A blue print for capacity optimisation of young leaders in water education for sustainable eco futures

1. Youth Leadership for Communities of Water related Practices - A Blue-print
for Capacity Optimization

2. Eco & WaSH Futures
JAL SUTRA
in young hands
Dr. Pamposh Kumar
pamposh.kumar@gmail.com
011-26525541, 26590473

3. One Water….many Sutras

4.  Mentoring for community initiatives & innovation
 Addressing issues faced by one project & resolved by another
 World Water Day-Networking for WaSH (for States)
 Science for Sanitation (for States)
 UN Water Decade
 Consultative processes, knowledge sharing & networking
Eco & WaSH Futures
support & catalysis

5.  Capacity Building Workshops
 Local & regional dialogue facilitation
 Water Educator’s training
 Eco-regional approach/ Transboundary Waters
Management (TWM)
 Support for innovative models of outreach, knowledge
sharing, learning & solution exchange
Eco & WaSH Futures
support & catalysis

6.  Why Water –Literacy?
 Why Eco- literacy?
 Why Eco-restoration?
 Why Eco-security assures Water Security?
A very short eco-story……..
Let us think deep……. and far…
Why Water Educators?

7. Richness of palm trees,
birds, fish, steady
population growth …..
Sculpture, art and a written
language ….then sudden
disappearance!!
Easter Island!
Paradise found !!
27 deg south of the equator
~ 3600 KMs off Chile coast
63 square miles in size
3 extinct volcanoes

10. Population expansion
More statues taken to ‘Ahu’
More palm trees cut for rollers!
Not regenerated fast …
Nesting of birds, eggs, topsoil ,
fishing beds, food, clothing, tools all hit !!
No canoes, no escape,
cannibalism, war cults!
The tipping point

11. The rest of the indigenous people were wiped out
…. leaving only the giant carvings.
Diamond, Jared Collapse. How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Viking, 2005
Hunt, Terry L. Rethinking the Fall of Easter Island, American Scientist (94): p. 412,
(September–October 2006)

12. An Educator
 World’s first social worker
 Sutradhar for societal transformation/ resilience
 Needs to be on centre stage of building community
capacity & institutions
Jal Sutra | Essentially Building a Capacity for
Educated choices & Path breaking Innovations

13. Knowledge intensive, cause & effect
based approach for :
 Building scientific temper
 Participatory learning
 S&T based “Reasoned Action”
 Development Science Communication
Science Communication approach to
Eco & WaSH Education

14.  Using the local factors of change - cultural,
institutional, local systems of knowledge delivery
 Participatory learning, sharing best practices
 Documentation of evidence base
 Knowledge driven advocacy
Water Educator’s
Hats for Public Engagement

15. Water Education & Communities

16. Chaupal for Water Education

17. Paani Panchayats & Participatory Science
Communication

18.  Young Community Advisers
 Water Educator Fellows
 Assignments supported with honorarium for
community science of WaSH
 Community Innovators, Torch Bearers, Science
Communicators, Jal Samvadaks

19.  Unbelievable challenges
 Demands always outstrip the supply,
rather exponentially
 Versatility can meet the rising demand
more effectively than capacity which
remains grafted upon institutions that have
stopped learning and growing or
individuals who are no more motivated
 Pareto’s Optimality –how far can we go

23. Lessons Learnt : Why Optimize
(Paani Panchayat, Block Hindoli, Distt. Bundi, Rajasthan)
Participatory Science
Communication &
Capacity Building for Paani
Panchayats

24. Poor man’s science !

25. Lack of Optimality, not Capacity
The ever lurking Dis-joints:
Weakening of Horizontal & Vertical Linkages
Weakening of Community support
Incentive seeking behaviour kicking in
Whither capacity ?
Knowledge actors metamorphed in to helpless spectators
Model of “co-creation” & “bonding over learning” gets
inverted to that of “dis-engagement”
MESSAGE:
If you have to travel fast, go solo !
If you ought to travel far, go together !!

26. Higher Lessons: Building Capacity for Learning &
Exchange
Moving Targets : Experience sharing and learning
often can have collateral costs!
There could be learning at the cost of sharing
Also the sharing may cloud the essence of
learning

27. Learning Exchange
Many Gurus thought it could be KM!
Yes, it could be………
 Content management system
 Web tools development, hosting & upgradation
 Toolkits, media use & sharing, specialized
assistance on GIS, new media, etc.
 Training & technical support, group studies or
exchanges, cross portfolio events- platforms

28. More modes !
 Convening local, regional & trans-boundary dialogues
 Outreach and communications support
- Awareness, scalability, replication, impact and sustainability
 Co-creating knowledge-sharing products
-Field Manuals, Public Participation Guides, Communication Guidebooks, Experience Notes,
Case Studies, Multimedia, Newsletters and E-Bulletins
 Accompanied learning - IWRM and related ecosystem services,
environmental flows & information management, economic valuation, governance and
management including public participation, etc.

29. The whole has more capacity than the
sum of its parts ! (The Highest
Learning)

30. The whole has more capacity than the
sum of its parts, how realized?
 Access to project data, analysis & outcome
 Replication for enhancing efficiency & effectiveness
 Synergy with other initiatives
 Output utilization & sharing
 Policies-procedures, priorities, performance orientation
 Optimization of capacity

31. Beyond Learning Exchange !
 Are the concerned communities supportive?
 How much replicable are the best practices exchanged ?
 Can we simulate more of the best practices?
 Can we anticipate more and unexpected scenarios?

32. Learning Inclusion Precedes
Participation!
 Is participation truly inclusive?
 Can we identify barriers to learning exchange?
 Can we develop approaches to self-review & analyse ?
 Can we develop inter-cultural channels of learning ?

33. Can we handle minefields of renewal
& challenge the exclusion
Question hard the path of least
resistance and of most convenience!
Difference Dissonance
Divergences Diversities
Dissention Rebellion

34. Where are we
headed to ?

35. Match Possibilities Specialization A Specialization B
Match 1 Ecosystems
services
Water Purification
Match 2 Water Audit Watershed Protection
Match 3 Livelihood Waters Water quality monitoring
Match 4 Science
Communication
Behaviour Change
Communication/
Development
Communication
Match 5 Cultural
competence
Inter-cultural competence
Cross-specialization for learning exchange
& inclusion - Technical Optimality

36. Capacity Optimization:
Vertical, Horizontal, & 360 deg Sweeps
 Vertical Sweep: alignment on the one hand with
national policies, leadership, and roots-up
solution seeking on the other
 Horizontal Sweep: handholding amongst
themselves and with other stakeholders
 360 deg Sweep: to bring capacity in sync with
immediate and future needs, developing 360
degree responses to challenges

37.  Capacity building & enhancement of water knowledge facilitators/
Water Educators Trainings (TOT)
 Post training engagements with open- roots and open- leaves access
 Develop indices for capacity assessment & optimization framework
 Tracking the performance on Optimization
 Holding Learning Exchanges & Solution Exchanges
A model initiative in Capacity Assessment &
Optimization for Eco-water Literacy

38. Pilot project –work components
 Path-finder runs of TOTs & post-training
assignments
 Develop frame works
- Situational analysis
- Parameterization of functionalities (vertical, horizontal
& 360 ;ᵒ values, cultural, & technical optimality)
- Assessment of existing capacity
- Assessment of capacity built
- Measuring the potential of capacity mobilization
- Mapping engagement outcomes
 Test, validate , plan & implement
 Share performance

39. Desired Impact
 Capacity Optimization for Communities of Practice &
Learning (CoPL)
 Sharing & adoption of scientific, technical, & traditional
innovations - constructed wetlands and nutrient management, etc.
 Portfolio workspaces & networking CoPLs in water
stressed regions
 Web based knowledge-authoring & sharing
 Syndication; Strategic support (short courses, guidance on PPP
& CSR, consultancy, training opportunities)

40. Thank you.
Cogito ergo sum.
I understand, so I exist.