SCALING UP IN WATERSHED MANAGEMENT RESEARCH PROJECTSJ.Rubiano1, A. Peralta2 and N. Johnson3

1 King’s College University of London jerubiano@gmail.com

2 Michigan State University, USA.

3 International Livestock Research Institute.

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OUTLINE

What makes a project successful in terms of dissemination and scaling up? Key factors to keep into account

Good practices, which are these?

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GUIDE FRAMEWORKS

Gündel, S., J. Hancock, and S. Anderson. 2001. Scaling-up Strategies for Research in Natural Resources Management:A Comparative Review. Chatham, UK: Natural Resources Institute.

DFID-Natural Resources Systems Progamme (DFID-NRSP). 2002. Scaling-up and communication: Guidelines for enhancing the developmental impact of natural resources systems research, 8 pp. http://www.livelihoods.org/post/Docs/NRSP_scaling.pdf

A DEFINITION OF SCALING UP

To efficiently increase the socioeconomic impact from a small to a large scale of coverage” (Hancock et al. 2003

CONTEXTUAL ISSUES FOR SUCCESSFUL SCALING UP AT THE PRE PROJECT AND IMPLEMENTATION PHASES

Representativity (with parallel sites on biophysical, social, institutional and/or economic characteristics)

Scale (thresholds/boundaries detected within a continuum that corresponds to specific levels of organization within a hierarchical system, Marceau, 1999)

Project Outputs (Generic or site specific?) Uncertainty (Realization of expectations) Budget (Resources allocated in the project)

Pro

ject

P

hase

s

Scaling up process elements

Strategic Elements towards successful scaling up

1. Engaging in policy dialogue on pro-poor development agendas

2. Identify community, institutional and environmental enabling and constraining

factors to scaling-up Situation analysis

3. Appraisal of institutional capacity of agencies involved in scaling-up required

Identifying target groups

4. Identifying appropriate research objectives and outputs within development processes to

ensure widespread uptake Developing

monitoring and evaluation system

5. Identify indicators and planning, monitoring and evaluation methods to measure impact and

process of scaling-up

Collaborators 6. Building networks and partnerships to increase local ownership and pathways

Pre

-Pro

ject

Funding mechanisms

7. Develop appropriate funding mechanisms to sustain capacity for expansion and replication

GOOD PRACTICES FOR SCALING UP (1)

Scaling up process elements

Strategic Elements towards successful scaling up

Capacity building Institutionalization

8. Building capacity and institutional systems to sustain and replicate

Partnership forging 9. Demand supply and support actors identified

Networking 10. Other resource organisations contribute with products and

by building technical capacity Raising of awareness 11. Multi-media dissemination of findings

Policy dialogue 12. Aggregate and assess findings from individual projects and

derive policy-relevant information

Impl

emen

tati

on

Monitoring, evaluation and support studies

13. Central to scaling-up processes in providing evidence to influence policy-makers, in deciding what should be scaled-up

and how this might be achieved Exit strategy 14. Concerted action required on regional level

Dissemination 15. Should involve the target group as disseminators

Pos

t-P

roje

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Impact Assessment 16. Built upon monitoring and evaluation. Representatives of

target group part of assessment team. Technical and livelihoods assessment required

17. If any other(s) scaling up strategy(ies) foreseen or currently in use by your project, please add it/them in here.

GOOD PRACTICES FOR SCALING UP (2)

PROJECTS’ SAMPLE

Five of the projects were mainly Theme 2 Two are mainly Theme 1 One mainly Theme 4. Located in all the CPWF benchmark basins

with the exception of the Yellow River Three projects work in more than one basin

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Title Basin

8- Improving Water Productivity in KarkhehImproving On-farm Agricultural Water Productivity in the Karkheh River Basin

Karkheh

17- IWRM for Improved Rural LivelihoodsThe Challenge of Integrated Water Resource Management for Improved Rural Livelihoods, Managing Risk, Mitigating Drought and Improving Water Productivity in the Water Scarce Limpopo Basin

Limpopo

20- SCALESSustaining inclusive collective action that links across economic and ecological scales in upper watersheds.

AndesNile

23-Research Management for Sustainable livelihoodsLinking Community-Based Water and Forest Management for Sustainable Livelihoods of the Poor in Fragile Upper Catchments of the Indus-Ganges Basin

Indo-Ganges

24- Livelihood resilience in dry areasStrengthening livelihood resilience in upper catchments of dry areas by integrated natural resource management.

Karkheh

25- Companion modeling and water dynamicsCompanion Modeling for resilient water management: stakeholders perceptions of water dynamics and collective learning at the cachment scale

Mekong

40- Integrating Governance and Modeling Integrating knowledge from computational modeling with multi-stakeholder governance: Towards more secure livelihoods through improved tools for integrated river basin management

VoltaNile

46-Small multipurpose reservoir emsemble planningPlanning and evaluating ensembles of small, multi-purpose reservoirs for the improvement of smallholder livelihoods and food security: tools and procedures

LimpopoSao

Francisco

Table 1. List of Challenge Program on Water and Food research projects participating in this study.

  

CONCLUSIONS A supportive environment for project development seems

to be the most crucial factor that warrants scaling up. Rather than biophysical, institutional scale dependency

seems to be the most critical for the studied water projects Institutional scale dependency was found rarely used as the

criteria for site selection. Indicators, planning of monitoring and evaluation methods

seems to be the more objective way to trace implementation and success of scaling up activities.

Budget figures for scaling up activities averaged 17% of total budgets (capacity building, institutional reform, networking strengthening, multi-media dissemination)

The importance of partnerships as a strategy to scale up research is contradictory

THANKS