The challenge of managing water in Ethiopia and in Senegal

Recently,  at Lausanne University, in the faculty of Geosciences and Environment, a series of presentations on the challenge of water in Africa took place. I gave a presentation on Ethiopia and my father on Senegal.
Below you can find my presentation, which tries to convince people that Ethiopia at least the Highlands does not suffer from water scarcity, as rainfall is higher than in many places in Europe, but the rain is very unevenly distributed. It also tries to show that there is a lot of knowledge about the known solution to the problem, namely rainwater management. The real challenge is to bring this knowledge on the ground. Research is in fact much more needed for knowledge transfer and communication. The presentation overflies the suite of knowledge transfer tool that the NBDC program component 3 on targeting and scaling out has developed and its impact on the ground, namely the new rainwater management concept, the Nile-Goblet tool and Happy Strategies game. (see output)


Here you can find my father's presentation on water challenges in Senegal. It presents the re-use of water for agriculture in peri-urban area. The reuse of water for agriculture is a great option. However urbanization is threatening agriculture. It concludes that in Dakar, the challenge is not water scarcity, but salinity, pollution and the lack of management.




This presentation series was a great opportunity to look into different African countries, their water issues and possible solutions. Both in Ethiopia and Senegal, it is not so much about water availability than it is about managing and governing water. 

Open source GIS : it it really what stakeholders in the developing world want?

In Ethiopia, where rainwater management is often still promoted as "blanket approaches" (these are approaches that do not take the specific context into account), producing suitability or feasibility maps that show where the biophysical and socioeconomic criteria for successful adoption are met is essential. Most policy-maker, researchers and extension services have little access to GIS technology and lack in GIS knowledge. For this reason Nile Basin Development Challenge program (the project i am working on) is working on an open source GIS tool that allows to do the suitability mapping without any prior GIS knowledge.

The participants in Addis

The last two weeks, i have been giving a training on the beta version this GIS tool in Addis and Gondar. In addition of simple manipulations, we also taught participants how to feed their own maps. The maps need to be in a GIS software, we offered the possibility to do this preliminary work in ArcGIS (the most common commercial GIS software, which license costs about 1400 USD per year) and Grass, an open source solution. The trainings were based on competence based training approach, letting participants discover the tool and GIS software on their own. The trainings went well, participants seemed to enjoy the training, and at the end almost everyone understood the stories behind geographical coordinate systems (taking the earth as a ball) and the projected coordinate systems (for which the world is "made flat").

The participants in Gondar

 Representing an official organization funded by the world bank, I cannot provide pirated software. So each participant who wanted to use ArcGIS had to request a personal trial license from ESRI (the company providing ArcGIS). It is a pretty cumbersome process, which needs internet. (As in Ethiopia most organisation work with static IP,  each laptop had to be programmed separately). Despite of this whole hassle all participants in the Addis chose to use ArcGIS, and only 2 advanced GIS user in Gondar took up the challenge to test Grass. Most of the evaluation were very positive about the training, but the major complaint was that we did not teach sufficiently ArcGIS.

the computer room in Gondar where every laptop has to be configured manually to access internet

 (static IP)

I am wondering why everyone wants to learn so much about ArcGIS, and why there is so little interest among my partners and stakeholders for open-source solutions. Is this the widely spread availability of pirated software? Is it the fear to not being mainstream? is it the fear to not get support when things don't work? or is it the ease and user-friendliness of ArcGIS that allows you to make tools even when you don't understand what your are doing?

For whatever reason, open-source software still has a lot of promotion work to do in the developing world... the NBDC open-source tool is now in revision, some new features will be added and some bugs removed. When it will be finished, we will promote it broadly and see if at least this tool can be used by our stakeholders. The tool will also make available a whole bunch of geographical layer, that otherwise are difficult to access in a country with weak internet access. Maybe this could be a good reason for stakeholders to overcome their fears and doubts about open-source...

The most admired participant : the duck that participated in 2 trainings : "if you don't train GIS you will be like the duck, you have a certificate but can't map anything :-)

A story to follow up...
the link to the beta version of the tool can be found under material and output : http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/p/materials-and-outputs.html 

and find here the link to the official NBDC blog about this training :
http://nilebdc.org/2012/11/23/gis-training-in-addis-ababa-and-gondar-testing-the-beta-version-of-the-nile-goblet-tool/ 

The Water and Land Ressource Center is about to launch a new database for Ethiopia

The Water and Land Resource Center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is a 1 year old independent institute affiliated to Addis Ababa University, in close collaboration with the ministry of agriculture and the ministry of water and energy. The Resource Centre is supported  by the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), capitalizing on the 30 years of hydro-sedimentology data collected in 7 smaller watersheds in Ethiopia (one in Eritrea) by Professor Hans Hurni and colleagues from the university of Bern, Switzerland.  

Prof. Hans Hurni (University of Bern, Switzerland) and Dr. Gete Zeleke, director of the Resource Center

The objectives of the center are much broader than just data management. It has four components:

1. Establishing an open access and modern resource database and information management system.

2. Establishing learning watersheds to demonstrate  sustainable water and land  management by using combined efforts of research and development actions.

3. A collection of hydro-sedimentology and land management data observed in observatories and learning watersheds.

4. Improved capacities at all levels involved in water and land management.

In this context of database and information system management, the center is about to launch a new database on land and water management, called WALRIS (Water and Land Resources Information System) . It is a web based database which initially will allow to consult, visualize and use the 30 years of data generated by Center for Development and Environment of University of Bern in collaboration with the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Agriculture Research Institutes at different levels. It is also planning to  gradually make non-commercial and openly available spatial and non-spatial data from the ministry of agriculture, the ministry of water and energy and from other research and academic institutes available. 

The following movie shows how the geo-database will work.  

http://wlrc-eth.org/index.php/97-news/84-walris

The center  has been organizing  itself  since mid-2011  as part of the phase one of the project. A stakeholder meeting took place this week to plan phase II. In this phase, the CGIAR has been recognized as a key partner to link up with. IWMI is already in discussion to discover where the synergies are, both in data collection and sharing. There is definitely scope for other CGIAR centers to join the effort on land and water management and make use of the web-based GIS platform to make our data better accessible to others. 

You can find more information about the center under : http://wlrc-eth.org/

and feel free to contact Dr. Gete Zeleke for discussing potential collaborations with the CGIAR :

wlrc.eth@gmail.com

Groundwater in Ethiopia: Features, Numbers and Opportunities

Groundwater has a huge potential increasing resilience and incomes of the rural poor in Africa. Indeed it gives the possibility to smallholders to access water during the dry season and maintain home gardens (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.ch/2012/06/success-and-failures-maksenit-watershed.html), adding a cropping season or insure sufficient drinking water for the household and livestock.

Unfortunately very few data are available about groundwater in Africa and more particularly in Ethiopia. The recent global African map by  MacDonald et al 2012 (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.ch/2012/04/accessing-ground-water-is-easiest-way.html) is a good step but remains relatively non detailed. Seifu Kebebe a researcher from Addis Ababa University, has looked into more details into groundwater in Ethiopia and has just published a book about it.

This book obviously fills a huge gap for water management in Ethiopia!

More about this book and be found under the following links : 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Groundwater-Ethiopia-Features-Opportunities-Hydrogeology/dp/3642303900#reader_3642303900
http://www.springer.com/earth+sciences+and+geography/hydrogeology/book/978-3-642-30390-6
 
The International Water Management Institute in Addis Ababa, per courtesy of Seifu has access the groundwater maps presented in the book. Please contact the GIS team or myself for more information about these maps and conditions of access.

benefit sharing mechanisms in the Blue Nile Basin

These are my last hours in office before my home leave, the occasion to clean up and close down everything. A recent look at my drafts on my blog reminded me that since last November I wanted to write a post on benefit sharing mechanisms in the Blue Nile. Somehow i never wrote this post that now fit very well the topic as my last post was about payment for ecosystem services for Kenyan pastoralists (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/08/benefit-sharing-mechanisms-kenyan.html) .

 During my field trip in November, we went to Hamusit (Amhara region, near Tana Lake), and we visit a dam, which water is used downstream for an irrigation scheme.

Dam near Hamusit

The watershed was one of the best managed watersheds I had ever seen in Ethiopia. Everywhere soil and stone bunds could be found. All the bund were vegetative bunds, upon which beans where growing. As bean are nitrogen binding they improve soil fertility. The whole plant can also be fed to livestock, that get more protein rich fodder and therefore will give more milk. Also inter-cropping could be found, maize was planted with beans.

 

 

 

 

the stone bunds

Fascinated by this very well managed watershed, i asked my Amharic speaking colleague to talk to a farmer passing by. We discovered that the people who are profiting from the irrigation schemes, come upstream for about 20 days to help the upstream farmers to build and maintain the bunds. The farmer explained that if the watershed is not well managed than siltation of the lake (created with the dam) will be too important and the capacity of the water reservoir will decrease. As the farmers downstream are the one who profit from having more water in the reservoir so they have to dedicate some of their time working on the fields of the up-stream farmers.

the vegetative soil bunds

By digging further it turned out that this was a governmental scheme organized by the DA that obliged farmers downstream to contribute to the up-stream farmers. 

Whether is is smart to have a top-down approach or not, is beyond the discussion here. Fact is that the farmers who benefit from better up-stream management contribute the up-stream management of the watershed. This is nothing else that a benefit sharing mechanism, which does not make use of cash payment but takes the form of labor exchange. 

This benefit sharing mechanism in Hamusit made me rethink the mass mobilization program of Ethiopia. This program mobilizes all farmers in one regions during a certain amount of days, during which they have the obligation to build bunds and terraces for free, independently of the ownership of the land. The objective is to get the whole watershed well managed, and help farmers who own land on the slope to build the right structures. 

Bunds and terraces will increase infiltration of water, conserve soil moisture and decrease run-off. Downstream farmers on the lowland will have more water as form of groundwater or river thanks to these structures. As the lowland is usually flat, there farmers do not need to build  the labor intensive terraces and can benefit from structure built upstream. So is the Ethiopian mass mobilization not a form of benefit sharing mechanism, which aknowledges that the benefit might be diffuse and cannot be quantified for each farmer separately? 

Food for thoughts when talking of benefit sharing mechanism... it is not always about money... and it can take unexpected forms...

Fruit trees: hopes, illusions and disillusions

For a well functioning watersheds that provides all the necessary ecosystem services, there should be forests on the upslope of the watersheds. But in the Ethiopian Blue Nile context, these areas have been deforested and cultivated, mainly due to increasing population densities.

The infiltration properties of the upslope has changed : less water infiltrates, there is more run-off and therefore more erosion and ground water does not recharge. The lack of trees on the slope can explain to a large extend why watersheds are getting dryer.

a typical Ethiopian landscape with only very little forest

Motivating farmers on the upslopes to plant trees is difficult as there are only very little benefit from the trees for the farmers who plants them, but there are benefits for downstream farmers. Basically there are two options to approach the problem. Or one develops a benefit sharing mechanism where the downstream farmer compensate the farmers upstream for loosing its crop land for trees, which is very difficult in the Ethiopian context, or one finds solutions that are profitable for the upstream farmers.

Apple in Laku watershed (Shambu)

Some trees at least in the mid terms can give benefits to upstream farmers. This is the case of the multipurpose trees and for fruit trees.

Multipurpose trees can provide high quality fodder during the dry season (when there is shortage of fodder) allowing upstream farmers to intensify there livestock production. (for more information see : http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/06/changing-livelihoods-at-very-little.html)
The second option is fruit trees, like apple and peaches in the highlands or mango and papaya in the lowlands. These are interesting options because fruits allows farmer to diversify their diets as well as their income.
This second option has been recognized by NGOs and has been pushed in different locations in Ethiopia, and farmers are more and more aware of fruit trees as a diversfication option.

During the field work in the four watersheds (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/05/understanding-landscape-dynamics-zefie.html) , all the farmers wanted to have some fruit trees, some had it and could harvest, some just planted trees and cannot harvest yet, others only wished they could access seedlings.

Let's look at these different stages, hopes, illusions and disillusions in each of the fruit tree implementations stages.
In the Gorosole watershed (Ambo), farmers do not have fruit trees but have heart of it. They would like to have apples and peaches because they believe it could be a new source of income. Unfortunately they don't know how to access seedlings nor have sufficient knowledge to grow the trees.

The apple tree planted this year in Zefie watershed

In Zefie watershed, some farmers started to plant apple tree three years ago. The strategy is to plant the trees on the soil bunds to not loose crop land. Also every year they plant some additional seedling.

The 3 years old apple tree in Zefie (does not give apples yet)

None of the farmers has yet harvested any apple in Zefie. Nonetheless, more and more apples tree are planted and more farmers are considering of planting apples because they believe that they can sell apples and diversify their income.

Papaya trees in Maksenit watershed

In Maksenit watershed, apples are not an option as it is low lands. Some farmers have planted papaya trees in so called "home gardens". Very few households have access to water during the dry season to get the papayas growing. Those who have it mainly consume the papaya themselves. Income in this area mainly comes from garlic wich is a good business (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/06/success-and-failures-maksenit-watershed.html) and therefore do not really need papaya to get more cash.

Finally Shambu watershed produces apples. Seedlings have been introduced 10 years ago by an NGO and some farmers today have an apple orchard on their farms. The farmer i have talked to runs his own apple tree nursery and sells some of the seedling to other farmers in the area. Each year he extends his orchards with new trees. In this way he can level his loss of land. He can get incomes from older apple trees, and therefore can afford to loose some cropland for new apple trees that will take 5-7 years to give apple.

the apple orchard in Shambu

He has apple but finds it very difficult to sell them. The lack of market linkage is the main reason why he cannot make the expected benefits from apple. Therefore he is also trying to intensify his livestock production as well as in poultry production.
Whereas for many farmers who do not yet harvest yet, fruits are a symbol of hope. But the reality in Shambu shows that it is actually an illusion. The only farmer that really could harvest apples was disillusioned.

the apple tree nursery 

Fruit trees are a promising option  to restore ecosystem services in watersheds, but are only likely to work if farmers are linked to markets when they can start harvesting. Not later than yesterday i bought some apples for 50 birr per kilo (about 2.5 dollars a kg). It might not sounds too much to you, but for comparison 1 kg tomatoes is about 12 birrs, onions about 8 birrs, improved (huge and juicy) mangos 25 birrs. There is definitely huge potential for apples, it is a matter of unlocking the potential and linking farmers to markets.

Similarity analysis for the Blue Nile basin

Lots of people might imagine that developing countries have very little data available. When I started working for ILRI and IWMI, I was in fact astonished by the diversity of data available also in form of geographical layers. Clearly, there is less data and less accurate data for developing countries like Ethiopia, then for developed countries like the Netherlands.
Nonetheless, when i started working in Ethiopia there was no list of the geographical layer available for the Blue Nile. My first internal report for the NBDC project gives this overview and performs a similarity analysis allowing to identify locations with similar bio-physical and socio-economic spatial patterns.
Find this report under :
http://nilebdc.org/2012/06/20/similarity-analysis-for-the-blue-nile-basin-in-the-ethiopian-highlands-new-nbdc-technical-report-guides-site-selection-and-likely-technology-spillovers/

successes and failures : the Maksenit watershed (Gonder)

During my recent field trips, i got the chance to walk through a very interesting watershed : Maksenit Watershed, which outlet lies on the border of Maksenit town, South East of Gonder, Ethiopia.

View Larger Map

approximate location of the farmers' training center of Maksenit watershed

It is a very interesting watershed, as GIZ (German development cooperation), ICARDA (international center for agricultural research in dry areas) and the Ethiopian government have been involved in water issues over the last years. It is a watershed full of success stories and failures.

Please join me on this long but interesting walk across the watershed. I started the walk near to the farmers' training center and discovered 3 of the 5 water havesting ponds. These ponds have been build by ICARDA in order to better understand on the ground under which conditions individual water pond could work. (have a look at for a study that suggest that ponds do not work in the Ethiopian context http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2011/10/bahir-dar-reporting-series-is-water.html)

the almost empty pond

Two basins trap the sediment before the water flows into the pond

Some farmers got a treadle pump and a drip irrigation system, other just irrigate with a simple bucket. The pond allows to irrigate a plot of 30x20m and get one crop during the dry season, mainly pepper.

ICARDA has also installed two sediment traps to measure sediments from an untreated watershed, and one from a watershed treated with terraces and bunds. Sounds like a great initiative, in a country where there is no empirical evidence that about the effectiveness of this type of technologies. Finally ICARDA also has build a monitoring station at the outlet, allowing to know all the year round how much water is following in the perenial river. 

female headed household 

But while crossing a watershed, there is nothing better than stopping and talking to farmers. The first farmer I stopped at, was a female headed household. The lady and her three kids mainly live from selling garlic which is grown near to the outlet and is irrigated thanks to a river diversion. She earns enough money to invest into a house in Maksenit town, that she plans to rent out.

Roof full of dry garlic, the source of cash for many farmers in the watershed.

Years ago, a roof water harvesting system and a cistern has been built on her farm by GIZ. Unfortunately, the cistern is leaking even after several attempt to repair and therefore is not in use anymore. She did not seem to really need the cistern as she could get water for domestic use from the near by river. 

the roof water harvesting installation with the leaking cistern 

The whole farm is surrounded by fodder trees that allow her to feed her livestock during the dry season. She also has a sort of olive tree, that does not give edible olives but is a very good timber tree. To have sufficient trees, she has a mobile tree nursery, which she can carry around, mainly to the water or to the shadow when necessary. She mainly uses the seedling for herself. A governmental tree nursery is within walking distance near to Maksenit, in case she want seedling from trees she does not have. Finally she also had modern beehives, allowing her to get income from honey. 

the mobile tree nursery 

As we walked upwards, we discovered an amazing landscape with mountains in the back covered with shrubs, and in the flatter areas, farmers where ploughing. 

looking upwards 

We stopped at another farmer who ended up guiding us through the watershed. He had a very similar livelihood, with garlic as major income, mobile tree nursery, traditional and modern beehives. He also affords a pump that allow him to irrigate some of his plots. He also rents out the pump. In principle he has electricity, but the distributor broke down. And despite of the continuous request of the community, the government did not give them the permission to repair the electric system. 

the tube used for irrigating with the pumps 

Near to his house, there is a non-perennial river that was dry. Nonetheless one can tab from the underground stream. ICARDA has build a pump that now allows his wife to get domestic water from very near by. 

the ICARDA water pump

A bit further down in the river bed, one can find hand dug wells, which are used for livestock as well as irrigation of near by nurseries (trees or pepper). He makes use of the pump, to get water from the well to the nursery and in some other season to irrigate nearby plots.

a hand dug well in the river bed, taping into the underground stream.

One of his neighbors tried to get groundwater by digging a well on his field, but could not find any water after 10m. So the whole was closed again. 

the unsuccessful well

Walking down the watershed towards the outlet, we stopped at a "papaya orchard" or what the locals call "home garden". Also pepper could be found next to the papaya trees. Women are usually responsible for these home gardens.

Papaya orchard

As we were crossing the main gravel road in the watershed, we found again a plot owned by the farmer who was guiding us. The plots South of the road in the flat area are mainly vertisol, that are soil that can absorb a lot of water and keep soil moisture over a long period. He would use the run-off of the road and divert the stream to flood his fields increase the number of days with sufficient soil moisture to crop (also referred as spate irrigation). He would even use electric pole from the ongoing renovation of the electric system, that has not yet been fixed to divert the water. 

furrows for diverting the water during the rainy season

In principle on these vertisol one can have 3 crops per year, first a cereal, then a legume on residual moisture and then a high value crop (pepper, onion or garlic) if there is access to irrigation water. 

Also we found the relatively big tree nursery. All the trees were dead, attacked by termites. 

the failed tree nursery

Back to the road we found another manual water pump taping water from the underground stream. It was build by the government as part of the WASH program and came with a additional concrete basin for giving water to livestock and a concrete place to wash cloth. The two latter infrastructures were broken and not in use anymore. Just the pump survived, and a micro-dam from earth has been built to capture the excess water pumped, were livestock can access water now. 

the govermental pump

the broken washing basin

the micro basin that capture excess water from the pump and is used for livestock

This is a nice example on how locals adapt and use the infrastructure differently than inially though of. Cloth are washed in the nearby perennial river.

In this watershed, some things have worked : the pumps are still in use, mobile nurseries allow women to grow their own seedling, hand-dug wells allow to tap the underground streams, women grow more diversified food (papaya) for their families. Others haven't worked, the GIZ cistern is leaking, some hand-dug wells have been closed, a tree nursery failed due to termites. Finally others will have to proof their use : the ICARDA water harvesting ponds and their lifting devices. It is definitely a watershed where a lot has happened and there is a lot to learn both for the successes and the failures. I hope you have enjoyed on my virtual tour of the Maksenit watershed and that you are convinced now, that unless we have tired, we don't really know what works and what doesn't work.

I would like to thank Baye from the Gonder Agricultural Research center for having accompanied me on this transect walk of more than 5 hours as well as the farmer who crossed have to the watershed to show his success and failures on this fields.

the farmer (left) and Baye (right)

Giving rural communities a voice : adapting the "Happy strategy" game to communities

Within the multi-scale adoption studies I am currently involved with  (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/05/understanding-landscape-dynamics-zefie.html), we are running focus group discussion with some key informant farmers in 4 sites in the Blue Nile. I am just back from the Oromia sites, Gorosole (near Guder, Ambo) and Laku (near Shambu) where the focus group discussion have been run in collaboration with the Oromia agricultural research institute (OARI). 

The cards of the Happy Strategy game

For the focus group discussion we have adapted the "happy strategy" game. This is a game that has initially been developed to involve stakeholder into the discussion on how rainwater management practices should be combined within a landscape. The game consist of a set of practice cards that describe single rainwater management practice, as well as innovation cards, that are empty practice cards that can be filled if a given practice is not part of the game. Finally, there are intervention cards, that are cards that allow for changes beyond farmer's decision making that could enable the adoption of a practice, such as access to credit or access to seeds or better cooperation among the community. Each participant chooses a card and joins a "landscape" that is clearly described watershed, and discusses where and why the chosen card should be adopted. If the group does not agree the person has to find another landscape or trade the card. For more details have a look at : http://nilebdc.org/2011/11/20/happy-strategies-where-strategic-land-and-water-management-is-as-simple-as-playing-a-game/
http://nilebdc.org/2011/11/24/jegerida/ 

Opening the focus group discussion : Gerba welcomes the participants, introduces the project, the objectives and explains how the whole happy strategy approach works.

This game has been adapted for communities and is used to identify what the best watershed management would be from the perspective of the farmers. In addition we want to identify what hampers adoption of the wished practices and identify the needed interventions allowing the adoption of those practices. Finally we also try to capture upstream downstream effect, identify winners and losers in the landscape as well as trade-off and synergies.

The used approach is the following (in gender separated groups):

1. participatory watershed mapping exercise, in order to create a map that all the participants can understand, with colored post-it they can indicate land use.

Mapping exercise with the women's group in Gorosole 

2. Identifying rainwater management practices that the farmer know of, these are selected from the happy strategy game

The happy strategy cards are ready, as farmers mention a practice , the relevant card is introduced into the game 

3. Let every participant choose her/his favorite practice, place it on the map and discuss with the group why the practice should be there, the benefits of the practices and if it is adopted what type of support they got or if it is not adopted what hamper adoption.

A participant choosing a card (Shambu)

A participant explaining his choice (Shambu)

4. Discuss synergies and trade-offs of the ideal watershed

The facilitator Zerihun, in the discussion with the farmers (Shambu)

5. presenting the work to the other group and have a more general discussion and evaluation. 

Women's group presenting their work on their final map (Shambu)

The men are carefully listening to the presentation of the women's work, after it will be the other way round (Shambu)

The whole processes in followed by at least two note takers who make sure that none of the relevant information gets lost. 

Gerba taking notes from the general discussion (Gorosole)

We have been developing feasibility maps that show where which practice should be feasible in terms of bio-physical but also socio-economic conditions. Results from these focus group will be used to validate these maps. Basing validation upon an wished watershed management instead of observed adoption on the ground might in the Ethiopian context be a smarter way to validate the maps. Indeed, due to important top down policies, practices might be adopted on an non-suitable location. Other practices might not be adopted, not because they are not suitable but because farmers crucially lack access to input, finances or knowledge (which is difficult to map and take into account in our feasibility maps).

The discussion in Oromia went very well, both women and men came up with new ideas, challenging our maps and our understanding of the landscape. Finally, in Gorosole, one of the participant has mentioned in the evaluation round, that he is very happy that he was given the chance to think about future beyond of what he has and he believes to be within his reach, in a time that is about "to be or not to be". 

Discussion from the different focus group discussions and lessons learnt will follow in up coming posts. 

Some impressions from the discussions : 

women's group presentation (Gorosole)

Men's group, defining the land use of their watershed (with colored post-it) (Gorosole)

Women's group defining land use is their watershed (Shambu) in a calm and silent way

Men's group defining land use in their watershed (Shambu) in a lively discussion

A very lively general discussion in Shambu

 

 

Find the Happy Strategies website : happystrategies.wikispaces.com