Summary Report

FRAME and Tracker

Kenya Country Outreach Workshop

Conducted in collaboration with RESON

November 29, 2000

Submitted by:Drew Lent, RESON Team Leader

Dr. Laurel Abrams Neme, FRAME Team Leader

USAID contract number: AOT-M-00-99-00259

Table of Contents

1)Introduction / background

a)Purpose of the trip

b)FRAME / Tracker background

c)Organization of the Visit

2)Presentation Workshop Design

a)Presentation Content

b)Profile of the Invitees

3)Meeting Outcomes

a)Participant profile

b)Summary of Tracker feedback

c)Summary of FRAME feedback

d)Facilitator team observations

4)Follow-up Steps

a)Tracker

b)FRAME

5)Appendices

a)Invitation Letter

b)Meeting Agenda

c)List of People Contacted

d)Listing of feedback on Tracker

c)Listing of feedback on FRAME

FRAME – Tracker Kenya Country Outreach Reportpage 1

1)Introduction / background

a)Purpose of the trip

After the most recent FRAME Contact Group meeting held in May of 2000, in Saly Portudal, Senegal[1], the Management Committee adopted the Steering Committee recommendation that USAID/AFR/SD undertake a series of country-specific outreach visits to generate local awareness and feedback on the FRAME and Tracker tools. The format of these visits would differ from previous FRAME/Tracker presentations (a list of ten previous presentations appears below) in that they would provide Internet access and time for participants to gain hands-on experience with the sites before asking them to react to the site content. After the Saly Portudal meeting the notion of conducting a visit to Tanzania was suggested and accepted by the Tanzanian members of the FRAME Contact Group. This first outreach visit was completed in August 2000 and was subject of a previous report submitted to AFR/SD on September 15, 2000.

Based on the success of the first visit a second outreach visit was conducted, this time to Kenya, in November 2000. This report summarizes the development, design and outcomes of this second country visit. Kenya was chosen on the original request made by Dr. Helen Gichohi, member of the Contact Group, and resident of Nairobi. It is anticipated that two more country visits will be conducted using this same format within this fiscal year.

This outreach visit was funded under AFR/SD's RESON[2] activity and conducted by a two-person team (Drew Lent, and Dr. Laurel Abrams Neme) fielded in Kenya by Management Systems International from November 9 through 17, 2000. The visit was divided between two types of events in Nairobi: a pair of full-day participant workshops and an interactive presentation session conducted at a regional USAID AEPS Workshop[3] for agriculture, environment, private sector and Food for Peace officers. The two one-day workshops were conducted on November 14 and 15 at a local Internet café in Nairobi and the presentation session was held on November 16.

The particular objectives of the FRAME-Tracker Kenya outreach visit were to:

  1. Present FRAME and TRACKER to a broad and mixed audience;
  2. Generate interest and use of the tools by working through examples and getting feedback;
  3. Clarify the types of information specific country-level groups would find most useful on the FRAME web site; and
  4. Explore the interest in adding other functionalities to the FRAME site that would support sharing of information within and among existing networks and increase substantive dialog of ENMR issues across national borders.

By all accounts the visit was successful in meeting these objectives. In each venue, the reaction of the attendees was very enthusiastic and we were satisfied with the quality of feedback from participants. The workshop participant profile and feedback is summarized in Section 3 (Meeting Outcomes) below and documented in detail in the appendices. The Appendix entitled "List of People Contacted" also includes the names of contacts made during the AEPS conference and other meeting conducted in Nairobi during the visit.

b)FRAME / Tracker background

For readers who are unfamiliar with the FRAME activity and NRM Tracker toolthe following paragraphs provide background on the scope and purpose of each. More complete information is readily available at the web URLs noted respectively below.

FRAME -- promotes the increased use of up-to-date information by environment and NRM decision makers and practitioners as they analyze issues, plan strategically, and advocate their positions. FRAME is an internet-based resource that provides access to relevant technical information, expertise and analytical mechanisms and acts as a means to facilitate engagement by African partners in using that information in strategic planning and decision-making. The lynch pin of FRAME is the FRAME Internet site ( which provides a portal to information and analytical tools, as well as a place for partners to disseminate information and interact.

NRM Tracker -- is a tool for real time learning from local resource management initiatives in Africa. It is a searchable database that allows users to enter their own experiences from local resource management and learn from the experiences of others. This database is available through the Internet ( or CD-ROM.

The FRAME and Tracker tools are the product of considerable and on-going experimentation and adaptation. In order to obtain feedback on their development and exploitation both of these tools have been presented at several regional fora. These presentations include:

  • USAID Southern Africa Mission Directors Conference in Windhoek, Namibia, June 1998 (FRAME only)
  • FRAME Contact Group Meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, December 1998 (FRAME only)
  • IUCN West Africa State of the Environment Scoping Meeting in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, March 1999
  • USAID Environmental Officers Training Workshop in Warrenton, Virginia, USA, July-August, 1999
  • SADC NRMP Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, October, 1999
  • NRM Stocktaking Workshop in Koudougou, Burkina Faso, December, 1999
  • FRAME Contact Group Meeting in Saly Portudal, Senegal, May, 2000
  • USAID Debriefing in Washington, DC, June, 2000
  • Briefing in Jinja, Uganda, July, 2000
  • Briefing to Environment Web Group in Washington, DC, August, 2000

The previous presentations listed above differed from both the Tanzania and Kenya Outreach Visits (subject of this report) in that each was short (no more than two hours in duration) and limited to site demonstration rather than opportunities for participants to explore the content in depth.

c)Organization of the Visit

Preparations for the Kenya country visit started two months prior to arrival of the team members in country. Key to the success of the preparations was the assistance of USAID's Regional Economic Development Support Office (REDSO), notably Walter Knaussenberger, Senior Regional Environmental Advisor, and his capable IT Specialist Esther Muchiri. Ms. Muchiri found and made preliminary arrangements with the Internet café where the two one-day workshops were conducted. The REDSO office also took the lead in drawing up an invitation list based on their contacts and associates in the ENRM sector and sending invitation letters to over one hundred local practitioners. Dr. Helen Gichohi, FRAME Contact Group Member, provided the names of participants and made several direct contacts. She also attended the first FRAME/Tracker workshop.

On the US side, Dr. Neme sent an electronic invitation to every potential participant with e-mail coordinates and coordinated with Ms. Muchiri in maintaining the participant list. Drew Lent attended to contractual arrangements with the venues and other service providers and faxed invitations to any invitees without known e-mail addresses. Ten days to two weeks prior to the first meeting the participant invitations were sent out. A copy of this communiqué appears as Appendix A. One week prior to the country visit the team received country clearance from the REDSO Mission.

The US-based team members arrived in Nairobi three work-days before the first workshop. This allowed time to meet and discuss with the Kenyan partners, visit the meeting venue and confirm the logistical arrangements as well as to visit, call and fax many of the participating organizations that had not previously confirmed their attendance.

2)Presentation Workshop Design

a)Presentation Content

Each workshop followed the same agenda that is provided in Appendix B. The one-day program covered Tracker in the morning and then presented FRAME, which continued throughout the afternoon. The treatment of each tool included a presentation on the purpose and scope of the tool, an on-line demonstration of the Internet site, thirty minutes to an hour of participant exploration of the site and a structured feedback session. The day's program constituted seven hours of meeting time of which approximately 25% of the time was dedicated to participant-driven exploration of the two Internet sites and another 25% was engaged in getting participant feedback on each site. During the program over two hours were dedicated to the Tracker tool and the remainder of the day, approximately four hours, was spent studying FRAME.

b)Profile of the Invitees

The invitation list was easily developed due to the fact that USAID/REDSO/ESA has a large group of collaborators who focus on NRM in the wildlife and coastal resources. However the organizers made special efforts to go beyond the usual profile of USAID collaborators to include a variety of local and regional organizations. These included:

  • Multi-lateral and bi-lateral donor institutions;
  • Urban planning agencies; and
  • Agricultural and research institutions (including the National Museums of Kenya and the Kenya Soil Survey).

3)Meeting Outcomes

a)Participant profile

In total, forty-one participants attended the one-day workshops in Nairobi. This attendance was approximately twenty percent lower than expected, despite strong early indications from the outset that there would be considerable interest in environmental information and Internet applications. This turnout was probably due to the limited follow-up effort made in country to confirm participant attendance. In Tanzania such follow-up was ensured by the Contact Group member and the local EPIQ office through phone, e-mail and in-person visits. We did not ask, nor could we have expected this level of effort from the local USAID offices. Other local organizations affiliated with FRAME were not forthcoming with this type of support.

The combined workshop participants represented a total of twenty-seven local and regional organizations. Among these over seventy percent already have a presence on the worldwide web.

Our outreach to potential meeting participants was intended to reach a broad range of possible FRAME and Tracker users, not just the usual group of environment and wildlife specialists involved in the USAID program. We were successful in identifying and attracting a diverse crowd. Among the twenty-seven participating organizations in fact 26 % work in wildlife and another 22 % specialize in environment and natural resources management programming. However another thirty percent of the organizations work in agricultural and 11 % in soil conservation or land surveys. Bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors as well as local educational institutions were also represented. Of the participants, nearly one third were women.

More than ninety percent of the participants expressed interest in follow-up communication and updates from FRAME / Tracker.

b)Summary of Tracker feedback

The following is a summary of the received from the meeting participants relative to Tracker.

Virtually all participants thought Tracker was an extremely valuable tool. They noted the rapid speed of the site enhances its utility. This is particularly important given that web access and telephone charges can be costly in Kenya. Participants agreed that the tool’s ability to facilitate the sharing of experiences and information was extremely valuable. Therefore, listing contact people and/or contact organizations, as well as additional technical information, for each initiative were seen as vital for the success of the tool.

Participants had many excellent suggestions for modifications to the way information is presented on the site. These included: more detailed descriptions of initiatives; addition of context for initiatives, explanations of all of the categories (e.g., enabling conditions, stakeholders, etc) on the summary of initiative information; inclusion of more information on constraints; addition of funding information; and expansion of hyperlinks. They also recommended the database include a ranking of the relative importance of target sectors, practices and stakeholders for each initiative.

Participants suggested additional functionalities for Tracker, with much attention focusing on searches. Proposed modifications included: the ability to search country initiatives by category; listing of search parameters and the number of entries at the top of each search result; and the ability to search initiatives by region and key words (instead of only by country and natural resource).

Participants provided recommendations on specific changes to the questionnaire. Most of these suggestions focused on allowing flexibility in the responses. These included ranking of the relative importance of the targeted sector; expansion of the list of categories to include “other” as a choice (and provide space to define the new category); broader categories; elimination of choices for geographic area (to let the user define the scale); clarification of “stakeholder” and “partner”; addition of gender and policy-related issues; and expansion of descriptive material.

Participants gave ideas for mechanisms to regularly update the information in the Tracker database. They suggested sending short reminders to contact people and others to update their entry after a certain period of time. They also wanted to see an archive section for initiatives that were not updated. In addition, participants hoped to have documentation (or at least citations) that provide more details on the initiatives posted in Tracker or FRAME.

Finally, more than a quarter of all participants (11 people) requested user identification numbers during the workshop. Several noted their desire to enter several initiatives into the database and recommended this be allowed with a single user identification number. Participants noted numerous examples of initiatives that could be added and should be the subject of follow up by Tracker. One such example is inclusion of initiatives contained in the African Conservation Centre Database of Community-based Projects in East Africa, which was provided to Dr. Neme in a separate meeting. Others, such as the Environmental Liaison Centre and World Wildlife Fund, noted their intent to also share information on Tracker with their colleagues so that their partners could also enter initiatives.

A detailed listing of participant feedback is presented in Appendix E.

c)Summary of FRAME feedback

The following is a summary of the received from the meeting participants relative to FRAME.

Participants were very enthusiastic about the usefulness of the FRAME website in their work, particularly for networking, collaboration, and outreach. Virtually all cited that a key use for the FRAME website would be to find out who is doing what. They noted they would use this type of information to identify individuals and organizations for future collaboration and to prevent duplication of effort. In addition, participants stated an advantage of the FRAME website was the strategic opportunity it creates to disseminate their information to others. In particular, they saw the site as an excellent means to share their experiences and publicize their activities. They also noted the site would increase their efficiency by allowing them to provide commonly requested reports and materials through the FRAME website rather than having to photocopy and send out these items.

Participants noted the information contained on the site would be useful for research, analysis, and as a source of new ideas for project development. While they suggested that some information was too general, the analytical tools section (e.g., EIA and environmental indicators) received uniformly positive reviews.

There was a general consensus on the desirability of expanding the sections with technical sectoral information. A number of potential areas were identified, including: integrated pest management, mining, soils information, agroclimatic and agroecological zones, protected area management, benefit sharing in resource management, women in conservation and participation in NRM, conservation in unstable situations, and the impact of refugees on NRM. Participants also identified the need for additional detailed maps, internet-based user-friendly economic and other models (e.g., decision support systems), and information on project cycles and parameters for donor funding.

Participants were enthusiastic about contributing information to the site, particularly as most saw FRAME as a useful tool to help their organizations disseminate research and publicize results. The types of information offered included: detailed maps, management plans for Lake Naivasha, national parks, and other ecosystems, database of community conservation initiatives, workshop proceedings, crop harvest research, wildlife management and planning, forestry projects and biological inventories of the forests in Kenya and East Africa, and information on integrated pest management.

Participants provided many detailed suggestions of additional people and organizations who should know about the FRAME website. In addition, about five (more than 10 percent) of the participants were planning to make formal presentations of both FRAME and Tracker to their colleagues. In addition, others planned to share information about the FRAME and Tracker tools more informally, as evidenced by their taking additional brochures to pass on to others.

A detailed listing of the participant feedback is presented in Appendix F.

d)Facilitator team observations

Additional observations from the team on the participant reactions to the tools are presented below.

Observations relative to the participant reactions:

  • The workshops demonstrated there is much interest in these tools.
  • There was a strong positive reaction to both sites - participants cited specific applications of the information and tools to their jobs.
  • Participants provided extensive detailed and substantive feedback.
  • The workshops helped identify new “champions” and opportunities for partnerships and exchange of information. This was clearly evidenced by the large number of people asking for the PowerPoint presentations so they could share the tools with others, the detailed list of specific types of information to be provided, and the long list of additional people with whom we should follow up.
  • There was little discussion of adding interactive elements to the web site. Generally the participants' familiarity with the Internet and such functions has not yet progressed to interactive use other than e-mail communication.

Given that subsequent country visits will be conducted in the upcoming months, the team reflected on the overall conduct of this country visit and ways to achieve greater impact or cost-effectiveness. The following are observations on possible modifications to the organization and conduct of the workshops.