Comments on: Investing in resilience through stakeholder platforms

By: a.duncan@cgiar.org

a.duncan@cgiar.org — Thu, 14 May 2015 17:19:33 +0000

In reply to TCrane. Ilri's beth Cullen wrote a nice paper about power dynamics in innovation platforms in Innovation and Development published last year

By: Violet Barasa

Violet Barasa — Thu, 14 May 2015 11:21:49 +0000

Great idea Abdrahmane! It would be great though to incorporate data on social differentiation and inequality including gender in terms of resilience after shocks, and the uptake of information and technology that enhance resilience in these communities. Perhaps a collaboration with LGI’s gender expertise?

By: JasonSircely

JasonSircely — Wed, 13 May 2015 14:56:26 +0000

Lots of great points here. I do think there is value to the overall approach, though I think market-oriented strategies have limitations in reaching many of those who are ‘least resilient’ and are least likely to intensify production—those pastoralists who would prefer not to engage with markets except when the situation demands it, and those who are poorest or live in the most vulnerable environments. I don’t know of many approaches that provide an alternative to markets in the long term, though ‘livestock banks’ could be one option. Any other ideas for bypassing markets entirely, toward reaching those who are at the center of this proposal?

By: haltshul

haltshul — Wed, 13 May 2015 07:43:33 +0000

There are some existing forums in Nairobi in the non-profit sector that are discussing issues of resilience in pastoral areas. The Somalia NGO Forum has a Resilience Working Group and there are several multi-partner projects working on resilience issues in the Somali context. All the USAID Kenya projects working on resilience issues across the ASALs (in livestock, agriculture, water, nutrition, conflict resolution, disaster risk reduction, livelihoods, etc.) meet monthly to discuss joint approaches and there is some cross-country collaboration with Ethiopia. USAID is also funding a relatively new five-year Resilience Learning project, managed by a US University, which is working to gather information and lessons learned from projects working on resilience across the Horn of Africa and share it more widely.

By: Abdrahmane Wane

Abdrahmane Wane — Tue, 12 May 2015 10:34:57 +0000

Thank you for all these very stimulating comments that also show the extent of the challenges. It was the objective of this idea. In line with Todd Crane, it is still difficult to have a balanced opinion on the pastoralist lifestyles. Hence a lot of trouble to get rid of under-valuing opinions (not rational, not modern, do not know the market etc.) and/or over-valuing opinions (there is enough local knowledge, cohesive society, collectivism etc.). For example, in a landscape approach, we investigated why agropastoralists of Senegal produced peanuts as production diversification. Using a network analysis, we were surprised to see that 100% of respondents (sample of about 150 households) declare very strong social relations and friendship, while only 3% of them reveal sharing production ‘secrets “and” practices “.

Coming back to innovation platforms, the main idea is that the researcher is not running alone, sometimes making participatory fieldworks by organizing isolated ad-hoc focus discussions. He is fully a stakeholder of the platform and can chat with others (decision-makers, producers, consumers, businessmen, technicians) about scientific and technical issues, innovations and their feasibility. Its role would to be both really contextual and inspiring by sharing innovations successful in other very similar ecosystems.

In addition, in the current context of renewed interest from donors for massive investment in the Sahelian pastoralism (World Bank, African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, European Union), there is an interesting opportunity to use these tools (why not a WAY OF WORKING as pointed out by Lance) as research objects but also as a vehicle for dissemination of innovations collectively thought and co-designed by all stakeholders of livestock value chains.

For information, we already shared this idea with some partners in the Sahel and got people interest from CILSS (Permanent Interstates Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel), APESS (Association for the Promotion of the Livestock in the Sahel and the Savannah (regional mandate), ILRI, CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development), PPZS (Pole on Pastoralism and Drylands (Research Interest Group based in Senegal with regional mandate), MANOBI (private company based in Senegal with regional action, successfully introduced in Africa the use of the mobile phone by producers as an information and interaction tool for their production and marketing value chain), ARED (Associates in Research and Education for Development, based in Senegal with regional mandate), ACF-E (Action against Hunger-Spain, based in Senegal with regional mandate), RBM (Billital Maroobé Network, regional mandate).
… It remains to transform this collective determination

By: Augustine Ayantunde

Augustine Ayantunde — Tue, 12 May 2015 10:00:04 +0000

There is no doubt that “enhanced cross-scales stakeholder platforms” are essential to improving resilience of socio-ecological systems in dryland areas. However, we should be clear as to the objectives of such platforms as this will influence their configuration, operations, functions and performance. Value chain oriented platforms which often focus on access to market and value addition are quite different from NRM-oriented platforms which often focus on knowledge exchange and capacity building.Another issue is linking platforms at different scales which is still a challenge and there is the aspect of facilitation of the platforms.

By: TCrane

TCrane — Tue, 12 May 2015 08:51:36 +0000

This sounds compelling in principle, but I can’t help but wonder how any such platform can address power disparities. Pastoralists are generally politically marginalized in the Sahel (as elsewhere), and governmental priorities are often contrary to herders’ interests and needs. For example, land tenure reform is a hot topic across the Sahel, but it is appears to be moving in a direction that is oriented toward facilitating foreign investment in intensive agriculture rather than pastoral resilience. Any such initiative will need a clear and robust strategy to account for and mitigate power disparities in multi-stakeholder platforms around such a difficult and contentious topic.

By: TCrane

TCrane — Tue, 12 May 2015 08:45:19 +0000

In reply to Rupsha. Not to nitpick, but I'm not sure that pastoral communities can safely be characterized as "tight knit" regarding collective action. In Sahelian West Africa, the predominantly Fulbé pastoralists do not have strong history or foundation for collective action. Indeed, Fulbé culture could be described as highly individualist. Many who I've met in Mali and Burkina would likely see joining committee, platforms and the like as anathema to being a pastoralist.

By: Lance

Lance — Tue, 12 May 2015 08:10:36 +0000

The importance of resonance and relevance for the policymakers is key, and I like the idea that the research carried out by organization’s like ours should be more responsive to stakeholders’ needs and to analysis and prioritization carried out by stakeholders in venues such as multi-stakeholder platforms. But for ILRI to be a real partner in such platforms we need to be more nimble. When a platform identifies, through analysis and “ranking obtained in a participatory way” as you suggest, problem X as being important and requiring research, innovation and action, how ready are we at ILRI to respond? Working on problem X may require obtaining new funding and maybe even hiring new people with the appropriate competencies.

For this reason, I am somewhat skeptical of making such platforms the center of a new idea. They can be an important WAY OF WORKING, but the relevance for, and buy-in from, policymakers will come from concrete value that we add. I agree with Andrew’s comment, that we would need to “be important to be sufficiently precise in crafting the purpose or objective of the platform to ensure that all member stakeholders have a vested interest, and a clear understanding of the required contributions/responsibilities as well as the likely payout.”

By: Rupsha

Rupsha — Tue, 12 May 2015 08:06:49 +0000

It is a fact that multi- stakeholder platforms or even Innovation Platforms are looked with a lot of skepticism since it is difficult to measure their immediate impacts. So far there has been anecdotal evidence of seed systems and new varieties of seed being used through multistakeholder platforms from initiatives of ICRISAT for example. One of the biggest challenges has been the issue of exit of any of the parent organizations involved in such process. It would be therefore interesting to even evaluate IPs or multi-stakeholder platforms in terms of their entry and exit strategies and see the kind of institutional innovations that they have been working on in this process. Moreover, there is a very significant element which is usually missed out or overlooked. It is the role of the ‘individual agency’ How does leadership or the influence of individuals become driving factors in either the success or the failure of such initiatives. There has been some work done through this angle in Participatory Irrigation Management in Asia primarily but not much in Africa. Since pastoral communities are so tight knit work on the basis of collective action for most parts, it would be an interesting dimension to look at while evaluating or even conceiving such Innovation Platforms or muti-stakeholder platforms.