This document summarizes Beth Cullen's work using participatory approaches to natural resource management in Ethiopia. She has facilitated innovation platforms bringing together stakeholders to jointly address issues. One project used participatory video to understand community priorities around restricted grazing, leading to small-scale fodder interventions. Serious games like WAT-A-GAME were also used to build stakeholder capacity and develop collective strategies. While increasing understanding, wider change may require continued work at different scales through nested innovation platforms. Future efforts include piloting interventions from developed concepts and assessing impact of participatory processes.

1. Innovation platforms, participatory video and
WAT-A-GAME for participatory NRM: Experiences
from Ethiopia
Beth Cullen
International Livestock Research Institute
Presented at IRSTEA, Montpellier
17 December 2013

2. Applied anthropology
Anthropology: the study of human beings, their culture, behaviour,
beliefs, and ways of living.
‘Applied anthropologists use the knowledge, skills and perspective
of their discipline to help solve human problems and facilitate
change’ (Chambers, 1985).
Anthropology for development: what do ‘they’ want?

3. Participatory action research
Involves people who are concerned about or affected by an issue
taking a leading role in producing and using knowledge about it.
•Driven by participants who have a stake in the issue being
researched
•Democratic knowledge sharing: all participants can contribute,
produce, own and use knowledge
•Collaborative at every stage, involving discussion, pooling skills
and working together
•Intended to result in action, change or improvement
•Iterative- action and critical reflection takes place throughout

4. My work so far has focused on...
•Gathering knowledge about communities through participatory
approaches
•Using and developing participatory research methods to involve
participants in research and development processes
•Working with participants to apply knowledge to practical
problems/challenges
•Documenting and analysing the results collaboratively
•Using the findings to influence interventions and policy

5. Overview of NBDC project...
Nile Basin Development Challenge aims to improve the
resilience of rural livelihoods in the Ethiopian highlands
through a landscape approach to rainwater management.

6. Focus on policies and institutions
(not just technological interventions)
Historically NRM interventions in Ethiopia have been topdown leading to limited sustainability of interventions.
Base-line research conducted in three NBDC sites at the
start of the project identified the following issues:
•Isolated technical interventions
•Lack of cross-sector collaboration and coordination
•Weaknesses in technical design
•Poor follow up and monitoring
•Lack of relevance to local priorities
•Lack of voluntary collective action

7. Development of a working hypothesis...
• Development of integrated strategies by a range of
stakeholders which consider technologies, policies and
institutions will demonstrate an alternative approach to
top-down implementation and lead to improved NRM.
But how do we achieve this?

8. Or...

9. Innovation Platforms...
A need-based network bringing together stakeholders from
different interest groups, disciplines, sectors and organisations to
exchange knowledge and resources, generate innovation and
develop joint action.
Established in Fogera in July 2011. Participants include:
•Woreda administration,
•Bureau of Agriculture
(Natural Resource, Water, Women,
Cooperatives, Land Use, Livestock)
•Adet Agricultural Research Center,
•Andassa Livestock Research Center,
•Ethio-Wetlands and Natural Resources Association (NGO),
•Community representatives

11. First steps...
Joint identification of common NRM issue
to ensure collective action
NRM
Issue?
But this raised a series of challenges...

12. Stakeholder representation:
Community members often dominated by more powerful actors with
significant implications for both entry point selection and subsequent
pilot interventions

13. Conflict
Lack of common understanding about NRM issues between the
different platform members, leading to competing agendas and
conflicting perspectives about potential solutions.

14. Need for facilitation
‘Innovation brokering’ required to address issues of representation and
power and work with actors to change these dynamics. Questions
about who should act as broker- ‘internal’ or ‘external’ actors.

15. Community engagement: Participatory Video

16. Issue Identification
Fogera
Actors
IP
members
Community
Main issue
Related issue
Unrestricted
grazing
Land
degradation
Restricted
grazing
Shortage of
grazing/fodder
Water
scarcity
Shortage of
water
Soil
conservation
Organization of
campaign work

17. Restricted grazing prioritised as an issue but different views about how it
should be addressed. Farmers concerned about a number of issues:
•HH without livestock unable to collect dung for fuel
•Inability for livestock to breed without AI services
•Insufficient fodder production to meet livestock needs, particularly for those
with less land
•Greater burden of labour with cut and carry system
•Limited access to communal areas for funerals/wedding etc. due to
enclosures
Range of interventions needed over longer time frame.

18. Participatory Video screened to Innovation Platform members

19. Innovation
Fund
•
80,000 ETB was allocated to the platform
to fund action research activities
•
Proposals and action plans were
developed by IP members according to
defined criteria
•
Actions should be cross-sectoral,
participatory, designed to address RWM
issues and targeted to suitable area
•
A site was selected within the designated
NBDC watershed
•
Fodder interventions chosen due to
common concerns around the issue of
grazing
•
Action to take place at household level,
farmland and communal land

20. Fodder interventions complement SLM campaign - but small scale

21. Stakeholder Capacity Building
A lot of talk about ‘participatory planning’ but difficult to put it into action.
WAT-A-GAME as a way forward?

22. Aims to develop tools and operational frameworks for
Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) that can
be applied at meso-scale in a variety of environmental and
socio-economic conditions in Africa.
Also to provide participatory management options for INRM
which are embedded in local traditions and culture, and are
scientifically sound.
Fogera is one of the Afromaison case study sites.

23. NBDC and AfroMaison researchers worked together to model the Fogera
catchment and simulate RWM issues and dynamics identified by stakeholders:
water availability, run-off, soil erosion and the impact of different land-use
practices
The aim was to use the model to:
• Improve stakeholder understanding about natural resource challenges
and the needs/priorities of different social actors
• Nurture critical discussion, about linkages between
upstream/midstream/downstream actors and potential conflicts associated
with the use and management of natural resources,
• Facilitate collective exploration of alternative strategies which could lead
to more sustainable and effective NRM interventions

24. WAT-A-GAME: not just about the tool,
process is important too...

25. 1st WAG workshop
Fogera
1st workshop (Dec 2012) aimed to develop strategies
which capture the priorities, knowledge and perspectives
of farmers and decision makers, and make commonalities
and differences visible.

26. Farmers
Decision makers

27. 2nd WAG workshop
Fogera
2nd workshop (April 2013) reviewed strategies developed
during first workshop and created a merged strategy.
Potential challenges to implementation were discussed and
ideas for solutions were generated, including incentives for
different actor groups.

28. Creation of a merged strategy

29. 3rd WAG workshop
Fogera
3rd workshop (September 2013) explored equity issues in
more detail through micro game.
Discussed roles and responsibilities of different actor groups
and developed concrete plans for taking the strategy into
action through pilot implementation.

30. Micro game to explore equity issues

31. Outcomes
•Participatory process resulted in the identification of ‘wicked
problems’, which led to very different research questions and
outcomes.
•Greater understanding of power dynamics and equity issues, and
their impact on multi-stakeholder processes (including NRM
interventions).
•Development of a joint strategy focusing on a ‘common issue’
which is tailored to different socio-economic and biophysical niches
•Some changes in knowledge, attitudes and practice among IP
members but may not lead to wide-scale change
•Need for continued work at different scales, i.e. a ‘nested’
innovation platform approach

32. Future efforts
•Workshop to finalise concept note with committee members - to
be held in January. CN will be used to seek funds for pilot
interventions - potential donors already identified
•Explore
ways of linking WAT-A-GAME process to biophysical
modelling - scenarios for discussion with stakeholders
•Asses
potential for upscaling WAT-A-GAME as a decision
support tool - explore ways of making it more user friendly
•Follow
up work to assess the impact of the process to date on
stakeholder understandings of key issues
•Develop better methods for monitoring and evaluating impact of
participatory processes