Global Water Initiative East Africa Report on First-Round Action-Research: Findings And

Global Water Initiative – East Africa
Report on First-Round Action-Research: Findings and Impacts of Learning and Practice Alliances

August 1, 2014

Contents

Executive Summary

Introduction

Methods

Part I: LPA Process and Impacts

Setting up the LPAs

Findings

Overview

Process: Anticipated versus Reality

Accomplishments to Date

Gender

Sustainability and Scaling Up

Part II: LPA Research Findings

UGANDA

Study 1: A Comparative study to identify the most cost effective soil and water conservation techniques and practices in the three sub-counties of Olilim, Ogor and Orum in Otuke district.

Study 2: Development and dissemination of sustainable integrated soil fertility Management Practices for smallholder farmers in Otuke district

Study 3: Budget Analysis and Assessment of Smart Investments in Water for Smallholder Agriculture in Uganda and the East African Region

ETHIOPIA

Study 1: Household Irrigation Technology Package Development, Research and Capacity Development in Dera Woreda of South Gondar Zone

Study 2: Irrigation Agronomy of Dera District of Amhara Region, South Gondar Zone, Ethiopia

TANZANIA

Study 1: Integration of Water for agriculture techniques and agro-inputs uses (seeds, fertilizers, implements, and chemicals) in Agricultural Production

Study 2: Women’s Participation in Decision Making on Agricultural Development Issues Focusing on Water for Agriculture

Study 3: Contribution of Institutional Set-Up on Stimulation or Deterioration of Water for Agriculture projects in Same District, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.

ANNEX 1: Case Study of the LPA-Action Research Process in Uganda

Executive Summary

Learning and Practice Alliances (LPAs) are platforms that bring together a diverse set of stakeholders from different interest groups, disciplines, sectors and organizations, to define and address common challenges, exchange knowledge, and generate innovative, locally relevant solutions[1]. The basic philosophy of an LPA is that learning should be a collaborative project, drawing together stakeholders with different knowledge (both indigenous and academic) experience, skills sets and capacity, who will then use what they learn to make decisions within different environments. In the context of the Global Water Initiative-East Africa program, LPAs are comprised of local government actors, local universities or research institutions, local NGOs, entrepreneurs, and active community members, leaders, and Champion Farmers[2].

The Global Water Initiative-East Africa (GWI-EA) program chose to establish and work with LPAs as a primary component of its work, in order to best advance the goals of empowering and increasing the influence of smallholder farmers. LPA-like models have had proven success in programs with similar empowerment goals, and in particular, in strengthening local capacity to identify, define, and solve locally relevant problems, and inform subsequent policy changes at the local and national levels.

CARE has used similar institutions in its EMPOWERS program to increase local water resources management and conflict mitigation capacity in the Middle East, and in the PATHWAYS program which, similarly to GWI-EA, seeks to empower and strengthen the capacity of smallholder women farmers. GWI-EA Director, Alan Nicol, performed much of the foundational work on LPAs in Ethiopia during the DFID-funded RiPPLE program, where he worked with very successful and influential LPAs. Though the use of LPAs in the water sector is still innovative, the success of similar institutions such as Farmer Field Schools, have been well demonstrated in other sectors. CARE currently uses Farmer Field and Business Schools in the PATHWAYS program, and is instituting LPAs in the Nutrition at the Center program in addition to within GWI-EA. There is ongoing discussion between the different teams within CARE on the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of the general approach, its variants, and how to incorporate within national extension systems.

The significance of Learning and Practice Alliances in GWI-EA is three-fold. First and foremost, it is based on the premise that stakeholders are more motivated to solve locally relevant problems and contribute to necessary changes in policy and practice, when they themselves have identified, defined, and sought answers to the challenges they face. This empowerment process, and the formal mechanism of group problem solving, motivates and enables LPAs and their members to act as agents of change. Second, working with LPAs ensures that local stakeholders haveincreased and sustained capacity to conduct investigation and produce information that can inform decision making. While there are many institutions conducting robust research on agriculture, LPAs add value by continuing to generate locally relevant evidence that can be used to directly inform and influence decision-making. Third, successful locally driven processes are a powerful advocacy tool with decision makers at the national level in determining budgetary allocations and how they should be used.

This report describes preliminary evidence of impact in the first two areas of significance. The first part of the report examines the perceived impact of LPAs on its members and surrounding communities in Uganda and Ethiopia, after approximately one year of activity; these are the preliminary results of a study conducted by CARE, in collaboration with Emory University. Findings suggest that farmers and LPA members in both Uganda and Ethiopia feel that their knowledge has perceptibly increased since the formation of the LPA. Farmers and LPA members also report feeling significantly empowered, and having a stronger connection, with greater amounts of trust, with local government. However, though nearly all participants report a positive impact of LPAs, the probability of long term sustainability requires further investigation, as their formation and maintenance is intensive of time and effort. The first part of this report describes these findings in more detail.

The second part of this report summarizes the results of the first round of action-research conducted by LPAs in Uganda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. This first round of action-research is currently being finalized in each country, and so some results have yet to be fully tabulated; those studies are omitted until reports are in draft form. Furthermore, the studies included have yet to be synthesized fully by LPAs and GWI staff, and discussions of implications of this research are currently ongoing. However, results have already been used to inform local food security ordinances in Otuke District in Uganda, as well as advocate to Parliament for greater focus on a more efficient use of financial resources in implementation of water for agriculture, rather than simple budget increases.

Overall, LPA research has largely been conducted within two work-streams: 1) assessing current and available technologies and practices (TaPs) to help farmers and extension agents understand the feasibility of adopting improved practices, and 2) examining budget allocation and estimating necessary household investment in water for production (BASINs). LPAs in all three countries have conducted extensive inventories of practices and available technologies and resources related to water for agriculture. In addition, each LPA has investigated primary barriers to the uptake of improved technologies and practices – particularly related to water harvesting, drip irrigation, and conservation agriculture practices.

In Uganda, first round research focused on costs of water for agriculture: one study traces the costs to farmers of adopting improved practices, while a second describes government policies and identifies budget allocations and expenditures at the national and local levels related to water for food production. Findings suggest that, while the policy framework regulating water for agriculture is robust at the national level, and budget allocations have consistently increased since 2006, funding at the national and local levels is still insufficient. In Ethiopia, first round research focused on household irrigation and available technologies and practices. Irrigation is central to Ethiopia’s agricultural policy, and political momentum for increased irrigation is high. This research is intended to inform sustainable and cost-effective irrigation practices at the household level that include conservation agriculture as a key complementary component. In Tanzania, research has focused on understanding and overcoming barriers to adoption of improved practices, particularly related to conservation agriculture. Several pieces of research examine how institutional set-up influences uptake and sustainable use of improved practices, how women participate or don’t participate in decision-making around agriculture, and how current practices reflect barriers to uptake of improved ones. These findings suggest that farmers have been most receptive to community-driven approaches (particularly those supported by government), and that while women are responsible for many tasks and decisions within food production and sale, they are less informed of relevant policies, have fewer mechanisms to voice their opinions and concerns, and feel less able to claim or redress their rights, if denied.

Collectively, this research suggests significant accomplishment towards bridging knowledge gaps in each district. However, these pieces of action-research are intended to influence decision making at the local and national levels on policy and budget allocation; to demonstrate this, next steps in utilizing action-research results, where they have been defined by the LPAs, are described beneath each study.

Introduction

The learning and practice alliance (LPA) model lies at the heart of the Global Water Initiative – East Africa’s (GWI-EA) approach to its three program objectives: increasing political attention to and investments in water for smallholder agriculture along with amplifying the voice and influence of smallholder farmers. A learning and practice alliance is a facilitative learning approach developed by the RiPPLE[3] consortium in Ethiopia. It is based on the learning alliance model, which is similarly a multi-level, multi-stakeholder platform for learning, but with more emphasis on the use of the learning. The basic philosophy of an LPA is that learning intended to cause positive changes for target beneficiaries is essentially (or should be) a collaborative project, drawing together stakeholders with different knowledge (both indigenous and academic) experience, skills sets and capacity, who will then use what they learn to make decisions within different environments. Not least of these stakeholders are the intended beneficiaries of the program who must have a say and a role in the LPA.

As a participatory learning approach, LPAs emphasize both the knowledge gained as well as the other benefits that come from an inclusive process, such as enhanced skills, strengthened relationships, social capital, consensus building and the creation of avenues for the dissemination of knowledge gained. The anticipation of these benefits can be found within GWI-EA project monitoring and evaluation documents, where country programs described program aspirations. For example, this excerpt from one of Uganda’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) documents reads:

We seek to see farmer forums that provide an avenue through which farmers participate in decision making processes at the district level and that unite farmers to have a common voice in lobbying for their needs and rights.

A similar aspiration is found within an M&E document for the program in Ethiopia which defines a milestone thus:

Champion farmers have improved skills and knowledge on agriculture water management technologies and they are investing in these technologies and practices and demanding for necessary inputs and services from service provider institutions, such as government. As a result of applying improved agricultural Water Management technologies and practices, champion farmers have increased their crop production, become more food secure and improved their income. They are also transferring their knowledge and expertise to other farmers.

As the LPA model is relatively new, this preliminary report is intended to examine the model’s application to date in terms of effectiveness and outputs. The first section of this report is based on the preliminary results of a study carried out by CARE with the help of two graduate researchers from Emory University, to examine process and impacts of the GWI-EA LPAs in Ethiopia and Uganda. The second section of this report synthesizes findings from baseline studies and the first round of action-research generated by the LPAs in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda. Though a full examination of the LPA research findings has not been carried out, this first stage of research synthesis will enable future actions to improve research methodology and operations of the LPA, as will the LPA-specific process and impact study.

Methods

Qualitative research methods were used to evaluate the LPA framework implemented by GWI-EA in Ethiopia and Uganda. The LPA in Ethiopia is located in the Amhara region in Dera Woreda (district) and the evaluation was conducted in four of the six project kebeles (sub-districts)--Jigna, Korata, Ema Shenkero and Tebabari. Data was collected from 10 champion farmers (5 women and 5 men), 17 LPA members (4 women and 13 men), and 2 GWI EA staff (1 man and 1 woman, both of whom areLPA members). Champion farmers were generally interviewed in public locations, with the exception of 2 farmers that were interviewed on their farms. LPA members and GWI EA staff were interviewed in their respective offices.

The LPA in Uganda is located in Northern Region in Otuke District and the evaluation was conducted in all three of the project sub-counties (Olilim, Orum, Ogor). Data was collected from 18 champion farmers (9 women and 9 men), 20 LPA members (1 woman and 19 men) and 2 GWI-EA staff (both women, 1 of whom is an LPA member). Champion farmers were interviewed on their farms. LPA members and GWI EA staff were interviewed in their respective offices.

Champion farmers, LPA members and GWI-EA staff participated in the evaluation through individual interviews and focus group discussions. In both countries, sampling was purposive to reflect male and female perspectives when possible. Sampling was also based on availability and convenience as the researchers generally had to move throughout the field with GWI-EA staff and work within the schedules of the LPA members.

The Most Significant Change (MSC) tool was selected as the method for interviews with champion farmers, with the objective of understanding the impact of the LPA on farmers by encouraging a narrative of their experiences in the LPA. The MSC tool was also selectedto explore the possibility of different experiences of the LPA between male and female farmers, and any changes the LPA may have produced in social capital.

Focus Group Discussions (FGD) were held with LPA members and occasionally included GWI-EA staff. After Action Reviews (AAR) and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analyses were conducted during the FGDs, in addition to gender analysis in the case of Ethiopia. The LPAs evaluated have recently finished or are finishing their first action research cycle, providing an opportune transitional period to conduct a SWOT analysis. AAR and SWOT are ideal tools for group settings in which many ideas are to be generated and discussed in a relatively short period of time.

Key informant interviews were used with the LPA members, GWI-EA staff, and, in the case of Uganda, champion farmers. Key informant interviews served as a research method for evoking deeper conversations with the evaluation participants. Questions on impact, gender and social capital were pursued with the different stakeholders to gather a diversity of perspectives. Key informant interviews with GWI-EA staff also pursued questions on the LPA concept framework. The key informant interview was semi-structured and used as a fluid tool, with experiences in earlier interviews informing and enhancing questions used in later interviews. This allowed richer data to be gathered from the interviews as context-specific details emerged in Ethiopia and Uganda. Where focus groups could not be arranged, key informant interviews also served as a means to deliver AAR and SWOT questions.

Figure 1 Farmer Anguach Sendek being interviewed

The data that were collected were first transcribed and then coded using the qualitative data analysis software MAXQDA. Codes were analyzed to reveal themes related to project impact, strengths and opportunities, weaknesses and barriers, gender, social capital, and sustainability among both LPAs. The codes also highlighted discrepancies between the LPAs and differing responses among the various project stakeholders. Program reports, field observations and field notes were used to supplement research findings.

Research conducted by the LPAs themselves followed the action-research model. Action-research was conducted in each country by LPA members or partnering institutions. Most studies utilized survey methods, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions within GWI-EA program areas. One study in Uganda was completed via a desk study of relevant policies, and records of government budget allocations and expenditures at the national and local levels. Methods for each of the studies are described in each of the full research reports. Data from each study were synthesized by the lead research institution, whether LPAs or partners, and presented in draft report form to GWI-EA program staff. These reports were read by GWI-EA program in Kampala, Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, and CARE Water Team staff in Atlanta, where findings were partially synthesized. Next steps for each study were defined by LPAs, and recorded by GWI-EA Policy and Advocacy Managers in Uganda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. Discussions of the implications of research findings, and specific additional next steps, are ongoing in LPAs in each district. GWI and CARE staff will discuss and more fully analyze and synthesize research findings as a whole, through October 2014. These discussions will inform GWI program iteration and next steps, and couch findings within the context of CARE’s great learning, as well as within global and regional dialogues on water, agriculture, and food and water security.