Facilitators : the never mentionned factor of success

During the participatory stakeholder workshops in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Tanzania, workshops cannot be hold in English. So in many countries we had to rely on translators. For example, the participants in Burkina Faso spoke French, Jula and More, but there was no common language to all, so we really had to juggle to make sure that we have everyone on board and no one gets excluded because of language barriers.

Set up of the week

We have hired facilitators/reporters to work with smaller groups of participants, who speak the local language. It also means, that we had to trust the facilitators to do their job well, as we had little means to cross-check what is going on during the group discussions. For example, in Ethiopia the workshop was held in Tigrinay, which is spoken in Tigray but is not the national language, which in Amharic. So in Ethiopia even our national partner who helps us organize the workshop is not able to understand what is going on.

  all documentation is on poster so that power cuts do not disturb the training

A huge responsibility therefore weighs on the hired group facilitators/reporters. To make sure that they get the skill to do their job well, we implemented a two days training. The first day aimed at giving the facilitators the skills to "give everyone in their group to do the best of their thinking". This part of the training were based on Sam Kaner's book and approach, and we mainly focused on active listening. On the second day, we when through a "dry run" of the workshop, to show facilitators/reporters what their job is, what we expect from them, and which results we would like to reach.

training active listening in Ethiopia

During the workshop, facilitator/reporter were assigned to discussion groups in pairs, so that one can facilitate and the other take notes, as well as always being two in difficult situations.

drawing out techniques in French

After the workshops, facilitators and reporters wrote a report about what was discussed and what has happened in their groups in English or in French. This is often our only way get access to the information that was shared in many different languages.

Training in Burkina Faso

The facilitators/reporters did a fantastic job in all three countries : they had to learn new skills and understand their role in a very short time, handle difficult situation is their groups and remember to report everything with as many details as possible. They are key to our success and to the data we can collect.

facilitators at work in Burkina Faso

Let me take this opportunity to thank the three teams in all 3 countries for their enthusiasms to take up a challenging task and the great job that they have done to support us.

How does a bright future look like in Atsbi Ethiopia?

During the recent participatory workshop in Ethiopia, we asked participants in groups of stakeholders to think through a bright life in Ethiopia in 2030. From these narratives lead to indicators of what people value.

a facilitator explaining the selected indicators.

 For Atbsi, participants came up with a series very different indicators and a series of very similar indicators.

Some of the common indicators, are better education for children, better mobility as well as better accessible  technologies to make life easier.

But what was the most interesting part of the Ethiopian workshop, we presence of very young participants. I always knew that, in Ethiopia, it is fully acceptable that women can take their young children to workshops so that they do not need to arrange child care. So we had a 2 year old girl that joint her grand mother to the workshop.

The youngest participant with her grand-mother

Also another illiterate lady took her 12 year old daughter to the workshop, because the daughter can read for her. Though we really try to make our workshops accessible to illiterate people by using images and colors, it was not a bad strategy.  It was also for us the opportunity to ask a girl about what she aims at in life. She told us that a better future for her is a world where she can support her parents so that they do not need to work so hard anymore. She is also hopping to get good education so that she will be able to support her parents.

The second youngest participant on the left, she is supporting her illiterate mum with reading.

At the end of the workshop, we asked the girl separately about her evaluation, and she mentioned that she was very proud that her personal opinion was asked and listened to.

It was a great opportunity to hear from the next generation about what they value.

When watershed management changes life : the example of Abraha Atsbeha watershed

During the last workshop in Northern Ethiopia, we also made a half day field visit to the Abraha Atsbeha watershed, a few kilometers away from Wucro, in Tigray Ethiopia.

It is one of the classical northern Ethiopia success story of watershed rehabilitation. More than 25 years ago, farmers were poor, and regularly had full crop failure or because of drought or because of flooding.



About 20 years ago the community started rehabilitate their area. They started with re-planting tree and bushed on the hills and within the delta.

infiltration pond in the forest

Today, where there used to be bare land, there is a forest. There are clear rules on who has the right to use the forest. The area where we were standing was made available for land owners, while on the other side the area was given to landless people. The forest is used in different ways : to keep bees, to feed leaves to livestock during the dry season, to collect wood and provides benefits to people.

infiltration pit

The delta is also where water used to accumulate and the lack of infiltration used to lead to devastating floods. Today, ponds and pits collected the water from the hills and let the water infiltrate slowly. No floods were experiences over the last years.

a well in the lowland of the landscape

More importantly, as a result of the water infiltration, ground water started to reappear in the lower part of the watershed. Today, farmers have shallow wells with water the whole year round. Around the shallow wells, today households have home gardens where vegetables and fruits are grown for home consumption. Home gardens have therefore a big impact on food diversity and therefore not only contribute to food security but also to improved nutrition on one of the area where people used to be malnourished.

guava orchards

Taking a second look at the landscape, one can also sees tree orchards with papaya, guava and citrus appearing that are bigger than the home gardens. Farmer have invested water and effort to grow more fruits, and some of them today make good income from selling fruits to Wurko and Mekelle.

the community leader explaining the interventions done to rehabilitate the watershed

The community leader told us that at the beginning, 25 years ago, few people thought that if was worth investing into rehabilitation, but they had nothing to loose, so they have tried, and they have won. Today, there is sufficient water the whole year round, that can insure production of high value crops such as fruits. They are proud to have made it, and are happy to show case how watershed management can change lifes.

The cropping area that used to get flooded

One day in 2030 or how to get participatory economic indicators

During the recent participative stakeholder workshop, not only we have tried to understand how stakeholder see their own production system involving in the future but also trying to understand what success would look like.

Traditionally, economist used GDP at national level, and income or ownership of assets to measure success. More money and more assets means wealth and therefore is success. Yet, the people we work with value many different things, such as family life, the access to traditional food, or getting a given position within the community. So success is more than money and we need to identify how this success can be measured.

two ladies making sure that their vision is taken into account into the future storylines

On the second day of the workshop, my colleagues of mine asked the stakeholder participant in stakeholder groups with similar interests to write down the story of one or two successful virtual characters, and describe a usual day in 2030.From that storyline, participants will have identify what are the indicators that the two characters are successful.

In Burkina Faso, the dairy processing lady was married to the butcher of the area. Their life will be shaped by a traditional Muslim life rhythm. Children will have access to schools, family will be supported by hired staff, and mobility will be improved as the family will own a car or at least a motor bike.

storyline from the pastoral group

the second part of the storyline

For the pastoral community, the successful life meant that they could maintain their traditional lifestyle but also with some modernization, such as aluminum mobile parks, motorbikes for improved mobility and cleared access rights to pasture.

From those storylines, many indicators could be identified. Participants then made an individual vote for the most important ones. Interesting in Burkina Faso, these were religious indicators, such as being able to visit Mecca, being able to follow Muslim rules and improved mobility, whereas in Ethiopia, high education for children and the adoption of new technologies came out more importantly.

 

 

The selected indicators from the different groups in Burkina Faso

To me, it was a new approach to get information from stakeholder about what they value, in a way that is very appealing and easy to stakeholder. I am quite impressed by the results we got.

Talking like them : collecting information from local decision makers

Last months were busy, i went to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso to implement a participatory stakeholder workshop with local decision makers, including local government, extension service, but also farmers, input seller, traders, processors, farm organizations and other NGO intervening in the area.

The objective of the first day was to understand how these decision makers see and categorize the livestock production in their area and to what extend they see that these systems will be changing over the next 15 years in view of the still doubling of the African population. 

The banner describing the project in French for all the events in Burkina Faso

Why do we need to know this? The DFID funded project i am working on, foresees the parametrization of the CLEANED tool, to allow decision makers to simulate different livestock intensification option and get multiple environmental indicators along water, greenhouse gazes, biodiversity and nitrogen content of soils. This model will only be of use to the decision makers if it actually reflects their understanding of the livestock production systems or practices. Too often standard models are brought to local level without adjusting them to the local context and the local understanding. In other words, we need to make sure that the model talks like they do in order to be useful.

A group mapping the production systems in Ethiopia

On the first day of the workshop, we used a so called snowballing negotiation, two people try to agree which are the major livestock practices or production systems in the area. When they agree the find an other group of two and re-discuss and negotiate in four. Then they find another group of 4 and negotiate in 8. Then there is a facilitated plenary negotiation about which are the local practices or production systems, and how they can be grouped to make four working groups.

Then in four working groups, each group discusses one identified practice or production system. They map on printed maps where the system/practice is found and in a reporting sheet note the characteristics in terms of breed, adoption rate, number of animal, feed basket, manure management and input/output markets.

A group presenting results to plenary In Burkina Faso 

In the afternoon, the participant write a letter to the future generation describing how livestock keeping will be done in the future and aims at identify completely new practices/productions system that are not observed today. If such a new production is found then a group will need to take it up. otherwise the same group discuss the evolution of the production by 2030, mapping possible changes on the map.

Wondering what we have learned from this process? stay posted the up-coming posts will discuss this!