Presented by Tilahun Amede at the Nile Basin Development Challenge Science and Reflection Workshop, Addis Ababa, 4-6 May 2011.

1. Partnership evolution in the NBDCTilahun Amede Nile Basin Development ChallengeScience and Reflection WorkshopAddis Ababa, 4-6 May 2011

2. Large number of institutions (government, NGOs, CGIAR centres, bilateral and multilateral donor) working on NRM in the basin; Nile 1+

3. Partnership at proposal stage

4. NBDC Partnership in implementation BDU NMA Ambo Uni HARC MoA SLM Wollega Uni AAU UNEP IDE Cornell Uni NBDC

5. NBDC Partnership in collective action BDU NMA Ambo Uni HARC MoA SLM Wollega Uni AAU UNEP IDE Cornell Uni NBDC

6. Challenges in partnership Building partnership is a very costly engagement in terms of time and coordination; Need for informal and formal agreements – including being able to negotiate and convince about the joint benefits, need for liaison over all N projects, need for changing partners from the original list etc. Partnership without allocating budgets for the partners; does it work? Challenges to enable partners (particularly communities) to take charge and /or share responsibilities and sustain partnership over years.

7. Issues for discussion What lessons have we learned so far about partnership building? What went well? What didn’t go well? What do partners want out of collaboration with NBDC? When to engage? How should we identify partners? based on trust? competency? power balance? Resources? recognition for delivery? Who is joining who? How do we organize our Nile projects in communicating with partners? Individual Ns? Demand-based? Through N5? How do we best communicate with partners? What are the best channels for interacting with wider actors?