maker needs at the centre and up front, rather than at the periphery or last. In a pictorial sense, the communities and policy makers were in the middle of the circle and the researchers were in the ring around 6

the edge of the circle. In boundary organisation language, each member of the team was charged to take some of the function of a boundary individual: to be responsible not only to their home institution, but also discuss and represent the needs of a set of other stakeholders at different levels of scale. The project started with a logical framework to guide planning and monitoring, and then quickly also adapted the IDRC Outcome Mapping approach to refine its vision, strategy and identify boundary partners. Put simply, this method plans backwards from identification of desired changes in partner behaviours to research products, rather than the other way around. The boundary partners consisted of community groups, policy makers, government institutions, and local authorities and NGOs. For each boundary partner specific outcome challenges, progress markers, specific outcomes or measurable goals and evidence were developed. The targets for the community were to improve pastoral livelihoods and livestock production, strengthen community institutions and empower community members, and improve access to common property and environmental sustainability. The target for our policy boundary partner was to ensure that environmental sustainability and land use planning were developed at the local and national level. And finally the target for the donor and development agencies was to improve financial and political sustainability of the project through increased donor support. The logical framework has been more useful for monitoring the progress of producing outputs, and the outcome mapping has been more useful in making sure the research is strongly user-driven and focusing the team on creating ‘outcomes’ or changes in behaviour on the part of boundary partners. The researchers were accountable for producing information, with the participation of community members, and making sure all results were available in useable form for the various boundary partners. The role of the facilitators was to support their communities in making positive changes through information and knowledge generated from the project. The team has made considerable progress facilitating policy change – but this process also depended other factors which are beyond the control of the team. Program organization The project team which comprised researchers, policy impact and community facilitators worked closely towards achieving project targets. In a group or individually, the team members picked boundary partners to work with from community, local authorities or policy makers or a combination of the three. The strategy was to produce information that could be used by the various partners to the address the problems stated above. The centerpiece of this project was communication and linking communities with scientists with policy makers. To accomplish this, the team created four new positions, called community facilitators, who worked full time at spanning the boundaries between these three groups. While the facilitators worked either for ILRI or African Wildlife Foundation (in Tanzania), their job assignment was to work closely with a variety of organizations to understand fully their information needs and to help those organizations find the needed information, either inside or outside ILRI. Each facilitator was evaluated with informal and formal evaluations and judged on how well they were ‘responsible’ to their boundary partners (as above) and facilitated their needs. They also were assessed on how well they worked with the ‘researcher team’. We often

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remarked on how the boundaries between the facilitators and researchers were very blurry, and that we were all both, facilitating our chosen boundary partners, and carrying out research, with a different location and level of scale for each remember of the facilitator – researcher team. One of the most important aspects of this communication process was the selection of the facilitators themselves to ensure they would be as effective as possible when working with local communities and policy makers. A joint pastoral and researcher team carefully defined the criteria for the facilitators that would make them most effective from a Maasai cultural and researcher cultural perspective. These characters included: 1) good listening skills, 2) respectful of elders, 3) rising leaders in good standing with the community, 4) eloquent speakers, 5) advanced education (at least a BSc.), 6) ability to work independently, and 7) a member of the communities they serviced. At first the flow of information between researchers, community and policy makers was not strong. As information started flowing between researchers and communities, communities and policy makers, and then researchers and policy makers, different specific information channels started to evolve. In a number of instances, the community started to work directly with policy makers to discuss policy issues; researchers also worked directly with the communities and policy makers. Policy makers started calling scientists to contribute to some policy review work. Over time, trust and open dialogue developed among the researchers, communities and policy makers at local and national levels. This happened more strongly for the Kitengela and Mara sites, and not as strongly for the Amboseli and Simanjiro / Longido sites in Tanzania. The decision-support system In a sense, the end-to-end ‘decision support system’ adopted by this project was entirely based on the community facilitator – researcher – community team. The process seemed to work like this: 1) the team identified priority research questions with input from the communities (either directly or through the facilitator, based on the outcome mapping) and also based on scientific interest / importance, 2) the team then identified the outputs or products that could be produced in the short term and meet requested needs right away, and over the long-term, 3) the team then produced the information together (with community members participating, often with significant training investment), and then 4) the team decided what forms the information should take to be most effective to communicate with communities more broadly (meetings, radio programme, posters, feedback workshops, briefs) and with scientists (reports, papers, book chapters, international conference presentations, international assessments). Interestingly, one of the lowest priority communication avenues was a website (communities often do not have access) and, correspondingly, this website is still under construction. With this approach, big changes happened. Research is usually a very slow process, and we had to figure out how to produce initial information much faster and get it out to people. The researchers on the team felt their research was useful and helpful to people on the ground for the first time and this added to their feelings of responsibility in producing accessible information. The communities started paying attention to researchers and started to request their input and support regularly. Confidence among community members rose as they used the information to build their case with policy makers. Policy makers engaged more often and more directly with communities partly because of the stronger confidence and the reliable information at hand.

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Policy makers also requested direct help form the researchers in reviewing new policy instruments. For example, in the Kitengela, the four research areas of communication, land use, biodiversity and livelihoods were treated separately. Over time, the team integrated so that it could support the complicated issues raised by communities, policy makers or researchers. For example, by combining information on land use, livestock, household economics, wildlife trends and agriculture, the team derived trade-offs of various land use options. Much of this information is now being used by the communities and local authorities to develop the first-ever master land– use plan for Kitengela. In addition, as the project started producing and sharing information many partners started to share data and work with project team. The database developed by the teams is being used by other projects and organizations addressing the issue of ecosystem services and poverty. Learning orientation These are the main points: •

The team adopted a learning approach from the beginning, which was unsettling at first, because we had no set recipe for what would and would not work

• •

As we learned, we gained confidence and built on the successes and learned what did not work We then experimented with new avenues of communication like radio programmes and policy briefs. It is not clear yet whether the latter is really useful yet, but the initial indications are good.

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What really worked included:

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The community facilitators as boundary individuals and their work, the spark and drive they added to the team, and the critical role they played in every step of this project

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Bi-monthly 2-day meetings to discuss progress, new community needs, new research outputs

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Feedback workshops

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High profile presentations at a wide range of meetings

What was less successful included: ƒ

The ratio of facilitation time to research time was inappropriate. Because reliable research information is so hard to create, the researchers rarely kept the facilitators busy communicating Reto-o-Reto research information. This

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did allow the facilitators to work with other ILRI researchers and communicate a much broader and more useful set of information. ƒ

It was clear that the amount of information flow entirely depended on the quality of the facilitator, which created some unevenness

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The researchers had little time to spend in the field, partly because the demands to create information were so large and daunting

Continuity and flexibility This is an issue for this team because the original project was funded by a large outside grant. During the course of the project, the team wrote many grants to continue funding on different aspects of the project past the end of the original grant. Community members also engaged strongly in the research and took responsibility for contacting the core team at ILRI about their needs. Extensive training helped build the capacity of community members to collect information and to judge the reliability of other information. Other insights • The project was too short - there is now demand for the project to continue, and the stakeholders require the previous, highly funded level of engagement •

There is a need to scale up the lessons from this work to other places and broader scales of resolution

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The integrated team (different backgrounds) made a difference but also has its difficulties

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It takes a long time for government agencies to change their approaches to tackling issues, thus long-term engagement is necessary for outputs to become outcomes and then impact

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There is still a great deal more to be learnt from the field

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Mutual trust,open minds, a common vision, good leadership and a desire to make a difference were the core values that united the team and made it especially effective.

Other issues •

How do we document our work and experiences and develop principals that can assist other people to replicate or improve on this approach?

Representative publications / products: • www.reto-o-reto.org • ONeWORLD Radio Programme (contact M. Said)

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• Policy briefs (contact M. Said) • www.maasaimaracount.org • Project posters (contact M. Said) • Kitengela land use map (contact S. Kifugo) • Homewood K, Kristjanson P, Trench P (Eds). Forthcoming. Staying Masaai? Livelihood, Conservation, and Development in the East African Rangelands. Springer, Dordrecht. • Reid, R.S. Savannas of our birth: People, wildlife and change in East Africa. University of California Press. Forthcoming. • Nkedianye D, Kaelo D, Reid R, Neselle M, Onetu L, Makui O, Said M, Kiruswa S, Kristjanson P, Kamuaro O, Kifugo S, Dickson N, Clark W. (2008) Linking knowledge with action and alleviating poverty sustainably using researcher-community-facilitators to span boundaries: Lessons from the Maasai in East Africa. Joint Center for International Development and International Livestock Research Institute Working Paper, CID Faculty Working Paper 08-174 (Cambridge: Harvard University CID and ILRI). Available at: http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidwp/. • Norton-Griffiths, M, M.Y. Said, S. Serneels, D.S. Kaelo, M. Coughenour, R.H. Lamprey, D.M. Thompson and R.S. Reid. 2008. Land Use Economics in the Mara Area of the Serengeti Ecosystem. In: Packer, C, and Sinclair, A.R.E. (eds.), Serengeti III: Human Wildlife Interactions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Pp. 379-416. • Ogutu, J.O., Piepho, H-P., Dublin, H.T., Bhola, N., Reid, R.S. 2008. Rainfall influences on ungulate population abundances in African savannas. Journal of Animal Ecology 77(4): 814-829. • Reid, RS, Said M, Gichohi H, Nkedianye D, Ogutu J, Kshatriya M, Kristjanson P, Kifugo S, Agatsiva J, Adanje S, Bagine R (2007) Fragmentation of a peri-urban savanna in the Athi-Kaputiei Plains, Kenya. In: Galvin K, Reid, R, Behnke H, Hobbs N, (eds) Fragmentation of semi-arid and arid landscapes: Consequences for human and natural systems. Springer, Dordrecht. Pp 195-224. • Galvin, K.A., R.S. Reid, R.H. Behnke and N.T. Hobbs. 2007. Fragmentation of semiarid and arid landscapes: Consequences for human and natural systems. Springer, Dordrecht. • Reid, R.S., Tomich, T.P., Xu, J., Geist, H., Mather, A., DeFries, R. Liu, J., Alves, D., Agbola, B., Lambin, E., Chabbra, A., Veldkamp, T., Kok, K., Noordwijk, M., Thomas, D., Palm, C., and Verburg, P.H. 2006. Linking Land-Change Science and Policy: Current Lessons and Future Integration. In: Lambin, E., Geist, H. (eds). Land Use Change, LUCC, IGBP. Springer Verlag. Pp. 157-171. • Cochrane, K., D. Nkedianye, E. Partoip, S. Sumare, S. Kiruswa, D. Kaelo, L. Onetu, M. Nessele, M. Said, K. Homewood, P. Trench, R. S. Reid, and M. Herrero. 2005. Family fortunes: Analysis of changing livelihoods in Maasailand. Final report, Project ZC0275, Dfid Livestock Production Programme. International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya. • Reid, R.S., Serneels, S., Nyabenge, M. and Hanson, J. 2005. The changing face of pastoral systems in grass-dominated ecosystems of East Africa. In: Grasslands of the World, FAO, Rome, Italy.

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• Ogutu J.O., Bhola, N. and Reid, R.S. 2005. The effects of pastoralism and protection on the density and distribution of carnivores and their prey in the Mara ecosystem of Kenya. Journal of Zoology 265: 281-293. • Reid, R.S., Thornton, P.K. and Kruska, R.L. 2004. Loss and fragmentation of habitat for pastoral people and wildlife in East Africa: concepts and issues. African Journal of Range and Forage Sciences 21(3): 103-113. • Lamprey, R. and Reid, R.S. 2004. Expansion of human settlement in Kenya’s Maasai Mara: What future for pastoralism and wildlife? Journal of Biogeography 31: 9971032. • Reid, R.S., Ogutu, J., Rainy, M., Kruska, R.L., Nyabenge, M., McCartney, M., Worden, J., Wilson, C.J., Kshatriya, M., Kimani, K., and N’gan’ga, L. 2003. Mara Count 2002: People Wildlife and Livestock in the Mara Ecosystem. Report, Mara Count 2002, International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya. Contact information • Mohammed Said: [email protected] • Dickson ole Kaelo: [email protected] • Ogeli ole Makui: [email protected] • Shem Kifugo: [email protected] • Robin Reid: [email protected] Website: http://www.reto-o-reto.org/

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Case Study 2: Poverty and Ecosystems Services Mapping Paul Okwi, Tom Emwanu, Godfrey Ndeng’e, Patti Kristjanson, Philip Thornton, Norbert Henninger, An Notenbaert, and Russ Kruska Project Title: Demonstrating how poverty and ecosystem services maps can be used more effectively to design and target sustainable pro-poor interventions across different sectors in Eastern Africa This research attempts to link knowledge about poverty to action through improved, better targeted and more transparent pro-poor policies implemented across East Africa. It aims to improve linkages between key decision makers in agriculture, livestock and health sectors in the region, and enhance their knowledge regarding rural poverty (where and who the rural poor are, how poor are they, reasons for observed differences in poverty incidence) in order to mainstream critical poverty and environment issues into national poverty strategies. Problem definition The problem to be solved by this research is non-existent or ineffective policies at national and subnational levels for reaching the poor and improving their welfare. The research approach involved both scientists (the research team) and policymakers (the advisory team) from the outset in order to ensure that the information and knowledge generated by the scientists was useful and used. The scientists initially formulated the problem as a technical one (i.e. refining techniques to get the best possible poverty maps, i.e. poverty estimates with small errors associated with them), whereas the decision makers were more interested in the most recent and relevant poverty information for their particular (fairly narrow) constituencies. Research management This research was developed in a project mode, with a strong overall project manager as well as clear use-driven goals, targets and incentives for the policy and research teams in each country, who were held accountable for achieving those goals. The first 4-year phase began in 2001and focused on capacity building in analytical poverty mapping techniques. A second 2-year phase of the project sought to link the poverty maps with ecosystem services mapping and influence poverty policies and institutionalize the use of this knowledge across many institutions in Kenya and Uganda. Program organization This research involved both research and decision-maker boundary partners from the outset, with ILRI essentially playing the role of a ‘boundary spanning organization’, ensuring that the researchers, in particular, were accountable to both users and producers for achieving its goals. The decision-support system The analysis led to poverty incidence, depth and distribution estimates for small geographic areas (e.g. one or two small rural villages). Connecting this to decision-relevant impacts and policy options is challenging because these will occur at different levels of government and across many different sectors (e.g. agriculture, health, education). Our approach has been to develop the poverty analyses units (made up of part of the research team) and encourage linkages with the other sectors and decision-makers at different levels through capacity-building exercises and development of timely decision-relevant research outputs (e.g. poultry and poverty distribution maps in Uganda for the Ministry of Agriculture who is preparing for a possible avian flu outbreak).

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A key challenge has been prioritization of research outputs with policymakers; they tend to come up with ‘shopping lists’ of issues where they want more information. One approach we have used is to develop ‘example’ outputs to demonstrate some of the possibilities and hold small meetings with key individual decision-makers in the different sectors to stimulate their imagination and help us prioritize research activities. Learning orientation In terms of learning orientation, this research has evolved as the partnerships have expanded. Analytical results have been presented at various workshops, some policy-oriented, where communication of results to a broad audience was stressed and feedback sought at relatively early stages. Much effort has been put into developing and sharing communication products and holding high profile media events (e.g. a poverty map powerpoint presentation developed with the permanent secretary and ‘use of poverty information’ presentation developed with local government minister in Kenya). There has been a continual experimentation with approaches to more effectively engage decision-makers and disseminate results. Continuity and flexibility Project continuity and flexibility have been achieved largely through the support of one key partner, Rockefeller, who has been keen to build on the research accomplishments and make sure that the link to ‘action’ is indeed achieved. However, other collaborators (World Bank, WRI, DFID, and local governments (largely through World Bank and other donor funds, e.g. to their statistical units) have also been key. For example, by raising the profile of the statistical units through high profile, high quality research/communication products (e.g. the poverty books), we created demand for the institutionalization of such knowledge generation within these government units, and enhanced their visibility and status. Human resource constraints have been addressed through the capacity building components, although we have been lucky not to lose a few key people that we have trained and relied on for outputs during the process. Our strategy for incorporating government support has been to create a demand for ongoing high quality poverty analyses and products (e.g. for the poverty books by the MPs). We have not yet tried to incorporate private funding, but need to think about this. Other insights: What Learning Can Be Drawn from this Initiative? 1. Researchers can effectively build capacity by applying a range of strategies aimed at influencing partners’ awareness, working environments, skills and behaviours. 2. Strategies aimed at influencing awareness, incentives and rewards were helpful in supporting change in target partners’ actions and relationships. Taking the researchers in the Government Statistical Research Units as the primary focus, the approach was to initially enhance their knowledge and relationships as well as to make their working environments more supportive of and receptive to their research. The early involvement of government policy analysts and policy makers was effective in creating support and receptivity for the researchers’ work among the users of the researchers’ outputs. The project team and the local research teams also enhanced receptivity to poverty mapping in their working environment by giving presentations to donors and development agencies throughout the process, informing them of the poverty information and of ways in which the data and tools could be used. This, along with high profile book launches featuring senior policymakers, donors and development partners gave credibility to the local partners. Helping the high-level decision-makers with the presentations of the products (maps, books) at these events increased local knowledge and ownership.

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3. Strategies that result in immediate and ‘hard-to-reverse’ outcomes may be necessary to generate high quality outputs for which the producers can immediately take credit. Contractual arrangements were established with the researcher partners and monitored by the project team. Firm milestones and agreed upon standards of quality for work increased the likelihood of timely and acceptable outputs. Assisting partners to achieve prominence in their field and to take credit for good quality outputs builds commitment and enhanced partner influence. The project supported the production of high quality, high profile books, published by the local partners, so they (local working associates) could receive the bulk of the credit and recognition for the work 4. Technical training and assistance reinforced by hands-on work and support by colleagues over the long term yields success. Training is an essential part of the research process. In all three countries poverty analysis skills were built through training and technical assistance reinforced by poverty mapping work. Partners undertook and met their commitments as the work progressed. Experienced researchers from other parts of the world were also included in the startup workshop, where they were able to present their personal experiences in similar undertakings, the benefits they realized, as well as the institutional and policy changes poverty maps have led to in their countries. Continued access to these colleagues was a useful supportive asset, offering continued mentor-type structures. 5. Involving the users of research outputs early in the project enhances the relevance and acceptance of the research. The research team helped establish policy support teams consisting of poverty policy analysts and high level policymakers in developing the methodology so they fully understood the outputs and were able to directly feed them into the country poverty policy processes. Other issues There are major transactions costs involved in building and nurturing partnerships with individuals located in institutions that are poorly managed. Yet these are often the ones we most need to work with, and influence (particularly when bad policies limit impact of our research on the poor). Most of our partners face poor incentives and rewards for interdisciplinary, multi-institute approaches (and we continue to struggle to improve these within our own institute as well!). Are there ‘tried and true’ approaches that help limit these transactions costs so researchers spend more of their time on actual research?

Representative publications / products The following two books present the results of the poverty analyses in Kenya and Uganda in both map and table formats, and are written in a non-technical style. They explain how the analysis was done, how to interpret the results and suggest possible uses of the information for targeting pro-poor policies and interventions. The data, maps (and GIS layers behind the maps) and reports can all be downloaded from the web. Uganda Bureau of Statistics. 2004. Where are the Poor? Mapping Patterns of Well-Being in Uganda 1992 and 1999. Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), Entebbe, Uganda, and International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Nairobi, Kenya. 86 pp. Available at: http://www.ilri.org/research/Content.asp?SID=145&CCID=41 Maps : http://www.ilri.org/ILRIPubAware/ShowDetail.asp?CategoryID=TS&ProductReferenceNo=TS%5F051101%5F002 GIS files: http://www.ilri.org/gis/search.asp?opCountry=LIKE&tbCountry=Uganda&opTheme=LIKE&tbtheme=Poverty&opBoolean=AN D&display=Brief&submit1=Submit

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Central Bureau of Statistics. 2003. Geographic Dimensions of Well-Being in Kenya. Vol. 1: Where are the Poor? From Districts to Locations. Government of Kenya, Ministry of Planning and National Development, Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) in collaboration with International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). CBS and ILRI, Nairobi, Kenya. 164 pp. Available at: http://www.ilri.cgiar.org/Infoserv/webpub/fulldocs/GeogDim/Kenya_Poverty_Atlas.pdf or http://www.worldbank.org/research/povertymaps/kenya/volume_index.htm GIS files: http://www.ilri.org/gis/search.asp?opCountry=LIKE&tbCountry=Kenya&opTheme=LIKE&tbtheme=Poverty&opBoolean=AND &display=Brief&submit1=Submit Maps: http://www.ilri.org/research/Content.asp?CCID=12&SID=149

The poverty mapping project in Kenya evolved into a poverty and ecosystems services mapping project, with the following publications: WRI (2007). Nature's Benefits in Kenya: An Atlas of Ecosystems and Human Well-Being. World Resources Institute. Available at http://www.wri.org/publication/natures-benefits-in-kenya. Nackoney J, Henninger N, Said M, Okwi P, Ndeng’e G, Landsberg F, Kristjanson P, Reid R, Tunstall D, Mock G (2007) Using geospatial information to connect ecosystem services and human well-being in Kenya. Information Development Vol 23, Nos 2/3. Okwi P, Ndeng’e G, Kristjanson P, Arunga M, Notenbaert A, Omolo A, Henninger N, Benson T, Kariuki P, Owuor J (2007) Spatial determinants of poverty in rural Kenya. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104 (43): 16769–16774.

The following are publications relating to the analytical component of the project, and use of poverty maps globally. When the project began in 2000, high resolution poverty maps existed for only a few developing countries and only one in Africa; researchers trained through this collaborative effort have now resulted in this poverty-related knowledge being generated for 6 SSA countries. Henninger, N. and Snel, S. 2002. Where are the poor? Experiences with the development and use of poverty maps. World Resources Institute: Washington, D.C (http://population.wri.org) Hoogeveen, J.G., Ewanu, T and Okwi, P.O. Updating Small Area Welfare Indicators in the Absence of a New Census. World Development Report, forthcoming Okwi, P.O., Emwanu, T. and Hoogeveen, J.G. 2003. Poverty and Inequality in Uganda: Evidence from Small Area Estimation Techniques. World Bank and UBOS Working Paper, UBOS, Kampala, Uganda.

Contact information: Patti Kristjanson (PhD), Senior Scientist, ILRI ([email protected]) www.ilri.org/innovationworks Paul Okiira Okwi, PhD [email protected] www.ilri.org/research/theme1 Website: see various websites above

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Case Study 3: Confirming veterinary drug resistance in West Africa, designing appropriate response strategies, and promoting their uptake Hippolyte Affognon, Delia Grace, and Tom Randolph Problem definition Farming systems across the sub-humid zone of West Africa often depend on cattle keeping, both as a production activity and to provide animal traction for cultivating expanded crop areas, especially for cash crops such as cotton. This zone is infested by the tsetse fly which transmits the potentially debilitating and fatal cattle disease: trypanosomosis. Farmers employ a combination of strategies to manage this disease challenge, the most popular of which is regularly treating their cattle with trypanocides, veterinary drugs specific to the disease that can be used prophylactically or curatively; as the local saying goes, ‘here, you farm with a syringe in the hand’. Each head of cattle is treated on average at least once a year. When drugs are used extensively in this manner, drug resistance can be expected to emerge, and the drugs will become less effective. Both farmers and veterinary professionals find it difficult to detect drug resistance due to a combination of lack of awareness as well as other possible explanations for drug failures, including inappropriate administration of drugs, which is often done by the farmers themselves. However, if drug resistance is allowed to become established and spread, the viability of cattle keeping and animal traction will be threatened. Project Description In the mid-90s, scientists from ILRI teamed with collaborators in Germany and West Africa to develop a technique for detecting resistance, testing it in a zone of suspected resistance in southwestern Burkina Faso. Having confirmed the presence of drug-resistant pathogens (trypanosomes), a 4-year project was initiated in 2002 to apply the detection technique to other suspected hotspots of resistance in Mali and Guinea, and test appropriate strategies for farmers, veterinary professionals, and policy makers that would minimize the risk of creating new resistance. That project, which ended in 2006, confirmed that pockets of resistance exist across the zone studied, and provided evidence that promoting information and training on rational drug use and integrated disease control could reduce the risk of resistance. A protocol for more rapid detection of resistance and a range of prototypes for informational and training materials and decision-aid tools were developed. A new (4-year) phase of the project began in 2007, and in addition to understanding better how established resistance might be reversed and assessing the impacts of these research efforts, a major objective is to scale up and out across the region the prototypes developed during the preceding phase. This evolving collaborative effort involves several research challenges. •

It concerns an invisible problem that required international and regional researcher action to identify and to bring to the attention of local researchers and authorities, and so is at its origins unabashedly supply-driven. Awareness was subsequently raised and cooperation cultivated through a sequence of consultations and increasing direct collaboration with local actors.

•

Evaluating the appropriateness of response strategies has, however, required partnership with local actors right from the start, and a participatory approach was adopted.

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•

As the overall effort has evolved over the years and new information and understanding was generated, research objectives were periodically revised through consultation with both local users and international research actors.

•

It was appreciated early that the problem and proposed solutions required a systems perspective since determinants of resistance range from the microbial to the international policy level.

•

The current challenge is devise a strategy for efficiently and effectively scaling up and out such a variety of products, feeding them into the appropriate development and policy channels across the varying country contexts in the region.

Research management While the funding for the initial phase of ‘discovery’ was oriented to scientific outputs, the funding source (BMZ Targeted funding for the CGIAR) for the two subsequent phases have stressed development objectives. This has contributed to more careful planning of the objectives and research activities to ensure their relevance, appropriateness and likelihood of impact. Progress markers and measures of success were set by the researchers primarily in terms of completing planned tasks rather than impact measures. Progress and achievements are reviewed annually in donor reports. ILRI scientists were held accountable for the overall objective of the project in the form of Medium Term Plan outputs, but it no longer appears under the current format. Specific project deliverables may, however, be explicit in individual scientist’s annual work plans and performance evaluations. It is not clear to what extent collaborating scientists and partners are held accountable. Program organization In the recent phase, the project operated with boundary partners at four levels: i.

National research: to ensure understanding, ownership, capacity, and advocacy of the issue, the direct participation of the relevant national veterinary research institutions and trypanosomosis control agencies was solicited in each country

ii. Local farmer and service providers: Within the study sites, cattle keepers and service providers (animal health technicians, veterinarians, drug sellers) were recruited as individuals and their representing organizations, to participate in the project activities, which often involved not only providing information, but also receiving training. iii. Local and national policy makers: Local and national stakeholder workshops provided forums to present the issues and involve key actors and policy makers in understanding the problem and analyzing the feasibility of proposed solutions. iv. Regional and international actors: Contact was maintained through a project newsletter and periodic interaction with relevant international agencies (esp. FAO PAAT, AU-IBAR ISCTRC) and the pharmaceutical industry to keep them informed and solicit feedback on the findings being generated by the project. The decision-support system An end-to-end, integrated system sounds in part like a code word for what we have termed a systems approach: the problem of resistance cannot be effectively addressed by focusing only on the

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epidemiological dynamics without addressing farmer incentives to undertake control actions, or policy makers’ incentives to provide the appropriate enabling policy or institutional environment. Along our continuum of systems, the status report for the project partners may look something like this: •

Epidemiology of resistance: While we have a crude but robust understanding of the main drivers that lead to resistance, providing the basis for formulating prevention strategies, our knowledge of how to contain and reverse established resistance is still poor.

•

Farmer and service provider incentives: Through socio-economic analyses and intervention trials, the project has identified a set of key informational messages and techniques for influencing the practices of those most directly involved in the delivery and use of trypanosomosis control technologies, esp. drugs. While different channels (state services, private sector, NGOs, media) have been proposed through which these products could be disseminated, a clear strategy for accessing these channels has yet to be devised.

•

Policy support: Stakeholder analyses have made clear the complexity of perceived interests, and how promoting rational drug use is seen by certain parties as a threat to the professionalism of veterinary services. The strategy adopted is to work with national partners to generate evidence of resistance in a country, use this evidence to raise awareness among stakeholders, and then work with stakeholders to evaluate potential responses.

To tie these together and improve the likelihood of sustained follow-through to the end users, the project promotes ownership and buy-in by empowering different actors: state research and veterinary services to monitor the problem and inform the other stakeholders, certain stakeholder organizations pursuing their interests as lobby groups, pharmaceutical suppliers protecting their markets, and policy makers appreciating the threat to livelihoods and how vested interests may be managed. Learning orientation The project operates in a learning mode; initial design of project activities is often rather sketchy, and is refined as the project evolves. Annual project meetings are structured around a review of findings from the previous year and discussion of their implications for the activities planned for the coming year. Findings are not always predicted; the advantages of rational drug use, for example, emerged as it was tested and compared to other strategies during the preceding phase. Some risk-taking is encouraged, such as the potentially controversial testing and promotion of rational drug use messages. Continuity and flexibility A variety of strategies have been incorporated into the project to promote continuity without depending on external support, including: •

Ensuring that managers and technical staff in state agencies (which tend not to change quickly!) are directly involved, and having them present results to national stakeholders to establish their role

•

Developing a fairly low-cost and easy-to-apply methodology for monitoring drug resistance accessible to resource-constrained national agencies

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•

Assigning one such group from one country to backstop the introduction of the methodology in other countries, thereby enhancing regional expertise and ownership

•

Preparing and disseminating training materials, including training modules to be incorporated into conventional technical training for professionals and technicians

•

Raising awareness among key stakeholder groups so that they may continue to act as lobby groups to maintain pressure for policy action

•

Working with the pharmaceutical industry to identify actions and messages that may be in their own interest to promote as part of their marketing efforts

•

Exploring with NGOs and other development actors what messages and tools might help to support their own development objectives, as an indicator of their willingness to replicate and promote the messages without additional support.

Other insights A systems perspective is critical to ensure that the project’s research findings translate into changed mindsets and practices. Focusing only on working with and disseminating biological/epidemiological knowledge within the regional research community is not likely to lead to impact. Clearly, the problem and potential solutions require understanding and exploiting incentives at all levels, from farmers and local service providers, to professional organizations, public sector technicians and policy makers, and the private sector. Other issues We are struggling just now with designing components of the new phase of the project related to rolling out the various products from the preceding phase of the project across the region, and undertaking impact assessment to value the returns to the donor research investments made to this research over the years. Although initially conceived as independent activities, we are proposing to integrate the two activities by considering the regional roll-out within an innovation systems framework, i.e. using tools to identify the actors who might be involved in promoting the products and analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, and incentives in doing so, and based on this devise a rollout strategy. The challenge would be to figure out if we can evaluate how effective this approach is. This would then be integrated into the impact assessment, which will be projecting future uptake of the research results. The idea would be to evaluate how eventual impact of the research results—both in terms of its timing and its extent—is influenced by applying an innovation systems-inspired strategy for dissemination and uptake. We would like to have the opportunity to brainstorm on this at some point during the meeting. Publications: Grace D et al. (2007) Training farmers in rational drug-use improves their management of cattle trypanosomosis: A cluster-randomised trial in south Mali. Prev. Vet. Med., doi:10.1016/j.prevetmed.2007.06.005 Contacts: Hippolyte Affognon (Benin) is a research associate and PhD candidate in the Institute of Development and Agricultural Economics at the University of Hannover (Germany), with research interests in animal health economics, agricultural project impact assessment and policy studies.

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Hippolyte is currently finishing his PhD research under the project on trypanocide resistance in the cotton zone of West Africa that is one of the case studies under discussion at this meeting, and may be involved as a post-doctoral researcher on the new phase. His PhD research used a damage control framework for the economic analysis of trypanocide use under risk of drug resistance. ([email protected]) Delia Grace (Ireland) is a post-doctoral veterinary epidemiologist on joint appointment with ILRI and Cornell University, currently involved in a project on the application of risk analysis approaches to zoonotic disease problems in developing countries. Project activities include learning lessons from food safety projects in African and India, elaborating a conceptual framework and methodologies, and developing project proposals. Delia has interest and experience in quantitative and participatory epidemiology, animal health policy and delivery systems, and tropical livestock disease including trypanosomosis. Her PhD research at the Free University of Berlin (Germany) was also a part of the trypanocide resistance project in West Africa under discussion. ([email protected]) Tom Randolph (USA) is an agricultural economist and has been responsible for developing ILRI’s research on livestock keeping and human health. His research interests have included agriculture and human nutrition in southern Africa, rice policy and impact assessment in West Africa, and animal health economics generally. ([email protected])

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Case Study 4: Enhancing livelihoods of livestock dependant poor people through increasing use of fodder in India VL Prasad, Peter Bezkorowajnyj, and Dannie Romney Background The Project ‘Enhancing livelihoods of livestock-dependant poor people through increasing use of fodder was initially designed to run for six years in two three-year phases, starting in October 2002. The Project was justified on the basis that the demand for meat and milk in developing countries is predicted to double in the next 20 years as a result of growth in urbanization and incomes. Such increases in demand potentially present significant opportunities for poor livestock producers to increase incomes and build assets to improve their livelihoods. In India, of the large sections of the population living below the poverty line 150 million are livestock keepers .The lack of sufficient year-round feed is a major constraint to livestock productivity. The Project was originally based on the premise that the most effective way to address fodder scarcity was to identify and disseminate new, improved varieties of fodder or dual-purpose crops. A whole-farm approach was considered in the selection of technical options to overcome local feed constraints. This would build upon existing work and baseline data to develop site-specific ‘baskets of options’ and to offer advice to farmers to enable them to select options that best suit their particular environments. It was envisaged that the Project would have full participation of farmers, local communities and change agents and would involve community meetings, stakeholder workshops and extensive group discussions to identify priorities related to feed constraints and degradation of natural assets. Scaling-up and out would take place through farmer-to-farmer exchanges and the dissemination activities of development organisations partnering with the Project. However, the constraints for scaling-up became clearer and it was realised that there was a greater need to consider the roles that a broader range of actors play within the local cluster. The focus of the Project accordingly shifted to strengthening partnerships, community involvement and a learning environment, specifically through empowering a multi-stakeholder network to increase the levels of adoption of fodder plants, including dual-purpose food-feed crops, by smallscale farmers. Project staff investigated a diverse array of partnerships and institutional relationships in terms of their potential to stimulate the adaptation and adoption of fodder innovations in order to scale up and out best-bet technologies. Project staff started to ask the kinds of questions that would facilitate this: What groups of actors need to be involved in raising levels of fodder adaptation and adoption? What patterns of interplay occur between stakeholder interactions/relations, institutional settings and policy goals such as poverty reduction? This re-orientation of project thinking started to yield generic lessons on ways of learning, which in turn was helping to enhance the Project’s ability to influence approaches, processes and practices of partners. Partners were given training in monitoring and evaluation and encouraged to develop their own work plans for activities. They were also encouraged to depart from the traditional seed distribution and demonstration plot activities, and initiate new or innovative ways to scale up the technologies. This allowed for partners to think and work in new ways that challenged the habits and practices that they had become used to.

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Findings from key Project activities showed that the issue of addressing fodder scarcity was much more complex than simply providing technologies such as improved germplasm. Analysis of the uptake of an improved groundnut variety indicated the importance of considering the circumstances along with the interactions and other institutional factors of all players in the system. The need for institutional innovations like fodder market were shown to be responsible for the scale-up of fodder technology in irrigated systems. In March 2005 external consultants at the instance of DFID to review progress and make recommendations on the way forward carried out an output-to-purpose review. The reviewers concluded that considerable progress had been made by the Project but recommended that a clearer conceptual framework would be helpful to assist with operationalisation in future and suggested the use of an innovation systems approach. Accordingly Phase II of the project dealing with the capacity to innovate is being started from January 2007. At the core of this approach is an investigation into the nature of the groupings or networks of individuals and organisations and the factors that affect their ability to work in a systemic, coherent way to bring fodder related knowledge and services into productive use in the specific context of poor livestock keepers. Application of the Knowledge to Action Criteria Problem Definition The problem to be solved was the shortage of fodder for cattle in both dry land agriculture and irrigated areas, which was constraining the poor livestock keepers from enhancing their livelihoods. Initially informal discussions between farmers, researchers, extension specialists and other service providers along with formal surveys were organised. This reinforced the hypothesis that shortage of fodder from dual-purpose crops in dry land areas and planted forages in irrigated tracts was the problem to be addressed. Accordingly a high yielding groundnut cultivar and an improved variety of a perennial fodder were accepted as candidate intervention strategies. However, with the continued interaction of actors and on the basis of results after a couple of seasons it was realized that technology per se, while it was important, was not the problem. It was reconciled that – institutions and actors responsible for the institutions and the knowledge generation and application by them were the underlying issues to be addressed. Fodder shortage was only a symptom of the complex problem. Research Management The research entitled “Enhancing livelihoods of poor livestock keepers through improved fodder use”, was developed in a Project mode to start with. It had clearly stated outputs, targets etc. During the first year it remained an implementer of research with pre-determined activities aimed at generating technology based solutions to the Project-identified fodder problems. However, from second year onwards the focus changed towards ‘Empowerment of a multi-stakeholder network or system’. That far the Project changed from implementation to a facilitation mode by providing a platform for learning through partnership. The partners who are mostly from civil sector organisations were encouraged to learn from actions and incorporate learnings into subsequent planning. Farmers’ field days where partners interacted with farmers; quarterly interactive meetings where different partners interacted among themselves and with the Project and - multiple stakeholder platforms where all concerned actors across public, private and civil sectors – have decided the action plans, goals and targets for the Project.

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Program Organization The civil society partner organisations like Dairy unions, NGOs and para-statal organisation like NDDB (National Dairy development Board) served as boundary organisations. As facilitator, the Project also took upon itself the boundary spanning function by organising learning fora at local, Project and National level where research scientists, other public, private and civil sector personnel participated. The initiative organised and facilitated multi stakeholder platforms as safe spaces for learning across actors of unequal influence and power. It is planned to enhance the use of such platforms in phase II (although not necessarily with the same partners from Phase I) of the Project to understand and address issues at local level and to generate influence at policy level. Decision-support system The project with its emphasis on capturing multiple actor perspectives or empowering a multi-actor coalition can be seen as a prelude to developing an end-to-end integrated system. The initiative is learning to account for the non-linearity of the innovation process. In one of the case studies where different groups of a community innovated an institutional arrangement in the form of ‘leasing’ small areas of land for fodder production, the Project studied and characterised the experiential capacity build-up process that entailed the innovation. The lessons from the case might be useful for targeting other areas and in designing a decision support system. Learning Orientation Yes the Project has experimental orientation. The approach of the Project after its first year changed from knowing to learning and to this end it analysed both success and failure. The successes and failures were identified on more than technological criteria such as yield. For example a technology like hybrid napier grass which requires intensive irrigation management was considered a useful intervention in the context of small farmers because it provided for a “win-win” partnership between the better off and the ‘constrained’ small farmers. Based on these findings and subsequent review by the donor agency, the project changed from a project centric focus to a learning-by-doing focus. In 2005, an external review of the Project acknowledged the positive shift to the new approach, and agreed with the Project that consultation with the multiple actors should also include facilitation activities to help arrive at a shared understanding/perspective by way of designing solutions through not only technology, but also institutional arrangements. Continuity and Flexibility Project experiences have taught us that skills capacity could be a constraint for learning oriented Projects. The types of skills (particularly soft-skills) are required to help facilitate and re-orient new ways of doing things. A critical mass of persons with these skills are required for the learning process. Implications and Conclusions The criteria presented above were helpful in assessing the project interventions and evolution of learning with respect to addressing the problem of fodder scarcity. Four of the six criteria - Problem definition, Research management, Learning Orientation and program organization were found to be most relevant in evaluating the knowledge to action transition in the project. While fodder is known to be a major constraint of poor livestock keepers, many of the poverty alleviation programs in India have limited their focus to single intervention such as provision of lowcost credit to help farmers for purchase of animals ignoring the other inputs necessary to maintain productive livestock management systems. In addition, the State Departments of Animal Husbandry were mandated to deliver animal health and artificial insemination services while ignoring the importance of fodder related services. Considering these points, and that fodder research programs in

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India have historically addressed the fodder shortage issue with improved germplasm, the importance of the institutional issues have not been highlighted. As such, reference to the criteria used for evaluating Knowledge to Action will help redefine fodder research for addressing the issue of fodder scarcity - the main focus of the Fodder Innovation Project (Phase II). The concept of offering “safe space” is a very useful principle and has already been adopted by the project. Any interventions dealing with ‘institutional change’ must have a mechanism where (in spite of unequal influence or conflicting mandates) actors are able to freely air their views and contribute to an unrestricted process of problem solving. A clear and direct focus on the importance of the actors and their orientation within a network is an important lesson from the project that can be included into the knowledge to action paradigm. The ability for exchange of both codified and tacit knowledge between the range of actors allows for understanding of one another’s priorities/mandates, and develops links that help facilitate the generation and application of knowledge. Publications:

Hall A, Sulaiman V R, Bezkorowajnyj P. 2008. Reframing Technical Change: Livestock Fodder Scarcity Revisited as Innovation Capacity Scarcity. A joint ILRI, UNU-MERIT, ICRISAT, IITA report. International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya. Available at: http://fodderinnovation.org/ N.C. de Haan, D. Romney, P. Bezkorowajnyj and O. Olufajo. 2006. Feeding livestock through partnerships. Knowledge Management for Development Journal 2(3), 123-135 VL Prasad, PG Bezkorowajnyj, SN Nigam, J Hanson, and D Romney (2006). Participatory Varietal Selection to Multiple Actor Orientation – Case Study of Groundnut in Ananthapur, Andhra Pradesh. Forthcoming, Outlook on Agriculture Ravinder Reddy Ch, Tonapi VA, Bezkorowajnyj PG, Navi SS and Seetharama,N. 2007. Seed System Innovations in the semi-arid Tropics of Andhra Pradesh. Indian Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), ICRISAT, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, 502 324, India. ISBN 92-9066-486-X. 209pp Subramanyam, C., Bezkorowajny, P.G., Wani, S.P., Bekele Shaferaw, Paprthasarthy Rao, P. and Nageswara Rao, G.D. 2006. Crop-Livestock Linkages in Watershed Areas. Global theme on Agroecosystems. Report No. 29. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Patancheru, India Prasad, V.L., Bezkorowajnyj, P.G., Nigam, S.N., Hanson, J., and Romney, D.2006. Participatory Varietal Selection to Multiple Actor Orientation – Case study of groundnut in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. Paper presented at the International Conference on Social Science Perspectives in Agricultural Research and Development, February 15-18, 2006, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, and New Dehi. India.

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Bezkorowajnyj, P.G., Prasad, V.L., Dhamankar, M., Roothaert, R.L., Olufajo, O.O., Romney, D. 2006. Fodder Research Embedded In A System Of Innovation. Paper presented at the International Conference on Social Science Perspectives in Agricultural Research and Development, February 15-18, 2006, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, and New Delhi. Bezkorowajnyj, P.G., Prasad, V.L., Ravinder Reddy, Ch., Reddy, K.G Hanson, J., and Romney, D.2006. Embedding Fodder Research. In: A System Of Innovation, Case Studies From India. Proceedings of the International Conference on Livestock Services Enhancing Rural Development, Beijing, China, 16 -22 April: 315-316. Roothaert, R.L., Olufajo, O.O., Bezkorowajnyj, P.G., Ravinder Reddy, Ch., and Prasad, V.L., 2006. A multi-stakeholder approach to seed systems of food-feed crops for smallholder farmers in the tropics. Proceedings of the International Conference on Livestock Services, Beijing, China, 16-22 April 2006, Chinese Academy of Engineering, Beijing, pp. 212-222 Ravinder Reddy, Ch., Tonapi., V.A, Prasad, V.L., and Bezkorowajnyj, P.G. 2006. Innovative Seed Systems and Seed delivery Models for Food-Feed-Fodder security in Semi-Arid Tropics of Andhra Pradesh. Paper presented at XII National seed Seminar on Prosperity Through Quality Seed, Organized Jointly by ICAR, New Delhi and ANGRAU, Hyderabad, 24-26 February 2006 at Hyderabad, AP, India Roothaert, R.L., Olufajo, O.O., Bezkorowajnyj, P.G., Ravinder Reddy, Ch., and Prasad, V.L., 2006. Seed Innovation systems of food-feed crops: New perspectives for Smallholder Farmers in the tropics. Proceedings of the International Conference on Livestock Services, Beijing, China, 16-22 April 2006, Chinese Academy of Engineering, Beijing. VL Prasad, K Gurava Reddy, PG Bezkorowajnyj. 2008. Mapping of Processes Associated with the change: Adoption of hybrid maize in Nalgonda district. Paper Presented at the Workshop on Rethinking Impact: Understanding the complexity of Poverty and Change, Cali-Colombia, March 26-28, 2008. Contact information Dr. Peter Bezkorowajnyj, Project Manager, Fodder Innovation Project, ILRI, Hyderbad, ICRISAT campus, Patancheru, India. [email protected] Website: http://fodderinnovation.org/

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Case Study 5: Improving Productivity and Market Success of Ethiopian Farmers Ranjitha Puskur and Dirk Hoekstra Introduction Improving Productivity and Market Success of Ethiopian farmers, known as IPMS, is a 5-year research for development project designed to make accessible knowledge available with various scientific and development outfits and enable them being applied to result in positive social and economic change. This is a project implemented by ILRI on behalf of the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture. The project aims to enhance the market orientation of agriculture in selected pockets in Ethiopia, in support of the government’s strategy. This objective is sought to be achieved through piloting various approaches and methods and learning from these experiences to scale them out. The project focuses on identified priority marketable commodities (crop and livestock) in its operational areas. Knowledge management, capacity building, deployment of relevant technologies and, new institutional arrangements for service delivery to support marketorientation are some critical elements of the project. It engages in diagnostic and action research to support the learning process. While the aim is to bring about changes in the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the areas in which the project operates, the other major objective is to convince the service delivery organizations (including research and extension agencies) and other actors (including private sector) through influencing policy makers, to adopt new ways of working which are responsive to needs and demands of the poor smallholder farming community. Problem definition/need to support user-producer interactions The project was originally conceived together by the Ministry of Agriculture in Ethiopia, ILRI and the donor (CIDA). They recognized that a lot of technologies which originated from various national and international research agencies were available on the shelf and application of which could prove to be useful in improving the productivity in the agricultural sector of the country, which could contribute significantly to the government’s new strategy of market-oriented development. This project was designed to be a collaborative project between various CG centers and the national research system, led by ILRI. All these agencies were involved in the initial formulation of the project. It was decided that the project would take a commodity-centered approach. In the subsequent stages of designing the project, regional and local level stakeholders including farming communities were engaged in a consultation to identify priority marketable commodities in their respective areas, the related constraints in the production and marketing chain and possible actors who the project could collaborate with. After starting the operations in the pilot areas, for each of the interventions (spanning input supply, production, marketing etc) that were planned for specific commodities, the project initiated dialogue with users and the service delivery agencies and other relevant actors and implemented them through the offices of Agriculture. In many cases, this helped in ensuring a buy-in from the stakeholders and paving the way for sustainable innovation processes.

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However, a major challenge still lies in ensuring that service delivery agencies learn from these experiences and adopt responsive ways of working. The project has been focusing intensively on facilitating transformation of the extension system through capacity building. The involvement of national research systems has been limited to some collaborative diagnostic and action research and not much change in mindsets is evident. Some of the knowledge management efforts, in the form of developing an agricultural information portal, establishment of knowledge centers with various electronic and nonelectronic knowledge resources are expected to ease and enhance the access to knowledge sources. However, ensuring that the national researchers engage in dialogues with the users to shape their research agendas and ensure a continuous flow of knowledge generated for application to solve priority problems and demands, has not yet been fully paid attention. IPMS created Advisory and Learning Committees to serve as Learning Platforms, define IPMS actions to match with government priorities at various levels and, help negotiate safe spaces for IPMS activities. These are designed to be a series of connected stakeholder platforms, created at key institutional levels and designed to break down both horizontal and vertical information sharing and thus to speed up the process of identification, development and uptake of innovation and, to contribute to broader systemic change processes by facilitating institutionalization of innovative approaches. These committees consist of key decision makers representing various actors/actor groups. They engage in continuous dialogue with IPMS to jointly plan the activities, but also to monitor and evaluate them. IPMS designed a communications strategy as a part of its efforts to inform decision-makers of the lessons learned from various pilot initiatives trying new approaches and the implications for policy. There is a high emphasis on use of audio-visual material in this effort. Research management/study issues but solve problems This was designed and is being implemented in a project mode. The project started off with a developed logical framework specifying outputs, outcomes and impacts with measurable targets. It then moved on to a Results Based Management (RBM) framework with a robust Monitoring and Evaluation system. This framework does not just look at indicators of increased productivity and marketing success, but also considers the involvement of poor women farmers in valueadded and marketing activities, changes in risky behaviors with regard to HIV/AIDS, changing access to knowledge sources and their utilization among others. The following examples provide a flavour of the outcome indicators used: • Extent of utilization of knowledge-based approaches to developing marketable commodities. • Frequency of information exchange among Stakeholder institutions and organizations (including the private sector) at Woreda, Regional & Federal levels. • Level of responsiveness of the extension system, including Farmer Training Centers, to the needs of women and men farmers. • Number of institutions providing innovative agricultural support systems (e.g., extension, input supply, credit and marketing) • Extent to which technologies are sensitive to gender, HIV/AIDS, environment and sustainability issues

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Number of all kinds of publications, media coverage or other outlets that promote IPMS strategies, policies & technology options, and institutional innovations.

The project employs two researchers who are engaged in this Monitoring and Evaluation operations, and has to report periodically to the donor. This system enables course corrections along the way. However, the targets were designed mainly by the scientists in consultation with the donors, mainly as a project management tool. In the annual plans of IPMS in the operational areas, some short term targets are defined and these are decided in dialogue with the local level decisionmakers. Through some short-term diagnostic research, the project makes an appraisal of the problem where necessary. However, that is the starting point and this research is used to design interventions to support possible solutions. Once the interventions are implemented, the processes and outcomes are monitored and studied to draw lessons through action research. As stated earlier, a major challenge which the project faces is ensuring that lessons learned about participatory demand-driven solution-oriented research as opposed to curiosity-driven research are driven home and absorbed by the national research system. Program organization/fostering boundary spanning activities IPMS has a boundary spanning function built into its role, not just with science providers but also other service providers like input supply agencies, market agents etc. While performing this function, IPMS created opportunities for communities/farming households to dialogue with various sets of actors and define some new institutional arrangements. Primarily this function is performed by field staff located in the districts where the project operates and also senior staff at HQ. The staff evaluation and assessment is not completely based on scientific publications, but also on their effectiveness in creating such linkages and contributing to development goals. This served as a motivational factor for the staff involved. As the information and experiences in the project and some positive initial outcomes are beginning to flow, policy makers at Regional and Woreda levels are calling on the project for assistance in various activities. However, the major challenge now is to ensure continuity and sustainability of the new institutional arrangements and ensuring such dialogue continues, the boundary spanning function either needs to be institutionalized in the existing system or a new boundary spanning organization needs to be created. The natural choice for housing this function seems like the Extension service, but there no adequate skills or experience (or even mindsets) in the system to perform this function. So, some of the capacity building activities of IPMS now propose to focus on orienting the extension services to the need for such function and build necessary skills. The national research system should also be geared up to take on this function when appropriate.

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The decision-support system/Systems perspective The project adopted a value chain approach for the commodity development. In this respect, it can be termed an end-to-end system. It also tried to create multi-actor platforms (including considerations of gender, HIV/AIDS and environment), which include policymakers. This is expected to lead to learning from project experiences and scale out promising approaches through appropriate policy interventions/directions. The project’s experience shows that the most challenging link to create was with the market, which is ironically the very essence of the project. This was particularly difficult where the field officers came from a technical/research background. Their vision stopped at improving production/productivity through employment of new technologies. Thinking of new institutional arrangements and involvement of private sector for input supply and scouting for markets and linking with market agents and providing market information needs lot of prodding. At this stage of the project, production interventions in the form of applying new technologies and knowledge seem to be bearing fruit. There are some good examples of linking producers with the market in case of few commodities in some areas, but there is a long way to go. Though most of the diagnostic research still looks at some components of the system or chain, the other research now focuses on looking at the complex commodity innovation systems as a whole, embedded in their specific contexts. There is also big emphasis on cross-site comparisons to draw lessons and synthesize good practices and promising approaches which can be applicable in more than one geographical area, which offer the potential to result in Regional or global public goods. The planning also now takes into account the whole chain before entering into any interventions. Learning orientation/Safe spaces The project avows to have a strong learning orientation and designed mechanisms like Platforms/Committees to promote learning. However, learning seems to be still a fairly abstract concept for most project staff as well as partners. Opertionalising the learning aspect leaves much to be desired and more knowledge about tools for doing the same is critical for the project. The project’s learning is designed around piloting new approaches to stimulating innovation processes along the chain for selected agricultural commodities. Risk-taking and accepting that some components might fail is acknowledged in the project. However, we still see Project staff and the partners shying away from talking about failures, without realizing that they offer great opportunities for learning and ensuring that such mistakes are avoided in future. Cultural factors play a major role in determining these behaviours. The project does take some risks in the form of working on some new commodities that are emerging and show promising market potential in internal or external markets. IPMS also has a credit fund which is like a venture capital fund and supports agricultural enterprises or entrepreneurial activities which are not normally funded by rural financial institutions. At this stage, certain interventions in the form of productivity enhancements or market linkages are considered to be successes based on the outcomes they are leading to. However, real success

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would be when the innovation processes that are stimulated continue and the actors adopt new habits, practices and behaviors that support these processes in the long run. The donor-sent monitors visit the project and conduct assessments on a periodic basis. The Learning and Advisory Committees also perform this function, but the learning function is not strongly embedded in these bodies or the members. Continuity and flexibility/adaptive management The project introduced the concept of ‘Agricultural Technology and Innovation Exhibition/Fair’ in the country through a pilot in one of the regions. This was deemed to be very useful by the decision makers and one Region has adopted it into its plan making it an annual event and also at sub-regional levels. Some other Regions have repeated the activity on their own. So, there are some promising developments on this front. However, recognizing the importance of adopting more successful approaches, taking ownership and institutionalizing them to ensure continuity is the key challenge the project is facing. This requires a major shift in the mindsets of the service delivery organizations and that of the government towards private sector involvement. Reorienting the research approaches of the national system to be more need driven and based on dialogue with users and, adapting the curriculum of the higher learning institutions to create capacities in relevant frontier areas of science is also required. Having flexible management systems and space for various government departments to function in a new way is new to the administrative system, which has always been used to blueprint implementation and without any reward/incentive system for being innovative and tradition of failures being condemned. The attitude of the government system is still that of “show us what works and we will have it scaled out immediately in the entire country by decree”. The importance of being adaptive and flexible is highly undermined. Without changing these mindsets, expecting continuity would be wishful thinking. Conclusion • The project started off as a fairly top down project from government side, though from ILRI’s perspective it was based on dialogue with its primary client, the government. The ultimate users, the communities and other actors were only consulted in the process, but not engaged in a real dialogue. • Linking users with national science producers is not addressed. This will have a significant impact on the continuity of the approaches. The national research agencies should have been involved in the project from the outset as equal and active partners. This would have possibly avoided the resentment that exists on that front now. • Every time an evaluation or assessment is conducted and outcomes of activities are highlighted, the issue of credit and attribution is raised. It is important to have strong M&E systems which can isolate impacts of the project, but ideal would be a situation where active partners agree to share the accolades jointly.

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Roles of the Advisory and Learning Committees and their functions were not clearly articulated. They were functioning on an ad hoc basis, seeing themselves in a policing role and making resource allocation decisions. Both for these committees and the project staff, Learning still remains an abstract concept, which is difficult to operationalise. There is a need for more knowledge, familiarization with skills and tools for learning. Even though an M&E system exists as a project monitoring tool, jointly defined targets with communities are missing. Institutionalization is the greatest challenge that the project is facing at this stage. Realising this, the project is in the process of developing a communications strategy. The issues of strategic communications would play a significant role in future for ensuring continuity. Negotiating safe spaces requires huge time and efforts from the project staff. Are there any easy ways of doing this? The skills for boundary spanning among government actors is very limited, especially in the research and extension systems. It is very important that this function is institutionalized, given that the private sector is still very weak and does not find much encouragement from the government. How do we build capacities for playing this role? Changing mindsets and building trust among various actors and creating venues for interaction to stimulate innovation processes – any tools to support this?

Publications: Bishop-Sambrook C, Alemayehu N, Assegid Y, Woldewahid G, Gebremedhin B. 2006 The Rural HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Ethiopia and its Implications for Market-Led Agricultural Development Chapter 13 in: Gillespie, Stuart, ed. 2006. AIDS, poverty, and hunger: Challenges and responses. Highlights of the International Conference on HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security, Durban, South Africa, April 14–16, 2005. Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute. Available at: http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/books/oc50/oc50.pdf Puskur R, Anandajayasekeram P, Berhe K, Hoekstra D. 2006. Partnerships for enhancing Market-Led innovation Process- Experiences and Lessons from IPMS-Ethiopia. Paper Presented at the ‘Innovation Africa Symposium’, Kampala, 20-23 November 2006. Available at: http://www.ipms-ethiopia.org/Documents-Publications/PublishedArticles.asp 10 proceeding of meetings and workshops are available at: http://www.ipms-ethiopia.org/Documents-Publications/Workshops-Meetings-.asp 32 Msc. Theses by students fully or partially sponsored by IPMS or assisted by IPMS for their course work can be found at: http://www.ipms-ethiopia.org/Documents-Publications/Msc-Thesis.asp 9 IPMS Working Papers are available at: http://www.ipms-ethiopia.org/Documents-Publications/WorkingPapers.asp

Contact Information: Ranjitha Puskur, ILRI (Addis Ababa): [email protected] Dirk Hoekstra, ILRI (Addis Ababa): [email protected] Project Website: www.ipms-ethiopia.org

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