Participation of farmers and extension services

Farmers can access training and water user associations to develop irrigation and farming capacity. 

  • High participation rate from farmers 
  • Technical capacities are improved 
  • Training and water use association to develop irrigation and farming capacity

Scaling up the technology and achieving system-level outcomes requires an adequate understanding of the reasons why farmers adopt MRB, based on an insightful assessment of the technology’s efficiency, system performance and impacts.

Agronomic practices

Through improved agronomic practices, farmers can learn how to cultivate improved crop varieties and obtain higher yield using less irrigation water in a sustainable manor.

  • Improved crop varieties and agronomic practices
  • Enabling policy environment for long-term interest in this solution 
  • Reasonable and timely access to the raised-bed machines
  • High yielding varieties in addition to proper extension and advisory services

MRB combined with the increase of yields, results in the realization of more income with fewer expenses, thus a higher net income.  Thus, improving the existing farming system using the communities' indigenous knowledge and skills through innovative approaches is much better than introducing new systems.

ICARDA
West and Central Africa
North Africa
East and South Africa
ICARDA
Solutions
Network of labs
Capacity Development activities
ICARDA
North Africa
East and South Africa
West Asia, Middle East
South Asia
ICARDA
Solutions
Wide-scale demonstration in farmers’ fields
Crop modelling
Peer Training

We recognized the need to build leadership for effective MPA management from within, and ownership and leadership of the approaches co-developed.

 

We convened a group of 18 regional and global experts to train the most engaged MPA practitioners across 3 nations as peer trainers in evidence-based (adaptive) management. The expert team first broke down adaptive management into 3 core components: marine monitoring, data summarization and management, and strategic decision making. We then invited applications from MPA staff and engaged community members in 3 national MPA systems (Kenya, Tanzania, and Seychelles) to become peer trainers in one of the areas, as we recognized that no one staff could likely train in all three.

 

We received 60 applications and invited 30 MPA members to participate in the peer trainer training in Seychelles in August 2019.  We developed a 5-day training course. We did 2-days of joint sessions, then each group had 3-days in their individual core areas. The final day was testing in the core concepts.  Of the 30 practitioners who participated, 11 passed as peer trainers or assistant peer trainers.

 

These peer trainers are now working in their respective nations to continue improving MPA management.

Existing leaders in the approaches through past in-country training events willing to become peer trainers.

 

Willingness of experts to volunteer their time to develop and lead the training.

 

 

Building ownership and leadership is key.

 

5-days probably not enough time for a peer trainer course - ideally, there would be three 5-day courses with time to practice skills in between, but this requires more funding than was available.

BB1. Organising stakeholder engagement and public participation

The Maritime Spatial Plan of the Azores was designed in a transparent and inclusive process, with the active involvement of a wide range of stakeholders. A strategy for stakeholder engagement and guidelines for public participation were drafted for this purpose. The engagement was designed in a series of three stakeholder workshops held simultaneously in the three most populated islands of the archipelago (São Miguel, Terceira and Faial). The workshops had the same structure, which combined communication about the MSP progress as well as activities to discuss, complement and validate the project outcomes. Prior to the workshops, stakeholders were mapped using the snowball technique. All identified stakeholders were assembled in the regional stakeholder directory and invited to participate in the events over the two years of the project. Complementary activities such as interviews were undertaken to fill important knowledge gaps related to specific maritime sectors.

  • Planning and undertaking a transparent and inclusive participatory process.
  • Widespread coverage of the entire archipelago, enabling the participation of stakeholders of the nine islands.
  • Timely organisation and coordination among the team members, enabling communication and exchange among the simultaneous workshops in the three islands.
  • Collaboration of colleagues and volunteers to support and moderate the workshops.
  • Communicating and giving feedback to stakeholders on the results of the workshops.
  • Stakeholders need to be contacted well in advance to get a good response.
  • Good coordination and organisation among the team members and in the preparation of the materials is essential for timely implementation of the workshop activities.
  • The development of a visualisation tools could help to decrease the ecological footprint of this type of workshops (most materials were paper) and decrease the time spent in the organization of the materials.
  • Lack of data; multiplicity of reference systems or its nonexistence; the information dispersed both in terms of responsible entities and types of data (digital, analogue, etc.), affected the development of materials.
  • Large workload to try to standardize all the information in order to be able to use it in a GIS system.
  • Entities take too long to collect and make information available hindering the team's work.
N. Pilcher
Open dialogue with business partner
Knowledge of biological needs of the species
Ongoing monitoring
N. Pilcher
Open dialogue with business partner
Knowledge of biological needs of the species
Ongoing monitoring