The Nile Basin Development Challenge: a component of

the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food

Dr. Simon Langan on behalf of the NBDC team

• CPWF aims to increase water productivity and resilience of social and ecological systems

• Through its broad partnerships, it conducts research that leads to local impact and wider change

Innovation as an evolutionary process• The social process of innovation is evolutionary

– Issues emerge– Problem context changes– External drivers unfold– Problems get partly solved– Other problems emerge– New opportunities become apparent– Successful innovations lead to new problems

• Innovation can be stimulated, accelerated, facilitated

Innovation as a social process

– Interaction among actors of all ranks and functions• learning• sharing• accepting• rejecting• adapting• re-learning

– Actors come and go

Phase 2, start 2009

Basin Development Challenges (BDCs)• Nile – rainwater management in landscapes

• Andes – Benefit sharing mechanisms

• Ganges – intensification in coastal areas

• Limpopo – rainwater management and water access

• Mekong – dams, reservoirs and livelihoods

• Volta – rainwater management and small reservoirs

Nile BDC people

Please CG staff show yourselves

Others associated directly with the projects

Cathy

Doug

Nile BDC projects• N1 Learning from the past – past experiences in research on land

and rainwater management, rainwater harvesting, land conservation, and livelihoods in the highlands of Ethiopia

• N2 Integrated rainwater management strategies – technologies, institutions and policies

• N3 Targeting and scaling out

• N4 Assessing and anticipating consequences of innovation

• N5 Coordination and multi-stakeholder platforms

Nile BDC focusTwo dimensions•Integrated

– Social– Economic – Technical

•Multiple scales– (Households)– Communities and catchments– Blue Nile River Basin

Nile BDC scales and sitesInnovation Platforms•Local level•National level

Data collection•Local level

Modelling•Local to basin

Nile BDC approaches• Local innovation platforms• Community engagement through digital stories • NRM Planning tools Wat-a-game and happy strategies • Local planning processes • Scaling out and GIS• Biophysical, social and economic data collection and analysis• Biophysical, social, economic and integrated modeling

LivelihoodsInnovation Platforms

Participatory Methods

Research outputs

Information on:•Livelihood strategies, choices, constraints•Factors influencing adoption/lack of adoption•Drivers of landscape change (social and economic)•Research/implementation processes: participation, innovation platforms etc.

Inform decision making/policy

•Briefs for policy makers?•Messages that can be fed to national level platform•Suggestions for alternatives to current practices•Piloted processes that can be used in planning and implementation

INTEGRATINGFRAMEWORK

SCALING OUT

Moving ForwardAll of these projects and approaches have been distilled into a series of draft messages. We want to share the DRAFT messages with you and to do this I will ask my colleague Doug Merrey to talk you through the approach and messages.

We know they are not perfect, we would really value your honest assessment and how we can improve them and identify anything that is not right or missing

Before that 2 things- Cathy on gender and time-line

Significant EventsAlong the wall we have a timeline developed from the input of researchers from the NBDC.

We would ask that you help populate this with other events, such as the creation of the River Basin Authorities, shifts in policy focus or implementation