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

Death on the Nile

In Ethiopia, the construction of the Grand Renaissance dam, seems to be advancing, and the discussions around the water rights on the Nile got more intense. Aljazeera, in its program Inside Story wants to "examine the impact on water supply for Egypt's growing population."



It is almost a comical discussion that is presented in this debate that brings together, Bereket Simon, Ethiopian minister of information, Lama el-Hatow, co-founder of water institute of the Nile and Cleo Paskal  writer of Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map.  

It is a strange combination of guests, holding their pre-programmed monolgues on the Nile, which are too long for the time given by the moderator. It is also about  three invitees who fight with very unequal weapons. Instead of emotional monologues, now facts about water and solutions to conflictual situations are needed. The only one who really talked about the technicalities, threats and opportunities about the Dam is the Ethiopian minister, but his English is not good enough (ironically the Minister of information) to truly contribute to a constructive debate (he is just reciting the official story, that seems correct from a hydrological point of view, but not answering the questions).

Let me summarize my (non-hydrologist and non-expert) understanding of the problem and please feel free to correct them by commenting this blog.

1. there is a certain amount of water in the Ethiopian Blue Nile, if water is used for electricity, then potentially the same amount of water will be flowing to Egypt. (which is not be the case if lots of water would be used for agriculture, i.e water is consumed by plants, as it is for example done in Sudan)
2. With the dam, the water arriving in Egypt, will be more evenly distributed through out the year (as it is stored and used for evenly used for electricity production) allowing to reduce shortages in the dry season.
3. The dam will keep silt up-stream, reducing siltation of down-stream dams (i.e reducing costs for downstream dams in Sudan and Egypt).
4. Storing water for electricity in highlands is a regional optimum, as it is situated in a cooler area, there is less evaporation (i.e. less water loss).
5. Filling the dam, might be a huge problem, because during this time there will be less (up to no water) flowing to Egypt. But it is a transitional time that needs to be managed smartly and across boundaries.
6. Ethiopia could switch the water off from Egypt (but just up to the point when the dam is full).
7. There could be ecological impacts due to more evenly distributed water and to the diversion. But let's face it, the first people to be damaged by the diversion are the (few) Ethiopian living around the dam. Secondly, this is not the first dam on the Nile, the famous flooding of the Nile we all learnt about at school bringing fertile soils and allowing to feed the Pharaohs is not existing anymore for a long time already. 

However, i am not sure if better watershed management, i.e. rainwater management, will increase the water availability in Egypt (as the Minister said), because again the amount of water in the area remains unchanged (note that some of my ex-colleagues come to the conclusion that increased use of water for food production through improved rainwater management is marginal), but its distribution will be changed,  siltation is reduced and water quality might be improved. Climate change, (i.e the global amount of water in the region is decreased) is an issue that is important and that emerges with or without dam. The dam could even help reducing impact of climate change.

When i look at the list above, I see two points where Egypt should be worried about, the dam filling if not done smartly could be a huge problem as well as Ethiopia switching off the water fully. There should be clear agreements for these points, as for example on a minimum flow (get inspired, there is a legal minimum flow to every dam in Switzerland to preserve the ecosystem). All the other points should not be so much of a problem to Egypt. Egypt can even benefit. And if not? then why is it that none of all these pro-Egyptian experts (who speak English very well) can explain it in clear words?

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

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...

What about a chicken farm?

On my recent field trips to 4 different watersheds in the Blue Nile Basin, two majors practices were the most promissing : fruit tree and poultry. Whereas my last post focused on the fruit trees (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/07/fruit-trees-hopes-illusions-and.html), here are some thoughts about poultry farming.

In Shambu watershed and in Maksenit farmers have little amount of chicken (2-3 in Shambu 5-6 in Maksenit) and wished they could increase their chicken production. In both sites the envisage farmers to own between 20-30 chicken each.

In Shambu, the reason for not having more chicken is the cold climate, that makes reproduction difficult. In Maksenit where it is significantly warmer the reason for not having more chicken is the lack of access to medicine to control diseases.

Chicken in Maksenit 

Shambu farmers would like to get an incubator, so that they could get more chicken. But they they that they cannot access an incubator and therefore are stuck where they are. I found on the internet the instruction on how to build a low cost incubator with local material : http://www.ehow.com/how_4988665_build-chicken-incubator-light-bulb.html. It looks very easy and even feasible for the Shambu farmers. But does it make sense to build an incubator in an area where electricity cuts are common? there is no way to guarantee constant temperature and therefore all the eggs will die. So after discussing with a friend who understands more, I discovered it might be easier to go for the natural way, it would be sufficient to keep a critical amount of chicken (about 8-10) together, in order to have less egg dying because a chicken decided to get some food for too long. And then increase slowly slowly the amount of chicken in the area.

Stays the disease problem, in which i haven't dug into it yet. But it would be worth looking better in the poultry option for Ethiopia. On my last trip to Kenya I had the chance to visit a chicken farmer who breeds his 200-300 chicken. In that also the way forward in Ethiopia?

200 chicks on a Kenyan farm

Nonetheless, one should never forget to look at market access. In Shambu an alive chicken goes for 80-120 birr, i just bought my frozen chicken 80 birr in the shop next to ILRI in Addis. Shambu chicken are expensive because there are very few chicken locally. But as production increases prices will fall. Bringing chicken to the towns meant to compete with "my chicken" that comes from a commercial chicken farm near Mojo (South of Addis). Will smallholder be able to compete with those low prices? 

A farm with 100 chicken in Kenya

A short look at the Kenyan situation might give some ideas. Smallholders have a hard time with poultry. They all produce when it is easy, then there is enough fodder. This implies that too many chicken come on the market at the same time, price falls and farmer get obliged to sell below production price. It is only a good business when one is able to produce in the more difficult dry times.

No wonder that in Europe, poultry chain in fully integrated. The integration allows to coordinate the chicken production (farmers get contract stipulating how many chicken he needs to grow by when even with which fodder and medicine) and make sure that a sufficient amount of chicken are available, not more not less...

I wonder under which conditions there is room for smallholders in Africa in the poultry sector. But for sure there is a transition time during which poultry might be a good business...

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.

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