Inception phase | PANORAMA

Feasibility Study

A study on how the carbon market could potentially finance climate adaptation/mitigation projects.

Collaboration with researchers in the climate financing field and relevant governmental stakeholders.

The Indonesian carbon market is yet to be fully developed, with many uncertainties in the policy side. Nonetheless, feasibility study became a guideline for other initiatives who are searching for sustainable financing for their mitigation projects.

Although the findings were not fully conclusive, connections with the Government were established along the way to receive the necessary information for future implementation.

Pre-Training Survey boosting training effectiveness

The Blue Economy (BE) concept has become a central aspect of global and regional environmental policies. This is mainly reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through Goal 14, which is to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development” (UN, 2017). Nonetheless, such concept is still new to Mozambique, and it became relevant to explore the different participants background on this topic.

Pre-training surveys helps to gather data that can inform how to run the training, how it’s delivered and what content it covers. To ensure training participants’ ownership of the program, a preparatory working group meeting was also convened, enabling potential participants to share their expectations and learning objectives with each other and to discuss key adaptations to be done. The results from the survey helped to make changes or improvements that maximized the results for the participants.

Objectives should be shared clearly from the very beginning of the process;
It is necessary to use the information from the participants to prepare a tailored training;
Facilitators should be flexible to attribute specific time to certain topics;
Exercises should be tailored to audience level and make them more culturally appropriate.

Human resources for rat training

While APOPO trains scent detection rats, we also train scent detection rat trainers and supervisors. Animal training knowledge, understanding of welfare and care, as well as leadership skills are required to usher rats through their training stages successfully. By investing in human capital, we can support our animals' progress more efficiently.

APOPO's core values include quality, innovation, social transformation, diversity, and solidarity. In line with that, the current project team is compiled of four women and three men, six of whom are Tanzanian. By embracing and fostering diversity, project development benefits from a wide range of experiences.

Motivated staff, capacity building, international exchange of new and emerging animal training and learning processes, critical thinking, willingness to learn, and teamwork.

Screening staff before hiring them as animal trainers should not only include their theoretical skills and qualifications but also explore whether they are comfortable handling a rat. Continued training and capacity building throughout improves trainer capabilities and allows upskilling internally. This in turn creates incentive, high motivation, and fosters integrity. Close attention should be paid to treating staff fairly and allowing equal access to opportunities and equity.

Through high representation of women on our team, APOPO also leads as an example. It increases visibility of women in science in communities and with partners we work with.

Partners

While APOPO is the leading organisation in training scent detection rats, we rely on our partners for a wide range of support. Without them, deploying scent detection rats would not be possible. Such partners range from local partners such as the Sokoine University of Agriculture, to international partners such as Mine Action Authorities, governments, donors, and specialised organisations.

For example, the wildlife detection project partners with the Endangered Wildlife Trust of South Africa. The project has been funded by a wide range of government donors such as

- The German Government (through the GIZ 'Partnership against Wildlife Crime in Africa and Asia' Global Program)

- The UNDP-GEF-USAID 'Reducing Maritime Trafficking of Wildlife between Africa and Asia' Project

- The UK 'Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund'

- The Wildlife Conservation Network

- The Pangolin Crisis Fund

- US Fish and Wildlife

We rely heavily on support from the Tanzanian Wildlife Management Authority (TAWA) for provision of training aids, and, recently, the support from the Dar es Salaam Joint Port Control Unit in order to conduct operational trials for illegal wildlife detection.

Trust, collaboration, networking, knowledge exchange, integrity, supporting evidence, reporting, media and outreach.

Building relationships takes time and trust. Open and honest dissemination of results, goals, and setbacks ensures that partners feel that they can trust your organisation. In addition, when dealing with governments and partners in countries other than your 'own', we have found it helpful to have a person who is familiar with the way the specific countries' governments work. An in-depth understanding of cultural values and customs can greatly enhance partnerships. In addition, expectations should be clearly communicated across all parties to avoid frustration and misunderstandings.

Trained scent detection HeroRATs

Internal training and accreditation are instrumental to the deployment of HeroRATs, which are conducted at APOPO's training headquarters on the campus of the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Tanzania. Here, African giant pouched rats are bred and trained for scent detection purposes. They are each trained for a specific programme following strict protocols, where they learn to detect and indicate their target scent and complete search strategies required for deployment. Once training is complete and the rats have been internally accredited, they can then be deployed across the world for operations. APOPO works with implementation and supports partners to achieve the best possible outcomes. Additional accreditation from independent sources can occur at this stage, before rats begin operations.

Strict training protocols and Standard Operating Procedures. Regular monitoring and evaluation. APOPO's training site, located at the Sokoine University of Agriculture, receives continued support from the university and government to operate.

Adequate financial support for employment of staff and upkeep of rats (housing, food, veterinary care).

As rats are bred by APOPO but require time to be trained, an adequate pre-deployment time must be taken into consideration for either training next generations or starting projects at new locations.

For 25 years, APOPO has been training scent detection rats. Central to our success is the continued monitoring, evaluation, and refinement of our training methods. Using exclusively positive reinforcement training, scent detection rats advance through pre-defined stages of training. Each program has an associated Standard Operating Procedure. In addition, continued research explores how our training and deployment can be improved even further. For new potential programs, such as wildlife detection, a team of highly qualified researchers and trainers design training methods which are then evaluated and adapted. A wide range of peer-reviewed scientific publications are available detailing APOPO's work.

Possibilities to pay for land management to the owner from state budget

In order to be able to pay fees for agreed management with landowners, the legislation had to be approved allowing such expenditures from the state budget.

Concluding agreements on land management for nature conservation, and agreements on management in protected areas, and paying a financial contribution for its implementation has been enshrined in the Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection Act since the beginning in 1992. However, the absence of general legislation on the concept of public contracts had long been an obstacle to its application in practice. This legislation was finally approved as the Administrative Procedure Code in 2006.

It has been crucial that such a paragraph in the state legislation exists allowing to use state budget to pay for services associated with the management of naturally valuable areas even on a private land.

Inception phase

National

3. Action planning based on the outcome of the SAGE assessment

Development of an action plan after the SAGE process was very crucial as it ensured that recommendations provided in the SAGE process were addressed in a systematic and targeted manner whereby key stakeholders who participated in the SAGE process were also engaged in the action planning process hence, they drew the roadmap for implementation of those recommendations.

In addition, recommendations which came out of the SAGE process informed Honeyguide on areas of priority in designing WMA governance capacity building programs.

The overall successful preparation of an action plan after the SAGE process required the following;

A clear understanding of the assessment findings and recommendations provided
Clear goals and objectives to be achieved
Strong leadership and coordination with key stakeholders
Adequate resources
Willingness and commitment from all key stakeholders.

Overall success of the action planning phase based on the outcome of SAGE process provided an opportunity to learn important lessons related to;

Keen selection and active engagement of key stakeholders in the planning process
Thorough understanding of the local context
Effective prioritization and goal setting by all key stakeholders
Inclusiveness of all key stakeholders in adequate resource mobilization

These lessons learned can be used as a good source of information to future development planning and programming organs of the WMA and can help to ensure that development interventions are effective, inclusive, and sustainable over the long term.

Documentation and dissemination of results

Review phase

Entirety

Local

Data for Decision Making

Sharing of SAPA results to communities

Tsavo Trust

The process involved in Data for decision-making included gathering information by conducting participatory community Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and from key stakeholders, development of digital questionnaires, enumerators training on data collection, community data collection exercise and analysing the collected data to draw meaningful insights.

The data-gathering process involved participatory FGDs and engaging stakeholders, collecting information on the positive and negative impacts of Tsavo Trust (TT). This supported the development of a structured survey. The first Stakeholder meeting presented FGD findings, with participants providing additional insights. A digital questionnaire was created based on this input. Ten trained enumerators collected data from 156 households (approx. 950 individuals), achieving gender balance.

Community meetings shared survey results and ideas for addressing negative impacts. A second Stakeholder workshop gathered additional ideas. These components generated meaningful insights for decision-making.

These key components, including participatory discussions, stakeholder engagement, the development of a digital questionnaire, and data collection from households, were instrumental in generating meaningful insights for decision-making.

Using community youths to collect the data ensured that we got a good reception from respondents who answered the questions truthfully without fear of victimisation.

The sharing of results with communities and allowing them to give ideas on mitigation of the prioritised negative impacts made the phase start getting direction on negative impacts mitigation.

Stakeholders identified in the 2nd Stakeholders meeting contributed towards by giving more ideas for action on the negative impacts.

The community members shared local and traditional methods of mitigating the prioritised negative impacts which we found easy to implement with a small budget, this made us understand that sometimes the solution to otherwise big problems is with the people themselves and the need to be involving them in decision making.

TT learnt that bringing a wider network of stakeholders had varying benefits. Ensuring there was representation from County Government, like-minded NGO’s, Kenya Wildlife Services and Community helped TT and the stakeholders identify solutions/ideas for action for every negative impact identified. This helped reduce the pressures on TT to deliver and address all the negative impacts identified during the evaluation.

Sharing the information with the stakeholders also acted as a platform for Tsavo Trust to share what it does with The County Government, KWS and relevant stakeholders

Documentation and dissemination of results

Local

Subnational

Preparing for Assessment

SAPA FGD community impact ranking

Tsavo Trust

The objectives of the Preparing for Assessment block were:

Conduct a feasibility check, to determine whether SAPA was an appropriate methodology for assessing the social impacts of Kamungi.
Plan for the assessment, to ensure that the assessment was implemented as a high-quality multi-stakeholder process
Conduct community mapping, to help ensure that SAPA included all relevant communities within Kamungi.
Review existing information, To ensure the assessment builds upon existing data relevant to the design and implementation of the assessment.
Conduct stakeholder analysis, To identify critical actors that should be engaged in SAPA

The SAPA team provided an overview of the SAPA to TT and Kamungi Conservancy management, this was followed by a community visit for mapping and awareness of the SAPA process, Two facilitators from Kamungi were identified, a male and a female, and trained for 2 days on gathering data from community members on positive and negative effects TT has had in the area. TT management provided the necessary data to facilitate the assessment and identified and ranked its stakeholders, clarifying their interests and Influence, the preparation phase helped set the base for the assessment ensuring all checkboxes were catered for and paving the way for the next building block

TT management provided relevant information on their community interventions and facilitated in community mapping, they also provided a vehicle to support on logistics during the period.

TT contracted experienced consultants who conducted the SAPA process professionally within the set timelines

The good relationship between TT, Communities and Key Stakeholders made the participatory data collection process a success

Timely availing of project funds from BIOPAMA for the acities

1. Through the SAPA process the TT identified the need to conduct more frequent meetings and community engagement in Kamungi Conservancy and surrounding villages that do not form part of the Kamungi Conservancy – especially on the projects TT is implementing.

2. We learned that it is important to update Communities and stakeholders on project interventions. This ensures that there is an element of project ownership and that its impacts are felt and measurable.

Planning phase

Inception phase

Local

Partnership and collaboration

Since the software being deployed (SMART) was not being developed but rather an implementation, there existed other organizations that have used it. It was necessary to adapt and capitalize on the experience of other partners for a smooth process. This project engaged Space for Giants (SFG) who monitor large mammals in the landscape to provide guidance, templates and training. The training of trainers was conducted by SFG who also offered support in the development and configuration of necessary databases, online platforms and data collection models.

Two years before the project was conceived, a collaboration between Ol Pejeta and Vulcan Inc. through the Tech Lab saw the creation of an online visualization platform, EarthRanger that has since been used to integrate reports from various sources within the organization and from partners.

Landscape level information sharing - Organizations in Laikipia have partnerships which facilitate collaborative monitoring of particular aspects of biodiversity and preparation of landscape reports. This enables easy collaborations in capacity building and innovation.
Common goal - OPC has established a Conservation Technology Lab for developing, testing and monitoring technologies for the benefit of all players in the landscape. SFG also provides a centralized database for wildlife monitoring to some conservancies in Laikipia.

Collaborations help reduce costs - The partnership with SFG in this project significantly reduced the cost of developing SMART data collection models and training of staff which would otherwise require the hiring of a consultant(s).
Past and current partnerships have future benefits - The collaboration with Vulcan Inc which was developed 2 years earlier became beneficial to this project where SMART was integrated with EarthRanger to enhance visual analysis and sharing.

Laikipia Conservancies Association

Space for Giants