Project Closure Report

Project Closure Report

Introduction and Guidance

Background to this report

In 2013 there will be no annual report (normally due end of March 2013) nor will there be a six-monthly report (normally due in October 2013). We are targeting Project and BDC CLOSURE rather than COMPLETION. This allows us to have a closure process within the lifetime of our program so that we can capitalize and benefit from it, rather than a completion process after projects end and the program is officially closed.

Target audience of this report:

1)  Basin Leaders – who will compile the overall BDC closure report

2)  CPWF Program team – to make use of the reports components for repackaging or other communication and outreach products

3)  Other interested colleagues – who want to make use of the projects findings

Rationale for this report

1)  As a milestone for closure of the project’s activities, to take stock and reflect how far the project has gone and managed to reach its targeted goals and objectives and its contribution to the wider Basin Development Challenge program.

2)  To capture the project teams learning and lessons over the course of the project planning and implementation.

Content

·  We envision that the Project Closure reports will cover the following two main aspects:

1)  Learning, consisting of

a.  the science findings, outputs and project results

b.  project team learning about R4D processes

2)  Compliance, consisting of

a.  Final financial expenditure reports, certified by Chief financial officer and audited by an independent auditor acceptable to CPWF Secretariat.

b.  Milestones – how the project delivered (a list with comments and links)

c.  All outputs produced by each project team submitted to BLs and up-loaded into program repositories

·  As for the Learning part, this will be summary of your scientific findings and results as well as the project team’s learning about research for development and the processes applied and developed. This part is a key input and basis for the BDC closure reports. The BDC closure reports consist of two parts: 1) coordination part in which the projects will get evaluated against a set of criteria by the Basin Leader and 2) learning part in which the BDC scientific work: how outputs contributed to outcomes and addressed the overall BDC and the processes and approaches used will be covered.

·  Project Compliance part will be referred to ‘Project Completion Reporting’ as to be consistent with the Standard Clauses and correct reference for the auditors. The Annexes to the closure report will form and fulfill this part. It has three main elements, the financial reports and outputs delivery according to project milestone plans, and the handing over of all the outputs produced. All of them are due in the final up-dated version latest 30 days after the project contractual end date (or upon termination of the project, whichever comes first) and will have to be sent to CPWF Program Office, CPWF Finance Officer, Marene Abeyesekere () and the Program Director’s Executive Assistant, Sharon Pereira (). This is a consolidated listing of your products and achievements throughout the project lifetime.

·  The final report should not exceed 25 pages (excluding explanations and annexes), see for indicative amount of pages with each section. The amount of pages are indicative, you can be briefer and we would appreciate if you did not exceed the total amount of pages by too much (10%) in order to ensure that what is provided maintains its summarizing and synthesizing character. Please note that the annexes need to be filled as well, but do not count into the indicated total amount of pages. The annexes are a key part of the project closure report and form its compliance part.

Submission

·  The completed report needs to be submitted to your respective Basin Leader. Each Basin leader will set the submission deadline as to make it fit best their basin’s individual schedule.

·  We propose that Project Closure Reports be submitted between June and August, with the exact timing determined by BLs with PLs. All Project Closure Reports should be submitted by 31 August 2013 to their respective BLs and all BDC Closure Reports to be submitted to the Program no later than 30 Sept 2013. This gives the project and program teams the opportunity to further process reports for internal and external use while still under contract and within the lifetime of the program.

·  Collection of all outputs and deliverables will happen at the basin level via the Coordination and Change projects. It is critical that findings, outputs and results are easily available to local, national, regional and global audiences. Each basin is responsible for ‘local’ storage of data and outputs while submitting all to the central repositories, i.e. CG Space and for internal finalized documents Knowledge Tree.

Structure

In the template we tried to follow the summarized structure below:

General project information and brief description (section 1and 2)

Key Research findings/ messages/ outputs (section 3)

Key Changes of research/ R4D impacts/ outcomes/ process (section 4)

Key lessons and possible improvements for future R4D (section 5)

Identify emerging opportunities a) in research and b) in R4D/ process for impact (section 6)

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Annexes

Annex 1: Summary Financial Report

Attachment 1: Certified Financial Report for the duration of the project

Attachment 2: Audited Financial Report for the duration of the project

Annex 2: Project Milestone Plan

Annex 3: Research publications and communication outputs

Annex 4: Capacity building of people engaged in the project

Annex 5: Outreach to actors or actors groups identified in the OLMs or others

Annex 6 Consortium Office Indicators

Annex 7: Project team members and people who you would like to acknowledge

Annex 8: Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
CPWF Project Closure Report

1. Project Generic Information (approx. 1 page)

(Generic project description taken from the proposal incl. any changes over the project implementation period.) See proposal at: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10568/2317/NBDC%20N5%20Coordination%20and%20platforms.pdf?sequence=3

Name of Project Lead Institution

Full name and abbreviation

International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

Project Number and Title

Quote the project title given in the proposal (long and short version if applicable).

N5: On coordination and multi-stakeholder platforms (ILRI)

Project Duration

When the project started and ended. Please mention also any approved extension phase or changes in the initial project period and total duration in calendar years and months.

1 Mar 2010 – 31 Dec 2013

Project Leader and Project Scientists

Name of the leading staff / scientist and e-mail address. Give names of the principal staff members who have participated in the project and their e-mail addresses.

Tilahun Amede ()

Kees Swaans ()

Ewen Le Borgne ()

Pamela Pali ()

Peter Ballantyne ()

Alan Duncan ()

Simon Langan ()

Collaborating Institutions

State the full names of the institutions and their addresses.

International Water Management Research Institute, P.O.Box 5689, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Ethiopian Economic Association (EEA), P.O. Box 34282, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Catholic Relief Services- Ethiopia (CRS), P.O. Box 6592, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Amhara Regional Agricultural Research Institute, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

2. Project Description (max. 1 page)

This is your executive summary of your project in retrospect, keeping in mind your initial goal purpose and outputs and indicators (as given in the project proposal).

The Co-ordination and Multi-stakeholder Platforms Project (N5) was responsible for both internal and external co-ordination and change. Internally, the project provided the infrastructure and leadership for co-ordinating activities of the other projects leading ultimately to a breaking down of project silos into an overall programme of work on rainwater management in Ethiopia’s Nile basin. Externally, the project has been responsible for fostering a wide network of interested organizations and individuals to take the findings and innovations from the NBDC programme and to use them to catalyse change in the wider land and water management community in Ethiopia.

The initial aims and the guiding framework for the project are nicely articulated in the outcome pathways developed at the start of the project:

Outcome 1 focused on internal co-ordination (with elements of external change). Outcomes 2-4 were about using joint learning around technologies, institutions and policy to influence the way in which water and land are managed in Ethiopia. Although we did not formally evaluate our progress along outcome pathways, the later narrative in this report will show that we have had mixed success with both internal and external co-ordination and the stimulation of change. As outlined in detail in our Institutional History, the NBDC initially suffered from its project structure which tended to create project and disciplinary silos. This was addressed in the final 18 months of the programme through the “One NBDC initiative” which did away with project barriers and integrated the projects into a more coherent programme. In the final year of the programme some excellent distillation of key messages from the NBDC work was carried out, producing a compelling manifesto for a new way of doing business around land and water management in Ethiopia. The lessons emerging from the NBDC are being incorporated into new proposals for further R4D under the umbrella of the CGIAR Research Programme on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE). There has been considerable buy-in to the headline messages at senior level within the Ethiopian Government and among influential stakeholders which bodes well for the future. For example, at the final Conversation Dinner in November 2013, there was strong interest and endorsement of the Programme Messages at State Minister level. Finally, a number of strong scientific outputs are emerging from the programme, although many of these will only be published in 2014. These range from papers on the implications of changed cropping and management practices on water productivity, work on decentralization of land and water planning policies in Ethiopia and methodological papers on water productivity concepts. All are headed for high quality journals and will further strengthen the evidence base for our headline messages.

3. Key Research findings, messages and outputs (approx. 7 pages) – (Output focused)

As a CGIAR initiative the new research findings need to be reported upon and summarised. Key messages should be presented in brief, bold format or highlighted. Highlight important achievements: technologies and products developed, and new or improved research methodologies. Compare the planned outputs with the actual achievements. Give reasons why certain outputs could not be achieved and were changed. What was done to overcome constraints or unexpected problems? Please summarise as bullet points the main research-based outputs from your projects, and provide a brief explanation of why they are relevant. Also summarise any reports, publications and other media to have been generated by the project and indicate a link where these can be downloaded.

If it helps you may use the following research categories or different kind of research findings, however, if you want to follow your own categories please feel free just ensure that the areas are addressed as summarized in the paragraph above:

·  INFORMATION AND UNDERSTANDING – a better understanding of issues and problems; better information on the possible consequences of investments or innovations; a broader sense of the range of innovations that might be pursued to address a development challenge; better information on the performance of innovations under different circumstances. Examples: better understanding of the consequences of mainstream dams on downstream fisheries (Mekong); better understanding of causes of macrophytes infestation of small reservoirs (Volta); better information on the performance of alternative dry season fodder sources (Limpopo); better quantification of positive and negative externalities in a basin from upstream land and water management (Andes); opportunities for recession agriculture in the Mekong; opportunities for intensified dairy in the Andes; better understanding of the bottom-up vs. top-down dynamic in landscape management decision-making in the Nile; better understanding of gender dimensions.

·  DIALOGUE AND NEGOTIATION – examples: improved dialogue amongst dam builders and water-energy-food nexus stakeholders in the Mekong; improved processes for negotiating BSM in different basins in Peru; conversatorios to achieve agreements on land and water use in Colombia; applying IWRM for flood control in the Volta; fostering dialogue between local authorities and the BLDB on water control in polders in Bangladesh. Note that that information and understanding feeds into dialogue and negotiation. Note also that dialogue and negotiation may or may not result in decisions and investments.

·  DECISIONS AND INVESTMENTS - policy change or legislation, changes in stakeholder behavior, establishment of trust funds, land purchases, actual establishment of BSM (as opposed to simply talking about them); spontaneous adoption of innovations, reform of how polder maintenance is funded in Bangladesh, fertilizer purchase by farmers; farmer investment in dry season fodder production; changes in the behavior of dam operators to allow recession agriculture – note that decisions and investments may or may not be preceded by dialogue and negotiation – note that these are all OUTCOMES where behavior is changed and (usually) money is spent.

·  TOOLS AND METHODS - for targeting, for facilitating negotiation, for measurement, for data analysis, for most anything re the above- Bayesian tools for targeting; ECO-SUAT for quantifying externalities – note that new tools may be developed, or old tools applied to new issues. Better tools and methods help develop better information and understanding, resulting in improved dialogue and negotiation, and ultimately suitable decisions and investments.

In annex 1 list all major documents: publications, papers, reports, training manuals, etc. which have been generated during the BDC. Send copies of each to your BL and the CPWF or up-load directly into the CPWF storage space (CG space) and supply the link. Refer to and fill annex 2 and 3 for a detailed listing.

The key output of the N5 project is the Messages Document (Merrey et al. 2013) based on an exercise to harvest messages from across the NBDC Programme conducted in the first half of 2013. The document outlines 8 key messages which emerged from NBDC research and are packaged as a New Integrated Watershed Rainwater Management Paradigm. The messages are as follows:

1. Local community empowerment and leadership, especially where collective action is needed, based on demand, equity and inclusiveness;