SOLVING ‘WICKED’ PROBLEMS: A COMPENDIUM OF CASE STUDIES

Solving ‘wicked’ problems:

can social learning catalyse
adaptive responses to
climate change?
A compendium of case studies
Edited by Marissa Van Epp and Ben Garside
March 2017

Overview
Social learning approaches can catalyse knowledge co-creation and action, so having the potential to
help solve complex “wicked” problems such as climate change and food insecurity. Social learning is
more than just group learning; it has an agenda for wider change. It encourages stakeholders to work
together to implement and test solutions through iterative cycles of learning, action and reflection.
Spreading the learning from this iterative process to wider stakeholder groups and networks allows for
change on a larger scale. Institutional openness and support for such approaches is crucial for realising
the potential for change.
The eight case studies in this compendium come from five diverse initiatives employing social learning
approaches in responses to such problems using the Climate Change and Social Learning (CCSL)
initiative’s Monitoring and Evaluation framework. Working with each of these initiatives, the four
dimensions of the framework have been explored in-depth – namely engagement, iterative learning,
capacity development, and challenging institutions. The aim, to better understand when and how
different processes across each dimension foster social learning in different contexts. Additionally, to
track the progression from fostering process to resulting learning outcomes and positive changes in
values and practice. The synthesis analysis across all the initiatives can be found in the working paper
“Solving ‘wicked’ problems: can social learning catalyse adaptive responses to climate change?” (IIED
2016) available at http://pubs.iied.org/17390IIED
The peer assist approach used to gather these findings, aimed, as far as possible, to be a useful
exercise in learning and reflection for the initiatives concerned. The authors of each case study in this
compendium are listed in the respective study. The International Institute for Environment and
Development (IIED) would like to thank the following for their participation in this work:

• African Climate Change Resilience Alliance (ACCRA)

(case study page 2)
• Fundacão Amazonas Sustentável (FAS), leading the Bolsa Floresta Programme
(case study page 23)
• Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA)
(case study page 85)
• Policy Action for Climate Change Adaptation (PACCA)
(case study page 106)
• The Potato Park communities, ANDES, and CIP
(case study page 121)
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African Climate Change

Resilience Alliance
(ACCRA)
Climate Change Social Learning (CCSL) case
study in Uganda
By Marissa Van Epp and Tracy Kajumba
November 2016
 SOLVING ‘WICKED’ PROBLEMS: A COMPENDIUM OF CASE STUDIES

1.Key findings
Social learning occurred: over the course of the project, multiple stakeholder groups across three
levels (community, district, and national) came together repeatedly to learn from each other and
coordinate action on mainstreaming climate change adaptation monitoring.
ACCRA’s strengths were in engagement and capacity development. Iterative learning and
challenging institutions were also features of the project process; however, within this specific
process, focus in these areas was less on long-term, systemic changes and more on short-term
changes necessary for the process at hand.
Context was important: several national government bodies had recently undertaken processes to
mainstream climate change, facilitating the engagement of key officials. ACCRA was able to
capitalise on this window of opportunity.
Though the implementation phase (ie the integration of indicators developed over the course of the
project) has not yet started, there is evidence that ACCRA’s approach, and the social learning it
enabled, has led to the potential for better and more sustainable outcomes.

1. Project description

Kotido
Nakasongol
Otuk

Bulambuli
Bundibugy

•
Figure 1. Map of project area
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Uganda’s reliance on natural resources renders its economy extremely vulnerable to climate change.
This makes it essential to track progress on adaptation initiatives and ensure the whole country is on a
path towards climate resilience. Any national framework for assessing a country’s climate change
strategy needs to take into account changes in resilience and development.
For the past five years, ACCRA has been engaged with research and capacity building support to
government to mainstream climate change into their plans and budgets. Initial research conducted in
2010 found that local governments were not aware of the need to address climate change, which
remained an area with unanswered questions and doubts. Plus, financial, human and technical capacity
was limited to support community adaptive capacity for climate change. Indeed, the absence of a
climate change policy and related performance measurement framework at the time meant that local
governments were not required to mainstream climate change in their development planning and
therefore had no obligation to work on related issues. In a bid to address this capacity gap, ACCRA
trained local government staff in conducting risk assessments and mainstreaming climate change
issues into plans and budgets. As a result, the pilot district scored a nine out of ten for the natural
resources sector in its annual assessment by the national Ministry of Local Government, resulting in a
district budget bonus of 20 per cent. This bonus was invested back into the natural resources sector.
Shortly after, the government of Uganda began the process of developing the National Climate Change
Policy (NCCP), and working with the National Planning Authority to develop national climate change
mainstreaming guidelines. However, there was no overall system yet in place to track and measure
progress towards achieving resilience. ACCRA in Uganda, in partnership with the UK-based
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) aimed to fill this gap by facilitating a
process for bottom-up development of common indicators and their integration into relevant existing
monitoring and evaluation (M&E) frameworks at the national level.
The successful engagement of government in the process was enabled in part by the conducive policy
context in Uganda. For example, the Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE) had completed the
NCCP and its costed Implementation Strategy (IS). The Climate Change Department (CCD) under the
MWE, with support from the French Development Agency, had started the process of developing the
Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) for monitoring the NCCP and IS. However, the indicators
developed for this tool were at national level and focused on outputs. The Tracking Adaptation and
Measuring Development (TAMD) process initiated by ACCRA and IIED filled a gap and strengthened
the PMF by providing outcome indicators for the community and district levels, to complete the reporting
cycle. Lastly, the NPA had also finalised the second National Development Plan 2015/16–2019/20
(NDPII) in line with Uganda’s Vision 2040, in which climate change was already integrated. The
collection and integration of local outcome indicators thus provided a framework for reporting on the
NDP II because initially local governments did not have indicators for climate change at the local level,
yet were supposed to report on climate change indicators in the national development plan. With
specific local indicators now aligned with NDP II indicators, reporting will be harmonised.
In developing the national standard climate change indicators, the CCD identified entry points for some
existing tools into which it could integrate climate change adaptation and risk reduction indicators:
1. The PMF, described above, for tracking the performance of the NCCP and IS
2. The Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development’s (MoFPED) Output Budget Tool
(OBT) for allocating resources and setting reporting guidelines, and
3. The Ministry of Local Government’s (MoLG) national performance assessment tool (LGAT) for
assessing the performance of local governments across different sectors.
Instead of developing a separate M&E framework and reporting tools, it made sense to mainstream
climate change indicators into these existing systems. ACCRA’s bottom-up, participatory process of
developing indicators ensured that all ministries, departments, agencies and local governments had
ownership.
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4. Mapping the project process

Building on TAMD and ACCRA’s success in other countries to initiate a process in Uganda.
As a result of TAMD and ACCRA’s successful collaboration in Mozambique, ACCRA in Uganda,
through IIED, invited the Ugandan Head of the CCD (also the focal person for the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change in the MWE) to attend one of the IIED-supported multi-country
meetings in which TAMD pilot countries shared their experiences on national climate change M&E
frameworks and reporting systems. In August 2014, the Ugandan government committed to initiate a
process similar to Mozambique’s with support from IIED and ACCRA.
Consultative meetings between key mandated ministries, ACCRA and IIED. CCD, with support
from ACCRA and IIED, convened two consultative meetings, targeting all ministries responsible for
implementing the NCCP and IS, plus local governments, development agencies (UNDP, USAID,
GIZ) and civil society organisations. These meetings aimed to introduce TAMD, generate consensus
on the process, select sample districts for data collection and map the process of developing
indicators.
Country scoping study on M&E and reporting frameworks. A national scoping study was carried
out to determine existing M&E and reporting frameworks and identify entry points for influencing and
integrating national indicators for climate change. (See the online country report at:
http://pubs.iied.org/10116IIED.)

Training and data collection using the TAMD framework and tools. Capacity and skills
enhancement was added to this process to ensure ownership and continuity. ACCRA and LTS
Africa conducted a training of trainers (ToT) in the TAMD methodology in one of the pilot districts,
Bulambuli. This was attended by 35 Bulambuli district staff and 16 staff from the ministries of Local
Government, Water and Environment – CCD, Works and Transport, Gender, Labour and Social
Development, Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, and the National Meteorology Authority.
Hands-on data collection. Experience started in Bulambuli district with four communities in four
different sub-counties (two highland and two lowland communities). The practical training exercise
aimed to collect indicators for the district and the communities, while ensuring that participants
grasped the methodology of indicator development and could use the tools to collect data at both
 SOLVING ‘WICKED’ PROBLEMS: A COMPENDIUM OF CASE STUDIES

district and community level in other districts. Climate risk management was assessed by engaging
the District Technical Planning Committee (DTPC) in each of the districts involved, and using the
TAMD scorecard with a list of agreed parameters. At community level, data were collected using a
theory of change to generate climate change and development indicators. After the ToT, participants
were divided into groups and sent to four other districts where they collected data at both district and
community levels, using the scorecard and the theory of change respectively. The local climate
change adaptation indicators suggested by communities and their district leaders in the five districts
were compiled into a report, which was used to engage national government and other stakeholders
to review relevant indicators per sector for integration into the PMF, OBT and LGAT.
Linking the results of the TAMD process to existing national frameworks in different sectors.
Working with the MWE-CCD, ACCRA began lobbying the key leads of government ministries,
including the MoLG, NPA, OPM and MoFPED, to ensure that district-level adaptation indicators are
included in the national planning, budgeting and monitoring processes. A briefing paper outlining the
importance of this process was published (see http://pubs.iied.org/17287IIED). As a result of this
process, MWE invited ACCRA to present the TAMD framework, process used and the local climate
change adaptation indicators suggested in the five districts. The meeting brought together 80 staff
from all government ministries, departments and agencies responsible for implementing the NCCP.
Another presentation was made to the parliamentary working group on natural resources. Several
meetings followed, all of which recognised the relevance of the local indicators generated by the
TAMD process, as well as the need to align them with the PMF and NDPII indicators in relation to
the OBT and LGAT. Further meetings with decision makers in key line ministries were also
conducted to secure their buy-in.
Coordination and harmonisation of processes and indicators at national level. While ACCRA
was working on these processes, USAID was engaged in a parallel process, working with MoFPED
and MoLG to collect indicators for the integration of climate change into the OBT through their
project, ‘Feed the Future: Enabling Environment for Agriculture’ (FtF). ACCRA raised its concerns
about developing parallel indicators with CCD and Ministry of Local Government, and this prompted
the CCD to call a coordination meeting between USAID, ACCRA and MoLG. Through this meeting,
the parallel processes were harmonised and a calendar was drawn up to finalise the work. ACCRA’s
engagement with USAID enriched the process: indicators collected by ACCRA and FtF were
combined into one coherent set with the existing PMF indicators. This set was then reviewed,
refined and validated by all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and local governments.
Review and validation of the national-level standard climate change indicators. The CCD, with
support from ACCRA and USAID, convened three highly participatory consultative forums in which
local governments and national government ministries, departments and agencies vetted, reviewed
and recommended climate change indicators to be integrated into the OBT and the LGAT, by sector.
The consultations ended with a national validation workshop attended by all national government
ministries, departments and agencies, as well as civil society organisations and representatives from
31 local governments, including chief administrative officers, natural resources officers, production
officers and district planners.

5. Snapshot against CCSL indicators

Engagement Iterative Learning Capacity Development Challenging Institutions

Process P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15 P16 P17

Learning
L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 L8 L9 L10 L11 L12
Outcomes

Value/Practice
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11
Outcomes
AVERAGE 2.7 2.7 2.9 2.0
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6. Social learning results

Engagement
Score: 2.7

P1 P2 P3 P4 L1 L2 L3 V1 V2

Engagement has been an important element of success so far.

The project identified all relevant stakeholders and engaged through appropriately tailored means,
resulting in their active participation. Traditional engagement methods were used.
Stakeholders’ interaction through the project contributed to better relations, integration of different
types of knowledge, and a common understanding of the issue between different stakeholder
groups. There is less evidence that trust (in facilitators, between stakeholders, etc) was a key factor,
though trust in ACCRA as a facilitator of the overall process was important.

A strategic approach ensuring commitment has ensured engagement, rather than the other way
around, for some stakeholder groups. It is too early to assess empowerment of most vulnerable
beneficiaries as an outcome of the project.

• Process
Gender was embedded in the tools ACCRA used in communities to capture the issues of women, men,
boys and girls. During the focus group discussions (FGDs), community groups were disaggregated into
old men, old women, young men, young women, boys and girls. This ensured that women and other
vulnerable groups participated in the discussions [P1]. This is also an example of how engagement of
key stakeholders was tailored to different stakeholder groups.
At national level, the process of developing indicators engaged mandated institutions — the CCD,
MoLG, NPA, and MoFPED — by helping them to understand their sector-specific contributions as well
as the benefits of the project to their monitoring and reporting processes. They were then given a
leadership role to ensure ownership of the process. Individual commissioners in these ministries were
also engaged through one-on-one meetings to discuss the merits of the process, to ensure their buy-in
and the participation of their staff, as well as uptake of the final indicators. These meetings were crucial
for engaging high-level decision makers who do not attend the other meetings but still retain decision-
making powers over the process [P2]. Through these kinds of tailored engagement strategies, all
stakeholders targeted participated in the project [P3]. Emergence of champions was also fostered. For
example, ACCRA trained ten national trainers on conducting climate change capacity and vulnerability
assessments and using TAMD tools; these trainers will champion the work where need arises.
Selection of the trainers was based on individuals’ commitment and interest. Some have taken the
learning to their organisations. And, with USAID, they recently supported the Makerere University
Climate Change Resource Center to train other climate change champions working with the university
[P4].

• Learning
Throughout the process the different stakeholder groups learned from each other [L1]. Relations
between different groups (for example, between district- and national-level ministries) improved due to
their interactions (two-way knowledge sharing and learning) during capacity development sessions [L2].
Different kinds of learning were integrated as well. For example, the ToC process at community level
helped community members reflect on their problems in relation to climate change. Though the ToC
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sounds technically complicated, communities were able to understand and build narratives around it
[L3].

• Value/Practice
Engagement has led to increased commitment to the goal of the project, though for the most part it is
the other way around: ACCRA’s strategic approach has been crucial to generating commitment, which
in turn ensures engagement. For example, local governments want support to mainstream climate
change into their plans using the indicators generated; but this is because integrating the indicators into
the LGAT means all local governments will have to report against them. Likewise, the MoFPED was
moving from monitoring outputs to outcomes, and the project goals conveniently coincided with the
ministry’s needs, ensuring their commitment [V1]. Several follow-on projects have been proposed [V2b].
It is too early to evaluate empowerment of the most vulnerable as implementation has yet to begin
[V2c].

Iterative learning
Score: 2.7

P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 L4 L5 L6 V3 V4 V5 V6

Iterative learning was also important for this project, but took place primarily through formal,
facilitated meetings and workshops, often involving a subset of stakeholder groups thinking
about a specific step in the process.
The process led by ACCRA was flexible enough to change course as necessary and support new
ideas. Though the process did not necessarily include moments for the entire group to reflect on the
entire process, ACCRA ensured a bottom-up approach to problem solving and facilitated smaller
group reflections in which different stakeholder groups shared and learned from each other.
Iterative learning was not explicitly built into a process that the programme encouraged
stakeholders (especially government) to own, and thus the legacy of the process itself may be
limited.
It is too early to look for evidence that the learning above has spread to wider stakeholder groups,
though there is certainly potential for this in the future, as other national governments may see the
results of ACCRA’s work and want to follow a similar path to develop climate change adaptation
indicators from the bottom up.

• Process
Cyclical evaluation moments for the entire group to reflect on the entire process were not a focus of this
project. That said, ACCRA ensured a bottom-up approach to problem solving and facilitated smaller
group reflections in which different stakeholder groups shared and learned from each other in the
context of deciding how best to achieve specific outcomes [P5, P6]. The ACCRA team also revisits its
TOC and assumptions every year [P8].
The process led by ACCRA was flexible enough to change course as necessary. For example, when it
became evident that USAID’s TfT project was also developing indicators for the OBT, all relevant
stakeholders were convened and a process for combining projects was agreed on and implemented
[P7]. Stakeholders — particularly government officials — were encouraged to question the norms and
governance underlying the issue [P9].
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• Learning
Results of the learning and evaluation moments were integrated into the project’s strategy [L4]. National
stakeholders understood that they must improve the communication channels and procedures between
them to achieve the changes they desired in terms of national policy and monitoring frameworks. But
there is limited evidence of a desire to change relationships with/at other levels [L5].
During the validation meetings, open discussion allowed local governments to express a desire for
greater support from the national level with reporting on the new indicators; however, no changes in
practice have yet taken place as implementation has not yet begun. It is also unclear whether these
potential changes in practice would extend beyond communication and capacity support on this single
process to others relevant to climate change. Room to fail was not a focus of the programme and there
is no evidence on this topic [L6].

• Value/Practice
There is no evidence that wider stakeholder groups have changed their values or practice regarding
their relationships with each other. And again room to fail was not a focus of the programme and no
evidence was collected on this topic [V5, V6].

Capacity development
Score: 2.9

P10 P11 P12 P13 L7 L8 L9 V7 V8

Capacity development is an important factor in ACCRA’s success to date, and almost all of
the capacity development indicators have been met.
Capacity development activities were integrated into the programme and addressed needs that
were determined in a bottom-up manner. Capacity development activities targeted different groups
of stakeholders in appropriate ways. Though fairly standard methods were used, these were
sufficient.
Capacity development activities led to more agreement by different stakeholders on the nature of
the issue being addressed. Different stakeholder groups showed a better understanding of other
groups’ needs and perspectives.
The result of the learning outlined above was more informed stakeholders that worked together
better, and changes in values and practice that reflected a better understanding of the issue and
potential solutions.

• Process
Capacity development was an integral part of the project, especially in relation to developing indicators
with communities [P10]. A capacity gap analysis was carried out with local government staff, who
identified their own institutional issues.

ACCRA also used the institutional score card to identify capacity gaps [P12]. This analysis fed into the
capacity development agenda, and activities were then tailored to specific stakeholder groups [P11].
For example, communities received capacity development regarding the concepts of capacity,
vulnerability, climate change, and theories of change, thus aiding future community action planning.
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At local government level, capacity building targeted skills building for internal assessment using the
institutional scorecards and ToTs to facilitate vulnerability assessments at community level. Sessions
on how to mainstream climate change and gender were also facilitated. At national level, a ToT for
ministry officials was conducted to use assessment tools to support district staff to do the same
processes at the local level [P13].

• Learning
Capacity development activities increased clarity at all levels that the country needed indicators for
climate change to be able to plan, budget and assess performance and report on the climate change
policy [L7]. It also clarified the needs of different stakeholders. For example, the indicator validation
workshops created space for lead agencies to share their different needs [L8].

• Value/Practice
As Uganda had already begun to mainstream climate change into its policy frameworks before the
project, stakeholders already valued the project’s goal before hearing about it. That said, the project’s
capacity development activities informed stakeholders of the value of monitoring adaptation at outcome
level, and the multi-stakeholder co-development of indicators that could be used to do this reflect this
change in stakeholders’ values [V7].
Coordination between different stakeholder groups is assumed to have increased, though there is no
evidence for long-term changes in systems for communication between groups [V8].

Challenging institutions
Score: 2.0

P14 P15 P16 P17 L10 L11 L12 V9 V10 V11

While challenging institutions to make the changes needed to develop a system for
monitoring and evaluating climate change adaptation is a central feature of the project, there
was less focus on challenging institutions to make lasting changes to systems that would
enable them to continue engaging in social learning on their own. This is an opportunity for
the project to leave a longer-lasting legacy.
A change strategy that took into account existing processes and norms was developed. Key
individuals who would support/champion change were identified.
Participants showed an understanding of the barriers and opportunities and were eager to act on
this understanding to solve the problem. That said, there is no evidence that the process resulted in
an understanding among stakeholders that a) social learning was necessary or b) that changes in
values and practice would need to be made to foster social learning in the future.
Within the problem that the project aimed to address, institutional barriers have decreased and
opportunities have increased. Beyond this there is no evidence of changes in values and practice
that reflect institutional openness to (attitudes) and support for (resources) social learning.
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• Process
ACCRA used capacity assessments to identify gaps and norms and to build a change strategy around
them [P15]. The project identified key ministries (CCD, NPA, MOFPED, MoLG), and individuals within
them, to champion the indicator development process and take the work forward into implementation
[P14]. Upon discovering the existence of the USAID programme to develop climate change indicators
for the OBT (see Step 7 above), ACCRA challenged the CCD — which is mandated to coordinate
government work on climate change — to harmonise different (sometimes overlapping) processes
related to mainstreaming climate change. ACCRA also helped the MoLG clarify changes to
communication channels between ministries and between external groups (like CSOs) and ministries
[P17].

• Learning
The project helped different stakeholders gain a common understanding of the existing barriers to
mainstreaming climate change (via the indicators), as well as the opportunities around mainstreaming.
Key outcomes of ACCRA’s challenges to inter-ministry coordination and communication include:
1. Action points on coordination meetings between the CCD, OPM, MoLG and NPA, as well as a
shared list of key partners, and
2. Designation of the climate change task force leadership as focus points for external communication.
There is evidence that ministries are better coordinating how indicators are prioritised and integrated
[L10, L11, L12].

• Value/Practice
Barriers to social learning have decreased through the increased coordination that ACCRA facilitated.
Time will tell whether these efforts have led to long-term changes [V9]. Through the indicator validation
exercise, different stakeholders willingly learned from each other to coordinate a national process. This
shows an openness to an social learning approach [V10]; however, it is too early to say whether
institutional support (in the form of resources) will continue for such approaches [V11].

7. Summary: social learning challenges and

lessons learned
The CCSL initiative aims to answer three key questions through piloting its M&E Framework for Social
Learning:

1. Did social learning take place?

2. What factors contributed to successful social learning?
3. Did social learning contribute to better and more sustainable development outcomes?

The ultimate goal is to build an evidence base, and understanding, around when social learning
contributes to better and more sustainable development outcomes (and under what circumstances it
does not) in the context of climate change adaptation and food security.
For ACCRA in Uganda we can say that social learning — that is, collective, iterative learning — has
occurred. Over the course of the project, multiple stakeholder groups across three levels (community,
district and national) repeatedly came together in different ways to learn from each other and coordinate
action on mainstreaming the monitoring of climate change adaptation efforts into government plans,
tools and budgets.
ACCRA’s strengths in contributing to the social learning lay in engagement and capacity development.
The context of the project, explained in the introduction, was also important: the fact that several
national government bodies had recently undertaken processes to mainstream climate change
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facilitated the engagement of key officials. ACCRA was able to capitalise on this window of opportunity
with strategic engagement and capacity development activities that helped to bring these stakeholders
closer together and streamline mainstreaming across different departments, ministries, and levels of
government.
Iterative learning and challenging institutions were also features of ACCRA’s process, however, the
focus in these areas was less on long-term, systemic changes (though there are some examples of this,
too) and more on short-term changes necessary for the process at hand. This is not to say that the level
of coordination and the changes achieved are not notable; in the context of working directly with
government, long-term, systemic changes are probably quite difficult, especially when instigated by an
external organisation which has not been invited explicitly to do so. It is also not to say that there is not
still room for such changes. The implementation phase will be the real test of the coordination efforts
that have been made so far, and if ACCRA continues to work with the government the project can
capitalise on the trust that has been built thus far to encourage deeper institutional changes that will
facilitate social learning in the future.
Though the implementation phase (ie the integration of the indicators developed over the course of the
project) has not yet started, there is evidence that ACCRA’s approach, and the social learning it
enabled, has led to the potential for better and more sustainable outcomes. It is difficult to imagine that
the results achieved thus far (including the bottom-up identification of indicators, buy-in to the process
and verification of the indicators by multiple stakeholder groups, and coordination of these stakeholders
and their climate change mainstreaming efforts across multiple departments, ministries and levels of
government) would have been possible with a different approach. The engagement, capacity
development, and institutional challenging efforts will go a long way towards successfully implementing
the indicators, which, it is hoped, will ultimately lead to more successful adaptation to climate change at
community, district and national levels.

References
ACCRA and MWE (2015) Influencing National Level policy frameworks for Climate Change Planning
and Budgeting Processes in Uganda: Using a Bottom-up Approach.

Fisher, S and Karani, I (2015) Strengthening frameworks to monitor and evaluate climate adaptation in
Uganda. IIED, London.
Kajumba, T and Karani, I (2015) Influencing the development and integration of national standard
climate change indicators into the monitoring and reporting frame works in Uganda. ACCRA, Uganda.
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Indicator table

Process indicators ACCRA results

Women, youth and Yes.

other disadvantaged ACCRA embedded gender analysis in the tools used to capture the issues of women, men, boys and girls.
groups are identified During the FGDs, community groups were disaggregated into old men, old women, young men, young
and targeted women, boys and girls. This ensured that women and other vulnerable groups participated in the
discussions and learned from each other through knowledge sharing, including about the adaptation
strategies targeting their specific issues. At community level the mobilisation also specified the number of
old men, women, boys, girls, and youth to ensure there was adequate representation of these stakeholder
groups. Local governments were also chosen in a manner that included communities in hard-to-reach
areas that are often left out of planning processes.
ENGAGEMENT

Groups/individuals Yes.
identified are At community level: see above.
engaged through At district level: ACCRA targeted planning officers in the districts as well as the natural resource officers
appropriately tailored responsible for ensuring that climate change is integrated into planning processes as a cross cutting
means issue. Engagement methods included workshops, one-to-one meetings, and FGDs. Workshops and ToTs
were for skills-building in terms of risk assessment, awareness, and mainstreaming. FGDs were used
during planning: staff were divided by sector to analyse sector-specific impacts of climate change to
determine what to include in their plans before sector plans were merged into the final district plan.
At national level: the process of developing indicators targeted key mandated institutions — CCD, MoLG,
NPA, and MOFPED — by helping them understand their sector contributions, and the benefits of the
process to their monitoring and reporting processes. These institutions were then given a leadership role
to ensure ownership of the process and government uptake of the results. ACCRA also targeted individual
commissioners via one-on-one meetings to discuss the merits of the process and its links to existing
processes to secure their buy-in, ensuring that the indicators developed would be integrated and that staff
would participate. These meetings were crucial for engaging high-level decision makers who do not attend
the other meetings but still retain decision-making powers. Validation workshops were used to assure
agreement among all stakeholders on the indicators, and ensure they complemented existing indicators at
sector level and in the NDPII.

13
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2 parts: Partial (a. Yes and b. Hardly)

a. All target ACCRA’s approaches to engaging target groups and individuals were successful.
groups/individuals At community level: The numbers exceeded expectations, as communities were eager to participate in the
are actively discussions on climate change impacts and the changes they wanted. One key example is the community
participating in the FGDs — disaggregating by gender enabled women to participate more fully. They noted that they felt
project better working in their own groups.
b. All target groups At local government level: Local governments targeted were all forthcoming regarding learning, data
/individuals are collection, providing information and conducting realistic performance assessments using the scorecard.
actively participating At national level: All MDAs, government sectors and CSOs targeted participated.
in the process b. ACCRA used a group of trained facilitators, as well as consultants versed in facilitation, and
Facilitator role participation was high.
identified as trusted At community level: The ministry and local government staff teams that were trained facilitated the
and effective by all meetings.
parties At district level: The ministry staff facilitated the district discussions.
At national level: The MWE CCD took up a facilitating role in the process, for example bringing together
USAID, ACCRA and the MoLG to jointly support the process instead of working independently on the
same process. Other actors also joined because they trusted CCD.
Emergence of Yes. ACCRA identified focal people in the key national ministries who led on presentations, discussions
champions is and validation. The programme is still working with them to integrate the indicators developed into the
fostered different existing tools. These people are not paid but champion the work because they feel it benefits the
country.
ACCRA trained national facilitators from ministries and local government to collect the TAMD indicators
from selected districts. The facilitators owned the process from start to finish. They were not paid. ACCRA
also trained ten national trainers on conducting climate change capacity and vulnerability assessments
(CVCAs) and using TAMD tools; they will champion the work where need arises. Selection of trainers was
based on commitment and interest; most people offered to be part of the team during the second
consultative meeting. Some trainers have taken the learning to their organisations and recently they
supported the Makerere University Climate Change Resource Center with USAID to train other climate
change champions working with the university.

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 SOLVING ‘WICKED’ PROBLEMS: A COMPENDIUM OF CASE STUDIES

[Cognitive] Yes. Community members learned through peer-to-peer learning during CVCAs. There was also learning
Knowledge of the between local governments and the national government; between the GoU and other governments from
problem enhanced by Africa and Asia; between NGOs; and between different ministries. This learning happened throughout the
interactions process.
ACCRA targeted government ministries that are important in influencing processes starting at the local
level and ending at the national level but which do not engage stakeholders, resulting in local
governments and communities lacking information about the sectors that these ministries were
responsible for. These ministries included: the UNMA, MWE CCD, Ministry of Agriculture (MAAIF), OPM,
Disaster Department and MoLG. ACCRA facilitated visits to local governments and communities where
these ministries shared information about different policies and processes at national level and got
feedback.
[Relational] Yes. Relations between district and national level ministries improved due to the interactions during
Engagement has led capacity building sessions, as well as from two-way information sharing and learning facilitated by
to better relations ACCRA.
between target The district staff also established a relationship with communities in which they collected data and
groups/individuals conducted vulnerability assessments; the meetings created feedback forums for different officials to share
Trust created on government processes and also respond to community issues.
Engagement has led
to awareness and
valuing of other
stakeholders
[Normative] 2 parts: Yes. (a. Yes, b. Yes)
a. Different knowledge a. The TAMD process enabled learning from different angles. For example, the ToC process at community
types successfully level helped community members to reflect on climate change-related challenges, as well as ways to
integrated change the situation. The ToC sounds technically complicated, but communities were able to understand
b. Engagement has led it and build narratives around it. In one of the meetings, an old man equated the process to an “egg
towards a change in producing a bull” and he led fellow community members in a discussion of chains of causation, risks and
collective assumptions; this was remarkable learning. Communities understood climate change issues better, as
understanding of the well as pathways of change to build resilient communities.
problem and b. ACCRA’s systematic bottom-up approach improved communication and interaction between
solutions communities, local governments and national government, facilitating the process and enabling
stakeholders to understand each other’s needs. The indicator validation workshops also created space for
lead agencies to share their needs, for example: NPA needed to ensure that the indicators fell within the
scope of the national development plan, MoFPED needed a few prioritised indicators to inform funding
priorities, and MoLG also needed indicators relevant to their assessment tool. At the workshops these
different perspectives were aligned and the final indicators validated to be used for the different purposes
agreed upon.

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[Value] Engagement Partial.

leads to increased At local level: there is demand from local governments to be supported to mainstream climate change into
commitment on the their plans using the indicators generated, because having climate change indicators integrated into the
part of target assessment tools means all local governments will have to do the same. Thus it is not that engagement
groups/individuals in led to commitment but rather that (forced) commitment led to engagement; that said, the programme was
reaching the goal of strategic to work in this way.
the project At national level: Similarly, the Ministry of Finance was moving from output reporting to outcome reporting,
and ACCRA’s work solved the challenge for them by developing outcome indicators that MoFPED could
use. This created a guarantee that the intervention was relevant and that indicators will be used.
Overall, while many stakeholders’ commitment to the project’s goal increased due to ACCRA’s
engagement efforts, for others, ACCRA strategically positioned the programme to be relevant to
commitments stakeholders had already made or would be forced to make, ensuring their engagement.
[Practice] 3 parts: Partial (a. No, b. Yes, c. No evidence)
a. New social networks a. None
established b. ACCRA and USAID entered into partnership to work with UNMA on another piece of work. In addition,
b. New initiatives and IIED supported ACCRA to present this work in the Development and Climate days of COP 21 in Paris.
projects IIED also recognised the fit of this work as a social learning case study. ACCRA has submitted a concept
c. Empowerment of note to scale up capacity building for local governments. Lastly, GIZ wants to use the results to inform
most vulnerable Uganda’s accreditation for adaptation funding.
beneficiaries c. It is too early to gauge empowerment of most vulnerable beneficiaries as the indicators have yet to be
(communities) inc. implemented.
women & children
Cyclical, inclusive Partially. There were several such moments built into the process. For instance, the process involved
learning and validation of indicators over the course of three national workshops coordinated by the CCD. In these
ITERATIVE LEARNING

evaluation ‘moments’ workshops, different sectors shared and everyone discussed the relevance of the indicators until a final
are available for the process was agreed on.
group ACCRA also piloted integration of the indicators with one of the local governments. This process involved
learning, discussions and reviewing sector plans, and was supported by the ministry staff. Feedback was
given on the process, which informed ACCRA’s focus for further implementation efforts.
Learning and Yes. See above.
evaluation processes
are supported and
facilitated
Systems are in place Yes. During the validation of the indicators, the head of the CCD reported that instructions had been
to foster and issued to all accounting officers in national and local government that from FY 2016/017, all sectors and
implement new ideas local governments must mainstream and report on climate change. This requirement also means there
should be resident capacity to do this. The local governments requested that ACCRA and USAID

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 SOLVING ‘WICKED’ PROBLEMS: A COMPENDIUM OF CASE STUDIES

champion the capacity-building process for local governments. ACCRA had already piloted mainstreaming
in three districts, so it fell within ACCRA’s mandate to support this process. Due to funding limitations for
this activity, ACCRA developed a proposal and had discussions with CDKN to fund capacity building for
local governments. More efforts are being made to ensure that support is given to operationalise this work.
Questioning the TOC Yes. ACCRA ToC is reviewed annually during planning meetings and the team evaluates the ToC and
itself and key narratives around it. The ToC is reviewed to include new issues in the environment and the assumptions
assumptions is are also revised accordingly.
valued and
happening regularly
Questioning of Yes. ACCRA encouraged this questioning by government stakeholders in Uganda. The programme aimed
values, norms and to demonstrate the importance of mainstreaming CCA to the Ugandan government (at both local and
governance national levels). To do so, the programme used pilots, policy briefs, and meetings, as well as facilitating
underlying problem is GoU teams to learn from other countries. Ultimately government stakeholders concurred on the problem
valued and to be addressed.
happening regularly
[Cognitive] 2 parts: Yes(a. Yes, b. Yes)
a. Results of a. There was flexibility in the process. For example, when ACCRA realised that different processes with
learning/evaluation the same aim were being carried out independently, CCD convened all relevant stakeholders and these
are incorporated into actors agreed to work as a team, contributing resources for agreed actions and co-facilitating different
the project strategy processes as necessary. There was also agreement on harmonising the PMF, TAMD and USAID district
b. Creative solutions indicators to come up with one list of indicators which everyone would use as a working document to avoid
and innovations are repetition.
developed b. One example of creative solutions relates to the use of sample districts to represent the whole country
when ACCRA could not obtain funding to engage all 135 districts in the country. Districts were classified
by region, ecosystem, livelihoods, and disaster impacts, and the solution was agreed by all stakeholders.
[Relational] Evidence Partially. ACCRA started with a scoping study to understand the current M&E and reporting frameworks
as in the country. This was meant to secure buy-in and support for the changes that need to happen. Two
learning/evaluation consultative meetings were conducted and the recommendations from participants are what kicked off the
takes place that work. During the consultation meetings the relevant ministries explained why it is important for the
people understand planning, budgeting and reporting processes to change. Consensus was reached on the necessity of
the reason to change change before the indicators were developed and validated. This was true especially in the case of
relations and communication between different ministries, and between USAID, ACCRA and the ministries. It was
behaviours between agreed that regular coordination meetings between MWE-CCD, MOLG, and OPM should be conducted to
people and groups share information on partners and what they are doing with each ministry for harmony and synergy as well
as targeting the right districts for support; the changes are being practiced.
[Normative] No evidence.
Participants

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understand the need

for alternatives and
room to fail
[Value] Wider No evidence.
stakeholder groups
understand the
reasons to change
their relations and
behaviours
[Practice] Wider No evidence. Too early to assess this.
stakeholder groups
relate to each other
differently
[Value] The need for No evidence.
alternatives and room
to fail is evident in
other
projects/programmes
[Practice] Alternatives No evidence.
and room to fail are
built in to other
projects/programmes
Capacity Yes. The process of mainstreaming climate change indicators incorporated capacity building activities,
CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

development specifically capacity gap analysis studies, and training on conducting vulnerability assessments, theories
activities are of change and institutional assessment of climate change mainstreaming gaps. The specific capacity
integrated into the development exercises included: capacity gap analysis for local governments, training on integration of
project/program climate change and gender into district development plans, using scorecards and theories of change, and
TOTs on conducting climate change capacity and vulnerability assessments.
Capacity Yes. The capacity building activities were thought out for specific groups along the way.
development At community level: the communities were facilitated to think about capacity and vulnerability in the
activities target all context of climate change challenges and to use this thinking to develop theories of change that would aid
participants in community action planning and feed into local government plans.
appropriate ways (eg At local government level: capacity building consisted of skills building for internal assessments using the
governments, institutional scorecards, and ToTs to facilitate vulnerability assessments at community level. Sessions on
farmers, scientists) how to mainstream climate change and gender were also conducted, and national level ministry staff —
who are more familiar with relevant policies and guidelines — travelled to different districts to support the
process.

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At national level: a ToT was conducted to train ministry officials in using assessment tools to support
district staff to carry out the same training process as well as data collection at community level.
Capacity needs are Yes. Capacity building for local governments was informed by the capacity gap analysis, in which local
determined government staff identified their own institutional issues. ACCRA used the institutional scorecard to
collectively in a identify capacity gaps at local government level.
bottom-up manner
Capacity Yes. ACCRA’s first phase research revealed that there was low capacity among local governments to
development needs mainstream climate change and DRR into district development plans. A capacity gap analysis was
are systematically conducted for three local governments focusing on their ability to integrate climate change and DRR into
integrated into all their plans and budgets. The findings informed the capacity building agenda, which included gender
project components integration and mainstreaming. Capacity building was integrated from the bottom up to ensure learning
along the way.

[Cognitive] Similar Yes. For example, when the capacity building activities started at local government level, local
level of government staff realised that there were no national indicators for climate change and so they were not
understanding of the being assessed on it. This prompted ACCRA to produce a policy brief on the importance of
problem by all mainstreaming. Engagement with national level processes increased their understanding that the country
stakeholders needed indicators for climate change to be able to plan, budget and assess performance and report on the
climate change policy. This clarity at different levels contributed to the success of the work.
[Relational] Increased Partially. See L3: although L3 is focused on how engagement, rather than capacity development
understanding activities, it increased understanding between different participant groups of others’ different needs and
between different perspectives.
participant groups of
different needs and
perspectives
[Normative] Increase No evidence.
in collective
challenging/understa
nding methods of
building capacity for
particular
stakeholders
[Value] More Yes. Discussed under other indicators above.
informed “Identifying entry points for integration of climate change in the national frameworks is one of steps of
stakeholders addressing climate change and its impacts. Therefore, inclusion of climate change indicators in the OBT
and LGAT opens a new chapter in Uganda’s efforts in addressing climate change and its impacts.” Aaron
Werikhe, research officer, NPA.

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“Climate change, being a national and international concern, needs to be accorded its true position in the
national assessment tool for local governments and in other government planning, budgeting and
reporting frameworks, to adequately measure the achievements and address the challenges in an
organised manner. This process of developing national indicators and mainstreaming them in the
assessment tool presents a great opportunity. The MoLG team is committed to liaising with the CCD and
other ministries to select climate change indicators for inclusion in the LGAT." Assistant Commissioner
Andrew Musoke
[Practice] 2 parts: Yes.
a. Capacity a. Yes. In general, capacity building for different stakeholder groups on the need for indicators and on the
development leads to methodology/tools for developing those indicators in a bottom-up fashion brought stakeholder groups
different groups together and/or facilitated new kinds of communication between them.
working together b. Yes. Capacity development enabled all local and national government stakeholders to make changes to
better address the problem, as explained under other indicators above.
b. Capacity
development leads to
changes in practice
that reflect a better
understanding of the
problem and
solutions
Key Yes. ACCRA identified key ministries — CCD, NPA, MOFPED, OPM and MoLG — who are continuing to
CHALLENGING INSTITUTIONS

individuals/institutions implement the integration process and presenting to cabinet for approval.
who will USAID, one of ACCRA’s key partners, has also committed to develop M&E data sheets for the baseline
support/champion studies at local level, which local governments will carry out to be able to report against the agreed
change are identified indicators.
A change strategy is Partially. ACCRA’s capacity building work at the local government level revealed that there were no
developed, including climate change indicators, making it difficult to enforce mainstreaming. Climate change indicators had not
mapping of existing been thought of in Uganda before this process begun, even though Uganda had a climate change policy
norms and and strategy. A scoping study conducted by ACCRA and IIED brought out entry points within existing
endogenous systems for monitoring and reporting on climate change.
processes
Though a change strategy was not necessarily mapped out at the beginning of the programme, the
programme continually incorporated its findings about existing norms and processes as the project
progressed into its engagement and capacity development strategies.
Existing norms and No evidence.
endogenous

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processes are
mapped
Key institutions are Partially. See P5 above.
challenged to make
changes that facilitate
social learning
[Cognitive] Project Yes.
participants At community level: ACCRA ensured that stakeholders reflected on the outcomes of this work to manage
understand the expectations. Communities were informed that a benefit of developing theories of change was that issues
particular identified and indicators developed would be used at both local and national levels, but they were also
opportunities and informed that funding might be too limited to address all the issues identified.
barriers At local government level: the local governments identified an opportunity — the potential for better
planning for climate change to prepare them to access climate change financing. Local governments also
identified capacity issues, which ACCRA took up.
At national level: this process is seen as preparing the country for adaptation accreditation, strengthening
mainstreaming and preparedness, and leveraging funding for climate change adaptation efforts. The
ministries also identified issues of capacity, lack of funds to allocate to climate change, and reporting
challenges that might occur if baselines are not collected for some of the indicators.
[Relational] Key Hardly.
institutional and
project actors share a
common
understanding of the
problem and
approach to solving
(social learning)
[Normative] Not met.
Institutions
understand that a
shift in values or
practice is needed to
foster social learning
[Value/Practice] Yes. Barriers to developing and implementing climate change indicators and climate change
Reduced number and mainstreaming reduced as explained above under other indicators; number of opportunities has increased
severity of barriers; as a result, as explained under L10.
increased number

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and potential impact

of opportunities
[Value] Challenges Partially. Through the indicator validation exercise, different stakeholders willingly sat together to learn
lead to changes in from each other to better coordinate a national process.
institutional openness
towards SL-
orientated
approaches
(evidenced in eg
attitudes, conflicts)
[Practice] Challenges No evidence.
lead to changes in
institutional support
for SL-oriented
approaches
(evidenced in eg
policy/roles, and
resources made
available for
implementation)

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The Bolsa Floresta Program

Climate Change Social Learning (CCSL) case study
By Ben Garside, Leandro Pinheiro, Victor Salviati

Introduction
The Bolsa Floresta Program (BFP), established by the Amazonas State Government, Brazil, in 2007,
aims to promote sustainable involvement, environmental conservation and the improvement of the
quality of life of riverine communities across the State. Implemented by the nongovernmental
organisation (NGO) Fundacão Amazonas Sustentável (FAS), the programme acts through four
components: income, social, family and collective associations. By engaging families inside and
surrounding the State Conservation areas, the project assures them direct benefits, community-level
social benefits, support in forming collective associations, activities to support production and support to
generate a sustainable income.

A core ethos of the programme is that communities self-select the social benefits and production
activities based on their needs and preferences. Communities learn together, and succeed or fail
together on a wide variety of projects that they decide on together — with support from FAS and
partners, both public and private.

This research is a small snapshot of the portfolio of BFP projects. It is not intended to be representative
of the 574 riverine communities that FAS works with (see map), but rather to explore and compare
across a range of projects that have had varying degrees of success and challenges. The aim is to
better understand where and for what reasons social learning in these bottom-up community projects is
taking place, whether this has contributed to better project outcomes, and if there are indications that
the absence of learning and reflection processes contributes to sub-optimal outcomes.

The four projects studies are:

• Maiana Pirarucu sustainable fisheries management
(case study page 24)
• Terra Preta — small-scale timber management
(case study page 41)
• Xibauazinho fisheries management and Processing
(case study page 55)
• Nosa Senhora do Perpetuo Socorro Water supply network
(case study page 71)
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BFP - Pirarucu sustainable

fisheries management
Climate Change Social Learning (CCSL) case
study
By Ben Garside, Leandro Pinheiro, Victor Salviati
November 2016

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1. Key findings
• Trust in the process and the leaders had to be built to make the project happen. Leaders led by
example and were trusted and very motivated.

• Continued engagement was important: there is evidence of youth being incentivised and trained for
the next generation of lake managers.

• Learning by doing was important in building capacity in a way that also built shared understanding.

• It is important to consider that the project has been running for about ten years, and that quality of
iterative learning is achieved (and improved) with time.

• The success of the initiative and associated confidence in the community, contributed to flatten the
relations with external stakeholders and fostered a more mature partnership approach going
forward. Shown particularly in a later challenging by the communities to FAS for reforming the Bolsa
Floresta investment funding rules to improve flexibility in future projects.

• There was little external (to the communities) participation in the iterative learning processes
happening as part of the project. Possibly this is one reason why there were no challenges raised to
external stakeholders to reflect more systemically on their own practice, which could help with future
initiatives.

2. Project description
Started in 2004, this community project aimed to increase income from fishing for Pirarucu through
better natural resource management.

Figure 1. Project location in the Amazon region, Brazil

Pirarucu is a native fish of the Amazon found in lakes. Sustainable fishing of Pirarucu requires
harvesting of the fish only once per year combined with year-round protection of the area. This requires
group-level planning and coordination over an extended period to police the lake and prevent non-

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agreed fishing. A method was developed to determine the optimal number of fish that could be caught
per year for the fishing to be sustainable.1,2,3 The sustainable fishing practices have increased
productivity and reliable income. Before this, the community (illegally) logged timber to supplement
income, which no longer happens.

3. Mapping the project process

• DEMUC 1 and the NGO Mamirauá Institute approached the ‘sector’ (a cluster of seven
communities) to introduce a sustainable fisheries management approach. The Maiana sector
was not initially interested in implementing it. They were also made aware that if the sustainable
fishing approach was put in place, Maiana would have exclusive fishing rights in the area.

• Nearby commercial fishing boats from the Fonte Boa urban centre started fishing in Maiana’s
area without any previous agreed arrangement, which created a conflict with the Maiana sector
communities. This triggered Maiana’s renewed interest in the sustainable fishing approach.

• The Maiana sector asked the reserve association (representing 173 communities) and
institutional stakeholders (IPAAM 2, Institute of Mamirauá, and later FAS) to help implement a
fisheries management approach.

• Maiana approached a neighbouring sector (Solimões do Meio) to set boundaries for the fishing
areas so that they could start defining the rules within their own area. This included some
common ground rules that applied to both sectors, for example not blocking the passage of fish
between their respective fishing areas. The Maiana sector led this process and the leaders of
the sector intentionally approached a wide variety of stakeholders to make sure they were
included in the process (including women’s groups).

1
Department of Protected Areas and Climate Change in the State Secretary of Environment in Amazonas.
2
Environmental Protection Institute of Amazonas, a public agency linked the State Secretary of Environment.

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• Maiana actively participated in opportunities to build their own capacity, for example, through
training with SEBRAE (a government agency), the Institute of Mamirauá, and later with FAS.

• The Maiana sector agreed how the lakes should be managed in a meeting and the normative
regarding the management of those lakes was approved by DEMUC. FAS BFP’s investment
was used to help monitor the lake (for infrastructure such as boats, a car and motorbike). The
Maiana sector assessed the baseline of quantity of fish in the lake, which gave them a quota for
the first year (50 fish). Over the next four years as fish stocks were replenished, the quota was
increased to 700. It is important to note that the sector felt happy with the quota as they had
been involved in defining the baseline and monitoring.

• Youths suggested that some of the BPF funds be used to buy computers for registering and
tracking the fish. This gave them a role and engaged them further in the process.

• Each community in the sector shared the responsibility of ‘protecting’ (policing) the lakes to
ensure that the rules were followed. This required 40–50 days of protection work per family per
year. This was agreed in a sector meeting. Through this enforcement, infringements were kept
to a minimum. Resources for monitoring (counting) and protecting were set aside from the
fishing profits as part of the original fisheries agreement.

• The Maiana sector now regularly interacts with FAS to exchange ideas, and invite FAS to
participate in meetings. This has cultivated learning in a flatter structure and kept FAS in the
loop on the full range of issues. One outcome was the idea of increasing the income they are
getting from the fish by adding value through processing, working with FAS to trial a fish dryer.

Challenges identified during the mapping process

Protection work is time consuming
Despite being compensated for the protection work, it was still very time consuming. By learning over
time the sector improved the efficiency of this protection work by pooling resources (for example,
sharing boats, radios), which reduced 70 per cent of each family’s time spent per year (to a total of 15
days each). Once the more efficient protection strategy had been put in place, the quota was
significantly increased, showing that the protection was more effective, more efficient, and with a much
better cost-benefit.
Pre-empting conflicts between community members/groups
The leaders decided that each protection team must be a mix of people from different communities. The
purpose of this was to create a stronger common vision, improve social cohesion, and prevent conflict
rooted in group rivalries. Sanctions were put in place for those not participating in their protection duties
(150Brl per day they were absent).

4. Snapshot against CCSL indicators

Engagement Iterative Learning Capacity Development Challenging Institutions

Process P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15 P16 P17

Learning
L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 L8 L9 L10 L11 L12
Outcomes

Value/Practice
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11
Outcomes

AVERAGE 2.8 2.7 2.4 2.1

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5. Social learning results

Engagement
Score: 2.8

P1 P2 P3 P4 L1 L2 L3 V1 V2

Engagement has been inclusive and ongoing — important for learning, adapting, and creating buy-
in across generations
There is an intentional strategy to engage most families, which (according to the communities) has
been essential to making the approach work. There were also intentional strategies to enhance the
social fabric and build trust among the communities, such as having mixed teams for lake
surveillance (relational learning).
Trusted leadership, including leading by example, was important in initial phases when a significant
behavior change was needed. The concept of lake management, which was initially treated with
suspicion, has become a norm among these communities.
The strategic approach to planning engagement is apparent and is ongoing, even though the
project has been in place for about ten years. For example, new engagement processes include
young adults who were children when the project started. Young people are being actively fostered
as new leaders by the existing leaders/champions. Spin-off initiatives have also been developed
through the engagement and learning processes, including fish drying and handicrafts.

There is an intentional strategy to engage most families, which (according to the communities) has
been essential to making the fisheries management approach work [P3]. Group learning is evidenced
by deep understanding which evolved over time of new ideas, risks, and relational issues between
community members [L1,L2]. The concept of lake management, which was initially treated with
suspicion, has become a norm among these communities [L3].
Most forest people economic activities do not involve a year of time or resources investment, they
culturally live on a day-by-day basis and change their practices according to the seasons (and
associated opportunities). Therefore, the adopted practice of ‘investing’ a year in protecting and
monitoring before fishing was a significant cultural and behavioural change for the communities [V1]. It
required a relatively long-term investment of time before income generation. Trust in the approach to
build fish stocks in the lake by not fishing for more than a year and monitoring was needed. This came
from a trust in motivated leaders who championed the approach [P3b]. Trust in the leaders was further
strengthened when fish stocks were observed to increase.

There were also intentional strategies to enhance the social fabric and build trust among the
communities, such as having mixed teams for lake surveillance [P2, L2]. This ten-year project
demonstrates that building trust takes time. FAS was a relatively late entrant, and over time FAS has
become more trusted by working closely with the Maiana sector.
Engagement processes are ongoing, even though the project has been in place for about ten years.
Strategies for inclusive engagement and improving overall participation in the project are still actively
discussed. The project has been running long enough that it spans generations, requiring for example
new engagement processes with young adults who were children when the project started. Young
people are being actively fostered as new leaders by the existing leaders and champions. Spin-off

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initiatives have also been developed through the engagement and learning processes, including fish
drying and handicrafts [V2].

Iterative learning
Score: 2.7

P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 L4 L5 L6 V3 V4 V5 V6

Reflection moments are planned and happening regularly which has contributed to the quality and
depth of group learning and follow-on action
The frequent (cyclical) meetings are structured to include reflection and learning moments,
facilitated by the leaders. The communities’ organised into mixed groups to carry out activities to
enhance their own social fabric, indicating relational learning over time in the project. The depth of
reflection saw them challenge their own institutions and norms — for example, they decided to stop
their logging activities completely, and planned for this so as to not negatively impact individual
households.
The communities found the lack of co-coordination between external institutions to interface
collectively in a more effective way with them as a key barrier they faced. They also noted that
external institutions did not change their own processes as a result of practical learning on fisheries
management that came out of this initiative. This may have bene different if these institutions had
been more engaged in the iterative learning process itself.
One other interesting point to note: the group’s collective and iterative learning processes only
started when the fisheries management issue became extremely important for the community when
commercial fishing from a nearby sector started in their area without any previous agreement with
them, indicating the need for a collective sense of urgency to spark learning/action cycles.

The frequent (cyclical) meetings are structured to include reflection and learning moments, facilitated by
the leaders. The ‘what we have achieved so far’ moment is an interesting strategy to make the results
tangible and noticed, and to bring up the problems that need to be addressed. Other frequent informal
meetings were cited as spaces where critical reflection and learning took place [P5] [P6].
The communities’ organised into mixed groups to carry out activities to enhance their own social fabric,
indicating relational learning that happened over time in the project [L5]. Formal legal monitoring should
be provided by the government agency IPAAM, but when it was not provided the communities realised
they would need to self-organise to achieve results [P9]. However, the communities noted during
interview process that institutional stakeholders didn’t adapt their own processes to include practical
learning from the projects. They considered this a key barrier [‘no’ to V3] in helping the learning to be
followed through with action that would then further the success of the project.
One interesting part of the collective learning process is that group and iterative learning processes only
started when the fisheries management issue became extremely important for the community, which
happened when commercial fishing from a nearby sector started in their area. The Maiana communities
were already aware of a sustainable fisheries solution, but the trigger for the project was this external
pressure on fishing resources without any previous agreement with them.

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Capacity development
Score: 2.4

P10 P11 P12 P13 L7 L8 L9 V7 V8

Capacity development helped foster social learning better when ‘demand driven’, but this in turn
required pre-established engagement and learning processes
Support from external partners in fisheries management included capacity building on leadership,
lake management, and fishing. Engagement processes for capacity development were tailored to
local needs — in fact, as the project evolved the Maiana sector demanded specific training from its
partners.
Part of this capacity development was specific training provided externally, but there was also
important cross-community capacity building through ‘learning by doing’ and ‘seeing is believing’
driven by a growing sense of confidence on the project due to good leadership and social
engagement. This helped build a common view and understanding of the lake management
technology and results.

Support from external partners in fisheries management included capacity building on leadership, lake
management, and fishing [P10]. Engagement processes for capacity development were tailored to local
needs (as noted in engagement) [P11]. As the project evolved the Maiana sector demanded specific
training from its partners [P12].

Because the communities are involved in all processes, including fish monitoring and lake protection,
they understand the rationale behind the lake management technology and over time the causal
relationship between their fishing practices and the fish stock [L7].
It appears to be important in this case that capacity development happened over an extended period,
and across a broad section of the community. Part of this capacity development was specific training
provided externally, but there was also important cross-community capacity building through ‘learning
by doing’ and ‘seeing is believing’. This helped build a common view and understanding of the lake
management technology and results [V7]. This also facilitated an enabling environment for developing
solutions to issues within the project, for fostering champions, and a desire to build capacity in new
ventures including drying fish and handicrafts [V8].

Challenging institutions
Score: 2.1

P14 P15 P16 P17 L10 L11 L12 V9 V10 V11

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Challenging cultural and institutional norms within the community to improve the fishing project
helped iterative learning and led to positive outcomes, with some evidence that this also built
confidence to challenge external institutions
The communities decided to organise meetings to discuss progress and reflect on the institutional
arrangements that made up the project and the set of wider stakeholders that it interacts with. The
description of these meetings gives some indication that they were open to new ideas and that they
questioned the theory of change, and the stakeholders’ roles, norms and rules.
There was also some evidence of reflection on challenging institutions specifically to facilitate social
learning, but this was tentative: it was not particularly proactive, and did not extend beyond
communities to wider stakeholders. This challenging of institutions can be seen in part as a result
(outcome) of the social learning taking place in the fishing communities.
More indirectly (and not as a result of challenging institutions to facilitate learning in itself) the
challenging of external institutions to make the Bolsa Foresta investment funding rules more flexible
has ended up facilitating ongoing learning by allowing the communities to make more flexible
investment decisions, better supporting the learn–reflect–act iterative cycles.

Due to the sector’s annual agenda, and because it has multiple stakeholders, the communities decided
to organise meetings to discuss progress and reflect on the institutional arrangements that make up the
project and the set of wider stakeholders that it interacts with. The description of these meetings gives
some indication that the sector is open to new ideas and that it questions the theory of change and the
stakeholders’ roles, norms and rules. There was evidence of reflection on challenging institutions to
facilitate social learning [P17], but this was tentative: it was not particularly proactive, and did not extend
beyond communities to wider stakeholders. This could be a contributing factor to the finding that there
has not been an increase in institutional openness or support for the learning processes themselves
[V10, V11]. A future assessment, within 3–5 years, could confirm this.
One important relational learning outcome was the communities’ strategy to keep all community
members and wider stakeholders engaged. This was a process of continual engagement and cultivation
of relationships within the communities, for example with youth who were ‘growing up’ to enter the
fishing project, and with wider stakeholders. This was important in building a shared understanding of
the issues and approaches to solving them [L11]. Building this understanding was critical in overcoming
a number of barriers and increased the success of the project, for example through the changes the
sector proposed to Bolsa Floresta to better suit the needs of their project [V9].

Another finding which was related to the fisheries project was that the communities within the sector
and the wider reserve, along with other reserve’s leaders, supported changes in the Bolsa Floresta
Program investments arrangement. These changes were championed by individuals in the fisheries
management project [P14] and included changes in spending allocations between the different
components of the programme.
In addition, FAS also had to change its arrangements with donors (for example, Amazon Fund/BNDES)
for reporting how funds were spent. This challenging of institutions can be seen in part as a result
(outcome) of the social learning taking place in the fishing communities. More indirectly, and not as a
result of challenging institutions to facilitate learning in itself, the challenging of external institutions has
ended up facilitating ongoing learning by allowing the communities to make more flexible investment
decisions, better supporting the learn–reflect–act iterative cycles.
There were indications of a conscious change strategy being developed [P15], as the Pirarucu fish
became more profitable there was a move away from traditional logging activities. In doing this there
was challenging of established institutions within the community: how different organised logging
groups would be impacted as well as a cultural shift away from logging.

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6. Summary: social learning challenges and lessons

learned
The CCSL initiative aims to answer three key questions through the piloting of its M&E Framework for
Social Learning:

• Did social learning take place?

• What factors contributed to successful social learning?

• Did social learning contribute to better and more sustainable development outcomes?
The ultimate goal is to build an evidence base, and understanding, around when social learning
contributes to better and more sustainable development outcomes (and under what circumstances it
does not) in the context of climate change adaptation and food security.
The Maiana case shows good evidence that social learning (that is, collective, iterative learning) has
occurred. In Maiana this has happened over an extended period of time across multiple communities
and external stakeholders to change entrenched ‘traditional’ community practice in fishing and broader
livelihoods. Overall there is evidence of double loop learning reflecting on core questions of livelihood
practice, and some tentative evidence of challenging values and norms within community groups (triple
loop learning).
Inclusive engagement sustained over a long period was an important part of fostering social learning
(and action) cycles which created not only learning on fish management but improved relational
learning, social cohesion and overall buy-in to the process. Indeed, the aspect of ‘investing’ a year in
protecting and monitoring before the annual fishing was a deep change in the communities’ behavior
and required patience along with trusted leaders and champions.
It is also important to note that the project has been running for about ten years, and that the quality of
iterative learning was achieved (and improved) with time. Learning by doing as a method of capacity
development and building shared understanding were also important in fostering the learning
processes.
The good results, and the confidence derived from them, contributed to flattening the relational
hierarchies with external stakeholders. Together with a more mature ‘partnership’ approach, this
created an enabling environment for challenging institutions’ propositions (for example, for practical
aspects such as licensing and managing the reserve). However, there were no outcomes that could be
associated with changes in institutional openness towards or support for social learning approaches
themselves perhaps due to limited challenging of institutions.

External stakeholders have learned at a practical level from this process, with the communities
demanding actions from them to fit with their approach (rather than the other way around). But there
was little external (to the communities) participation in the iterative learning processes happening as
part of the project. Possibly this is one reason why there were no challenges raised to external
stakeholders to reflect more systemically on their own practice, with the exception of the later challenge
to FAS on the flexibility of the BFP rules. This includes reflecting on their own learning processes so as
to achieve better practice when engaging with community initiatives such as the Maiana fish
management project.

References
Amaral, E et al (2011) Manejo de Pirarucús (Arapaima gigas) em lagos de várzea de uso exclusivo de
pescadores urbanos: baseado na experiência do Instituto Mamirauá junto a Colônia de Pescadores Z-
32 de Maraã na cogestão do complexo do Lago Preto, Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável
Mamirauá – RDSM. Tefé: IDSM. 76 p. (Série Protocolos de manejo dos recursos naturais, 1).

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 SOLVING ‘WICKED’ PROBLEMS: A COMPENDIUM OF CASE STUDIES

Amaral, E and Queiroz, H (2011) Estabelecimento de cotas sustentáveis de Pirarucú (Arapaima gigas)
com base em outros indicadores além das contagens. Livro de Resumos do VIII Seminário Anual de
Pesquisa do IDSM – Tefé: IDSM.
Arantes, CC (2009) Ecologia do Pirarucú Arapaima gigas (Schinz, 1822) na várzea da Reserva de
Desenvolvimento Susntentável Mamirauá, Amazonas, Brasil. 2009. 72 f. Il. Dissertação (Mestrado) –
Programa de Pós Graduação em Zoologia, Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Ilhéus.

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Indicator table
ID# Process indicators Pirarucu results
P1 Women, youth and other Yes. Active targeting and inclusion of women and youth. A women’s group was created and a women’s
disadvantaged groups are soccer championship also created (with an incentive that women could only participate in the
identified and targeted championship if they participated in the meetings). Youth ideas were listened to and included eg
computerisation of fish monitoring.
New families can engage anytime in the process. And they are trying to raise awareness of other
groups (eg isolated families or elders that do not believe in fish management and do not attend
meetings).
P2 Groups/individuals identified Yes. See P1 for examples. They consider the youth as future leaders by inviting them to attend
are engaged through meetings. This is making youth interested on reserve’s issues.
appropriately tailored means
P3 2 parts: All target
groups/individuals are a. Yes. See P1 above. Good attention to including different groups through tailored means. Outside
actively participating in the the project, other groups/individuals were considered by implementing other projects.
project b. Yes. The leaders were actively facilitating and reaching out to different groups, including external
ENGAGEMENT

a. All target groups parties such as DEMUC.

/individuals are actively
participating in the
process
b. Facilitator role identified
as trusted and effective
by all parties
P4 Emergence of champions is No evidence. Although it seems likely, based on the track of good results leaded by the communities
fostered
L1 [Cognitive]Knowledge of the Yes. They could list their needs through discussions (sector meetings). They go deep on analysis
problem enhanced by discussing risks and ideas. The issue of lake protection is an example of enhanced knowledge of the
interactions problem.
L2 [Relational] a. Yes. Among the communities.
a. Engagement has led to b. Yes. Among communities and sectors.
better relations between c. Yes. They understood through learning and reflection that partnerships (rather than demand to
target groups/individuals externals) were more effective in achieving goals. Institutions have been more responsive as a
b. Trust created result.
c. Engagement has led to
awareness and valuing
of other stakeholders

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L3 [Normative] 2 parts: a. No evidence. There is no evidence from the interview.

a. Different knowledge b. Yes. Lake management is broadly accepted and they have shown initiatives to improve the
types successfully processes demonstrating understanding of the problem and ability to reach solutions.
integrated
b. Engagement has led
towards a change in
collective understanding
of the problem and
solutions
V1 [Value] Engagement leads to Partially (at some level). That has not come up in a specific question. But there is a clear indication of
increased commitment on the communities’ ownership of the project.
the part of target
groups/individuals in
reaching the goal of the
project
V2 [Practice] 3 parts: a. No. There is no new network but a significant enhancement of current ones (eg women’s groups,
a. New social networks reserves’ association, sector meetings).
established b. Yes. Fish dryer and handicraft.
b. New initiatives and c. Yes. The monitoring is made mostly by women. They also had an intentional strategy to engage
projects youth groups. Those who were not able to fish were also included in other projects.
c. Empowerment of most
vulnerable beneficiaries
(communities) including
women and children
P5 Cyclical, inclusive learning Yes. Every meeting they started presenting their past achievements to share and assess such. In
and evaluation ‘moments’ addition, there are frequent informal moments to talk and discuss .
are available for the group
ITERATIVE LEARNING

P6 Learning and evaluation Yes. Sector’s leaders could facilitate such general assessment to others (not just for Pirarucu
processes are supported fishermen).
and facilitated
P7 Systems are in place to Yes. The ‘drying fish’ new business case represents clearly that they are system that foster new ideas.
foster and implement new Outside the project, there are other systems that support other projects/ideas (eg in sector meetings).
ideas Another example is the ‘multirão ambiental’ (environmental group) that optimises the lake protection
reducing the number of days that each family dedicate to monitoring the lakes.
P8 Questioning the TOC itself Yes. When they realised that IPAAM was not going to protect lakes, they organised themselves to do
and key assumptions is so.
valued and happening
regularly

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P9 Questioning of values, Yes. They could question governance of different institutions, eg lake protection should be made by
norms and governance IPAAM. They realised that IPAAM was not able to do so, and then they organised themselves to come
underlying problem is valued up with a protection plan as this was impacting reserve’s fishing results.
and happening regularly
L4 [Cognitive] 2 parts: a. Yes. They incorporated the learning by analysing strategies ie lake protection case. Then they
a. Results of came up with a better idea and optimised their resources.
learning/evaluation are b. Yes. Within an innovative environmental, and due to opportunities to create, they were able to
incorporated into the assess different ideas and come up with an alternative (eg lake protection case with and
project strategy without interaction).
b. Creative solutions and
innovations are
developed
L5 [Relational] Evidence as Yes. When they built mixed groups to protect their lakes, they increased awareness on collectively
learning/evaluation takes goods/services and enhanced their ‘social fabric’.
place that people understand
the reason to change
relations and behaviours
between people and groups
L6 [Normative] Participants Yes. Alternative: ‘drying fish’ new business. Room to fail: Yes, as they mentioned they are trying a new
understand the need for method to dry fish.
alternatives and room to fail
V3 [Value] Wider stakeholder No. External institutions ask for communities to be organised and articulated, but they themselves are
groups understand the not — they do not lead by example. The community sees the lack of coordination between external
reasons to change their institutions to interact more effectively with them as a major barrier. They also note that the external
relations and behaviours institutions did not change their own processes as a result of the practical learning on fisheries
management that came out of this initiative.
V4 [Practice] Wider stakeholder Yes. Over time trust has been built with stakeholders like local government and the relationship has
groups relate to each other become more horizontal. They understood over time that just demanding was not as effective as
differently working to create more fruitful and horizontal partnerships.
V5 [Value] The need for No evidence. Not enough information.
alternatives and room to fail
is evident in other
projects/programmes
V6 [Practice] Alternatives and No evidence. Not enough information and considering handicraft there is poor registry of the failure.
room to fail are built in to
other projects/programmes
DEVEL

P10 Capacity development Yes. Project partners have brought capacity on leadership, lake management, fishing etc.
CAPA
CITY

activities are integrated into

the project/programme

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P11 Capacity development Yes. See P1 and P3a for elder groups, and V8b.
activities target all
participants in appropriate
ways (eg governments,
farmers, scientists)
P12 Capacity needs are Yes. The sector has demanded specific training to its partners.
determined collectively in a
bottom-up manner

P13 Capacity development needs No evidence.

are systematically integrated
into all project components

L7 [Cognitive] Similar level of Yes. However, there was some institutional differentiation: they used a common rule ground to manage
understanding of the the lake as a strategy to community development and lake protection.
problem by all stakeholders

L8 [Relational] Increased No. There is no evidence for that. However, as they have a very good relationship within the
understanding between communities, they could set some ground rules, which have helped them to understand different needs
different participant groups and perspectives in formal forums (eg sector meetings).
of different needs and
perspectives

L9 [Normative] Increase in Partially (at some level). Not specific inputs on the lake management project (fish project), but they
collective were able to add different methods on building capacities for the artisans.
challenging/understanding
methods of building capacity
for particular stakeholders
V7 [Value] More informed Yes. Most of the capacity building was towards to the sector filling in technical gaps. In addition they
stakeholders could recognise their needs on capacity building.

V8 [Practice] 2 parts: a. Yes. Where there is capacity building there is also a relational change (eg handicraft => with all
a. Capacity development training and Pirarucú fish engagement experience, they were able to learn more easily both the
leads to different groups process and to engage different groups).
working together better b. Yes. Training and capacity brought practical changes in lake management and a better
b. Capacity development understanding of challenges and a better environment to come up w solutions.
leads to changes in
practice that reflect a

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better understanding of
the problem and
solutions

P14 Key individuals/institutions Yes. Communities, sectors and the reserve supported some changes in the BF investments
who will support/champion arrangement. FAS also had to change its arrangements with donors (eg Amazon Fund/BNDES) to
change are identified make project’s accountability report.
P15 A change strategy is Yes. As the Pirarucu fish got more profitable they decided to quit logging, challenging their own
developed, including traditions and organised logging processes.
mapping of existing norms
and endogenous processes
P16 Existing norms and No evidence.
endogenous processes are
mapped
P17 Key institutions are Partially. Due to sector’s annual agenda, and as they have several stakeholders, they have to get
challenged to make changes together at the same place and time: this might facilitate interactions to social learning.
CHALLENGING INSTITUTIONS

that facilitate social learning

L10 [Cognitive] Project Yes. They understand by identifying both opportunities and barriers and proposing solutions to involved
participants understand the stakeholders (see V9).
particular opportunities and
barriers
L11 [Relational] Key institutional Yes. The lead role of the communities and their strategy to engage and partner kept everyone at the
and project actors share a same page by communities engagement (ie they cultivate their relations with stakeholders).
common understanding of
the problem and approach to
solving (social learning)
L12 [Normative] Institutions No evidence. See P17 for further details.
understand that a shift in
values or practice is needed
to foster social learning
V9 [Value/Practice] Reduced Yes. They understand (see L10) and propose to involved stakeholders, eg they proposed some
number and severity of changes in the BF rationale to overcome some barriers.
barriers; increased number
and potential impact of
opportunities
V10 [Value] Challenges lead to No
changes in institutional
openness towards SL-
orientated approaches

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(evidenced in eg attitudes,
conflicts)

V11 [Practice] Challenges lead to No

changes in institutional
support for SL-oriented
approaches (evidenced in eg
policy/roles, and resources
made available for
implementation)

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BFP - Terra Preta: small-

scale timber management
Climate Change Social Learning (CCSL) case
study
By Ben Garside, Leandro Pinheiro, Victor Salviati
November 2016

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1. Key findings
• Engagement was limited but did take place, given the length of time the project has been going.

• Trusted leaders were able to keep group cohesion even during project setbacks. Leaders with a
clear mandate and a set of responsibilities to be accountable for are likely to be more trusted in the
long run.

• Even with low scoring on the capacity development process indicators, the participants showed a
similar level of understanding of the project and its problems. This might be a consequence of a
cohesive group with some knowledge of the activity prior to the initiative.

• There was little fundamental questioning of which project to do and why — the initiative relied on the
previous livelihood strategy and changes focused on moving from illegal to legal logging. There was
no questioning of the underlying theory of change as to whether they should continue logging and
many assumptions were made which proved incorrect over time. This had negative impacts on
results.

• Both the community and other stakeholders could have been more proactive in reflecting on,
challenging, and addressing the significant bureaucratic barriers imposed by regulation agencies,
which impact small-scale forest management for timber in a similar way across the Amazon.

2. Project description
Started in 2008, this community project aimed to replace the previous unsustainable timber logging for
a sustainable and legal small scale forest management.

Figure 1. Project location in the Amazon region of Brazil.

The Sustainable Development Reserve of Rio Negro was a traditional source of Manaus’ illegal timber
due to its proximity. In the Terra Preta community the timber was, along with seasonal fishing, the main
source of income. Timber logging was made using chainsaws and leveraging water movements (dry
and wet season) to move the timber to the riverbanks. Timber traders used to navigate up the Rio
Negro river buying precious woods to sell in Manaus market. In 2008, the Rio Negro Reserve was

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created and the logging activity fell dramatically due to the reserve’s rules and increase of command
and control actions. The communities of the reserve (including Terra Preta) protested, complaining to
the government that creating the reserve destroyed their logging livelihoods. The small-scale forest
management initiative was an alternative approach intended to replace the previously unsustainable
(and illegal) logging practices.

3. Mapping the project process

• The communities of the reserve (including Terra Preta) protested, complaining to the
government that creating the reserve destroyed their logging livelihoods.

• Amazonas government asked the State Secretary of Environment (SEMA) to look for a
solution.

• SEMA asked the State Forestry Agency to help with the technical procedures needed to
legalise the logging activities including harvesting and sale.

• In 2009, IPAAM issued a logging license for a group in the Terra Preta community (that
includes 18 families).

• The community group harvested and transported the timber to the riverine area, but due to the
distance of the logging area and a lack of equipment (chainsaws and a tractor) their licence
expired before they were could sell the timber (approx. 50m3).

• The group couldn’t get another licence and the timber was lost.

• FAS approached the community and DEMUC and offered to help issue another licence. The
PBF resources could be directed to support the logging activity.

• The new licences were issued to three community leaders (Zé Roberto, Elias and Jorge) that
have the trust of the others.

• FAS support helped the group to better understand all the bureaucratic procedures to legalise
their logging livelihood.

• The community decided to invest in more chainsaws and a tractor to speed up the harvesting.

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• They also decided to invest in a woodwork/carpentry shop to produce furniture, doors and
windows. They mentioned that if they could not sell the timber during the period of the
harvesting licence they could still use it in the workshop.

• The woodwork/carpentry shop also needed licensing. This process includes a technical
supervision of the structure and equipment.

• FAS can’t deliver the equipment during the election period, due to specific laws.

• During this period, they are still trying to fulfil the bureaucratic requirements to get the
harvesting licence (not issued yet).

Challenges identified during the mapping process

Interviewees:
Initial lack of understanding of the licensing process. The licensing process is quite complex and
requires considerable paperwork and bureaucracy. Once legalised there is a short window to trade the
timber and this situation can put pressure on timber sale price reducing or even eliminating the profits.
Interviewers:
It’s unlikely that a community like Terra Preta can overcome the bureaucracy by itself. The actual
process for licensing small-scale timber is highly compartmentalised among several institutions with a
lack of proper articulation. During the interview it was mentioned that a single document to allow the
licensing process to move on took 18 months to be issued.

4. Snapshot against CCSL indicators

Engagement Iterative Learning Capacity Development Challenging Institutions

Process P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15 P16 P17

Learning
L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 L8 L9 L10 L11 L12
Outcomes

Value/Practice
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11
Outcomes

AVERAGE 1.5 1.3 2.0 1.1

5. Social learning results

Engagement
Score: 1.5

P1 P2 P3 P4 L1 L2 L3 V1 V2

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Engagement was limited to a small group of men in logging families. There is some evidence that
this engagement fostered learning, particularly given the length of time the project has been
running.
The engagement at Terra Preta seems to be limited to those families with some previous
experience in logging. Logging is also a traditionally male activity in the community, with significant
physical requirements. There is no evidence of intentional efforts to engage youth, maybe because
the project is not fully operational. There are a limited number of participants the project can include
and still be viable and profitable.
Among the participants there seems to be a clear role for three leaders that are trusted and do most
of the pre-operational work and share with the others when common decisions are required or
breakthroughs are achieved. They also seem to identify leaders that are more skilled to deal with
the bureaucracy. There seems to be cohesion among the group but it’s not clear if it has any causal
link to the project. Their understanding of the problem, especially regarding the licensing process,
was enhanced by the interactions within the group and with the external institutional stakeholders.

Logging is a traditionally male activity with significant physical requirements. Women and the elderly
hardly participate and were not engaged. There is no evidence of intentional efforts to engage youth,
maybe because the project is not fully operational. There are a limited number of participants the
project can include and still be viable and profitable.
The group of 18 families remained the same from the beginning and is composed of the families that
use to log timber. Although it’s known that other communities also are developing forest management
initiatives in the reserve, there was no specific mention of involving other groups for collectively trading,
producing or doing other joint efforts [P1, P2, P3].
The engagement at Terra Preta seems to be limited to those families with some previous experience in
logging — other families don’t seem interested, or adopt a ‘wait to see what happens’ position before
engaging in the initiative. Among the participants there seems to be a clear role for three leaders that
are trusted and do most of the pre-operational work and share with the others when common decisions
are required or breakthroughs are achieved. They also seem to identify leaders that are more skilled to
deal with the bureaucracy [L3]. There seems to be cohesion among the group but it’s not clear if it has
any causal link to the project [L2]. Their understanding of the problem, especially regarding the
licensing process, was enhanced by the interactions within the group and with the external institutional
stakeholders [L1].

Iterative learning
Score: 1.3

P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 L4 L5 L6 V3 V4 V5 V6

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Iterative learning happened but was fairly reactive to issues. Outcomes were poor because of
institutional barriers around the project choice, and opportunities for broader learning were missed.
The iterative learning observed in the project could be described as reactive. When a bottleneck iss
identified the leaders gather some information and share in occasional meetings to agree how to
proceed, or how to invest the annual income from Bolsa Floresta Program. Part of these learning
moments was facilitated by institutional stakeholders, such as FAS and DEMUC. Specifically for the
investments, meetings were open enough to foster new ideas to move the initiative further.
On the other hand, it seems that there wasn’t a moment to evaluate if keeping logging timber was
the best income generation alternative under the new context. The project was just an adjustment of
their previous livelihood strategy.
The project is clearly struggling to overcome the massive bureaucracy related to legal timber.
Unfortunately, this project experience is not being used to simplify the process or lobby for reduced
bureaucracy on small-scale forest management. There is no systematisation of the experience by
either external stakeholders (including FAS and DEMUC) or internal ones — and no regular
process of questioning values, norms and governance related with small-scale forest management
for timber. An outcome related to this could be one of the main legacies of this project.

The iterative learning observed in the project could be described as reactive. Once a bottleneck was
identified the leaders gather some information and share in occasional meetings in order to seek for a
common agreement on how to proceed, or how to invest the annual income related invest from Bolsa
Floresta Program. Part of these learning moments was facilitated by institutional stakeholders, such as
FAS and DEMUC. Specifically for the investments, meetings were open enough to foster new ideas to
move the initiative further [P5, P6, P7].
On the other hand, it seems there wasn’t a moment to evaluate whether continuing to log timber was
the best income generation alternative under the new context. The project was just an adjustment of
their previous livelihood strategy. [P8].
The project is clearly struggling to overcome the massive bureaucracy related to legal timber.
Unfortunately, this project experience is not being used to simplify the process or to lobby for reduced
bureaucracy on small-scale forest management. There is no systematisation of the experience by either
external stakeholders (including FAS and DEMUC) or internal ones, and no regular process of
questioning values, norms and governance related with small-scale forest management for timber [P9].
An outcome related to this could be one of the main legacies of this project.
The group demonstrated that they could adapt and incorporate new ideas to the project to overcome
problems [L4]. For example, using woodwork/carpentry as a way of having a viable output for forest
management production that they couldn’t sell on the licence timeframe. Even with all the project’s
drawbacks, the group demonstrated resilience and an understanding that there must be room for failure
[L6] — unusual in many forest communities.
Unfortunately, there has been almost no observed changes from the wider stakeholder groups as a
result of this project — especially the licensing agency (IPAAM) — to ease the process for local
communities access the market for legal timber. [V3].

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Capacity development
Score: 2.0

P10 P11 P12 P13 L7 L8 L9 V7 V8

Capacity development was a little ad hoc, focusing on particular issues as they arose, but over time
had the benefit on collective understanding of the issues. It did not extend to capacity development
of external stakeholders, which was a key blocker for the project success.
The partial scoring on the capacity development process indicators still led to the project
participants demonstrating a similar level of understanding of the project and its problems. In
general, they are more informed on the bureaucratic barriers and other issues related to legal
timber logging. This might be explained by the fact that it’s a cohesive group that had some
knowledge of the activity before the initiative.
The capacity development within the project group can be described as incremental instead of
disruptive. The way they relate to each other and with the market was mostly unchanged.

It is also noticeable that there was no capacity development efforts from other institutional
stakeholders, which is linked to critical bottlenecks related to the initiative.

In addition to BFP, the project had funding to provide training opportunities ranging from technical
issues to entrepreneurship. Some of the leaders also benefited from the capacity development process
of BFP [P10]. No specific capacity building around group learning was mentioned. It is noticeable that
there was no capacity development efforts from the other institutional stakeholders, which is linked to
critical bottlenecks related to the initiative [P11].
Even though capacity development indicators scored poorly, the participants showed a similar level of
understanding of the project and its problems [L7] and are in general more informed on the bureaucratic
barriers and other issues related to legal timber logging [V7]. This might be explained by the fact that
they are a cohesive group with prior knowledge of the activity.
The changes provided to capacity development can be described as incremental instead of disruptive.
The way they relate to each other and with the market are mostly unchanged [V8].

Challenging institutions
Score: 1.1

P14 P15 P16 P17 L10 L11 L12 V9 V10 V11

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Champions were identified and supported institutional change (FAS and DEMUC). However, no
mapping of existing norms and endogenous processes were made. Rather institutional/political
bottlenecks were discovered and tackled during the process. As a result, after a couple of years of
trial and error the project participants have a common understanding of the opportunities and
barriers.
However, there were no internal reflection moments within the group regarding the wider project
scenario and the need to relate with institutional stakeholders in another way. No shift in values or
practices was mentioned. In particular, the licensing agency (IPAAM) was not challenged to make
changes based on the project learning to make its procedures more practical for small-scale timber
management, which could have benefited other communities.

FAS and DEMUC are supporting change from the traditional illegal logging to a legal and sustainable
system. The support has led the group to better conditions (equipment) and understanding of the
problem. The wider set of norms, procedures and requirements are still a major barrier for the
sustainability of moving from unplanned illegal logging to a more structured small-scale community
based legal logging activity.
There was no mapping of existing norms and endogenous processes. Rather, bottlenecks were
discovered during the process [P16]. As a result, after a couple of years of trial and error, project
participants have a common understanding of the opportunities and barriers [L10]. No shift in values or
practices was mentioned [L12].
Overall there were no internal reflection moments within the group about the wider project scenario and
the need to relate with institutional stakeholders in another way. In particular, the group did not
challenge the licensing agency (IPAAM) to make changes based on the project’s learning — to simplify
its procedures [P17] and make them more practical for small-scale timber management (which could
have benefited other communities). In March 2016, since this research, FAS and partners have started
engaging IPAAM to develop a more manageable licensing system for small-scale, low-impact forest
management.

6. Summary: social learning challenges and lessons

learned
The CCSL initiative aims to answer three key questions through the piloting of its M&E Framework for
Social Learning:

• Did social learning take place?

• What factors contributed to successful social learning?

• Did social learning contribute to better and more sustainable development outcomes?
The ultimate goal is to build an evidence base, and understanding, around when social learning
contributes to better and more sustainable development outcomes (and under what circumstances it
does not) in the context of climate change adaptation and food security.
Some social learning took place, but it was more reflective of the immediate issues than fundamental
questioning of how to proceed. It is evident that the community group learned during the implementation
process and have a better understanding of the requirements to engage in legal logging. They were
able to react to the bottlenecks identified. In the future when required to get a new licence, they will deal
with the process in a better way. Despite the lack of routine reflection over practice in regular meetings,

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they were able to share a common level of understanding among the (small) group through more ad-
hoc engagement.
The project has been ongoing since 2009, and is still pre-operational. Looking at the indicators, most of
the positives were related to process, with almost no value/practice changes. This continued attempt to
engage in the process with little results might be related to the momentum of the project — the desire to
make the logging livelihoods work driven by a few champions.
On the other hand, there have been some positive learning outcomes, as shown by the indicators. This
is despite the process indicators being relatively weak. This could be result of the group cohesion and
trusted leaders that in some way compensate the lack of reflection over practice structure.
The capacity development was effective to provide new tools to improve their logging practices, but
there wasn’t much regarding continuous reflection over the whole scenario and how to relate with the
wider institutional stakeholders. The project leverage from the trusted leaders which kept the initiative
going, there seems not to be a backup plan if one, or more of them, decide to leave the initiative.

Arguably, the challenging institutions dimension is probably the single most important component in the
social learning framework with respect to this project’s success. Considering the most significant
bottlenecks were related to the quality of interaction with institutional stakeholders and their willingness
to change their values and practices towards small scale management, it seems more efforts on this
dimension would benefit the initiative.
This case is an example of how the wider institutional stakeholders’ context can impact the
development of a community-based initiative. Even though there was cohesion among the direct
participants from the very beginning, the engagement process should have focused on the institutional
stakeholders.
The external bureaucratic barriers were extremely challenging in this case and there was a need to
relate to external institutional stakeholders in another way. The actual process for licensing small scale
timber is highly compartmentalized among several institutions with a lack of proper articulation. This
was not necessarily something the community could do alone but they were passive in engaging,
reflecting on the wider project scenario, or asking for help.

Wider learning and lobbying could have been achieved in this project by FAS and others on the
difficulty of complying with the overly bureaucratic requirements faced by small-scale forest loggers.

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Indicator table
ID# Process indicators Terra Preta results
P1 Women, youth and other No evidence. The nature of the activity limits the engagement of several groups. No mention was
disadvantaged groups are made of intentional efforts to engage youth and women in the woodwork/carpentry shop.
identified and targeted
P2 Groups/individuals identified are No. The group of 18 families remains the same, no mention of change and inclusion of other
engaged through appropriately individuals was made. Although it is known that other communities also work with logging activities in
tailored means the reserve, there was no specific mention of engagement with other groups.
P3 2 parts: All target a. No. It seems that the leaders do most of the work. Meetings are made when decisions are
groups/individuals are actively needed, or specific tasks or goals are established but most of the families are waiting for the
participating in the project licence. The space for the woodwork shop was made by the group.
a. All target groups/individuals
are actively participating in b. Yes. FAS staff role of facilitator and DEMUC reserve manager were identified as facilitators.
the process Both were considered trusted and effective in distinct ways. FAS staff by their knowledge of the
b. Facilitator role identified as requirements and procedures and DEMUC manager as someone able to engage other
trusted and effective by all stakeholders.
ENGAGEMENT

parties
P4 Emergence of champions is No evidence. Three group leaders were pointed as champions
fostered
L1 [Cognitive]Knowledge of the Yes. The group discussed what happens with the timber harvested on the first license and improved
problem enhanced by their strategy and knowledge of the bureaucratic barriers to legalise the activity.
interactions
L2 [Relational] a. No evidence. The group seems cohesive. No inference of conflicts among the group and with
d. Engagement has led to other groups.
better relations between b. Yes. The group trust their champions to represent them in the licensing process.
target groups/individuals c. Partially (at some level). They mentioned several stakeholders and were able to identify their
e. Trust created roles, and participation on the process.
f. Engagement has led to
awareness and valuing of
other stakeholders
L3 [Normative] 2 parts: a. Yes. They mentioned that there are group members with experience in logging and others (few)
c. Different knowledge types with experience in carpentry. They also identified leaders that are more skilled in dealing with
successfully integrated bureaucracy.
d. Engagement has led b. Partially (at some level). The woodwork/carpentry shop was presented as a collective solution
towards a change in that probably came up from the meetings.

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collective understanding of
the problem and solutions

V1 [Value] Engagement leads to No evidence. At this moment it is hard to assess this indicator.
increased commitment on the
part of target groups/individuals
in reaching the goal of the
project
V2 [Practice] 3 parts: a. No evidence. Some indications that they expand the number of stakeholders involved in the
d. New social networks project
established b. Yes. Although the woodwork/carpentry shop presents as a solution for the project, it is also a
e. New initiatives and projects new initiative.
f. Empowerment of most c. No evidence.
vulnerable beneficiaries
(communities) including
women and children
P5 Cyclical, inclusive learning and Partially (at some level). They have (i) meetings to decide the annual investments; (ii) meetings
evaluation ‘moments’ are with the facilitators; and some reflection happens at FAS training opportunities.
available for the group
P6 Learning and evaluation Partially (at some level). There is some support from the facilitator to contribute with the project
processes are supported and progress, although it’s not intentionally structured as learning and evaluation moments.
facilitated
P7 Systems are in place to foster No.
ITERATIVE LEARNING

and implement new ideas

P8 Questioning the TOC itself and No. The initiative relies on the previous livelihood strategy. The change is a focus on moving from
key assumptions is valued and illegal to legal logging. Some incremental innovation like the woodwork/carpentry shop do not
happening regularly qualify as “questioning the TOC and the key assumptions”.
P9 Questioning of values, norms Hardly. Besides the initial protest, it seems there is a tacit acceptance of the norms at the
and governance underlying reserve and the some level of disapproval related to requirements for the logging activity and for
problem is valued and the woodwork/carpentry shop.
happening regularly
L4 [Cognitive] 2 parts: a. Yes. The woodwork/carpentry shop is an example.
c. Results of b. Yes. The woodwork/carpentry shop is an example.
learning/evaluation are
incorporated into the project
strategy
d. Creative solutions and
innovations are developed

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L5 [Relational] Evidence as No evidence. No relation and behaviour change was identified during the interview.
learning/evaluation takes place
that people understand the
reason to change relations and
behaviours between people and
groups
L6 [Normative] Participants Yes. Even though it is not explicit, the fact that they insisted on the project after the initial failure
understand the need for indicates that they understand there must be room for failure.
alternatives and room to fail
V3 [Value] Wider stakeholder No. For example, this would be the case of the government agency (IPAAM) responsible for the
groups understand the reasons licensing to identify reasons to change behaviours and relations to simplify the small-scale
to change their relations and community based timber logging activity, but there is no evidence of this.
behaviours

V4 [Practice] Wider stakeholder Hardly. There was some intensification of contact between FAS and IPAAM to try to speed up
groups relate to each other the licensing.
differently
V5 [Value] The need for No evidence. The special project ‘Manejar para Conservar’ does not include room to fail (maybe
alternatives and room to fail is due to donor limitations).
evident in other
projects/programmes
V6 [Practice] Alternatives and room No evidence.
to fail are built in to other
projects/programmes
P10 Capacity development activities Partially (at some level). There were several training opportunities, from technical issues to
are integrated into the entrepreneurship. No specific capacity building for social learning was identified.
project/programme
DEVELOPMENT

P11 Capacity development activities Partially (at some level). The capacity development targets only the forest dwellers. No
CAPACITY

target all participants in evidence of capacity development for other stakeholders in the project.
appropriate ways (eg
governments, farmers,
scientists)
P12 Capacity needs are determined Partially (at some level). Most of the capacity needs are determined previously during the
collectively in a bottom-up project design by the technical staff. Some are demanded by the group(s) in a bottom-up manner
manner. (ie carpentry).

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P13 Capacity development needs Partially (at some level). The project is flexible to include new needs such as capacity
are systematically integrated development. The process of identifying the needs and systematically integrating them is limited.
into all project components

L7 [Cognitive] Similar level of Yes. All the stakeholders, including the group, share a similar level of understanding of the
understanding of the problem problem (including barriers and opportunities).
by all stakeholders
L8 [Relational] Increased Partially (at some level). The stakeholders understand in a superficial way others’ perspectives,
understanding between different but it is not shared in a structured way.
participant groups of different
needs and perspectives
L9 [Normative] Increase in No. There is a lack of building capacity for foster social learning.
collective
challenging/understanding
methods of building capacity for
particular stakeholders
V7 [Value] More informed Yes. For example, the community group is much more informed on the bureaucratic barriers and
stakeholders other issues related to legal timber logging.

V8 [Practice] 2 parts: a. No evidence.

c. Capacity development b. Partially (at some level). There is some evidence of changes in practice that reflect a better
leads to different groups understanding of the problem, but no evidence that it is related to capacity development.
working together better
d. Capacity development
leads to changes in practice
that reflect a better
understanding of the
problem and solutions
P14 Key individuals/institutions who Yes. FAS and CEUC support change from the traditional illegal logging to a legal logging system.
will support/champion change The support has led the group to better conditions (equipment) and understanding of the
CHALLENGING
INSTITUTIONS

are identified problem. The wider set of norms, procedures and requirements are still a major barrier for
sustaining the project outcomes.

P15 A change strategy is developed, Partially (at some level). There is the broad strategy of moving from unplanned illegal logging to
including mapping of existing a more structured small-scale community based legal logging activity. No mapping of existing
norms and endogenous norms and endogenous processes was made, though.
processes.

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P16 Existing norms and endogenous No.

processes are mapped

P17 Key institutions are challenged No. The institutions are not being challenged in this way.
to make changes that facilitate
social learning
L10 [Cognitive] Project participants Yes. There is a common understanding of the structured small-scale community based legal
understand the particular logging activity as an opportunity and a common understanding of the bureaucratic requirements
opportunities and barriers as the major barriers.
L11 [Relational] Key institutional and Partially (at some level). They share a common understanding of the problem but no approach
project actors share a common to solving it.
understanding of the problem
and approach to solving (social
learning)
L12 [Normative] Institutions No evidence.
understand that a shift in values
or practice is needed to foster
social learning
V9 [Value/Practice] Reduced No. It would be a major contribution of the project if happens.
number and severity of barriers;
increased number and potential
impact of opportunities
V10 [Value] Challenges lead to No. Besides FAS and DEMUC at some level, the other institutions involved in the process do not
changes in institutional demonstrate openness towards SL-oriented approaches.
openness towards SL-
orientated approaches
(evidenced in eg attitudes,
conflicts)
V11 [Practice] Challenges lead to No. See V10.
changes in institutional support
for SL-oriented approaches
(evidenced in eg policy/roles,
and resources made available
for implementation)

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BFP - Xibauazinho
sustainable fisheries
management
Climate Change Social Learning (CCSL) case
study
By Ben Garside, Leandro Pinheiro, and Victor Salviati
November 2016

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1. Key findings
• At a project level, engagement processes were not actively thought out, and champions were not
actively fostered. However, an important enabling factor for local capacity, trust, leadership, and
institutions was the 15 years Brazilian Ecclesiastical Movement (MEB) church worked on fostering
leaders along with the two very active reserve’s associations.
• Given the above, the community was more self-reliant and pro-active, and FAS fostering a ‘standard’
participatory process on the BFP investment led to very good outcomes.
• The community has shown significant initiative and ability to learn together, although not at the
deeper normative levels of learning. There was a lot of ‘learning by doing’ which included reflection
over practice and ability to adapt the learning from the courses to better fit their reality. Inclusive co-
learning was a key part of this, and both youth groups and women were actively included.
• At a relational level, it is hard to determine whether the ‘good results’ led to better relations and
decreased conflict, or whether increasing good relations has been a driver for improved results —
possibly a combination of the two.
• The community challenged institutions at a level of ‘getting things done’ in the fisheries management
project. Possibly as a result of the previous work by the church (MEB), they are more used to
engaging with external stakeholders and being assertive about what they want or need. This has led
to changes in external stakeholders’ approaches to engaging with the community (and learning from
this with other communities).

2. Project description
Xibauazinho community is a very remote community in Sector 1 of Uacari reserve, Amazon, Brazil. It is
made up of just 12 families. One of the community’s main livelihoods is fishing. Despite access to
markets to sell the fish not being an issue for the community, they had faced several invasions of their
fishing areas by other communities, and were initially poorly organised to respond to this problem of
over-fishing. Xibauazinho saw other communities making money with sustainable management of
Pirarucu fish. They decided this would be a good thing to invest in. There was a good level of
participation from the beginning of everyone in the community, including women.
Through reflect and act learning cycles, Xibauazinho community learned how to improve the way they
organised themselves for fishing, including policing waters for non-compliance with rules and selling
their fish directly to markets rather than through the reserve association. They also learned how to more
effectively manage funds coming from the Bolsa Floresta programme to maximise their benefits by
using funds to maintain and repair equipment rather than replacing it.
Their successful model was used by other communities, and Xibauazinho provided some peer-to-peer
training for this. It also impacted the way FAS did training on fisheries management elsewhere in the
Amazon.
One other important factor in how readily the community organised themselves and learned collectively
was the history of other interventions in the community. Fifteen years ago there was a strong church
movement (the MEB) that focused on leadership and capacity building. One of the major outputs of this
was the creation of the first reserve grassroots association (ASPROC). As part of the reserve, the
Xibauazinho community benefited from this.

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3. Mapping the project process

• Xibauazinho saw other communities making money with sustainable management of Pirarucu
fish. They decided this would be a good thing to invest in. The rules they adopted were based
on the Mamirauá reserve, where sustainable fishing was already happening.

• They requested support from the reserve associations (AMARU, ASPROC) which are well
organised and were able to give them initial insights on how to do it.

• They needed to apply to a number of different government agencies to legally set up the
sustainable fishing area.

• They seized every opportunity presented to them (by DEMUC, IDAM, FAS, ICMBIO) to get
training in lake management, business management and other skills.

• They learned by themselves to better organise the work during the annual fishing season
(splitting fish processing into specific tasks for each group).

• The reserve association noticed that the community was repeatedly asking for the same
equipment over time. Discussing and learning with the community, instead of investing all of the
money of BFP on new fishing equipment, the community decided to reserve part of it for
maintaining existing equipment. This process also included monitoring the number of requests
for funds to repair equipment, which limited the number of applications to the fund (and any
potential fund abuse).

• Other stakeholders had to change the way they interacted with communities as a result of
learning from interactions with Xibauazinho community. For example, FAS staff incorporated
the way Xibauazinho organised their fishing work in their capacity building (training) of other
communities in other reserves.

• In the beginning, they were selling through the reserve association but over a period time they
developed their own channels of sale for the fish.

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• The community’s success was so high that they gained local respect and cross-trained other
communities within their reserve on efficient fish management and processing techniques.

• Together with other communities’ in the reserve they decided to allocate their own social
investment fund to other less well-off communities so that they could benefit from new ways of
fishing (and so improve their livelihoods).

• The community set up surveillance to police the lakes for illegal fishermen.

Challenges identified during the mapping process

Engaging multiple stakeholders
Challenge of having to engage with multiple stakeholders to fulfill all the bureaucracy required to set up
the sustainable fishing area. They did succeed but it was difficult.
Legal powers
The surveillance teams had no legal power to stop or arrest those illegally fishing. However, they used
a three strikes system: three warnings formally presented to the reserve association and a request from
the reserve association on the third warning that the individual be expelled from the Bolsa Floresta
Program.

Lack of maintenance
Lack of maintenance of equipment acquired with BFP investments was recognised as an issue that was
leading to excessive costs on replacing equipment.

4. Snapshot against CCSL indicators

Engagement Iterative Learning Capacity Development Challenging Institutions

Process P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15 P16 P17

Learning
L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 L8 L9 L10 L11 L12
Outcomes

Value/Practice
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11
Outcomes

AVERAGE 2.8 1.9 1.6 1.7

5. Social learning results

Engagement
Score: 2.8

P1 P2 P3 P4 L1 L2 L3 V1 V2

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Engagement has been inclusive and ongoing, there are local institutions for reflection and
champions have been fostered over many years by MEB (unrelated to this project).
At Xibauazinho everybody participates, including women. The youth group are recognised and
trusted by project participants and are themselves fostering a new generation of leaders. The
community self-facilitated to a large degree evidenced by the autonomy of meetings. Particular
reserve leaders are trusted and act as facilitators. Xibauazinho is now invited to help facilitate other
community meetings.
Overall the engagement process of the community with each other and external stakeholders has
improved their collective understanding of the problem and their approach to implementing a
solution. A support fund was put together by the wealthier communities (including this community)
using their social investment money to help with this learning/training process in some of the poorer
communities — demonstrating a desire to foster new initiatives/projects throughout the reserve.
There was also partial evidence that this project helped strengthen existing social networks.
Given that there was very little intervention from FAS in this case to foster engagement processes,
one could speculate that there is little need to actively foster engagement processes to encourage
social learning as part of achieving positive project outcomes. However, delving deeper there are
other factors which have helped build a culture of reflective engagement over time. The most
significant factor in building cohesion and engagement has been previous leadership training and
capacity building processes run by the MEB church movement, which has resulted in strong
community champions and supportive community institutions that engaged in this fisheries
management project.

Xibauazinho has a high level of social capital and cohesion. “At Xibauazinho everybody participates,”
[P3] including women [P1]. This is potentially in part because it is a small community of 12 families, but
a significant factor in building cohesion has been previous leadership training and capacity building
processes run by the church, which has resulted in strong community champions and supportive
community institutions that engaged in this fisheries management project [P4][P2]. Although the project
has not fostered these directly, it is clearly an important enabling factor — for example, the youth group
are recognised and trusted by project participants and are themselves fostering a new generation of
leaders.
FAS, ASPROC, AMARU and DEMUC have provided some facilitation but the community self-facilitated
to a large degree evidenced by the autonomy of meetings. Particular reserve leaders were trusted and
acted as facilitators. Xibauazinho is now invited to help facilitate other community meetings.
During the decision to choose the fishing project, there was a process of prioritising and selecting which
project they wanted to do in which they learned more about the pros and cons of each project as well as
innovation around fish processing, demonstrating knowledge of the problems being enhanced by
interactions [L1]. The community working together and making collective decisions led to stronger
community relations. There are still some conflicts (decreasing over time), but they “manage well,
mostly” [V1]. Overall, by engaging with each other and with external stakeholders, the community has
improved its collective understanding of the problem and its approach to implementing a solution [L3b];
arguably the ability to effectively engage in problem solving on fisheries management.
The project’s success led to respect of the community and their fishing techniques elsewhere in the
reserve. This has led to cross-training and learning in other communities. A support fund was also put
together by the wealthier communities (including this community) using their social investment money
— to help with this learning/training process in some of the poorer communities. This demonstrates a
desire to foster new initiatives/projects [V2b, V2c] throughout the reserve. There is also some evidence
that this project helped strengthen existing social networks [V2a partial].

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Iterative learning
Score: 1.9

P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 L4 L5 L6 V3 V4 V5 V6

Iterative learning focused on reflecting on fisheries management practice led to a key innovation
that required significant relational behavior change.
The community held frequent meetings, reflecting on the project’s progress and its learning. The
key innovative learning on fish processing was incorporated and became the ‘norm’ for fish projects
in other communities. This required change in relations and behaviours and the enforcement of the
fish protection also required learning to take place both among the project group and among wider
stakeholders (communities nearby).
Evaluation processes were also supported and facilitated by the reserve association during
assemblies and specific meetings to deal with BFP (and other) initiatives in the reserve [P6].
Deeper reflection on values, norms and governance did not take place. However, the relational
learning between each other and other stakeholder communities resulted in behaviour change in
managing the fisheries. In particular, the three strikes policy for the illegal fisherman pushed the
illegal fisherman to change their behaviour. Room to fail was not something considered explicitly by
the community, and in there are cultural issues on registering and discussing failure, particularly if it
is due to negligence rather than accident.

There were frequent meetings to reflect on the project’s progress and learning [P5]. Meetings happened
at several levels: community, sector, and reserve. The fish processing learning was incorporated to the
project and became the norm for fish projects in other communities [L4a]. Evaluation processes were
also supported and facilitated by the reserve association during assemblies and specific meetings to
deal with BFP (and other) initiatives in the reserve [P6].
Interactions among the communities to learn from each other were mentioned throughout the interview
and could be an indication that learning and reflection was happening more widely. The fish processing
itself required change in relations and behaviours, and the enforcement of the fish protection also
required learning to take place both among the project group and among wider stakeholders
(communities nearby) [L5].
There was no evidence on whether systems were actively put in place to foster new ideas, although
new ideas such as how to better organise for fish processing came out of discussions. Deeper reflection
on values, norms and governance did not take place. However, the relational learning between each
other and other stakeholder communities resulted in behaviour change in managing the fisheries. In
particular, the three strikes policy for the illegal fisherman pushed the illegal fisherman to change their
behaviour [V3]. Room to fail was not something considered explicitly by the community — and in there
are cultural issues on registering and discussing failure, particularly if it is due to negligence rather than
accident.

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Capacity development
Score: 1.6

P12 P13 L7 L8 L9 V7 V8

Capacity development evolved to be a little more demand driven. Learning by doing as a form of
capacity building to improve technical capacity and capacity on how the community learned
together was also a factor.
Most of the capacity development (when it occurred) was offered by external stakeholders, but the
communities and the reserve association asked for some demand-driven activities. Leaders
participate in the recently established (long term) technical education program offered at the
reserve, actively deciding the subjects and details of the courses offered.
Learning by doing as a form of technical capacity building which also impacted capacity to learn
together was a factor in this case. The community innovated in the processing of fish — clustering
into dedicated work groups to do the processing to improve efficiency. This was their own
innovation which changed the way they worked with each other (and evolved over time through
group learning).
It was so successful that it was the one of the most significant factors leading to the community
training other nearby communities. This peer-assist approach to capacity development also helped
other communities to learn better together — with positive outcomes for fishing practice and yields
for all involved.

The earlier assistance of the church in capacity building on leadership helped build a learning
environment within the community (but was not part of this project). Some of the technical capacity
building on the project may have contributed to people’s level of understanding coming to a similar
platform (and hence facilitating learning), but the evidence is quite tentative.
Most of the capacity development (when it occurred) was offered by external stakeholders, although the
communities and reserve association did request some demand-driven training activities [P11-partial].
Leaders participate in the recently established (long term) technical education program offered at the
reserve, actively deciding the subjects and details of the courses offered. At the community level there
was a similar level of understanding by all stakeholders [L7]. This was more from the engagement and
iterative learning than from any active capacity building. Although, to some extent, the capacity
development they had from external organisations enhanced awareness of the lake management
problem and helped people relate more closely and learn better together.
As mentioned before, the relational learning was significant, in particular on instilling the rules of the
fisheries management in fishermen from the community and surrounding areas. They took learning on
‘soft enforcement’ of illegal fishing (‘three strikes and you’re out of BFP’ rule) from Mamirauá reserve
and adapted this to their own context. This changed the way fishermen interacted and learned from
each other.
They also innovated on the processing of fish — clustering into dedicated work groups to do the
processing to improve efficiency. This was their own innovation which changed the way they worked
with each other (and evolved over time through group learning). It was so successful that it was the one
of the most significant factors that led to the community training other nearby communities L8]. This
peer-assist approach to capacity development also helped other communities to learn better together,
with positive outcomes for fishing practice and yields for all involved [V8].

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Challenging institutions
Score: 1.7

P16 P17 L10 L11 L12 V9 V10 V11

Challenging FAS as an institution helped with developing youth learning and inclusion, also
challenging wider stakeholders (with some success) in engaging with their participatory process.
A change strategy was developed, in the sense that they actively planned to change the way they
(and others) managed the local fisheries. One interesting process point of note was the unusual
request for FAS to support local youth groups as a way of fostering learning and inclusion in the
project.
The community challenged the supporting institutions (including FAS, DEMUC) to have a co-
creative/participatory approach to working with them. As a result, key institutional and project
actors shared a common understanding of the problem and approach to solving it — those actors in
the fisheries management project itself and wider actors such as the reserve association,
community association FAS, DEMUC (and others). They were resistant to top-down approaches
and pushed the concept that any process must be participatory and engage the whole range of
stakeholders. Attitudes of some individuals within the supporting organisations have changed
although there is little evidence of institutional changes as a result.

A change strategy was developed, in the sense that they actively planned to change the way they (and
others) managed the local fisheries — from a traditional way of fishing to the lake management
approach. This in turn required challenging their own institutions and ways of working and although
there wasn’t a formal mapping of norms and processes, norms were taken into consideration to build
the new strategy [P15]. FAS was also asked to support the youth groups as part of the engagement
with the community. It cannot be said that there were active learning outcomes on understanding
institutional opportunities and barriers. However, one process point of note was the unusual request for
FAS to support the local youth groups as a way of fostering learning and inclusion in the project [P17].

Key institutional and project actors share a common understanding of the problem and approach to
solving it — those actors in the fisheries management project itself and wider actors such as the
reserve association, community association FAS, DEMUC (and others) [L11]. The community
challenged the supporting institutions (including FAS, DEMUC) to have a co-creative/participatory
approach to working with them. They were resistant to top-down approaches and pushed the concept
that any process must be participatory and engage the whole range of stakeholders. Attitudes of some
individuals within the supporting organisations have changed although there is little evidence of
institutional change as a result [V10].

6. Summary: social learning challenges and lessons

learned
The CCSL initiative aims to answer three key questions through the piloting of its M&E Framework for
Social Learning:

• Did social learning take place?

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• What factors contributed to successful social learning?

• Did social learning contribute to better and more sustainable development outcomes?
The ultimate goal is to build an evidence base, and understanding, around when social learning
contributes to better and more sustainable development outcomes (and under what circumstances it
does not) in the context of climate change adaptation and food security.
The Xibauazinho community has shown a significant amount of initiative and ability to learn together,
although not at the deeper normative levels of learning. Social learning happened — often through
‘learning by doing’, which included reflection over practice and ability to adapt the learning from the
courses to better fit their reality. At a relational level, it is hard to determine whether the ‘good results’
led to better relations and decreased conflict, or whether increasing good relations has been a driver for
improved results; possibly a combination of the two.
The community is small (12 families), which in itself is likely to have made engagement easier. The
engagement process was somewhat unplanned, with no specific strategy to overcome eventual
barriers. But we consider that there was a very positive enabling environment already in place as a
result of the 15 years that the MEB church spent fostering leaders and two very active reserve
associations in Uacari and Mamirauá. A number of external stakeholders were also actively fostering
sustainable livelihoods initiatives in the reserve. In this positive environment, a standard participatory
approach was enough to trigger good engagement.
The community developed strong project ownership, which led to several other actions that created
learning opportunities. The breakthrough in the widely perceived success of this case was their initiative
to organise participants into teams with specific roles to increase efficiency. This big improvement in
efficiency/productivity also gave the community a sense of pride as it is highly regarded by other
communities in the reserve and is being used by FAS on capacity development in other reserves (such
as Cujubim). It is also noteworthy that the community was the very first in the reserve to create written
rules for lake management and to share results. Now others use their rules as a template.
They have challenged institutions at a level of ‘getting things done’ in the fisheries management project.
Possibly as a result of the previous work by the church, they are more used to engaging with external
stakeholders and being assertive about what they want or need. This has led to changes in how
external stakeholders engage with the community (and learn from this with other communities).

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Indicator table
ID# Process Indicators Xibauazinho results
P1 Women, youth and other Yes. The participation of women at the community and in the project is high according to the
disadvantaged groups are interviewee. Women and youth participate in general.
identified and targeted
P2 Groups/individuals identified Yes. The reserve has a women’s association and youth groups are fostered by ICMBio.
are engaged through
appropriately tailored means
P3 2 parts: All target a. Yes. The participation of women at the community level and in the project is high according to the
groups/individuals are interviewee. The project covers a small community (12 families). There were no quiet groups
actively participating in the identified by the interviewee. “At Xibauazinho everybody participates”.
project b. Yes. FAS, ASPROC, AMARU and DEMUC provided some facilitation but the community structure
c. All target already had a high level of social capital because of previous leadership training and capacity
groups/individuals are building. The community self-facilitated to a large degree evidenced by autonomy of meetings.
actively participating in Particular reserve leaders were trusted and acted as facilitators (one example given was Francisca).
ENGAGEMENT

the process These days, they are invited to help facilitate other community meetings.
d. Facilitator role identified
as trusted and effective
by all parties
P4 Emergence of champions is Yes. Champions were actively fostered by the church over the previous 15 years in the community,
fostered creating a support structure for this project. The youth group is fostering a new generation of leaders.
These efforts are not strictly related to the project, but they are complementary and the leaders from the
MEB, ASPROC and youth groups are recognised and trusted by the project participants.
L1 [Cognitive] Knowledge of the Yes. During the decision to choose the fishing project, there was a process of prioritising and selecting
problem enhanced by which project they wanted to do in which they learned more about the pros/cons of each project. Also
interactions see L8 on the innovation in fish processing that was learned through the process of engagement.
L2 [Relational] a. Partially (at some level). The community working together and making collective decisions led to
g. Engagement has led to stronger community relations. On the other hand there still some conflicts (decreasing), but they
better relations between “manage well, mostly.”
target groups/individuals b. Yes. They are seen as a well-organised group by other communities, reserve association and other
h. Trust created stakeholders.
i. Engagement has led to c. Partially (at some level). They recognise their role but seek independence.
awareness and valuing
of other stakeholders

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L3 [Normative] 2 parts: a. No evidence.

e. Different knowledge b. Yes. The community’s engagement with each other and with external stakeholders has improved
types successfully their understanding of the problem and their approach to implementing a solution.
integrated
f. Engagement has led
towards a change in
collective understanding
of the problem and
solutions
V1 [Value] Engagement leads to Yes. The wide participatory approach from the beginning and continued engagement of stakeholders
increased commitment on has led to increased commitment. Levels of conflict were also seen to decrease over time.
the part of target
groups/individuals in
reaching the goal of the
project
V2 [Practice] 3 parts: a. Partially (at some level). The project brought the community together and strengthened social
g. New social networks capital. This is more of an enhancement of an existing social network. The project meetings were
established also held quite often without FAS, showing a level of autonomy. It should be noted that the
h. New initiatives and community had quite strong cohesion and organisation before the project started because of
projects extensive efforts by the church to build leadership skills over the previous 15 years.
i. Empowerment of most b. Yes. The project’s success led to respect for the community and their fishing techniques elsewhere
vulnerable beneficiaries in the reserve. This has led to cross-training and learning for other communities. A support fund was
(communities) including also put together by the wealthier communities (including the project community) using their social
women and children investment money to help this learning/training process in some of the poorer communities.
c. Yes. Women were empowered, and poorer communities are being considered with special attention
in the reserve gatherings.
P5 Cyclical, inclusive learning Yes. Frequent meetings, with reflections on the progress of the project and what has been learned.
and evaluation ‘moments’ There are meetings happening at several levels: the community, the sector, and the reserve. These
ITERATIVE LEARNING

are available for the group reflected on the project (it was of high interest to others as it began to be more successful).
P6 Learning and evaluation Yes. Evaluation processes are supported and facilitated by the reserve association during assemblies
processes are supported and specific meetings to deal with PBF (and other) initiatives in the reserve. Interactions among the
and facilitated communities to learn from each other were mentioned throughout the interview and could be an
indication that learning and reflection is happening.
P7 Systems are in place to No evidence.
foster and implement new
ideas
P8 Questioning the TOC itself No evidence of this level of reflection
and key assumptions is

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valued and happening

regularly

P9 Questioning of values, No.

norms and governance
underlying problem is valued
and happening regularly
L4 [Cognitive] 2 parts: a. Yes. The fish processing learning was incorporated to the project and became the norm for fish
e. Results of projects in other communities.
learning/evaluation are b. Partially (at some level). (see a)
incorporated into the
project strategy
f. Creative solutions and
innovations are
developed
L5 [Relational] Evidence as Yes. The fish processing required change in relations and behaviours. Enforcing the fish protection also
learning/evaluation takes required learning to take place both among the project group and among wider stakeholders
place that people understand (communities nearby).
the reason to change
relations and behaviours
between people and groups
L6 [Normative] Participants No evidence.
understand the need for
alternatives and room to fail
V3 [Value] Wider stakeholder Yes. The ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy helped the illegal fisherman change their behaviour. There
groups understand the is also some evidence of changing wider behaviour in the way the reserve as a whole discussed overall
reasons to change their fish management policy and decided to help poorer communities with investments to improve their
relations and behaviours livelihoods.

V4 [Practice] Wider stakeholder No evidence.

groups relate to each other
differently
V5 [Value] The need for No.
alternatives and room to fail
is evident in other
projects/programmes
V6 [Practice] Alternatives and No. Failure is usually not registered. This reflects a broader cultural issue on registering and discussing
room to fail are built in to failure, particularly if it is due to negligence rather than accident.
other projects/programmes

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P10 Capacity development Hardly. Some of the technical capacity building may have contributed to people’s level of understanding
activities are integrated into coming to a similar platform (and hence facilitating learning). The earlier assistance of the church (MEB)
the project/programme in capacity building on leadership also helped building a learning environment within the community but
was not part of this project.
P11 Capacity development Partially (at some level). Most of the capacity development is top-down, but some is requested by the
activities target all communities and the reserve association. Leaders participate in the technical education program offered
participants in appropriate at the reserve, actively deciding the subjects and details of the courses offered.
ways (eg governments,
farmers, scientists)
P12 Capacity needs are Hardly. Besides the long term where leaders played an active role to define the programme structure,
determined collectively in a most of the opportunities are decided by external stakeholders. But capacity building was taken up
bottom-up manner strongly when offered from outside.
P13 Capacity development needs No. There was no mention of specific capacity development integrated into the project during the
are systematically integrated interview.
CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

into all project components

L7 [Cognitive] Similar level of Yes. At the community level, yes.
understanding of the
problem by all stakeholders
L8 [Relational] Increased Yes. They took learning on ‘soft enforcement’ of illegal fishing (‘three strikes and you’re out’ rule) from
understanding between Mamiraua reserve and adapted it to their own context. This changed the way fisherman interacted and
different participant groups learned from each other. They also innovated on the process of fish, clustering into dedicated work
of different needs and groups to do the processing more efficiently. This was their own innovation, and it changed the way they
perspectives worked with each other (and evolved over time through group learning). It was so successful that it was
the one of the most significant factors that led to the community training other nearby communities.
L9 [Normative] Increase in No.
collective
challenging/understanding
methods of building capacity
for particular stakeholders
V7 [Value] More informed Partially (at some level). See V8
stakeholders

V8 [Practice] 2 parts: Partially (at some level). To some extent the capacity development they had from external
e. Capacity development organisations (FAS, DEMUC etc), which they actively sought, enhanced the awareness on the lake
leads to different groups management problem and helped people relate more closely and learn better together. The capacity
working together better development they gave to other communities in terms of the approach also helped these other
f. Capacity development communities to learn better together, with positive outcomes for the fishing.
leads to changes in
practice that reflect a

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better understanding of
the problem and
solutions
P14 Key individuals/institutions Partially (at some level). Not in this specific project. Leaders/champions in community institutions were
who will support/champion fostered by the MEB over the previous 15 years, creating an environment for more conducive co-
change are identified learning. Nowadays ICMBio foster the youth groups and the reserve associations support the women’s
association. FAS support the reserve association and promote a bi-annual reserve leaders meeting. It’s
not strictly related to the project itself but complementary.
P15 A change strategy is Yes. They changed from the traditional way of fishing to the lake management approach. There wasn´t
developed, including a mapping of norms and processes, but these were taken into consideration to build the new strategy.
mapping of existing norms
and endogenous processes
P16 Existing norms and No.
endogenous processes are
mapped
CHALLENGING INSTITUTIONS

P17 Key institutions are Yes. They demanded FAS help support the youth groups, which does not happen in the usual PBF
challenged to make changes approach.
that facilitate social learning
L10 [Cognitive] Project No. Not with respect to challenging institutions.
participants understand the
particular opportunities and
barriers
L11 [Relational] Key institutional Yes. At the level of the project problem (sustainable fish management). Reserve association, community
and project actors share a association FAS, DEMUC (and others) had a common understanding and approach to solving it.
common understanding of
the problem and approach to
solving (social learning)
L12 [Normative] Institutions No. Not intentionally, shift is usually in reaction to a situation the scales.
understand that a shift in
values or practice is needed
to foster social learning
V9 [Value/Practice] Reduced No.
number and severity of
barriers; increased number
and potential impact of
opportunities
V10 [Value] Challenges lead to Yes. The community challenged the supporting institutions (FAS, DEMUC etc) to have a co-
changes in institutional creative/participatory approach to working with them. They resisted top-down approaches and pushed
openness towards SL- the concept that any process must be participatory and engage the whole range of stakeholders.

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orientated approaches Attitudes of some individuals within the supporting organisations have changed, although there is little
(evidenced in eg attitudes, evidence of institutional change as a result.
conflicts)
V11 [Practice] Challenges lead to Yes. For example, in the reserve FAS support youth groups. Women’s groups have their own spaces for
changes in institutional learning, reflection, and development of new projects.
support for SL-oriented
approaches (evidenced in eg
policy/roles, and resources
made available for
implementation)

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BFP - Nossa Senhora do

Socorro water supply
network
Climate Change Social Learning (CCSL) case
study
By Ben Garside, Leandro Pinheiro, and Victor Salviati
November 2016

Below, the detailed findings for one of the four case studies in the Bolsa Floresta Program (BFP). The
synthesis analysis across all of the BFP case studies can be found in the working paper detailed above.
To note, this case study is not intended to be representative of the 574 riverine communities that FAS
works with but rather was chosen to explore and compare across a range of BFP projects which have
had varying degrees of success and challenges.

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1. Key findings
• Communities with low levels of active engagement, limited leadership skills and weak community
organisation tend to face difficulties in adequately promoting the necessary engagement required to
maximise learning from an initiative.

• The potential impact of infrastructure projects is significantly lower in communities with low
engagement.

• Without adequate engagement, it is not possible to reflect upon practices, limiting the understanding
of the root causes of the problem the community is trying to resolve.

• In the absence of reflection upon these practices, the community tends not to understand the need
to develop new skills.

• The process of critical thinking by external stakeholders in relation to infrastructure projects is

necessary to foster and promote the necessary conditions for learning to take place as part of the
capital investment.

2. Project description
The community Nossa Senhora do Perpétuo Socorro, on the banks of Acajatuba Lake in Iranduba,
Brasil, is relatively well supplied by a water well. It has a stable electricity supply, as well as a school
and a health clinic, among other welfare services provided by the state. The community also has the
advantage of being quite close to Manaus, which lies half an hour away by speedboat.

Figure 1: Project’s location in Rio Negro, Sustainable Preservation Area

A few years ago, the community began suffering from water shortages, mainly affecting the houses
most distant from the central area of the supply system. The network, installed 20 years ago, supplied
half the houses in the community, and has not been expanded sufficiently in the years since to keep up
with the community’s growth. According to residents, several water consumption habits have also
changed in that time. The old habits of washing clothes, dishes and performing personal hygiene
procedures in the lake have changed, as well as the habit of using ‘dry eco toilets’, which have been
replaced by the infrastructure commonly used in urban settlements.
The energy for the well’s pump came from a diesel generator and the fuel cost was shared between the
municipality and the residents. When the community was connected to the national grid, the pump was
also connected and the community association now pays the electricity bill on a monthly basis, similar
to an urban site. The pump is not automatic; it requires a volunteer to switch it on and off to fill the

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storage tank. With the community’s increase in water consumption, electricity consumption has also
increased, as residents demanded more and more from the pump. It now works at full capacity and
relies on electricity from the main grid. The community can no longer pay the energy bill.
The community’s perception is that the old distribution network did not experience many breakdowns;
however, leakages were causing water shortages; and the increasing use of the pump had caused
increased electricity consumption.
As a result of an internal community assessment of the growing issues caused by water shortages, the
community decided to invest the resources provided by BFP in a new water supply network for the
community.

3. Mapping the project process

• Under the old system, each family is expected to contribute BRL 5.00 monthly (GBP 0.95/USD
1.35) to pay for the electricity used by the pump. The amount was set at a community meeting
and the community association is in charge of managing it.

• The tank and well operation are carried out by an unpaid community volunteer.

• After the community was connected to the grid (as part of national programme called Programa
Luz para Todos, or Light for All), many families purchased washing machines, which also
increased water consumption.

• The old water supply network needs repairs, without which there are leaks. Community
members have identified and fixed one major leak. The repair had a visible impact on the water
supply. As a result, community members understood the need for a new water supply system to
reduce losses and to supply the entire community.

• The community requested the materials though BFP. The labour would be provided by
community members or paid for by them.

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• The community had asked the municipality to pay for labour costs but the municipality declined
to do so.

• More than 50 per cent of the families are in debt in relation to their monthly payments of BRL
5.00 because collective rules are not enforced (the rules state that the family should be
disconnected if payment is outstanding).

• The community devised a plan for debtors to settle their payments offering their labour during
the installation of the new water supply system. Other beneficiaries would contribute with
voluntary work. Only a few debtors agreed to help.

• The network is being installed by a small number of people in the community. Although it will
improve the water supply, the lack of consumption awareness undermines this effort.

• The community is now considering expanding the system with a new well and a larger tank.
They expect to obtain financial support from the municipality with the help of a local councillor.
The community association is planning to increase the charge from BRL 5.00 to BRL 10.00 once the
system is expanded. This increase was not calculated using an appropriate formula and is therefore
seen as arbitrary.

Challenges identified during the mapping process

Community
It is necessary to improve water wastage to reduce system-operating costs. It is necessary to increase
storage to avoid using the pump as frequently and to avoid water shortages during electricity cuts. The
ideal scenario would be to replace the volunteer with a paid worker, who would be responsible for
operating the water supply system.

Interviewers
The community’s initial assessment only focused on infrastructure and didn’t consider water use
practices and adequate management of the supply system issues. The community’s level of awareness
of good practice in water use is low. The superficial analysis of the issue did not engage institutional
stakeholders who could facilitate social learning and provide technical support for making the most out
of the investment.

4. Snapshot against CCSL indicators

Engagement Iterative Learning Capacity Development Challenging Institutions

Process P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15 P16 P17

Learning
L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 L8 L9 L10 L11 L12
Outcomes

Value/Practice
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11
Outcomes

AVERAGE 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.3

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5. Social learning results

Engagement
Score: 0.4

P1 P2 P3 P4 L1 L2 L3 V1 V2

Engagement in the project was limited due to lack of trusted leadership, weak community
organisations, and interest.
There was an initial effort to involve the entire community in the project, especially those who were not
paying for the electricity to switch on the pump. The proposal was to pay the debt by working in the new
water supply system. But few people agreed to it, showing a low efficacy in the engagement carried out
by leaders [P1]. This process is linked to other indicators related to trust in current leaders, the rise of
new leaders [P4], and active community engagement in collective initiatives [P3].
The lack of reflection on the issues involved might be a direct consequence of the lack of community
engagement [L1]; an engagement which is ultimately necessary if a more intelligent (sustainable) water
management system is to be introduced for the community [L3b]. Therefore, only a small group of
people are committed to the initiative [V1], limiting the potential investment impact and the improvement
in quality of life in the medium term. This reflects the fact that the root causes of the issue have not
been adequately discussed and resolved.

Iterative learning
Score: 0.1

P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 L4 L5 L6 V3 V4 V5 V6

Learning and reflection is not organised, reflections and evaluations are ad hoc, due to lack of
engagement.
Assessment of indicators related to interactive learning or reflection on practices is very limited and
none of the indicators received a positive evaluation. Without more effective organisation of the
community, including working with members who do not belong to the community association, reflection
on effective investment of BFP’s resources are embryonic and meetings are limited to discussing how
to use resources for the following year.
Evaluations completed are ad hoc, informal and restricted to existing social circles. These circles have
not included (or been replenished) by young people. They are not completed with facilitation or in a
structured manner designed to improve understanding of the issues. There is an evident co-relation
between the lack of engagement and the lack of iterative learning.

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Capacity development
Score: 0

P10 P11 P12 P13 L7 L8 L9 V7 V8

No capacity development took place.

For this specific project, no training or capacity building activities have been recorded, either on water
supply specifically, or to improve community organisational skills and, as a consequence, social
learning.
There seems to be a co-relation between reflection upon practices (or iterative learning) and the
perceived need to develop new skills.

Challenging institutions
Score: 0.3

P14 P15 P16 P17 L10 L11 L12 V9 V10 V11

Politics and collective lack of ownership of the project within the community and with external
stakeholders has resulted in no active challenging of institutions.
It is clear that there is a lack of understanding about who is responsible for the water supply system. As
a result, several institutional players have been complacent.
The state-owned water supply company could take over the system, but community residents would
have to pay monthly bills based on their consumption and run the risk of having their supply cut if they
fall into arrears. More than half the residents do not pay their monthly contributions to the association;
most do not support this initiative. The municipality administration is not responsible for the well, for the
distribution network, or for the electricity used by the pump. They only provide materials and equipment
upon request, usually negotiated during political election campaigns. The community association lacks
structured management; it does not have the power to demand payment from debtors or to foster good
use practices. Despite this, supply has been maintained even with many people failing to pay for their
electricity.
With this institutional background, it has proven difficult to modify the behaviour of institutional players,
as they currently foster passivity among community members in relation to this issue. Change will only
occur if there is a disruption in this institutional environment either by internal reform (for example,
through better organisation and social empowerment) or through external support.

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6. Summary: social learning challenges and lessons

learned
The CCSL initiative aims to answer three key questions through the piloting of its M&E Framework for
Social Learning:

• Did social learning take place?

• What factors contributed to successful social learning?

• Did social learning contribute to better and more sustainable development outcomes?
Although there has been some reflection on the issues, it has been very superficial and has not taken
place at a group level: no real social learning has taken place. This case study illustrates a common
situation in collective community infrastructure investments in which management issues undermine
positive achievements.
Community engagement in this case is limited and residents are complacent because they have access
to the resource (water) and the supply network (pump and distribution), whether they pay for it or not,
and whether or not they help maintain it.
In this case study, there is a series of community-ingrained institutional issues that prevent the
association effectively managing the system. There is a lack of both leadership and clearly assigned
roles. It would be possible to reverse this situation with a permanent strategy to build capacity to
develop local leadership. This would also help the community to build their ability to manage and
operate the water system.
The community’s awareness of the problem and its root causes is limited, and the perception displayed
by interviewees is that the solution is to expand the existing infrastructure (a new well and a larger
tank). Issues related to good system management and awareness in using resources were rarely
mentioned during interviews.
The decision to invest resources in the water system is therefore a reaction to an ingrained problem
faced by the community. The institutional support received by the community to deal with this issue
does not promote the means to reflect upon the community’s development as a whole, or to build
capacity to manage community infrastructure.

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Indicator table
ID# Process indicators Nossa Senhora do Socorro results
P1 Women, youth and other No.
disadvantaged groups are
identified and targeted

P2 Groups/individuals Yes. Tried to engage different groups, particularly those not paying their bills. But their approach of writing
identified are engaged off water bill debts in exchange for labour was unsuccessful. Little reflection on other ways of engaging
through appropriately groups not participating.
tailored means

P3 2 parts: All target a. Hardly. Most of the households did not participate, just a small cluster close to the president.
groups/individuals are b. Hardly. No facilitator role. President didn’t appear to be trusted by the majority.
actively participating in the
project

c. All target
ENGAGEMENT

groups/individuals
are actively
participating in the
process
d. Facilitator role
identified as trusted
and effective by all
parties
P4 Emergence of champions No. eg The manager of the system is not actively engaged in the decision process.
is fostered

L1 [Cognitive]Knowledge of No. Limited view on the water problem and few reflections on it. Just looking at next step in fixing the
the problem enhanced by system (attitude of when something doesn’t work, discuss the issue then).
interactions

L2 [Relational] a. No. Possibly a dormant conflict as the issues of people not paying/participating have not been
addressed through active engagement.
j. Engagement has b. No.
led to better c. No.

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relations between
target
groups/individuals
k. Trust created
l. Engagement has
led to awareness
and valuing of
other stakeholders
L3 [Normative] 2 parts: a. No.
b. Hardly. Superficial understanding of causes of shortage of water (exclusively focusing on supply)
g. Different knowledge through discussion and learning together. Solutions are limited to asking external stakeholders to
types successfully improve their infrastructure.
integrated
h. Engagement has led
towards a change in
collective
understanding of the
problem and solutions
V1 [Value] Engagement leads No. Little commitment: a small group engaged with each other which led to some installation of new pipes
to increased commitment but little engagement with wider groups which is likely needed to have a sustainable system.
on the part of target
groups/individuals in
reaching the goal of the
project

V2 [Practice] 3 parts: a. No
b. No
j. New social networks c. No.
established
k. New initiatives and
projects
l. Empowerment of most
vulnerable
beneficiaries
(communities)
including women and
children

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P5 Cyclical, inclusive learning No. Meetings happen ad hoc, usually when things go wrong.
and evaluation “moments”
are available for the group

P6 Learning and evaluation No evidence.

processes are supported
and facilitated

P7 Systems are in place to No.

foster and implement new
ideas

P8 Questioning the TOC itself No.

and key assumptions is
ITERATIVE LEARNING

valued and happening

regularly

P9 Questioning of values, No.

norms and governance
underlying problem is
valued and happening
regularly

L4 [Cognitive] 2 parts: a. Hardly. They realise the need to repair/improve the water distribution network based on
observation of the existing one and its leaks. The previous network leaks and lack of valves to
g. Results of isolate parts of the network were not reflected on and improved with the new design.
learning/evaluation are b. No.
incorporated into the
project strategy
h. Creative solutions and
innovations are
developed
L5 [Relational] Evidence as No.
learning/evaluation takes
place that people
understand the reason to
change relations and

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behaviours between
people and groups

L6 [Normative] Participants No.

understand the need for
alternatives and room to
fail

V3 [Value] Wider stakeholder No.

groups understand the
reasons to change their
relations and behaviours

V4 [Practice] Wider No.

stakeholder groups relate
to each other differently

V5 [Value] The need for No.

alternatives and room to
fail is evident in other
projects/programmes

V6 [Practice] Alternatives and No.

room to fail are built in to
other projects/programmes

P10 Capacity development No.

activities are integrated into
DEVELOPMENT

the project/programme
CAPACITY

P11 Capacity development No. No capacity development activities.

activities target all
participants in appropriate
ways (eg governments,
farmers, scientists)

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P12 Capacity needs are No.

determined collectively in a
bottom-up manner

P13 Capacity development No.

needs are systematically
integrated into all project
components

L7 [Cognitive] Similar level of No.

understanding of the
problem by all stakeholders

L8 [Relational] Increased No.

understanding between
different participant groups
of different needs and
perspectives

L9 [Normative] Increase in No.

collective
challenging/understanding
methods of building
capacity for particular
stakeholders

V7 [Value] More informed No.

stakeholders

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V8 [Practice] 2 parts: a. No.

b. No.
g. Capacity development
leads to different
groups working
together better
h. Capacity development
leads to changes in
practice that reflect a
better understanding of
the problem and
solutions

CHALLENGING INSTITUTIONS

P14 Key individuals/institutions No.

who will support/champion
change are identified

P15 A change strategy is No.

developed, including
mapping of existing norms
and endogenous
processes

P16 Existing norms and No.

endogenous processes are
mapped

P17 Key institutions are No.

challenged to make
changes that facilitate
social learning

L10 [Cognitive] Project Yes. Part of the institutional barrier is that the leader is unwilling to cut water supply for those who don’t
participants understand the pay. Many realise this but have not raised the issue.

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particular opportunities and

barriers

L11 [Relational] Key No.

institutional and project
actors share a common
understanding of the
problem and approach to
solving (social learning)

L12 [Normative] Institutions No.

understand that a shift in
values or practice is
needed to foster social
learning

V9 [Value/Practice] Reduced No.

number and severity of
barriers; increased number
and potential impact of
opportunities

V10 [Value] Challenges lead to No.

changes in institutional
openness towards SL-
orientated approaches
(evidenced in eg attitudes,
conflicts)

V11 [Practice] Challenges lead No.

to changes in institutional
support for SL-oriented
approaches (evidenced in
eg policy/roles, and
resources made available
for implementation)

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Collaborative Adaptation
Research Initiative in Africa
and Asia (CARIAA)
Climate Change Social Learning (CCSL)
case study
By Marissa Van Epp and Bernard Cantin
November 2016

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1. Project description
Some parts of the world are especially vulnerable to extreme effects of climate change, such as sea
level rise, changes in precipitation patterns, and glacial melt. These endanger the livelihoods of
millions of poor people. Semi-arid regions, deltas, and glacier and snow-pack dependent river basins
are three such climate change ‘hot spots’.
The goal of the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) is to build
the resilience of vulnerable populations and their livelihoods in these three ‘hot spots’ by supporting
collaborative research to inform adaptation policy and practice in Africa and Asia.
CARIAA supports four consortiums — each consisting of four or five institutions — to conduct a
common research programme on climate change adaptation. Each consortium is looking at how to
improve the resilience of the poor and their livelihoods in one of the above climate change ‘hot spots’
in Africa and Asia. The four consortiums are:

• Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR)

• Deltas, Vulnerability and Climate Change: Migration and Adaptation (DECCMA)

• Himalayan Adaptation, Water, and Resilience (HI-AWARE)

• Pathways to Resilience in Semi-Arid Economies (PRISE)

CARIAA’s collaborative approach aims to broaden and share knowledge on how to address common
adaptation challenges by informing adaptation policy and practice at the local, national, regional, and
international levels.

2. Mapping the project process

The programme emphasises learning across countries and regions, scales, disciplines, and
stakeholder groups. It aims to foster collaboration and knowledge synthesis between the member
institutions of the four consortiums, as well as between the four consortiums themselves. A key
assumption of the programme’s theory of change is that the consortium model facilitates the linking of
researchers with research users and knowledge sharing.
Halfway through the programme’s life, CARIAA has put in place several spaces, processes and
systems that enable collaboration and collective learning across the programme — effectively social
learning. These include programme-wide working groups that bring members of the four consortiums
together around research themes (gender, migration, economics, climate science) and geographic
areas (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ghana), and operational themes (knowledge management and
communications, monitoring and evaluation).

In addition to these spaces, there is a Program Management Committee (PMC), and various
meetings between the Program Officers, Program Coordinators, and focal points of different kinds
(research-into-use, knowledge management, etc) representing the four consortiums. These groups
communicate internally, and with each other, bringing the needs and knowledge of their respective
consortiums to the table.
There is also an Annual Learning Review (ALR), which is the main programme-wide opportunity to
share learning on specific topics (learning included) and co-create knowledge, or organise groups to
do so later. Two ALRs have taken place so far. Programme-wide training workshops and webinars
provide additional opportunities to share knowledge. Lastly, an Opportunities and Synergies Fund has
recently been created to resource consortiums members’ proposals for work that bridges the
consortiums in various ways.
The consortiums have their own internal annual or biannual meetings, management committees, and
sometimes even working groups, that bring together learning from the member institutions. At

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programme level, consortiums-specific ‘research into use’ (RiU) and stakeholder engagement
strategies govern — or will in the near future — learning with external stakeholders. Stakeholder
mapping feeds into both.

3. Snapshot against CCSL indicators

Engagement Iterative Learning Capacity Development Challenging Institutions

Process P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15 P16 P17

Learning
L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 L8 L9 L10 L11 L12
Outcomes

Value/Practice
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11
Outcomes

AVERAGE 2.0 3.0 3.0 2.0

4. Social learning results

Engagement
Score: 2.0

P1 P2 P3 P4 L1 L2 L3 V1 V2

Process
CARIAA consortiums were designed with the idea of fostering a two-way exchange of knowledge and
capacity between Northern and Southern institutions working on climate change adaptation issues.
IDRC’s model encourages the funding of lower-capacity institutions and supporting the capacity

Overview: At programme level some stakeholder groups have yet to be engaged, but CARIAA
consortiums and the programme team at IDRC are moving towards improving their stakeholder
engagement strategies for RiU. Internally, Southern and Northern institutions are collaborating on
research.
Process: CARIAA consortiums were designed with the idea of fostering a two-way exchange of
knowledge and capacity between Northern and Southern institutions. Consortiums have also done
stakeholder mapping and sought to engage communities and governments in the design of their
research. That said, the dominance of research institutions over other kinds of stakeholders limits
the extent of collective learning between different stakeholder groups internally and externally. For

development needed through IDRC Programme Officers. CARIAA members surveyed agree their
institutions have policies or programmes that are effective in recruiting and developing female
researchers as well as supporting gender-sensitive/aware research. Finally, CARIAA is making an
effort to involve and develop the careers of young researchers [P1].
That said, being a collaborative research initiative, the composition of consortiums and their
immediate partnerships is dominated by research institutions over policymakers and practitioners,
and the programme needs to a) explore ways of integrating other types of stakeholders into the
consortiums’ work, and b) improve consortium members’ capacity to communicate research findings
to different audiences. At the 2015 ALR, CARIAA members noted a need for more appropriately
tailored efforts to engage policymakers and link more generally to stakeholders the programme wants
to influence [P2].

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Since then, the CARIAA consortiums have been actively working to ensure identification and
engagement of key stakeholder groups. Though several key stakeholder groups were identified as
‘missing’ during the 2015 ALR (private sector, regional and international stakeholders, and
policymakers), by the 2016 ALR, CARIAA members surveyed cited improvement in engagement
levels. IDRC has encouraged and supported the consortiums to review and revise their RiU strategies
and complete stakeholder mapping. A staged evaluation currently underway is also looking at RiU,
and a meeting to review the findings and work on a programme-wide RiU strategy is planned for the
end of 2016 [P3].

Learning
The programme is actively fostering collaboration and learning between the four consortiums,
promoting a better understanding of climate change adaptation in countries where different
consortiums overlap (including Ghana, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India) and on specific themes that
are relevant to more than one of them. Consortium members come together in cross-consortium
‘country tables’ and thematic working groups to share and co-create knowledge. Program Officers are
tasked with facilitating and monitoring the impact of these initiatives. Collaborative efforts have
included training in gender-sensitive research, communications, and the development of stories of
impact. Research collaborations are ongoing, and there are few outputs at this stage of the program
[L1].
At consortium-level, the consortiums are designed to bring together institutions with complementary
areas of expertise, methodologies and geographic areas of focus that can work together to build a
more holistic and nuanced understanding of the climate change ‘hot spot’ each one focuses on, as
well as of relevant issues within those ‘hot spots’. Most research outputs of the consortiums are the
product of collaborative efforts by two or more institutions [L1].
The bias towards research institutions and researchers in CARIAA consortiums has implications for
the time required for consortiums to strategize efforts that could lead to changes in collective
understanding of the issues CARIAA is tackling. This bias is recognised by programme staff and
consortium members and efforts are underway to rectify it through review of RiU strategies and
stakeholder mapping. But it is still notable that policymakers and community members are largely
external to the programme, accessed through local partners [L3].
There is currently limited evidence that engagement has led to better relations between target
groups/individuals. There is evidence of positive impacts of the engagement of different stakeholder
groups at project level—e.g. local communities and policy makers—but a full review of this evidence
was not feasible given the scope of the peer assist [L2].

Value/Practice
Within CARIAA, while buy-in may not be consistent across all levels of the consortiums, at the lead
level (PIs, coordinators) it is high. Members of functional and thematic working groups also have a
clearer sense of the collective vision and are invested in the overall programme goals. That said,
consortiums’ natural instinct is to represent themselves rather than the whole programme. In some
ways it is too early to judge as the research is just beginning to yield results [V1].
As one interviewee commented, CARIAA has raised its profile since the beginning, but it may not
have the level of recognition and visibility that other large programmes have. This may be due in part
to the lack of centralised engagement of external stakeholders; plans are underway to develop a
programme-level RiU strategy [V1].
It is too early to look for evidence of new social networks, initiatives/projects, or impact on most
vulnerable beneficiaries [V2].

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Iterative learning
Score: 3.0

P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 L4 L5 L6 V3 V4 V5 V6

Overview: Iterative learning at programme level happens primarily through the Annual Learning
Reviews. CARIAA has a learning framework that informs reflection but is not used as a formal M&E
tool.
Process: Processes are in place at programme level to foster and capture learning, though formal
moments for reflection happen infrequently. Similarly, the consortiums do not have many formal
processes for this purpose, but learning still occurs through informal processes.
Learning: CARIAA has a learning framework; it is not formally used to monitor and evaluate
learning at programme level but does inform reflection on learning and programme priorities. After
some delays, follow-up on issues identified during the 2015 Annual Learning Review — primarily
around RiU — is happening.
Value/Practice: It is too early to assess whether CARIAA is having an impact on wider stakeholder
groups and other projects and programmes that are not directly involved in CARIAA projects.

Process
At programme level, Annual Learning Reviews (ALRs) are the primary learning and evaluation
‘moment’ available for the CARIAA programme as a whole. The second ALR, in 2016, for instance,
provided facilitated time and space for the consortiums to learn about each other’s research,
brainstorm and prioritise themes for collaboration, and begin to develop proposals on these themes.
There was also time to share knowledge and learn collectively about theories of change, monitoring
and evaluation, and work happening along the different learning dimensions. Working groups also
provide space for programme-wide reflection, though not all working groups are geared towards this
kind of activity [P5].
Each consortium has its own learning and evaluation ‘moments’ and systems, though some report
finding time for reflection to be a significant challenge. This challenge is exacerbated by the physical
distance and time difference between consortium members. Most 2016 survey respondents agreed
that their consortium had processes in place for fostering, capturing and using collective learning. In
another survey, a majority of respondents indicated that their respective institutions provide formal
and informal opportunities for staff to reflect and learn from each other [P5].
IDRC supports and facilitates learning and evaluation processes through multiple channels. These
include: the ALRs (which involve professional facilitators); the development and maintenance of the
Knowledge Management (KM) Platform; the Opportunities and Synergies Fund (OSF), which is
currently funding a proposal for a cross-consortiums RiU learning framework, as well as a
programme-wide project on stories of change (to track impact); and Program Officers, one per
consortium, who receive training to provide support. The consortiums do not have formal learning
frameworks in place with the exception of PRISE’s Outcome Mapping; instead, learning appears to
be a natural outcome of formal and informal processes, like consortium-specific annual meetings
[P6].
The OSF provides funding for new ideas. The ALR also provides space and time for the development
of new ideas. In 2016, more than seven proposals on topics/themes for collaboration were developed.
At member institution level, a majority of survey respondents agreed that their organisation allows or
encourages staff to integrate new ideas into programming on an ongoing basis [P7].

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Lastly, the ALRs provide an annual forum for revisiting the theory of change (ToC) and assumptions.
While the 2015 ALR incorporated reflection on the ToC, inadequate time was allocated to identify
issues and follow up; the semi-annual review did not take place. The 2016 ALR also incorporated
reflection on the ToC, including a stock-take of consortiums’ systems (ToCs, M&E frameworks, etc),
assessment of their alignment with the overall programme ToC, and discussion on areas where
overlap is lacking, and what is working or not working. At least some of the consortiums have
systems for reviewing their own ToC [P8].

Learning
At programme level, results of learning and evaluation are integrated into the programme strategy.
For example, though follow-up on the issues identified at the first Annual Learning Review was slow
due to key IDRC staff leaving, it did eventually take place. Progress has been made in particular on
issues raised at the first ALR around RIU, M&E, communications, and the need for funding
encouraging cross-consortium collaboration.
Regarding learning about learning, while there is a CARIAA Learning Framework, there is no explicit
or clear system to monitor progress against it (to identify gaps, next steps, and look back) outside the
ALRs.
At consortium level, based on a 2016 survey, there are processes in place for fostering, capturing and
using collective learning. About half of respondents said their consortium had changed their practice
as a result of collective learning over the past year and that their consortium has systems to monitor
the impact of those changes. A similar number also indicated that their consortium had a system to
ensure that ALR results lead to changes in the consortium's practices, and most respondents
indicated that their consortium had taken at least some of the challenges identified at the fist ARL into
consideration and/or adjusted practices based on these challenges [L4].

Value/Practice
It is too early to assess whether CARIAA is having an impact on wider stakeholder groups and other
projects and programmes that are not directly involved in CARIAA projects [V3–V6].

Capacity development

P10 P11 P12 P13 L7 L8 L9 V7 V8

Score: 3.0

Overview: Capacity development in relation to stakeholders’ ability to engage in social learning is

happening; so far it has focused internally on CARIAA consortiums.
Process: Processes are in place at programme level for both top-down and bottom-up identification
of the capacity needs of CARIAA consortiums, as well as for address these needs. Many, but not
all, capacity needs are relevant to social learning; capacity for RiU is one notable example. There is
no evidence that the programme is making an effort to develop the capacity of other stakeholders
(for example, policymakers, communities) to engage in social learning.
Learning and Value/Practice: There is very limited evidence on the learning and value/practice
outcomes of capacity development efforts at this stage, as most capacity development efforts are
only just being implemented.

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Process
Mosy 2016 KML survey respondents indicated that there are processes in place to build their
consortium's capacity to learn collectively [P10].
One of IDRC’s strengths is that it has formal and informal systems to track capacity gaps. These
include: regular reporting tools tailored to the CARIAA programme, the ALR, regular monitoring by
Program Officers assigned to specific consortiums, and meetings with the PMC (which includes
Principal Investigators from each consortium) [P10].
In terms of addressing gaps identified, capacity development activities — some but not all of which
are relevant to social learning — are built into events like the ALR, and also offered through
workshops and other training events. Program Officers support capacity development in their
respective consortiums. Consortiums have also (jointly) conducted training activities for skills that
contribute to members’ ability to engage in social learning, for example, a blogging webinar [P10].
The ALRs and working groups also provide forums for bottom-up identification of capacity needs. For
instance, capacity gaps around RiU were identified through the first ALR in 2015. The 2016 ALR also
provided participants with an opportunity to discuss capacity development as one of the four CARIAA
learning dimensions, and to develop a list of needs and proposed actions [P12].

Learning and Value/Practice

There is limited evidence on the learning and value/practice outcomes of capacity development
efforts at this stage, as it takes time to assess the actual impact of capacity development efforts [L7-9,
V7-8].

Challenging institutions
Score: 2.0

P14 P15 P16 P17 L10 L11 L12 V9 V10 V11

Process

Overview: Institutional challenging — internal and external — has not been a focus for CARIAA up
to this point. There are some processes and systems in place for internal change, but no evidence
on actions aimed at influencing external institutions yet.
Process: At programme level, though there are no formal processes to identify champions of
change for social learning, the working groups provide an opportunity for self-identified champions
to influence the programme. The ALRs provide another such opportunity, and go some way towards
identifying institutional opportunities for, and barriers to, social learning, and the development of a
change strategy. No evidence on efforts to map norms and endogenous processes in external
institutions.
Learning: Within CARIAA, consortiums members have identified particular institutional barriers to
collective learning and collaboration in the programme; some are being addressed. No evidence
that the programme is doing the same for external institutional stakeholders.

The Knowledge Management and Communications (KMC) Working Group — one of several working
groups that support the functioning of CARIAA — is composed of individuals who either have a formal
mandate to engage in KM and communications or who are interested in these topics and have self-
selected into the working group. Many of the working group participants have been identified as
champions of change by other CARIAA members.

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Beyond this CARIAA does not have formal processes to identify champions of change for collective,
iterative learning, though this may take place as a result of processes that are in place for other
purposes. For example, at the second ALR in 2016, some participants volunteered to lead
discussions on specific themes for collaboration, and to take forward proposals that were drafted at
the event [P14]. There is no evidence that external individuals and institutions that will champion
change (in terms of social learning) have been identified [P15].
The ALRs go some way towards identifying internal institutional opportunities for, and barriers to,
social learning, and the development of a change strategy, though this process is not explicitly
designated institutional challenging in the name of social learning. There is no evidence on efforts to
map norms and endogenous processes of external institutions.
Learning
Within CARIAA, consortium members have identified particular institutional barriers to collective
learning and collaboration in the programme. There is no evidence of identifying barriers to, and
opportunities for, promoting social learning-oriented approaches in external institutions [L10].

Value/Practice
It is too early to assess value/practice outcomes of efforts to challenge key institutions [V9-V11].

5. Summary: social learning challenges and

lessons learned
The CCSL Initiative aims to answer three key questions by piloting its M&E Framework for Social
Learning:
4. Did social learning take place?

5. What factors contributed to successful social learning?

6. Did social learning contribute to better and more sustainable development outcomes?
The ultimate goal is to build an evidence base, and understanding, around when social learning
contributes to better and more sustainable development outcomes (and under what circumstances it
does not) in the context of climate change adaptation and food security.

Social learning is happening internally in CARIAA, but it is too soon to assess the extent to which it is
taking place between the programme and other stakeholder groups, such as communities and
policymakers. The programme has yet to achieve its potential for fostering social learning, but many
processes that support social learning are underway and some systems have been put in place to
encourage, track, and use cross-consortium and intra-consortium learning. In this global programme,
the main challenges relate to the size and geographic spread of the programme. While collaboration
and collective learning appears to take place within consortiums, the relatively traditional structuring
of research activities and budgets may limit the extent to which researchers — key stakeholders
themselves — seek or take advantage of opportunities to make this happen across consortiums.
The key factors supporting the social learning that has occurred to date include opportunities for
bottom-up identification of capacity development needs; integration of capacity development activities
(that support CARIAA members’ ability to engage in social learning) into the programme at different
levels; and spaces and processes that foster and/or support collaboration and collective learning
across the programme, like the Annual Learning Reviews and working groups.
In terms of social learning’s impact on development outcomes, it is too early to assess given the
stage of the programme. CARIAA’s stakeholder engagement and RiU strategies will be key tools for
ensuring that collective learning takes place. Documentation of, and reflection on, these processes
will be key to ensuring that the learning is iterative; a greater emphasis on challenging institutions —
internal and external — may be necessary to ensure action follows and development outcomes are
improved by this approach.

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Limitations
Instead of the peer assist process used for the other four case studies, evidence on the key elements
of social learning in CARIAA were collected against the original CCSL framework independently by a
CCSL initiative member. Data were collected through a desk review of relevant documentation, as
well as through seven semi-structured interviews and several informal conversations; the findings
have also been reviewed by IDRC CARIAA staff. Nonetheless, the size of the programme, multiple
layers of analysis, limited resources available for data collection, and limited internal engagement
relative to the other cases have limited the comprehensiveness of the findings.

Sources
CARIAA (2015) Annual Learning Review. Workshop Proceedings
CARIAA (2015) Annual Learning Review. Description
IISD Capacity Assessment survey results
IISD Capacity Assessment Report
CARIAA website and KM Platform
CARIAA (2016) Annual Learning Review. Event Report
CARIAA (2016) Knowledge Management and Learning survey and report. (in draft)
CARIAA (2016) Annual Learning Review Design and Facilitation Brief. (in draft)

CARIAA (2016) Learning Review (in draft)

7 interviews with key informants

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Indicator table
ID# Process indicators ACCRA results
P1 Women, youth and other Programme/consortiums - Yes
disadvantaged groups are
Programme, consortiums and member institution levels:
identified and targeted
• Women: The IISD capacity survey indicates that CARIAA member institutions have policies or programmes
that are effective in recruiting and developing women researchers as well as supporting gender-
sensitive/aware research.
• Young researchers: CARIAA is making an effort to involve and develop the careers of young researchers. The
process of identifying and targeting this stakeholder group varies between consortiums (Interviews G, H). In
HI-AWARE, for example, young researchers are targeted through universities, public calls, and networks
(Interviews G, H).
• Disadvantaged groups: Each consortium contains a mix of Northern and Southern institutions; the intention is
to help build the capacities of the Southern institutions where needed.
At programme level this indicator may not be so relevant, aside from engaging women researchers; what is more
ENGAGEMENT

relevant is the extent to which the programme engages all relevant external stakeholders, including policymakers,
etc. Some stakeholder mapping has taken place at programme level.
Project - No evidence on vulnerable groups specifically
Project level: At project level, this process is governed by the consortiums’ stakeholder engagement strategies.
These are at various levels of completion and implementation across the programme: PRISE has a strategy that
has been implemented at about 50 per cent; HI-AWARE’s strategy is not yet complete. That said, these two
consortiums have already used community consultations to identify study sites and get input on research topics
and outputs. PRISE used stakeholder mapping to also identify other groups, including CSOs, national level
stakeholders.
P2 Groups/individuals identified Programme/consortiums - Partially
are engaged through
Programme and member institution levels:
appropriately tailored means
• Women: No evidence.
Young researchers: Consortiums offer targeted training for this group, like the HI-AWARE Academy training in HI-
AWARE. The programme seeks to promote their work by, for example, featuring them in news items on the
CARIAA website (Interview E). In at least two consortiums, young researchers are paired with more senior
researchers to jointly develop research projects. These mentors, as well as higher-level consortium members,
then track their progress; for example, the Consortium Research Management Team (CRMT) in HI-AWARE is

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responsible for approving the hiring of young researchers and monitoring their progress (Interview G). The level of
mentorship and structure varies by member institution (Interview H).
• Other disadvantaged groups: No evidence on how Southern institutions are made aware of the tender for the
programme. CARIAA member institutions receive capacity development support from IDRC CARIAA Program
Officers.
• Overall: Being a collaborative research initiative, the consortiums are dominated by research institutions (as
opposed to practitioners, policymakers, and other types of institutions). The ALR 2015 report cites participants’
observation that CARIAA needs to work on better articulating research findings to broader audiences. The
IISD capacity survey indicated that a majority of respondents felt the ability to translate and share research
findings in order to convey complex concepts to different stakeholders in clear, relevant and actionable terms
was important and interesting, but a significantly smaller percentage felt they could do this well. Likewise, the
survey indicated that most respondents felt that being able to identify relevant audiences for research findings,
including their respective decision-making needs and communications preferences, was important and
interesting, but a significantly small proportion indicated they felt they could do this well.
• Since then, stakeholder engagement strategies have been revised and improved; RiU strategies have also
been developed (Interview B). A staged evaluation by independent evaluators is taking place and the first of
three consecutive themes for evaluation co-chosen by the evaluators and CARIAA members was RiU
(Interview F). A meeting in December will review the results of the evaluation, allow consortiums to update
each other on their progress on RiU strategies and efforts, look for ways to collaborate, and begin to develop a
programme-level RiU strategy for the IDRC CARIAA team (Interview F).
Project – no evidence
Project level: No evidence on the ways in which different stakeholder groups are engaged.
P3 2 parts: All target a.
groups/individuals are
Programme/consortiums - Partially
actively participating in the
project Though several key stakeholder groups were identified as ‘missing’ during the 2015 ALR (private sector, regional
and international stakeholders), the 2016 KML survey indicated that most respondents felt that these groups had
e. All target groups only been “somewhat” engaged the following year. Regarding policymakers, another ‘missing’ group, most 2016
/individuals are actively KML survey respondents indicated that their engagement had improved over the past year; about half said
participating in the “somewhat” while the other half said “significantly”.
process
f. Facilitator role identified IDRC has encouraged consortiums to revise their RiU strategies and complete stakeholder mapping exercises
as trusted and effective with the intention of eventually being able to work with them to develop a programme-level RiU strategy. A
by all parties meeting in December will take stock of progress, review the results of the first stage of the staged evaluation,
which is focused on RiU, and begin to develop the programme-level strategy.
Project – No evidence

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b.
All levels - No evidence
P4 Emergence of champions is All levels – No evidence
fostered
L1 [Cognitive] Knowledge of the Programme/consortiums - Yes
problem enhanced by
Programme level: The programme is actively fostering collaboration and learning between the four consortiums,
interactions
promoting a better understanding of climate change adaptation in countries where different consortiums overlap
(for example, Ghana and India) and on specific themes that are relevant to more than one of them. Consortium
members come together in cross-consortium ‘country tables’ and thematic working groups to share and co-create
knowledge. As there is no explicit effort to monitor the impact of these activities, evidence is relegated to concrete
outputs of collaborative efforts. As there are currently limited collaborative efforts, especially research-based ones,
there are few such outputs at this stage of the programme.
Consortium level: The consortiums are designed to bring together institutions with complementary areas of
expertise, methodologies and geographic areas of focus that can work together to build a more holistic and
nuanced understanding of the climate change hot spot each one focuses on, as well as of relevant issues within
those hot spots. Most research outputs of the consortiums are the product of collaborative efforts by two or more
institutions.
There is no evidence that knowledge of the problems has been enhanced by interacting with policymakers, but
stakeholder consultations by the consortiums have informed research design and site selection.
Project – Yes
Project level: Stakeholder consultations by the consortiums have informed research design and site selection.
L2 [Relational] No evidence.
m. Engagement has led to
better relations between
target groups/individuals
n. Trust created
o. Engagement has led to
awareness and valuing
of other stakeholders
L3 [Normative] 2 parts: a.
i. Different knowledge types
Programme/consortiums - Partially
successfully integrated
j. Engagement has led Programme and consortiums level: As stated in L1 above, the consortiums are designed to bring together
towards a change in institutions with complementary areas of expertise, methodologies and geographic areas of focus. That said, as it
collective understanding is a collaborative research initiative, most member institutions are research-focused; there are a few practitioner

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of the problem and organisations. This bias towards research is recognised by programme staff and efforts are underway to balance it
solutions through RiU strategies and stakeholder mapping; even so, policymakers and community members are largely
external to the programme, accessed through local partners.
Project – Partially

b.
Programme/consortiums – No evidence
Project – Yes
Project level: Stakeholder consultations by the consortiums informed research design and site selection.
V1 [Value] Engagement leads to Programme/consortiums - Hardly
increased commitment on the
Within CARIAA: While buy-in may not be consistent across all levels of the consortiums, at the lead level (eg PIs)
part of target
it is high. That said, consortiums’ natural instinct is to represent themselves rather than the whole programme. In
groups/individuals in reaching
some ways it is too early: there is no narrative/purpose yet as the research is just beginning (Interview B). A
the goal of the project
programme strategy with the potential to bring CARIAA members closer together is likely to emerge after
December 2016 (Interview E). Internal engagement: Consortiums present themselves as individuals rather than
CARIAA: cohesivity is variable. CARIAA has a structure that has certain sets of actors working closely together:
the RiU, KMC, and M&E working groups, as well as the coordinators, have a clearer sense of the collective vision.
The further out you go (from things that need to be delivered against the central mandate), the less bought-in
people are (Interview E).
For other stakeholders: CARIAA has raised its profile somewhat but it has not had the level of recognition that
other programmes have, because it is not driven by a comms-focused, engagement-centric organisation. There
has not been a lot of centralised engagement, which may have an impact on the programme’s visibility (Interview
A). Plans are underway to develop a programme-level RiU strategy, which should address this need.
Project - No evidence
V2 [Practice] 3 parts: All levels - No evidence
m. New social networks
a. No evidence
established
n. New initiatives and b. Some new partnerships are forming (Interview C1); these are generally small and may involve knowledge
projects sharing but not funding (Interview G). That said, the consortiums themselves engage many local partners
o. Empowerment of most (Interview G).
vulnerable beneficiaries
(communities) including c. No evidence; it is too early to look for evidence.
women and children

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P5 Cyclical, inclusive learning Programme/consortiums - Yes

and evaluation ‘moments’ are
Programme level:
available for the group
• Annual learning reviews (ALRs) are the primary learning and evaluation ‘moment’ available for the
CARIAA programme as a whole. The second ALR in 2016, for example, provided facilitated time and
space for the consortiums to learn about each other’s research, brainstorm and prioritise themes for
collaboration, and begin to develop proposals on these themes. There was also time to share knowledge
and learn collectively about theories of change, monitoring and evaluation, and work happening along the
different learning dimensions.
• Most 2016 KML survey respondents (31 of 45) said they were either “very” or “somewhat” engaged with
the CARIAA learning review process (eg the Annual Learning Reviews); there is some concern that
although the ALRs are open to all CARIAA members, some groups (eg researchers) often choose not to
be involved and are thus harder to reach. More broadly, most 2016 KML survey respondents (19 of 26)
indicated that cross-consortiums learning and/or capacity building had taken place over the previous year.
ITERATIVE LEARNING

• Working groups also provide space for programme-wide reflection, though not all working groups are
geared towards this kind of activity. The Climate Science group, for example, has focused on pulling
together relevant research outputs for the 1.5°C IPCCC meeting (Interview H). The Knowledge
Management and Learning group, however, appears to engage in more reflection-oriented activities.
Consortiums level:
• Each consortium has its own learning and evaluation ‘moments’ and systems, though some report finding
time for reflection to be a significant challenge. This challenge is exacerbated by the physical distance and
time difference between consortium members (Interview H). HI-AWARE, for example, convenes its
members twice a year for ‘HI-AWARE Week’ to consolidate the research that has taken place, learn from
it, and adjust work plans accordingly. HI-AWARE also has a mid-term evaluation, currently underway
(Interview G). PRISE meets once yearly to reflect on implementation of PRISE strategies (stakeholder
engagement, capacity building, M&E, etc.) and adjust work plans going forward.
• A majority of 2016 KML survey respondents (23 out of 29) said their consortium had processes in place
for fostering, capturing and using collective learning.
Member institution level:
• IISD capacity survey respondents indicate that the organisations of a strong majority (82 per cent) provide
formal and informal opportunities for staff to reflect and learn from each other.
Project - No evidence

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P6 Learning and evaluation Programme/consortiums - Yes

processes are supported and
Programme level: IDRC supports and facilitates learning and evaluation processes through multiple channels.
facilitated
These include: the ALRs (which involve professional facilitators); the development and maintenance of the
Knowledge Management (KM) Platform; the Opportunities and Synergies Fund (OSF), which is currently funding a
proposal for a cross-consortiums RiU Learning Framework, as well as a programme-wide project on stories of
change (to track impact); and the Program Officers, one per consortium, who receive training to provide support.
Consortiums level: The consortiums do not have formal frameworks explicitly for learning, with the exception of the
Outcome Mapping process used by PRISE. They do, however, have processes for learning, including consortium-
level annual learning reviews (such as the HI-AWARE Weeks, and the yearly PRISE meeting). But primarily,
according to a key CARIAA member (Interview D), learning is a natural outcome of many informal processes.
Project level - No evidence
P7 Systems are in place to foster Programme/consortiums - Yes
and implement new ideas
Programme/consortiums level: The OSF provides funding for new ideas; consortium members apply for specific
ideas they have developed. The ALR also provides space and time for the development of new ideas. In 2016,
more than seven proposals on topics/themes for collaboration were developed.
Member institution level: Most IISD capacity survey respondents (84 per cent) agree that their organisation allows
or encourages staff to integrate new ideas into programming on an ongoing basis.
Project level - No evidence
P8 Questioning the theory of Programme/consortiums - Yes
change (TOC) itself and key
Programme level: The ALR provides an annual forum for revisiting the TOC and assumptions. While the 2015 ALR
assumptions is valued and
incorporated reflection on the ToC, inadequate time was allocated to identify and follow up issues; the semi-annual
happening regularly
review did not take place. Half of 2016 KML survey respondents (5 of 9) felt that the facilitation of Day 3 of the
2015 ALR was successful in terms of ensuring reflection on the CARIAA TOC, while the other half felt it was
“somewhat” successful. The 2016 ALR also incorporated reflection on the ToC, including a stock-take of
consortiums’ systems (ToCs, M&E frameworks, etc.), assessment of their alignment with the overall programme
ToC, and discussion on areas where overlap is lacking, and what is working/not working. A semi-annual review is
scheduled which could involve further space for discussion of issues identified.
Consortiums level: At least some of the consortiums have systems for reviewing their own TOC. For example, HI-
AWARE has an M&E Learning Framework and impact pathways based on its TOC; the impact pathways are
revisited regularly.
Project level - No evidence
P9 Questioning of values, norms All levels - No evidence
and governance underlying

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problem is valued and

happening regularly
L4 [Cognitive] 2 parts: a.

i. Results of Progam/consortiums level - Yes

learning/evaluation are Programme level: Though follow-up on the issues identified at ALR 2015 was slow because key IDRC staff left, it
incorporated into the did take place/is underway. For instance, M&E has moved towards stories of impact, the OSF is now in place. The
project strategy range of issues raised, plus pushback from consortiums on timing, meant that a mid-year stock-take was difficult
j. Creative solutions and and it did not take place; instead IDRC tried to address multiple issues in parallel by engaging relevant individuals
innovations are in each consortium (Interview B). For example, IDRC has encouraged the consortiums to review and revise their
developed RiU strategies, and several now have RiU coordinators and/or focal points in place.
Regarding learning about learning, while there is a CARIAA learning framework, there no explicit or clear system
to monitor progress against it (to identify gaps, next steps, and look back) outside of the ALRs (Interview B).
Stories of impact work is now underway; the impact of this work is TBD.
At the highest level, the IDRC CARIAA programme staff submit reports to the Executive Committee; IDRC works
with DFID to think about the programme strategy.
Consortiums level: Most 2016 KML survey respondents (23 of 29) said their consortium had processes for
fostering, capturing and using collective learning. 14 said their consortium changed their practice as a result of
collective learning over the past year. And 12 of 14 said their consortium has systems in place to monitor the
impact of those changes.
16 of 28 respondents said their consortium had a system to ensure that ALR results lead to changes in the
consortium's practices (8 respondents said they “did not know”; 4 said “no”). 25 of 29 respondents indicated their
consortium had taken at least some of the challenges identified at the ARL into consideration and/or adjusted
practices based on these challenges. For instance, 14 of 29 said improvements in stakeholder engagement over
the past year could be attributed to the ALR (6 said they “did not know”; 9 said “no”).
In HI-AWARE, learning from HI-AWARE Week is used to revise work plans going forward. PRISE also feeds the
results of its annual meeting into its work plans.
Project level - No evidence
L5 [Relational] Evidence as All levels - No evidence
learning/evaluation takes
place that people understand
the reason to change
relations and behaviours
between people and groups

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L6 [Normative] Participants All levels - No evidence

understand the need for
alternatives and room to fail
V3 [Value] Wider stakeholder All levels - No evidence
groups understand the
Too early to assess.
reasons to change their
relations and behaviours
V4 [Practice] Wider stakeholder All levels - No evidence
groups relate to each other
Too early to assess.
differently
V5 [Value] The need for All levels - No evidence
alternatives and room to fail is
Too early to assess.
evident in other
projects/programmes
V6 [Practice] Alternatives and All levels - No evidence
room to fail are built in to
Too early to assess.
other projects/programmes
P10 Capacity development Programme/consortiums - Yes
activities are integrated into
Programme level: Most 2016 KML survey respondents (19 of 26) indicated that cross-consortiums learning and/or
the project/programme
capacity building had taken place over the previous year.
One of IDRC’s strengths is that it has formal and informal systems in place to track capacity gaps. These include:
CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

regular reporting tools that IDRC has tailored to the CARIAA programme, the ALR, regular monitoring by
programme officers, and meetings with the PMC (PIs from each consortiums) (Interview A). For instance,
discussions at the first ALR and the PMC meeting were means to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the
consortiums. Capacity needs around RiU — the focus of ALR 2015 — were identified and the consortiums are
now being supported to improve their RiU strategies and learning (Interview B).
Capacity development activities — some but not all of which are relevant to social learning — are built into events
like the ALR, and also offered through workshops and other training events. Gender training was conducted in
2015, climate science training was conducted in 2016, and economics training is slated for 2017 (Interviews G, H).
Furthermore, the IDRC model means that IDRC Program Officers are assigned to specific institutions to help them
build the capacity needed; in CARIAA they are assigned to one consortium (4–5 institutions). Finally, IISD was
also contracted to assess baseline capacity across the programme.
Consortiums level: Most 2016 KML survey respondents (23 of 29) said there are processes to build their
consortium's capacity to learn collectively. Program Officers are responsible for identifying capacity gaps and
providing capacity development support. For example, the PRISE Program Officer together with the consortium’s
members identified regional engagement as a weakness; the Program Officer is now using his connections and

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networks to help engage relevant stakeholders at regional level (Interview H). Consortiums have also (jointly)
conducted training activities for skills that contribute to members’ ability to engage in social learning, eg a blogging
webinar.
Project level - No evidence
P11 Capacity development Programme/project - No evidence
activities target all
Programme and consortiums level: CARIAA does provide some targeted capacity development activities for
participants in appropriate
CARIAA members. For example, tailored capacity development activities are provided for young researchers, like
ways (eg governments,
the HI-AWARE Academy week. Another example would be the skill-building sessions provided to ALR 2016
farmers, scientists)
attendees on infographics and outcome mapping. A third example would be the programme-wide training sessions
on gender and climate science that have taken place. That said, there is no evidence on capacity development
activities for external stakeholders, such as policymakers.
Project level - No evidence
P12 Capacity needs are Programme/consortiums - Yes
determined collectively in a
Programme and consortium levels: IISD was hired to do a baseline survey of capacity in CARIAA. Gaps in
bottom-up manner
programme-level capacity are identified in part through CARIAA working groups. Gaps in consortium capacity are
identified through discussions with each consortium’s Program Officer. (Interview C1).
The Annual Learning Reviews are another opportunity for CARIAA members to discuss capacity needs and voice
them to IDRC. For example, participants of the 2015 ALR noted that a) CARIAA consortiums need more learning
on effective cross-consortium collaboration, and b) most researchers are not effective in policy engagement and
therefore need help. The 2016 ALR also provided participants with an opportunity to discuss Capacity
Development as one of the four CARIAA Learning Dimensions, and to develop a list of needs and proposed
actions. Lastly, the content of the 2016 ALR (if not also the 2015 ALR) was decided in consultation with the
consortiums.
There are some examples of capacity development needs that were determined in a top-down manner. For
example, a training session on climate science held in 2016 did not meet the needs of all participants as it was too
advanced for some and not advanced enough for others (Interview H).
Project level - No evidence
P13 Capacity development needs Programme/consortiums – Yes
are systematically integrated
Programme and consortiums levels: See P10 above.
into all project components
Project – No evidence

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L7 [Cognitive] Similar level of All levels - No evidence

understanding of the problem
by all stakeholders
L8 [Relational] Increased All levels - No evidence
understanding between
different participant groups of
different needs and
perspectives
L9 [Normative] Increase in All levels - No evidence
collective challenging/
understanding methods of
building capacity for particular
stakeholders
V7 [Value] More informed All levels - No evidence
stakeholders
V8 [Practice] 2 parts: All levels - No evidence
i. Capacity development
leads to different groups
working together better
j. Capacity development
leads to changes in
practice that reflect a
better understanding of
the problem and
solutions
P14 Key individuals/institutions Programme/consortiums – Partially
CHALLENGING INSTITUTIONS

who will support/champion Programme level: The Knowledge Management and Communications (KMC) Working Group is composed of
change are identified individuals who either have a formal mandate to engage in KM and communications or who are interested in these
topics and have self-selected into the working group. Many of the WG participants have been identified as
champions of change by other CARIAA members. Beyond this CARIAA does not have formal processes in place
to identify champions of change for collective, iterative learning, though this may take place as a result of
processes that are in place for other purposes. For instance, at the second ALR in 2016, some participants
volunteered to lead discussions on specific themes for collaboration, and to take forward proposals that were
drafted at the event.
There is no evidence that external individuals and institutions that will champion change (in terms of social
learning) have been identified.

Project – No evidence

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P15 A change strategy is All levels - Partially

developed, including mapping
Programme level: The ALRs go some way towards identifying institutional opportunities and barriers, and the
of existing norms and
development of a change strategy, though this process is not explicitly designated institutional challenging in the
endogenous processes
name of social learning.
In some ways the design of the programme itself is a change strategy — using consortiums to encourage South-
North cooperation, knowledge sharing and co-production, and capacity development. The CARIAA Learning
Framework helps to ensure that collective, iterative learning is taking place and tracked.
There is no evidence on efforts to map norms and endogenous processes of external institutions.
Project level: At least some of the projects are designed with fostering social learning in mind, whether or not there
is an explicit change strategy for the institutions involved. HI-AWARE, for instance, focuses on knowledge co-
production with communities. ASSAR is also explicitly interested in fostering social learning. Evidence of results is
limited at this stage.
P16 Existing norms and All levels – No evidence
endogenous processes are
Programme level: The Knowledge Management and Learning contract with Euforic Services, which has produced
mapped
a report on collaboration and a review of learning, as well as a design and facilitation brief for Annual Learning
Reviews, has made some progress towards mapping norms and processes around learning within CARIAA. There
is no evidence, however, that the programme is doing this for external institutions that they want to influence (at
this stage). The programme-wide RiU strategy, which will be developed in the near future, is one way forward.
Project level: Again, stakeholder mapping and RiU strategies most likely do some of this.
P17 Key institutions are All levels – No evidence
challenged to make changes
that facilitate social learning
L10 [Cognitive] Project Programme/consortiums - Partially
participants understand the
Programme level: 15 of 31 2016 KML survey respondents indicated that there are, or were over the past year,
particular opportunities and
internal institutional barriers to collective learning in CARIAA (8 said they “did not know”). Respondents also
barriers
identified barriers or challenges to collaboration between consortiums within CARIAA.
Project – No evidence
L11 [Relational] Key institutional All levels – No evidence
and project actors share a
common understanding of the
problem and approach to
solving (social learning)

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L12 [Normative] Institutions All levels – No evidence

understand that a shift in
values or practice is needed
to foster social learning
V9 [Value/Practice] Reduced All levels – No evidence
number and severity of
barriers; increased number
and potential impact of
opportunities
V10 [Value] Challenges lead to All levels – No evidence
changes in institutional
openness towards SL-
orientated approaches
(evidenced in eg attitudes,
conflicts)
V11 [Practice] Challenges lead to All levels – No evidence
changes in institutional
support for SL-oriented
approaches (evidenced in eg
policy/roles, and resources
made available for
implementation)

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Policy Action for Climate

Change Adaptation
(PACCA)
Climate Change Social Learning (CCSL) case
study for Uganda and Tanzania
By Cresensia Asekenye, Edidah Ampaire and Marissa Van Epp
November 2016

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1. Key findings
• PACCA is an ongoing project in early stages, with national Learning Alliances (LAs) having met only a
few times and with some district LAs still being formed.

• Engagement: Wide consultation and targeted engagement carried out in the process of forming LAs
ensured that stakeholders were identified through an inclusive process and led to a diversity of
stakeholders actively participating in the project. There is evidence that the LAs have enhanced their
members’ ability to work together to find a solution to the challenge of ineffective policy
implementation.

• Iterative Learning: A number of mechanisms are in place to ensure learning, reflection and iteration
within PACCA as a project as well as in the LAs. Monitoring and evaluation plays a key role in
ensuring processes are documented and learning takes place at all stages of project implementation.
The lessons drawn are compiled by the PACCA team and shared with meeting participants, as well as
used to inform subsequent engagement and capacity building activities.

• Capacity development: Capacity development is a core component of the project. Capacity building
initiatives target all stakeholders in the LAs, and are based on capacity needs assessments.

• Challenging institutions: Policymakers have been successfully challenged by LA members on more

than one occasion, resulting in changes to policymaking processes. However, these changes are
singular instances with no discernible long-term effects.

• Although social learning is happening within and outside the LAs, social learning is not a concept that
is understood by many, including PACCA team members. This poses challenges in implementing and
monitoring the progress and outcomes of social learning.

2. Project description
Climate change remains a threat to people’s livelihoods in Uganda and Tanzania due to heavy reliance
on climate-dependent resources coupled with reoccurring natural disasters and high levels of poverty.
According to the IPCC fifth assessment report, this vulnerability is expected to increase as temperatures
continue to rise, natural resources are depleted and the occurrences of drought and floods become more
frequent. Lack of reliable evidence on which to base policy decisions, and a shortage of economic
resources and technology (among others), further limit the adaptive and mitigation capacity to climate
change in these countries.
Added to these gaps, conventional research has long failed to impact development strategies, partly due
to the fact that polic makers and development practitioners often have had inadequate access to
research-based evidence, which could inform policy formulation processes and enable appropriate
implementation. To address these gaps, the PACCA project was born. The CCAFS Flagship 4 East Africa
PACCA project is a four-year project launched in 2014 (running till 2017). The project aims to use
interdisciplinary science-based recommendations to influence policy implementation that encourages
adoption of climate smart agricultural practices across multiple scales and actors. The various policy
actors will interact through research–policy dialogue spaces called Learning Alliances (LAs).
The project has two major inter-related components:

• Knowledge creation through research and stakeholder interactions that result in the capacity
building of national policy actors, and

• Engaging policy decision-makers to make use of evidence-based knowledge in the formulation,

review and implementation of policy strategies.

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This is being realised through multi-stakeholder platforms (LAs). The LA creates an opportunity for
sharing research evidence through avenues identified by practitioners as appropriate, enhances the
capacity of national partners (for example, institutions facilitating the LA meetings) and engages
policymakers to adopt strategies that enable effective policy implementation. So the LA is envisaged as
serving as the focal point for the implementation of policy engagement actions. All LAs have developed
(or are in the process of developing) a policy engagement strategy to be implemented over the project’s
life.
The PACCA project is led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and is implemented in
collaboration with several CGIAR centres including CIAT, ILRI, Bioversity and ICRAF. It works closely
with local, regional, and national partners of each country. The CGIAR centres are responsible for
carrying out PACCA research activities, including trade-off analysis, policy and gender analysis, scenario
analysis and applied information economics.

3. Mapping the project process

The process of forming the LAs was characterised by stakeholder consultations, reflection and learning
sessions. In most cases, the project management team implemented an activity in one country, reflected
on it, drew lessons from it and moved to another country to implement a similar activity.

• At the start of the project, the team searched for potential partnerships through web searches for
databases of climate change experts, networking, and snowballing, among other methods. A list
of potential partners was generated and used as the basis for sending out invitations to the
project inception meeting.

• More face-to-face consultations with actors, especially in non-government organisations (NGOs),

were also conducted. These exercises sought to understand the various roles that these
stakeholders would play in the LA, their expectations, additional stakeholders that they would
recommend take part, and general suggestions on how to better implement the LA. It is
interesting to note that some organisations, like Climate Change Concern, heard about PACCA
through other forums and sought more information about it.

• To further enhance PACCA’s mobilisation and facilitation strengths, the programme co-opted
partners to help organise LA activities. For example, the Participatory Ecological Land Use
Management (PELUM), a network of civil society organisations, and the Environment
Management Unit Team of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Cooperatives (EMU-MAFSC),
organised LA inception meetings in Uganda and Tanzania respectively.

• Stakeholders critically reflected on, and discussed, the challenges of climate change- and food
security-related policies cited in the project inception meetings in both Uganda and Tanzania. The
challenges and gaps identified were then consolidated into themes. These themes form the areas
for collective learning and action for climate change policy interventions. Initially in Uganda, four
thematic areas were identified: (i) availability and use of credible evidence in climate change
policy intervention; (ii) coordinating and harmonising climate change policies across sectors; (iii)
influencing inclusive climate change policy development and implementation; and (iv) awareness
creation and advocacy for climate change policy intervention. These were merged into two
themes: (i) policy awareness and (ii) policy engagement. In Tanzania, four thematic areas were
initially agreed: (i) financial resources, (ii) capacity building issues, (iii) institutional arrangement
and policy issues, and (iv) information and knowledge management. These have been merged to
three, namely: (i) the financial mobilisation group; (ii) institutional and policy issues group (iii) the
knowledge generation group and (iv) the information sharing and capacity building group.

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• The Tanzania LA is overseen by a smaller team known as the ‘LA secretariat’. This group is
comprised of representatives from the Vice President’s Office (VPO), EMU-MAFSC, the Prime
Minister’s regional administrative office in Dodoma (TASEMI), the University of Dar es Salaam,
IITA and the four thematic group leaders.

• In an effort to address the coordination disconnect between the national level and the sub-
national level that hampers effective implementation of climate change activities in the two
countries, district LAs have been formed. So far, district LAs have been launched in districts of
Lushoto and Kilolo in Tanzania and in the three districts of Luwero, Rakai and Nwoya in Uganda.
The discussions in the district LAs feed into the national LAs; knowledge transfer between the two
happens via government officials from the district LAs who attend the national LAs, and
representatives from both government and CSOs at national LAs who also attend district LAs.

• Subsequent meetings of the LAs involve the operationalisation of the action plans developed by
the members. Members also look for opportunities to influence the national policies.

• Challenges identified during the mapping process

• Breaking ground and gaining trust from the national partners takes time and requires political and
technical support. Changes to the structures of public institutions also leave an unclear mandate
for technical staff, stalling key processes. For example, the transitioning of the Climate Change
Unit to a department in Uganda slowed the LA formation process down. CCD is responsible for
coordinating all climate change activities in Uganda and therefore getting their support and
commitment was very important for PACCA.
• Consultative processes are also time consuming. Although PACCA generated profiles of potential
LA members, including their interests, the LA inception meetings only happened in late 2014,
nearly a year after the project started.
• Not all policy actors have the same level of understanding on climate change issues, needing
capacity building.
• Dealing with stakeholder expectations during engagements is a challenge. A lesson drawn from
this is that dealing with expectations from the start of the project is important in gathering genuine
appreciation, support and commitment for planned activities. It is important to note that
organisations can join or leave the LA at their convenience but it is of interest to PACCA for the
LA to maintain and expand its membership.

4. Snapshot against the CCSL indicators

Engagement Iterative Learning Capacity Development Challenging Institutions

Process P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15 P16 P17

Learning
L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 L8 L9 L10 L11 L12
Outcomes

Value/Practice
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11
Outcomes

AVERAGE 2.3 2.1 2.7 1.0

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5. Social learning results

Engagement
Score: 2.3

P1 P2 P3 P4 L1 L2 L3 V1 V2

Wide consultation and targeted engagement carried out in forming the LA ensured that
stakeholders were identified through an inclusive process and led to a diversity of stakeholders
actively participating in the project. Though men dominate the LAs, PACCA is developing a strategy
to address the gender imbalance, a result of the work culture. The formation of thematic groups and
development of action plans for each group in national-level LAs, as well as the development of
zonal investment plans in the district-level LAs, demonstrate that the LAs have enhanced their
members’ ability to work together to find a solution to the challenge of ineffective policy
implementation.

As indicated earlier, the process of forming LAs involved wide consultations, and the LA is comprised of a
diversity of stakeholders (P1, P2). In both countries, the LA incudes representatives from government
ministries (VPO, MAFC, TAMISEMI, Ministry of Finance (MoF), Ministry of Water and Environment
(MWE), Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF)), departments (EMU-MAFC, CCD),
and agencies (National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), National Environment Management
Council (NEMC); NGOs (USAID EEA, PELUM, EMLI, UNDP VPO, REPOA) 3; research and academic
institutions (MUCCRI, National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), project scientists, DRD);
media (Vision Group, Monitor Publications); and local governments (Rakai, Luwero, Mbale, Nwoya, Kilolo
and Lushoto) (P3).
Gender is a key component of PACCA. A recent synthesis of the attendance registers for national LAs
(after their first and second meetings) revealed that men dominate the LAs in both countries. Strategies
are being devised on how to increase the representation of women and youth in the LAs. The challenge
faced here is that due to logistical issues, it is difficult to have two or more representatives attend the
same meeting, and most organisations send men.
During LA engagement meetings, experienced moderators are brought in to facilitate 4 (P3). In their
feedback forms, LA members have often appreciated the expertise of the moderators in facilitating
discussion, interactions and sharing of ideas. Several organisations have taken a lead in LA engagement
activities that are of interest to them (P3, P4, V1). For example, the Vice President’s Office (VPO) in
Tanzania took a lead in organising the scenario-guided policy review of the draft National Environment
Policy (NEP) using the CCAFS East African socioeconomic scenarios. This review meeting was attended
by practitioners (including NGOs), members of LA thematic group two, government ministries and other
key stakeholders. In Uganda, the Agri-Profocus – SNV organisation took up the responsibility of co-
financing the non-state actors’ consultative workshop to review, undertake scenario projection and
provide consolidated non-state actor input to the Agricultural Sector Strategic Plan (ASSP).
Targeted engagements with stakeholders have also been organised by the LAs (P2, P3). A breakfast
meeting was arranged for policymakers from MAAIF, CCD and NARO in Uganda to share research

3
These include farmers’ associations.
4
In Tanzania it is usually the same facilitator each time; in Uganda different facilitators have been used.

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evidence on coffee suitability maps in the face of climate change in the country. In preparation for a high
level engagement on gender with policymakers this year, the LA organised a preparatory workshop on
gender to: 1) share research evidence on gender and climate change adaptation; 2) highlight gender
gaps that affect climate change adaptation at all levels; 3) develop key harmonised gender messages for
engaging policymakers and communication tools that will be used, for example, policy briefs; and 4)
share roles on preparing messages for dissemination.
LA members have undertaken tasks that demonstrate an enhancement in their ability to jointly work
together to find a solution to the challenge of ineffective policy implementation. Following the identification
of areas for collective learning, LA members formed thematic groups and developed action plans for each
area (L1, L3). The action plans detail the policy issues being addressed, activities that will be undertaken
to address the policy issues, target audiences to be reached to bring about the necessary changes and
the expected outputs, the lead implementing agency, and the timeframe for action.
At sub-national/district level, LA members developed zonal plans for implementing CSA in their districts
(L1). The idea behind the concept of zonal planning is that climate change adaptation is context-specific
and so necessitates the development of locally appropriate climate smart practices. This activity started
with the zoning of each district into different livelihood zones. The stakeholders came up with a number of
criteria for zoning their districts, including vegetation cover, topography, and farming systems. 5
Consequently, enterprises that the districts could promote in the face of climate change were also
identified and prioritised. From this planning, priorities are extracted by the district technical planning
committee and integrated in the district development plans. The learning alliance also extracts priorities
that constitute their engagement plan.

Iterative learning
Score: 2.1

P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 L4 L5 L6 V3 V4 V5 V6

A number of mechanisms are in place to ensure learning, reflection and iteration within PACCA as a
project as well as within the LAs. Monitoring and evaluation plays a key role in ensuring processes
are documented and learning takes place at all stages of project implementation. Reflection by LA
members on the functioning and outcomes of the LA is also encouraged. The lessons drawn are
compiled by the PACCA team and shared with meeting participants, as well as used to inform
subsequent engagement and capacity building activities. Effects on wider stakeholder groups have
not yet been observed as the LAs are still in the early stages of development and action.

A number of mechanisms are in place to ensure learning, reflection and iteration within PACCA as a
project as well as within the LAs. Monitoring and evaluation plays a key role to ensure processes are
documented and learning takes place at all stages of project implementation. Simple monitoring tools are
used by both members of the LA and the project staff. These include: knowledge, attitude and skills
surveys, attendance registration, reflection and review meetings, network analysis, meeting monitoring
tools and activity evaluations. The lessons drawn often inform the subsequent engagement activities.
Before LA engagement activities begin, members are asked to write down what they expect to gain from
the activity. After the activities they are asked to reflect on whether their objectives were met, and to make

5
Stakeholders do not generally include community members, though the district level government is expected to consult community
members according to the district LA action plans.

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recommendations on improving the next round (P5). A reflection session was also conducted where
members evaluated several aspects of the LA in terms of what is going well or not, including: the purpose
of the LA; frequency of interface within the thematic groups; execution of planned activities; maximizing
policy windows; facilitation and organisation of the LA; internal and external communication; capacity
building and efforts to ensure sustainability of the LA (P5).
The PACCA project team synthesises and compiles the findings (P6). These findings are not only shared
with the participants in the subsequent meetings but also used to inform decisions on future engagement
activities. For example, in one of the activity evaluations in Uganda, LA members indicated that they
wanted to build their capacity on policy processes. Additionally, the KAS study carried out with the LA
members revealed the presence of capacity gaps on policy processes, among others. In response, a
capacity building workshop was organised for LA members to raise awareness in agriculture-climate
related policies and on engaging target stakeholders. From the workshop, members acquired knowledge,
and developed skills in writing policy briefs, conducting media communication and developing
communication strategies for the science-policy interface. Consequently, six draft policy briefs were
developed and submitted to the LA secretariat. (P7, L4).

Capacity building
Score: 2.7

P10 P11 P12 P13 L7 L8 L9 V7 V8

Capacity development is a core component of the project. Capacity building initiatives target not
only policy/decision makers, but also other stakeholders in the LAs, and are based on capacity
needs assessments. It is too early to assess the impact of capacity building activities on
stakeholders, but surveys distributed after LA meetings indicate improved knowledge on key topics.

All activities in PACCA aim to help policymakers make informed decisions on climate change adaptation
by using available research evidence on climate change, policy and gender (P10, P13): capacity
development is a core component of the project. These capacity building initiatives not only target
policymakers but also multiple stakeholders in the LA (including government officials, NGOs, CSOs,
scientists, media, academia, cultural institutions) (P11). The project views LA members as ‘champions of
change’ in the policy engagement actions designed and implemented by LA members.
Capacity building sessions are based on the assessed needs of the LA members (P12). Although PACCA
undertakes deliberate capacity building initiatives for its members in response to the capacity needs
assessments (P13), it is also common practice for research evidence to be presented during LA
meetings. Here, the facilitator plays an instrumental role to initiate interactions, discussions and group
activities among LA members. Additionally the facilitators always emphasise the need to respect one
another’s ideas.
The research evidence is generated from the PACCA research implemented by the IITA and its CGIAR
partners (Bioversity, CIAT, ILRI and ICRAF). The activities fall into two major clusters: 1) creating
knowledge around trade-offs and synergies between climate change adaptation options, with relevance to
decision making by policy actors; and 2) policy actor networks, policy analysis, and gender analysis. They
include trade-off analysis, policy and gender analysis, scenario guided policy development and applied
information economics. This research focuses on questions such as: who are the actors, how are they
connected, who decides what, what are the policies, what are the gaps, overlaps, and possible conflicts,

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who is implementing these policies and how do mandates and resources affect implementation
effectiveness.
Results from the baseline study on the knowledge, attitude and skills of the LA members indicates that
there are varying knowledge levels on climate change (impacts and adaptation options) and policy
processes; skills (climate change adaptation, policy implementation and advocacy skills) and attitudes on
the role of research and the LA in improving policy implementation in each country (L7).
LA members also often share their research and experiences during engagement meetings. In this way,
other members of the alliance can tap and benefit from their expertise and experience. The LAs offer
space for the members to share ideas and experiences, thereby fostering learning from one another and
enhancing capacity.

Challenging institutions
Score: 1.0

P14 P15 P16 P17 L10 L11 L12 V9 V10 V11

Policymakers have been successfully challenged by LA members on more than one occasion,
resulting in changes to policymaking processes. However, these changes are singular instances
with no discernible long-term effects. Policymakers’ attendance at LA meetings may help to build
momentum for longer-term effects.

‘Policy windows’ in the national development planning process serve as an entry point for the LA
engagement activities (L10). These windows present opportunities for changes in the way policies have
previously been formulated and implemented. In the review of the NEP in Tanzania, the LA approached
officials from the VPO to conduct a scenario-guided policy review. The VPO responded positively and
took a lead in the process that saw consultation on the NEP review take three rounds instead of the usual
two to allow for incorporation of the scenario-guided recommendations in the policy.
Similarly in Uganda, the LA seized the opportunity presented by the review of the Agricultural Sector
Strategic Plan (ASSP) to put forth a position paper for the ASSP that has been accepted by MAAIF. Non-
state actors were also given an opportunity to review the draft through scenario-guided planning. This
also illustrates the recognition of and respect for the mandates and roles of the different institutions (P16).

The members have also seized opportunities when key policymakers are invited to LA meetings to
question the status quo of certain things within government institutions (P9, P17). The commissioner of
the Climate Change Department (CCD) was once asked what his office was doing to address the
observed overlap of the mandates of his department and the National Environment Management
Authority.

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6. Summary: social learning challenges and lessons

learned
PACCA is an ongoing project with the national LAs having met only a couple of times (on average, four
times since inception). It may take a while to realise the outcomes of some initiatives, such as social
learning.
Engagement in the LAs has seen multiple stakeholders with diverse expertise and experiences come
together to generate solutions for policy implementation inefficiencies in climate change adaptation. In
developing action plans for the national LAs, stakeholders used their experience and the available
research evidence to generate actions to improve the status quo of implementing policy. The facilitators
have been essential in initiating interactions, discussions and group activities among LA members. To
further facilitate communication and free exchange of ideas, the LA members in each country formed a
WhatsApp group. In sum, all this enhances stakeholders’ abilities to learn from each other.
This also demonstrates one of the common forms in which collective learning and capacity development
happens in the LA: where stakeholders use their experience and expertise to make use of the available
research evidence. Lessons from the reflection exercises inform subsequent activities and decisions. It
should be noted that most of the iterative learning is currently facilitated by the PACCA staff, but the LA is
expected to take up an active role now that most members have a better understanding of how the
alliance operates. Participants have indicated in some of their evaluation forms that they share the
knowledge acquired from the LA with colleagues, local politicians and community members.
Although social learning is happening within and outside the LAs, social learning is not a concept that is
understood by many, including PACCA team members. This poses challenges in implementing and
monitoring the progress and outcomes of social learning. Initiatives such as the CCSL initiative remain
very relevant and will have to continuously assist the projects with the social learning concept.

References
PACCA (2014) A Report on Activity 7 (Implementation of Jointly Proposed Policy Engagement
Strategies). Progress in 2014. The Learning Alliance report for 2014.
PACCA (2015) RBM trial PACCA-May 2015. A report on the processes and lessons from the
implementation of PACCA

PACCA (2015) LA2 Synthesis report. The Activity Evaluation Report for the second Learning Meetings in
Uganda and Tanzania.
PACCA (2015) District LA launch Evaluation Report for Rakai and Luwero. Activity Evaluation reports for
the district LA Launch workshop in Luwero and Rakai.
PACCA (2015) Uganda Learning Alliance Action Planning Report PACCA Workshop report. March 31st
2015, Hotel Africana

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Indicator table
# Process indicators PACCA results
P1 Women, youth and other Yes. At this stage of LA formation, PACCA’s interest was more on the diversity of organisations
disadvantaged groups are identified represented than the gender perspective. However, now that the LAs are operational, a gender
and targeted lens is being considered in terms of individuals represented in the LA. It is important to note that
NGOs and CSOs that work with youth, women and other often marginalised groups are part of
the LA.
P2 Groups/individuals identified are Yes. Targeted engagements are planned with the ways of working of different stakeholders in
engaged through appropriately mind. For example, a breakfast meeting was used to deliver research findings on the effects of
tailored means climate change on coffee in Uganda to policymakers from the NARO, CCD and MAAIF, while
workshops are often organised for stakeholders from NGOs and CSOs.
P3 2 parts: All target groups/individuals a. Yes. Although the LA has diverse stakeholders (including from government ministries,
are actively participating in the departments and agencies, NGOs and CSOs, media, academia, research, cultural institutions,
ENGAGEMENT

project and consultancies) there have been cases where LA members have suggested other
g. All target groups /individuals are
stakeholders. For example, in Rakai, people wanted the environmental police who are
actively participating in the
process responsible for law enforcement to be part of the LA. There is also a challenge on how to
h. Facilitator role identified as interest the private sector to join the LA. The private sector in most cases wants to see tangible
trusted and effective by all benefits, not the soft benefits that the LA promotes.
parties
The CCD, whose mandate is to coordinate climate change issues in Uganda, has taken an
active role in the LA. The CCD commissioner attends most of the LA engagements and in early
December 2015, the department led a dissemination campaign on climate change targeting LA
members in Nwoya districts. The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal, Industry and Fisheries’
(MAAIF) climate change task force in Uganda is taking a lead role in developing climate change
mainstreaming guidelines in the agriculture sector while the Vice President’s Office in Tanzania
is leading processes involved in the scenario-guided policy review of the National
Environmental Policy against the CCAFS East African socioeconomic scenario
recommendations.
b. Yes. Feedback from the evaluation assessments indicates that LA members are happy with
how meetings are facilitated. LA meetings are facilitated in such a way that cultivates trust and

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respect for one another’s ideas. Participants feel free and openly share their experiences in
plenary, group discussions, tasks and on a one-to-one basis during tea breaks.
P4 Emergence of champions is Yes. Champions are emerging from the LA. Organisations are committing resources to facilitate
fostered activities. Organisations offered meeting space in the preparatory meetings and co-funded the
workshops that engaged the stakeholders from the National Planning Authority and MAAIF to
review the Agricultural Sector Strategic Plan (ASSP) using the CCAFS East African
socioeconomic scenarios.
L1 [Cognitive] Knowledge of the Yes. The use of research evidence presented during the meeting to generate action plans is an
problem enhanced by interactions example. Stakeholders in the district LAs were also able to zone their districts into agro-
ecological zones. Subsequently enterprises were prioritized for the different zones. Specific
CSAs will then be developed for the identified enterprises. Activity evaluations also reveal that
the stakeholders acquired new knowledge from the LA meetings.
L2 [Relational] a. Hardly. PACCA collected data for a social network analysis during the launch of the district
p. Engagement has led to LAs. It is yet to analyse these data for monitoring this indicator.
better relations between
target groups/individuals See P3, the LA members have been able to link with the responsible government ministries,
q. Trust created departments and agencies to do activities that promote CSA adoption.
r. Engagement has led to
awareness and valuing of As indicated in P1, deliberate efforts have been undertaken to increase the representation of
other stakeholders women and youth in the LA.
b. No evidence
c. No evidence
L3 [Normative] 2 parts: a. Partially. Several initiatives have been undertaken and evaluation reports attribute the
k. Different knowledge types attainment of knowledge to the LA engagement activities.
successfully integrated
l. Engagement has led towards a b. Yes. See L1 on the development of action plans by the different LA thematic groups.
change in collective
understanding of the problem
and solutions
V1 [Value] Engagement leads to Partially. See P4 on how organisations are beginning to commit resources to help achieve LA
increased commitment on the part goals.
of target groups/individuals in
reaching the goal of the project

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V2 [Practice] 3 parts: a. No evidence. Baseline data for a SNA is yet to be analysed.

p. New social networks
established b. Partially. The development of action plans by the different LA thematic groups demonstrates
q. New initiatives and projects that the LA has appreciated the challenges and gaps limiting effective policy implementation
r. Empowerment of most and so taken a step to address the identified issues.
vulnerable beneficiaries
(communities) including women A draft communication strategy for the LA is in place. The strategy highlights how LA members
and children will communicate among themselves and to the outside world.
c. No evidence
P5 Cyclical, inclusive learning and Yes. Activity evaluations form an integral part of the LA meetings. Sessions dedicated to
evaluation ‘moments’ are available reflection and learning from past experiences are regular in the LA and for the project team.
for the group
P6 Learning and evaluation processes Yes. The project team facilitates the reflection and learning sessions. Feedback from the
are supported and facilitated evaluation is compiled, analysed and shared with LA members.
P7 Systems are in place to foster and Yes. We do adaptive management within PACCA. As such, learning from past experiences and
implement new ideas adopting new strategies/ideas if they can improve efficiency is what we love to do. We are
cultivating a culture of learning and ‘not being afraid to fail’ within the LA. LA members develop
their action plans and PACCA will help implement them.
ITERATIVE LEARNING

P8 Questioning the TOC itself and key No.

assumptions is valued and
happening regularly
P9 Questioning of values, norms and Partially. This occurs frequently, eg the issue of political interference in implementing policies
governance underlying problem is has come up in plenary discussions in most meetings. People believe that one of the reasons
valued and happening regularly why policies are not effectively implemented is because the technocrats and politicians send
contradicting messages; eg planting eucalyptus in wetlands is not advised by the technocrats
but the politicians still give licences to the rich in some districts like Rakai. Whenever
policymakers are invited to LA events, the LA members take the opportunity to ask why things
are not happening in the way they expect. LA members also take advantage of any
opportunities in the national development planning process to serve as an entry point for the
learning alliance engagement activities.

L4 [Cognitive] 2 parts: a. and b. Yes. See P5 and P7.

k. Results of learning/evaluation
are incorporated into the project
strategy

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l. Creative solutions and

innovations are developed
L5 [Relational] Evidence as Hardly. Data have not been collected specifically for this. However, for all the mixed groups in
learning/evaluation takes place that the LA to work together and come up with joint plans and action on how to improve policy
people understand the reason to implementation in each country demonstrates L5. Also, in several LA forums, members have
change relations and behaviours recommended the involvement of other stakeholders eg in the district platforms, members
between people and groups advocated that law enforcement officers such as the environment police be integrated into the
LA. Recommendations to have cultural and religious leaders, women and youth groups have
been very frequent in LA forums.
L6 [Normative] Participants understand Partially. This is emphasised a lot in the LA (room to fail). Action plans are regarded as living
the need for alternatives and room documents.
to fail
V3 [Value] Wider stakeholder groups No evidence. The reflection meeting assessed the perceptions on the performance of the LA
understand the reasons to change among others.
their relations and behaviours
V4 [Practice] Wider stakeholder groups No evidence.
relate to each other differently
V5 [Value] The need for alternatives No evidence.
and room to fail is evident in other
projects/programmes
V6 [Practice] Alternatives and room to No evidence.
fail are built in to other
projects/programmes
P1 Capacity development activities are Yes. All engagement activities have a capacity building component embedded in them.
0 integrated into the
CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

project/programme
P1 Capacity development activities Yes. The capacity building initiatives not only target policymakers but also other stakeholders in
1 target all participants in appropriate the LA (government officials, NGOs, CSOs, scientists, media, academia, cultural institutions,
ways (eg governments, farmers, etc).
scientists)
P1 Capacity needs are determined Yes. Formal and informal capacity needs assessments are conducted to determine the needs
2 collectively in a bottom-up manner of LA members. Capacity building initiatives are created based on members’ needs. In late
November, 2015, a capacity building training on ‘creating policy awareness and communication
strategies’ was held.
P1 Capacity development needs are Yes. See P10.
3 systematically integrated into all
project components

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L7 [Cognitive] Similar level of Partially. A knowledge, attitude and skills (KAS) study was carried out with LA members at
understanding of the problem by all national and district levels. Preliminary analysis of the results indicates that there are varying
stakeholders knowledge levels on climate change (impacts and adaptation options) and policy processes.

L8 [Relational] Increased Partially. Both the stakeholders from government and nongovernment understand each other’s
understanding between different ways of working.
participant groups of different needs
and perspectives
L9 [Normative] Increase in collective No evidence.
challenging/understanding methods
of building capacity for particular
stakeholders
V7 [Value] More informed stakeholders Yes. There is evidence of changes in knowledge acquired as a result of participating in the
learning alliances. This has been reported in some of the LA activity evaluation reports.
V8 [Practice] 2 parts: No evidence.
k. Capacity development leads to
different groups working
together better
l. Capacity development leads to
changes in practice that reflect
a better understanding of the
problem and solutions
CHALLENGING INSTITUTIONS

P1 Key individuals/institutions who will Partially. See P4.

4 support/champion change are
identified
P1 A change strategy is developed, No evidence.
5 including mapping of existing norms
and endogenous processes
P1 Existing norms and endogenous No. But the mandates of the different institutions are recognised and respected.
6 processes are mapped

P1 Key institutions are challenged to Hardly. The CCD, whose mandate is to coordinate climate change activities within the country,
7 make changes that facilitate social has always been tasked to give updates on the achievements made by the department as well
learning as other emerging issues eg feedback from COP21.

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L1 [Cognitive] Project participants Partially. Stakeholders make use of any opportunities presented to them, eg seizing policy
0 understand the particular windows. Action plans have been developed to address some of the barriers to implementing
opportunities and barriers policy.

L1 [Relational] Key institutional and No evidence.

1 project actors share a common
understanding of the problem and
approach to solving (social learning)
L1 [Normative] Institutions understand No evidence.
2 that a shift in values or practice is
needed to foster social learning
V9 [Value/Practice] Reduced number No evidence.
and severity of barriers; increased
number and potential impact of
opportunities
V1 [Value] Challenges lead to changes No evidence.
0 in institutional openness towards
SL-orientated approaches
(evidenced in eg attitudes, conflicts)
V1 [Practice] Challenges lead to No evidence.
1 changes in institutional support for
SL-oriented approaches (evidenced
in eg policy/roles, and resources
made available for implementation)

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Potato Park-International
Potato Center-ANDES
Agreement
Climate Change Social Learning (CCSL) case
study on the repatriation of native potatoes
By Tammy Stenner (ANDES), Alejandro Argumedo (ANDES), David Ellis
(CIP), and Krystyna Swiderska (IIED)
November 2016

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1. Key findings
• Overview. This case study explores the social learning processes of a ten-year agreement for
native potato repatriation and collaborative research between CIP and indigenous communities of
the Potato Park in the Peruvian Andes, and assesses their impact on food security, climate
adaptation and sustainable development.
• Engagement. A targeted, tailored engagement approach secured active engagement of community
members — including women and youth — in designing the agreement, and thereafter in
implementing and designing activities. Access to new knowledge by each stakeholder group, and
comparison and validation of knowledge, led to improved understanding of problems and solutions,
helped to build trust, and led to greater awareness and valuing of the knowledge and practices of
other groups.
• Iterative learning. Several examples of collective, iterative learning can be found in the activities
leading up to the development of the agreement and in the research activities conducted under the
agreement. The agreement itself is structured flexibly to allow incorporation of new findings, ideas,
and understanding that emerge.
• Capacity development. Initial capacity building provided to communities to help them negotiate the
agreement were crucial. During the project, capacity building was a two-way process between
scientists and farmers; farmers then provided capacity building to farmers in other communities not
directly involved.
• Challenging institutions. The agreement has led to effective challenging of institutions and norms:
scientists now recognise the value of traditional knowledge and collaborative research with
communities, and community members beyond those directly involved with the project have adopted
conservation plans. Remaining limitations include no institutional funding for the agreement and
limited spread of the effects of institutional challenging to other CIP offices.
• Conclusion. Social learning processes have contributed to a number of important conservation and
development outcomes. Key factors in the success of the agreement include the ability of a CIP
scientist to speak the local communities’ language, which was crucial for integrating traditional
knowledge; investment in capacity building; and facilitation by the NGO ANDES, which ensured
active farmer participation and an equitable partnership.

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2. Project map

3. Project description
This case study explores the social learning processes of a ten-year agreement for native potato
repatriation and collaborative research between CIP and indigenous communities in the Peruvian
Andes, and assesses their impact on food security, climate adaptation and sustainable development.
The Agreement for the Repatriation, Restoration and Monitoring of Agrobiodiversity of Native Potato
and Associated Community Knowledge Systems between CIP, ANDES and the Association of Potato
Park Communities (in Pisac, Cusco, Peru), was first signed in December 2004. Through this historic
five-year agreement, the CIP gene bank has returned 410 germ-free native potato cultivars to the six
Potato Park (PP) communities for food security and in-situ conservation of genetic resources. These
varieties were collected by CIP scientists from communities in the area in the 1960s, but had since
been lost from the communities through genetic erosion. This is the first such repatriation from a gene
bank to communities, recognising the importance of in-situ-ex-situ links for food security and climate
adaptation.

A second five-year agreement was signed in 2010, which involved collaborative research activities to
monitor and test the repatriated potato varieties and this is where most of the social learning took place.
The Repatriation Agreement has enabled social learning through knowledge sharing and direct
research collaboration between scientists and indigenous farmers, two groups which do not normally
interact as co-researchers. Asociacion ANDES, an NGO that works closely with the Potato Park

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communities, is also party to the agreement and has played an important role in capacity building and
facilitation to enable the indigenous farmers to engage in collaborative research with CIP scientists.
The agreement has enabled CIP to contribute directly to development outcomes, by enhancing food
security, climate change adaptation, economic opportunities, scientific understanding and social
cohesion of poor indigenous farmers in the high Andes. It has restored genetic diversity, establishing an
evolving gene bank for adaptation, with about 650 different potato varieties (or about 1344 varieties
according to traditional morphological classification). The agreement is historically significant because
for the past 200 years or more, the flow of genetic material has largely been from communities to gene
banks, and, once transferred, communities have had very little access to the traditional varieties they
have domesticated, improved and conserved over centuries. In some cases, genetic resources have
been used for research and development or transferred to third parties, sometimes resulting in the
acquisition of private intellectual rights over traditional varieties or new varieties bred using them. Thus,
for the Potato Park communities, a key objective was to enable a reciprocal (ie two-way) exchange, and
enhance the recognition of their rights over native potatoes collected from their communities. CIP has
also gained about 200 native potato varieties for its collection and is advancing its own scientific agenda
through collaborative research with the Potato Park communities.
The agreement is one of the few examples where the usually separate formal and informal seed
systems are collaborating directly for mutual benefit, with active community participation in research
processes, from design to analysis. This equitable research partnership between indigenous farmers
and scientists has linked science and traditional knowledge, and global and local knowledge, for a
better understanding of climate change and food security problems and solutions. Active participation of
farmers has also ensured a high level of commitment to reaching the project goals, a key factor in
ensuring the project’s success. Social learning has been an inherent and necessary part of this
process.
This social learning assessment provided an opportunity for the Potato Park and CIP to discuss and
evaluate the outcomes of the Repatriation Agreement, and to inform a possible new five-year
agreement. The assessment focused on the social learning impacts of the agreement, bringing together
key actors from CIP, the Potato Park and ANDES, to identify key moments of knowledge exchange and
co-creation of knowledge, evaluate the impacts of such actions on practice and institutions, and assess
whether using different types of knowledge benefits the achievement of development outcomes (rather
than using academic research alone).

4. Snapshot against CCSL indicators

Engagement Iterative Learning Capacity Development Challenging Institutions

Process P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15 P16 P17

Learning
L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 L8 L9 L10 L11 L12
Outcomes

Value/Practice
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11
Outcomes
AVERAGE 2.8 2.8 2.7 2.5

5. Social learning results

The indicator table below provides the detailed results of the assessment against each indicator, and
the key findings are summarised in this section.
The pre-agreement activities involved all parties in developing the idea, content and format of the
agreement. The agreement includes objectives on conservation, protection of community resources and
knowledge, collaborative research, and rural development. In the development of the first phase of the
agreement, capacity building and social learning were intended to be key components in dynamic

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conservation 6 and collaborative research, and it was in implementing these aspects of the agreement
during the second phase that most of the social learning processes took place.
CIP and the PP are jointly responsible for dynamic conservation, combining activities in situ and ex situ.
Both organisations recognised the contributions of scientific and traditional knowledge (TK) to potato
diversity characterization, conservation, climate change research, and to the related learning
processes. Fieldwork was conducted in Quechua, as an important carrier of TK.

Engagement
Score: 2.8

P1 P2 P3 P4 L1 L2 L3 V1 V2

A targeted, tailored engagement approach secured active engagement of communities in designing

the agreement, and thereafter in implementing and designing activities. Farmers involved included
women and youth. Access to new knowledge by each party, and comparison and validation of
knowledge, has led to improved understanding of problems and solutions. The agreement has
helped to build trust between CIP scientists and indigenous farmers and led to greater awareness
and valuing of the knowledge and practices of farmers by CIP scientists and vice versa. It also led
to stronger cohesion, knowledge sharing and collaboration among the PP communities.

The agreement secured active engagement of five Potato Park communities in implementing and
designing activities, with technical support and training from ANDES and CIP. In total 49 indigenous
farmers were directly involved, including women and youth.
CIP’s micro-level approach to potato breeding and cultivation was complemented by the holistic
approach taken in the PP, where the spiritual, natural, social and economic aspects of food systems are
considered important — with mutual learning taking place between the two organisations during the
process. Similarly, CIP’s scientific characterisation of potatoes was complemented by TK of names,
mythology, rituals, uses, agricultural practices, soil and climate conditions. The Potato Park farmers
provided complementary knowledge, for example on where potatoes used to grow, and which type of
soil favours different varieties. Access to new knowledge by each party, and comparison and validation
of knowledge, has led to improved understanding of problems and solutions.

ANDES played an important role in ensuring active community participation, including in designing the
agreement, by using indigenous research methodologies, and communications systems and formats
compatible with indigenous knowledge. Oral and visual approaches to research — such as storytelling,
songs, poems and legends that reflect customary laws and do not separate the artistic from the
functional — were used to identify concepts and values associated with equity, which were then used
as the basis of the development of the agreement. ANDES also supported previous and parallel farmer-
led action-research processes, which strengthened farmers’ capacity to engage in co-research with CIP
scientists. CIP actively engaged the farmers in designing some activities, such as transects. The
agreement has helped to build trust between CIP scientists and indigenous farmers and led to greater
awareness and valuing of the knowledge and practices of farmers by CIP scientists and vice versa. It

6Dynamic conservation refers to the complementarity between approaches in situ and ex situ. In-situ conservation
allows genetic diversity to be maintained in farmers’ fields and landscapes within evolutionary processes for crop
adaptation, while ex situ conservation strategies, such as community seed banks, allow for longer-term storage to
maintain the availability of quality seeds.

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also led to stronger cohesion, knowledge sharing and collaboration among the PP communities through
a new inter-community group of potato experts to manage the potato collection; and with other
communities in Lares, Vilcanota, Lamay and Paruro, through sharing of potatoes.

Iterative learning
Score: 2.8

P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 L4 L5 L6 V3 V4 V5 V6

Several examples of collective, iterative learning can be found in the research activities conducted
under the agreement between CIP and the Potato Park, and in the activities between ANDES and
the Potato Park leading up to the development of the agreement. The agreement itself is also
structured flexibly to allow incorporation of new findings, ideas, and understanding: the
organisations involved commit to projects annually but the design of these projects is dynamic.

Specific examples of iterative learning in the agreement between CIP and the PP include:

• Dynamic conservation activities, involving:

o collaborative learning on climate conditions and trends, movement of pests and
diseases in relation to crops and altitudinal ranges, pest control using traditional and
modern methods, use of new technologies and TK for evaluating ideal conditions for
crops, and
o integration of new techniques for positive selection, pollination, seed production, and
seed storage in traditional agricultural systems.

• Increased crop diversity resulting from the agreement has provided more options in the face of
increased pest infestation, and other changing climate conditions. In the past 30 years, the lower
planting line at which potatoes can grow has moved up by 200 metres due to increased pests,
correlated with rising temperatures. Elimination of lower plots has been based on co-research
demonstrating poor production at lower altitudes. The trial plot results are jointly analysed after the
harvest is weighed, with both farmers and scientists providing the reasons they believe explain the
results. Thus, both traditional and scientific knowledge inform the understanding of both parties, and
this enriched understanding is used to define the next steps. This is a clear example of iterative
learning.

• Flexible planning and review: Yearly new challenges arise which were either not thought about or
were a result of exchanges from the previous year. PP communities, ANDES and CIP commit to
projects annually, but the projects are never so fixed in design that they cannot accommodate new
ideas or interests. Adding plots of wild relatives of potatoes in 2016 along the transect is a good
example of this dynamic and flexible approach to understanding, as well as redefining, the questions
posed. Through the agreement, CIP scientists have learned to better appreciate the value of using
an idea as a spark to build a project rather than developing an idea into a project and presenting this
to the communities; and to take a broader landscape approach and not be blinded by conventional
needs for data collection methods. They have learned from looking at and analysing the results
through a different lens, which has also been beneficial to other projects.

• The agreement also led to collective learning between ANDES and the Potato Park communities, for
example through the co-development of a community biocultural protocol for benefit sharing based
on customary and formal laws, to guide the distribution of repatriated potatoes. This process

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included identifying and documenting core customary norms and values that guide sharing of
resources and knowledge within and between communities, and traditional mechanisms for
redistribution. Collective learning among the different communities of the Potato Park was fostered
by identifying and analysing customary norms and values, building consensus and developing the
agreement collaboratively, and by allocating responsibilities to the Association of Communities of the
Potato Park, as the inter-community institution responsible for implementing the agreement.

Capacity development
Score: 2.7

P10 P11 P12 P13 L7 L8 L9 V7 V8

ANDES provided initial capacity building to Potato Park communities to help them negotiate the
agreement and understand concepts relevant to working with CIP. During the project, capacity
building was a two-way process between CIP scientists and Potato Park farmers. Farmers then
provided capacity building to farmers in other communities.

Capacity building has been a two-way process. CIP has provided scientific training to the farmers (on
potato conservation, characterisation, pollination, integrated pest management, natural fertilisers,
botanical seed production and seed storage). Through the collaborative research process, farmers have
taught CIP scientists about the Andean holistic worldview and the importance of macro-level factors,
concepts of reciprocity, and cultural aspects of potato cultivation. ANDES provided capacity building to
the PP communities for negotiating the agreement and on associated conservation, rights and
economic development aspects. ANDES also worked with PP members to develop new products based
on reintroducing repatriated varieties. The Potato Park farmers trained another 187 farmers in twelve
communities with whom they shared the repatriated seeds.

Challenging institutions
Score: 2.5

P14 P15 P16 P17 L10 L11 L12 V9 V10 V11

The agreement has led to effective challenging of institutions and norms: CIP scientists in Lima now
recognise the value of traditional knowledge and collaborative research with communities, and
some Potato Park families beyond those directly involved with the project have adopted
conservation plans. Remaining limitations include no institutional funding for the agreement, which
is an obstacle to promoting institutional change within CIP, and limited spread of the effects of
institutional challenging to other CIP offices.

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The agreement has started to challenge institutions and norms, by raising awareness among wider
stakeholder groups, beyond the direct participants. Although only two people in CIP have been directly
involved — the director of the gene bank and curator of cultivated potato — they are involved in
awareness-raising on the importance of traditional knowledge and in-situ conservation. Within CIP,
most scientists now recognise the value of traditional knowledge and collaborative research with
communities, particularly those in Lima. Institutionally, the agreement has raised awareness of the
benefits that can be derived from working with communities. CIP sponsored PP farmers to visit CIP in
Lima to exchange seeds, so there is now institutional recognition of the agreement, and the potato
repatriation programme at CIP has been extended to other Andean communities in Peru. But there is
no institutional funding for the agreement, which is an obstacle to promoting institutional change within
CIP; and recognition of the value of TK may be more limited in other CIP offices (for example, in Africa).
Within the Potato Park, a number of families — not only those directly involved — have adopted
conservation plans and strategies because of the agreement, totalling 351 families in five communities.
The agreement has also helped to shift the values and practices of other institutions not directly
involved, by opening spaces for ANDES and the PP communities to work with government agencies in
Peru, international processes (such as the FAO Treaty) and scientists from other institutions and
universities.

6. Summary: social learning challenges and lessons

learned
The repatriation agreement and associated collaborative research and social learning processes have
led to a number of important conservation and development outcomes:

• Biodiversity and in-situ conservation. The reintroduction of 410 repatriated varieties has
increased potato diversity in the Potato Park from around 240 to 650 varieties, creating one of
the highest levels of potato diversity anywhere in the world, which has been conserved by the
communities.

• Best practices. Co-management of native potatoes has generated best practices for in-situ
conservation, sustainable use, increasing productivity and diversity, in-situ-ex-situ links and
dynamic conservation.

• Increased yields. CIP reports a 21 per cent increase in yield due to repatriated varieties and
production based on clean seeds, while farmers estimate as much as a 50 per cent increase.

• Food security and climate adaptation. The agreement has established a large evolving gene
pool for climate adaptation, and enabled farmers to increase on-farm crop diversity to reduce
the risk of crop failure. It also facilitated seed production for depositing the Potato Park’s seed
collection in the Svalbard Global Seed vault, for food security of the communities and the world
as a whole. This concrete outcome has also enabled recognition of the PP communities in the
global stage of conservation of genetic resources.

• Traditional knowledge and cultural practices. The return of traditional potato varieties that
the communities had lost has led to a revival of the traditional knowledge, beliefs and practices
associated with the repatriated potatoes, through the memory of the elders. It has also
promoted traditional agriculture by diversifying the native varieties available. The use of local
researchers as leaders and Quechua language in the activities has helped to maintain
traditional knowledge and language.

• Economic development. 61 repatriated potato varieties are being used to develop 11 new
‘biocultural’ products: chocopapa (chocolate with potato flour), starch, papa sour, prepared food
and drinks, and natural products (including potato shampoo). The agreement has also
contributed to enhanced revenues from tourism, the Potato Park’s largest and growing revenue
stream. These economic impacts are reflected in a recent survey of four Potato Park

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communities, which found a steady increase in income between 2003 and 2012, when income
exceeded expenditure for the first time 7.

• Rights and benefit sharing. Ensuring genetic resources and knowledge remain under the
custody of the communities and do not become subject to IPRs in any form is an objective of
the agreement. The agreement has increased the Potato Park communities’ understanding of
their rights to genetic resources and traditional knowledge and related policies; their capacity to
protect their rights through community register databases of TK developed by ANDES; and led
to an inter-community agreement for benefit sharing.

Lessons learned
Key factors in the agreement’s success include: the ability of a CIP scientist to speak Quechua, which
was crucial for integrating traditional knowledge; investment in capacity building by both CIP and
ANDES; and the facilitation role of ANDES, which ensured active farmer participation and an equitable
partnership.
While the agreement has increased understanding between scientists and farmers of their different
needs and perspectives, there are still some challenges in facilitating co-learning processes, sharing of
information, and joint decision making. Regular communication through monthly meetings, and working
together, supports information sharing and increased understanding, although CIP’s time in the field is
quite limited. A more systematic process for documenting, storing and sharing information and results of
collaborative research is needed. The PP farmers feel that more efforts are needed to ensure traditional
knowledge is clearly documented and accessible, as well as scientific knowledge. The farmers also feel
that access to information, especially on the purpose and results of collaborative research managed by
CIP, could be improved, and that this would strengthen social learning and enable research results to
be more broadly tested and implemented.

Next steps
The agreement’s benefits and challenges as identified in this social learning review are being
considered in ongoing negotiations on the signing of a third agreement. Although the agreement is quite
broad and includes areas on learning, policy and research, most of the focus so far has been on
repatriation and diversity conservation. For a third phase, the parties are considering maintaining the
same basic terms of the agreement, but also developing a work plan that focuses more on longer-term
collaborative research. The work plan would also address issues such as improved facilitation of the
learning processes and more complete and systematic sharing of information resulting from the
collaboration.
The repatriated potato varieties continue to be maintained in the Potato Park collection, and shared
among communities in and beyond the park. Farmers will also use their new knowledge of botanical
seed production to produce clean seeds for commercial purposes (through a community seed
enterprise).

The learning that took place through implementing the agreement has been shared more widely
through farmer-to-farmer exchanges and educational visits to the Park, as well as in national and
international policy workshops. It could also serve to support farmers interested in accessing genetic
resources from other gene banks, for example for corn or rice, and as a model for replication by CIP
and other CGIAR institutes to enhance food security and climate adaptation by indigenous farmers and
national agricultural systems.

7 Asociacion ANDES (2016) Resilient farming systems in a time of uncertainty: Biocultural innovations in the Potato

Park, Peru.

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Indicator table
# Process indicators CIP-ANDES-Potato Park results
P1 The target groups/individuals are Yes. The participants in the repatriation agreement activities were identified through an inclusive
identified through an inclusive participatory process by community assemblies, and the activities involved indigenous peoples,
process, and women, youth and women and youth. In total, 49 indigenous community members participated directly in
other disadvantaged groups are repatriation activities: 10 potato experts from the ‘Papa Arariwa’ group, 8 local research
identified and targeted coordinators (‘Tecnicos Locales’), 15 community leaders/authorities from 5 Quechua
communities in the Potato Park, and 16 members of the gastronomy and other potato related
micro-enterprises.
The communities chose the local research coordinators and potato experts. These groups
include men and women, elders and youth, but these actors are not evenly distributed among the
diverse groups. For example, Papa Arariwa and local technicians are predominantly men, while
gastronomy participants are mainly women.
P2 Groups/individuals identified are Yes. CIP scientists and farmers engaged in agricultural practices under the agreement according
engaged through appropriately to the community’s social norms; for each activity implemented, approval was given by the
ENGAGEMENT

tailored means Association of Potato Park Communities and by individual communities.

ANDES explained research and legal issues to the communities using local concepts and
methods. Use of indigenous methodologies, visual and oral tools and methods, translation, and
regular use of Quechua language, by both ANDES and CIP, made activities appropriate for
different language and literacy skills.
P3 All target groups are actively Yes. Potato Park communities participated actively in defining the problem and developing the
participating in the project agreement. Before the agreement was signed, ANDES held discussions on the importance of
Indicator used: All target groups potato diversity with several communities, and organised workshops on related intellectual
actively participated in the definition property and access and benefit-sharing issues. ANDES also held discussions with the
of the problem, design and communities on the guiding principles for the agreement, and to review the draft agreement. The
implementation of the research, communities participated actively in implementing repatriation activities, with technical support
analysis and decision making and training from ANDES and CIP; and in designing some activities (such as transects), but felt
that their participation was not very active in the design of other research activities. Communities
participated in the collection of local cultivars, determination and conservation of genetic
diversity, determination of production and yield of seed banks; construction of basic facilities for
conservation; and implementation of field trials.
CIP: active participation in desiging research, analysis, and decision making.
ANDES: active participation in defining problems and developing the agreement.

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P4 Emergence of champions is Yes. CIP personnel active in capacity building processes in agricultural practices. ANDES
fostered (for engagement to be self- provided funding and personnel for capacity building activities throughout process (on rights,
sustaining) conservation, economic development).
Indicator used: Investment in
capacity building for effective
participation of community
members in the implementation of
the agreement at all levels
L1 [Cognitive] i) Yes. Farmers and scientists gained a better understanding of how soil pests are affecting
a. Knowledge of the problem potatoes at different altitudes through interaction.
enhanced by interactions ii) Partial. Farmers have increased understanding of their rights over genetic resources and
b. Increased level of traditional knowledge, and are aware of a number of relevant regional, national and international
understanding of themes of policies through capacity development activities by ANDES. Participants shared learning at
rights/laws community assemblies, raising awareness in their communities. Learning modules on issues
related to repatriation were developed for Farmer Field Schools. Understanding is increased
among active participants, but less so among other community members, despite the
awareness-raising activities at the community level.
L2 [Relational] d. Yes. The agreement led to stronger coordination and relationships among the Potato Park
s. Engagement has led to communities. Communities that previously had conflictive relations had already joined
better relations between together to collectively manage the Potato Park by establishing an Association of Potato
target groups/individuals Park Communities, and within that entity, came to collective agreement on managing and
t. Trust created distributing the repatriated potato varieties. The repatriation agreement led to a new inter-
u. Engagement has led to community group of potato experts linking the communities and bringing them closer
awareness and valuing of together. Papa Arariwa was formed to manage collection, with membership from all
other stakeholders communities of the Potato Park, although more from communities at higher altitudes, where
potatoes are more important and there is more diversity of potatoes. The agreement also
strengthened relations between park communities and other communities, through the wider
sharing of repatriated potatoes. Communities in Lares, Vilcanota, Lamay and Paruro have
received seeds and technologies from the Potato Park.
e. Partial. The agreement has helped build trust between the farmers and CIP scientists, and
strengthened trust between farmers from different communities. The perception of farmers
from the Potato Park is that there has been limited information sharing on the part of CIP,
especially on the purpose and results of some of the collaborative research activities CIP
managed. Data downloaded by CIP from the weather station in the Potato Park over several
years and the results of the transect research have not been shared with the Potato Park or
ANDES, despite repeated requests.

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f. Yes. Participation in the agreement activities has led to greater awareness and valuing of
CIP scientists by PP farmers, and vice versa. CIP scientists better understand the value of
TK and the importance of native language as a carrier of TK.
L3 a. Different knowledge types a. Yes. Both CIP and the PP communities recognised the contributions of scientific and
successfully integrated traditional knowledge for potato characterisation, conservation and climate research. CIP’s
b. Engagement has led scientific characterisation of potatoes was complemented by TK of names, mythology, rituals,
towards a change in uses, agricultural practices, soil and climate conditions. Repatriated material was grouped
collective understanding of according to TK on uses (for example, cooking methods, taste, texture) and information on
the problem and solutions uses was documented for CIP databases. Traditional and scientific knowledge wer used
together to explain the test plot results, and to design a community genebank. CIP’s micro-
level understanding and approach to cultivation and breeding was complemented by the
farmers’ holistic macro-level understanding, to incorporate both science and a holistic
worldview that considers the interaction of the sky, earth, water, family, and spiritual world –
all of which impact how an object, concept or conclusion is perceived. Fieldwork was
conducted in Quechua as an important carrier of TK. Use of communication systems and
formats compatible with indigenous knowledge helped TK-holders engage in research.
b. Yes. Access to new knowledge by each party, and comparison and validation of knowledge,
has improved collective understanding of problems and solutions relating to agriculture and
climate change, for example, through joint analysis of potato transect plot results. Potato
Park farmers explained the Quechua names of native potatoes, the reasons for them, and
the myths, histories and local uses of each variety. They showed their spirituality related to
potatoes, the mountain gods and Mother Earth; and explained where the native potatoes
used to grow at the lower, mid and high altitudes and why; and which type of soil favors
different varieties. Co-management of native potatoes generated best practices for
conservation, sustainable use, increasing productivity and diversity, in-situ-ex-situ links and
dynamic conservation.
V1 [Value] Engagement leads to Yes. The repatriation of potatoes from CIP increased the commitment of the communities to
increased commitment on the part work together within the Potato Park and with other indigenous communities to conserve the
of target groups/individuals in existing diversity of potatoes in their communities together with the repatriated varieties. On the
reaching the goal of the project part of CIP, without the engagement with the communities, the project would likely not have
continued at the level it has. Part of the goal has been to build capacity within the communities to
evaluate and use potato sources and types of diversity not presently used in the Park. The
evaluation of this diversity is ongoing and the goal of repatriating native potato varieties has been
successfully met. Facilitating the production of seed so that the communities' genetic resources
could be securely stored at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault has also been successful.

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V2 [Practice] 3 parts: a. Yes. A new network of potato experts in different PP communities was established (Papa
a. New social networks Arariwa). The conservation of potato diversity, including repatriated varieties, has also
established strengthened the PP’s relationship with other communities, farmers’ federations, and
b. New initiatives and projects municipal and regional governments.
c. Empowerment of most
b. Yes. Plans are underway to sign a collaborative agreement with INIA (the National Institute
vulnerable beneficiaries
for Agricultural Innovation in Peru) with a focus on participatory plant breeding for drought-
(communities) including women
and frost-tolerant varieties, training, expert support and transfer of high value materials. The
and children
first transfer of five commercially valued potato varieties from INIA took place in 2016.
c. Yes. Indigenous farmers have been empowered through new scientific knowledge and new
understanding of their rights; and through improved capacity to conduct collaborative
research directly with scientists. Indigenous women have been empowered through new
economic opportunities resulting from the repatriated potatoes.
P5 Cyclical, inclusive learning and Partial. Most iterative learning took place in conservation and collaborative research activities:
evaluation ‘moments’ are available co-management of local potato collection; dynamic conservation; integrated crop and pest
for the group management; potato diversity characterisation; design and implementation of seed facilities;
research on climate change; development of biocultural products; and rights, customary laws
and policy. For example, for transect plots, the results were evaluated jointly and decisions about
next steps were made together by farmers and CIP. Lower plots were eliminated after collective
evaluation. The first year of transects led to the design for the second year based on collective
discussion, and the third year design has been modified based on collective discussion of the
ITERATIVE LEARNING

second year results. The farmers, however, felt that there was limited access to information,
especially on the purpose and results of collaborative research managed by CIP. Another
example of cyclical learning is ANDES and PdP’s co-development of biocultural protocols for
access and benefit sharing based on customary law and national and international norms, to
guide the sharing of repatriated potatoes and of revenues from economic collectives among the
PP communities. Regular workshops for exchanging information have occurred, for example a
one-day workshop on potato anatomy and physiology and another on El Niño. These workshops
provided an opportunity for an exchange of ideas and knowledge sharing.
P6 Learning and evaluation processes Yes. A number of experiments and collaborative research activities have been undertaken and
are supported and facilitated have generated useful information: 1) characterisation of potatoes; 2) research on calcium in soil;
3) transects (growing potatoes at different altitudes); 4) integrated pest management techniques;
5) seed production and storage techniques. ANDES facilitated interaction between the Potato
Park communities and CIP, for example to negotiate the agreement and do research activities.
P7 Systems are in place to foster and Yes. Adjustments were made jointly in activities after reflection: removal of the lowest plots from
implement new ideas the rotation system, after evaluating pests and productivity at lower altitudes; and changes to
seed production and storage techniques. Yearly new challenges arise which were either not

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thought about or were a result of exchanges from the previous year. PP communities, ANDES
and CIP commit to projects annually; however, the projects are never so fixed in design that they
cannot accommodate new ideas or interests. Adding plots of wild potato relatives in 2016 along
the transect is a good example of this dynamic and flexible approach to understanding, as well
as redefining the questions posed.
P8 Questioning the TOC itself and key Partial. Questions posed are redefined based on new understanding (see P7 above). In
assumptions is valued and considering the renewal of the agreement between CIP, the Potato Park and ANDES, partners
happening regularly reflected upon new areas for research, capacity building and collaboration, which could be
explored within the existing framework. For example, a specific programme on climate change
will be implemented in the period of the new agreement.
P9 Questioning of values, norms and Partial. ANDES and the PP regularly question dominant values, norms and governance in
governance underlying the problem conservation paradigms, such as sectoral approaches. This questioning has led to the
is valued and happening regularly development of a holistic landscape approach to conservation that integrates Andean concepts
such as Ayllu, and buen vivir (wellbeing) in the Biocultural Heritage Territory model. Sometimes
members of CIP, ANDES, and the PP seem to prioritise scientific knowledge and a micro-level
approach to conservation.
L4 [Cognitive]: c. Yes. Changes were incorporated into agricultural practices, planning and strategies for
a. Results of learning/evaluation are resilience after reflection, including activities directly related to the agreement (for example,
incorporated into the project into the design of transects). See P7 above.
strategy
d. Yes. A number of potato management practices and innovations were tested and adopted by
b. Creative solutions and
farmers: increased number of native potato varieties cultivated; fields at lower altitudes not
innovations developed
used for potato cultivation; production of botanical seeds for conservation; clean seeds
produced for distribution to own communities and others.
L5 [Relational] Evidence as Yes. Communities of the Potato Park agreed to work more closely on conserving potato diversity
learning/evaluation takes place that by repatriating varieties from CIP. Reasons for this include realising the value of the existing
people understand the reason to diversity for present and future generations, and understanding the potential of working together
change relations and behaviours to affect change in policy and practice. The learning from the repatriation process has helped
between people and groups ANDES, CIP and the Potato Park develop a shared vision and objectives related to dynamic
conservation, and the Potato Park is used as showcase of how in-situ and ex-situ approaches
can effectively complement each other, ensuring greater predictability, accountability and
transparency in partnerships.
L6 [Normative] Participants understand Yes. CIP and PP farmers gained a better understanding of problems and solutions, and of the
the need for alternatives and room value of collaborative research and dynamic conservation practices; and there was better uptake
to fail of research results when done collaboratively. One of the difficulties with the repatriation
agreement is that it has no funding. Each one of the partners understands that the agreement
requires considerable resources, and that each must make efforts to respond to the needs

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internally: the Potato Park provides in kind support; CIP provides for transfer of materials and
technical support with existing programs and staff; and ANDES has secured alternative funding
sources by including the repatriation activities within other project proposals.
V3 [Value] Wider stakeholder groups Yes. Most CIP scientists in Lima recognise the value of traditional knowledge. The agreement
understand the reasons to change enhanced awareness of the value of TK and collaborative research with indigenous farmers
their relations and behaviours among CIP scientist through visits by Quechua communities to CIP in Lima, and CIP press
releases on the agreement shared with its offices in Africa. The two CIP scientists directly
associated with this agreement have gained additional practical recognition of this value.
V4 [Practice] Wider stakeholder groups Yes. A number of families in the Potato Park have adopted conservation plans and strategies
relate to each other differently because of the agreement (not only those directly involved), totalling 351 families in five
communities.
V5 [Value] The need for alternatives Yes. 49 farmers in five communities (directly involved in the research) now recognise the
and room to fail is evident in other importance of science and collaborative research with scientists. CIP has benefitted with
projects/programmes improved understanding of traditional practices and traditional way of observing important factors
that differentiate analysis of results. This increased understanding helps CIP scientists think of
better ways to analyse and observe research results within other projects with indigenous
communities.
V6 [Practice] Alternatives and room to Yes. Based on learning within the repatriation agreement, new techniques have been integrated
fail are built into other into the agricultural system and other ANDES and Potato Park projects: techniques for pest
projects/programmes control and increasing productivity; botanical seed production; systematic analysis of production
(numbering varieties in the field, documenting results). The CIP scientists have learned to better
appreciate the value of using an idea as a spark to build a project rather than to first develop an
idea into a project and present this to the communities. The period of project development,
design and scope have greatly benefitted from this in looking at a broader landscape approach
and to not be blinded by conventional needs for data collection methods. To say room is built in
to appreciate and learn from failures is not quite the approach but to learn from looking and
analysing results from a different lens has benefited other projects.
P10 Capacity development activities are Yes. Capacity-development activities for farmers were an important part of the project. CIP
integrated into the provided training on a number of topics: dynamic conservation; pollination; integrated pest
DEVELOPMENT
ACAPACITY

project/programme management; natural fertilisers (calcium, humus, compost); germ-free potato seed production,
and seed management and storage to support participation of the farmers in all aspects of the
research. ANDES provided capacity building for negotiating the agreement, and on conservation,
rights and economic development of repatriated material (enhancing economic use of potatoes
was important to incentivise community participation in the agreement activities). ANDES
provided capacity building on the technical, legal and policy content of the agreement for local
leaders, authorities, government and Papa Arariwa, to ensure clear understanding of the

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implications of the project and collaborative research. In total, 49 Potato Park farmers were
trained by ANDES and CIP (35 men, 14 women); 2 CIP scientists were trained by PP farmers;
and the PP farmers trained another 187 farmers in 12 communities with whom they shared the
repatriated seeds.
P11 Capacity development activities Partial. Capacity development activities mainly targeted Potato Park farmers (see P10 above)
target all participants in appropriate and were facilitated by ANDES and CIP using appropriate approaches tailored to the needs of
ways (eg. governments, farmers, indigenous farmers. Through the collaborative research process, PP farmers taught CIP
scientists) scientists about: the Andean holistic worldview and concept of wellbeing (Sumaq Kausay);
working in the Andean principle of ayni (reciprocity); cultural aspects of potato cultivation
(traditional practices, mythology, rituals, uses); and traditional biological and environmental
indicators (including of climatic events). In return, CIP scientists taught PP farmers a deeper
understanding of how and why, from a physiological and anatomical view, potato plants adapt,
grow and respond to varying environments. ANDES’ agronomists also participated in capacity
development, especially in relation to transferring seed technologies from CIP to the Potato Park.
Government officials were also targeted for capacity development through awareness-raising
workshops on repatriation and seed policies within the context of national legislation.
P12 Capacity needs are determined Yes. Collaborative workshops, with participation of the Potato Park, ANDES and CIP, are
collectively in a bottom-up manner organised yearly to collectively identify capacity development needs, and an action plan is
developed.
P13 Capacity development needs are Yes. Capacity development activities related to the agreement have addressed agriculture and
systematically integrated into all seed policy issues, dynamic conservation, in-situ and ex-situ conservation strategies, integrated
project components pest management, and climate change. In this context ANDES and PP built a better appreciation
for understanding the concept of ‘ownership’ of the traditional varieties, practices and knowledge.
L7 [Cognitive] Similar level of Partial. The farmers and CIP scientists have different types of knowledge and understanding
understanding of the problem by all relating to the problem, but through the collaborative research process, a more shared
stakeholders understanding of the problem has been achieved. This is an area that continues to grow and
evolve as a give and take between the parties.
L8 [Relational] Increased Partial. While there is increased understanding between scientists and farmers of their different
understanding between different needs and perspectives, there are still some challenges in facilitating co-learning processes,
participant groups of different needs sharing information, and joint decision making. Regular communication through monthly
and perspectives, and how to better meetings, and working together supports increased understanding, although CIP’s time in the
work together field is quite limited. Frequent meetings and communication facilitate sharing of information, but a
more systematic process for documenting, storing and sharing information and results of
collaborative research is needed.

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L9 [Normative] Increase in collective Yes. This is evolving and based on continued learning. The partnership has created
understanding of the best methods opportunities for the Potato Park, CIP and ANDES to combine skills, expertise, and resources
for building capacity for particular more effectively and develop the capacity to create evidence by cross fertilising traditional
stakeholders knowledge and science.
V7 [Value] More informed stakeholders Yes. Potato Park farmers are more informed about dynamic conservation, scientific aspects of
potato cultivation and techniques relating to seeds, and about their rights and economic
development of potatoes. 61 repatriated potato varieties are being used to develop 11 new
‘biocultural’ products: chocopapa (chocolate potatoes), starch, papa sour, prepared food and
drinks, natural products (e.g. potato shampoo). CIP scientists are more informed about Andean
culture and traditional knowledge (see P11).
V8 [Practice] c. Yes. Capacity development on scientific aspects by CIP has enabled farmers and scientists
m. Capacity development leads to to work together better; as has capacity development of scientists by farmers to build
different groups working understanding and respect for indigenous worldview, culture and traditional knowledge.
together better ANDES has also strengthened the capacity of farmers to engage directly in equitable
n. Capacity development leads to collaborative research partnerships with scientists through capacity building for farmer-led
changes in practice that reflect research and empowering research methodologies, both during the agreement period and
a better understanding of the before.
problem and solutions
d. Yes. 400 families received repatriated varieties, and 252 families continue to cultivate them
for increased food security and climate resilience. CIP reports a 21 per cent increase in yield
due to repatriated varieties, while farmers estimate as much as 50 per cent increase.
P14 Key individuals/institutions who will Yes. A number of key individuals were involved in implementing the agreement: 23 community
support/champion change are leaders from the PP; directors, agronomists, educators, administrators from ANDES; and the
identified head of gene bank, and curator of cultivated potato from CIP. Key individuals in the PP are
CHALLENGING INSTITUTIONS

involved in capacity development in their communities and policy processes outside their
communities, attempting to promote change in social and environmental policies and practices.
Although only a couple from CIP are involved in the implementation of this agreement, the
director and curator of the gene bank at CIP are involved in raising awareness of the importance
of TK and practices, and in-situ conservation as it relates to their aim of conserving
agrobiodiversity.
The agreement has led to increased cooperation and partnerships between the PP, ANDES and
Regional Government Cusco, Municipality of Pisaq, Federation of Potato Growers, national
ministries, and IIED on related issues. A Memorandum of Understanding has been established
between the Potato Park, Lares and Vilcanota communities and others for distribution of
repatriated potato varieties.
The agreement has influenced Peruvian government agencies as officials to recognise the value
of indigenous knowledge and management systems. INIA now supports the work of ANDES and

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the Potato Park to establish similar community-managed agrobiodiversity conservation areas

respecting local livelihoods and cultural activities.

P15 A change strategy is developed, Partial. A change strategy has been developed by ANDES centred on gaining the support of key
including mapping of existing norms government agencies and other communities (see P14 above), but a strategy for promoting
and endogenous processes institutional change within CIP has not yet been developed.
The collaboration has, however, enhanced CIP’s awareness of the values of repatriating
potatoes back to the Andean communities and in the ten years that CIP has been working with
ANDES and PP, the number of communities that have requested and participated in CIP’s
repatriation program continues to grow. This is at least in partial response to the agreement and
the success with repatriation in the PP.
P16 Existing norms and endogenous Refer to P15 above.
processes are mapped
P17 Key institutions are challenged to Partially. Increased support for repatriation and research with farmers from CIP genebank; and
make changes that facilitate social increased support from CIP grants and contracts for developing repatriation agreements. CIP
learning sponsored PP members to come to CIP to exchange potatoes, so there is institutional
Indicator used: Increased level of recognition of this agreement. As mentioned in P15, the repatriation programme at CIP continues
institutional support at CIP for to grow as the benefits and knowledge of repatriation grows within the communities and NGOs
repatriation and collaborative who are working directly with the communities. Institutionally, the agreement has raised
research with farmers awareness on a corporate level of the benefits that can be derived from working with
communities. CIP directors and gene bank staff are eager to sign a new repatriation agreement
with the PP, demonstrating support for the process within CIP. But there has been no institutional
funding for implementing this agreement.
L10 [Cognitive] Identification of Yes. Farmers can identify both obstacles and opportunities for institutional change and propose
obstacles and opportunities for solutions to involved diverse stakeholders. Obstacles for institutional change within CIP include
institutional change limited funding for PP conservation efforts, and lack of relation between CIP and community
authorities. Opportunities for institutional change in the PdP include support from ANDES, CIP,
IIED, Gore and the international reputation of the PP; and in CIP include potential collaboration
with CCAFS, PIM and RTB.
L11 [Relational] Key institutional and
project actors share a common
understanding of the problem and
approach to solving it (social
learning)

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L12 [Normative] Institutions understand Partial. The agreement has started to generate awareness of the importance of social learning
that a shift in values or practice is among the two CIP scientists directly involved. It has helped to increase awareness more widely
needed to foster social learning in CIP of the value of traditional knowledge and collaborative research with farmers (but not of
social learning specifically):
• CIP reports a high level of recognition of traditional knowledge among its staff, particularly in
Lima.
• Farmers coming to CIP in traditional dress has had visual impact, and raised awareness of
the importance of TK.
• A half-day workshop to develop technical skills for pollination and management of in-vitro
plants was held for PP members at CIP. This opportunity arose because of the agreement,
and there is interest in doing more of this in the field with youth. The direct outcome of this
workshop was the involvement and recognition of the PP communities in the global stage of
conservation of genetic resources through the deposit of the PP’s seed collection in the
Svalbard Global Seed vault. This is a very tangible outcome of the agreement.
• Dissemination of the agreement by CIP-Lima through CIP press releases has enhanced
recognition of the value of working with TK and indigenous communities amongst CIP offices
in other countries, such as in Africa.
The Potato Park–CIP agreement has also helped to shift the values and practices of other
institutions not directly involved, opening spaces for ANDES and PP to work with governments
and international processes (for example, the FAO Treaty) providing additional learning
opportunities for Potato Park communities through cooperation with scientists from other
institutions and universities on common goals, such as conservation and sustainable use of
agricultural diversity.
V9 [Value/Practice] Reduced number Yes. As previously mentioned, the agreement has played a part in the increased repatriation of
and severity of barriers; increased native potato varieties more broadly back to the Andean communities in Peru.
number and potential impact of
opportunities
V10 Challenges lead to changes in Yes. Challenges created by the evolution and implementation of international policy treaties on
institutional openness towards SL- access and benefit sharing, traditional knowledge and seeds, including the CBD and the FAO
orientated approaches (evidenced International Treaty, lead to the search for collaborative responses; CIP responded within this
in eg attitudes, conflicts) framework and signed the Repatriation Agreement with the Potato Park and ANDES. The
agreement has led to increased institutional openness and creation of trust between CIP and
communities.

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P18 Use of traditional frameworks for Yes. Quechua TK and spiritual practices were integrated into many of the dynamic conservation
research strategies applied by partners of the agreement. TK was used as the basis for action to restore
and protect the mountain environment, to communicate the status of the territory, and monitor
biodiversity and the quality of crops, soil, and availability of water. ANDES and the PP used
traditional knowledge indicators such as observation of plants, weather and animal behavior, to
provide early warning of potential climate impacts such as droughts, extreme events and
outbreaks of pest and diseases. They developed community maps and traditional agricultural
calendars, in ways that are compatible with Quechua knowledge, to capture and communicate
indigenous knowledge useful for developing local solutions to social and environmental
problems. Community mapping is also used to identify the cultural, spiritual as well as the
CONSERVATION OF TK AND PRACTCES

economic values of their landscapes, and to identify potential problems in their production
system, particularly those related to climate change. The application of TK and practices also
served to preserve this body of knowledge and pass it on to younger generations.
L13 [Normative] Revitalisation Yes. Following the return of native potatoes through the agreement, the Potato Park succeeded
/strengthening of cultural practices, in having the National Day of the Potato declared by the government of Peru, working with
rituals, ceremonies various actors, including ANDES, CIP and national government bodies. This day is now used as
an opportunity to organise diverse activities to celebrate native potatoes, and associated rituals
and uses, as well as other cultural practices including agriculture, food, art, music, poetry and
dance.
V12 [Cognitive] Changes in the number No evidence. However, participants believe that maintenance of language is supported by using
of Quechua speakers Quechua for field work and research, including in the agreement activities.
V13 [Practice] Changes in the status Yes. The agreement has brought back traditional potato varieties which the communities had
and trends in number of people lost, and this has led to a revival of the traditional knowledge, beliefs and practices associated
who practice traditional agriculture with the repatriated native potatoes, through the memory of the elders. It has also promoted
traditional agriculture by enriching and diversifying the native varieties available. At the same
time, ANDES promotes the practice of traditional agriculture, which is a proxy indicator for the
preservation of traditional knowledge and practices, and is particularly closely linked to
customary sustainable use of biodiversity. The use of Local Researches (Tecnicos Comunales)
by ANDES as leaders in the processes of learning, interacting, transmission of knowledge and
practices, for all the Potato Park activities including those related to the agreement, ensures their
constant renewal and re-enactment through cultural and social practices within, among and
between indigenous people (inter-generationally and trans-generationally). The maintenance of
the Potato Park as an agrobiodiversity conservation unit with a communal land-use and tenure
system based on traditional knowledge and customary sustainable use also promotes the
maintenance of traditional agriculture.

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L14 [Normative] Legal frameworks and Partial. As part of the collaborative research related to the agreement, ANDES has developed
policies better recognise customary community databases (Biocultural Registers) for recording TK and provided training on their use
laws, institutions and practices and to protect indigenous knowledge and practices. Communities can use databases and registries
protect traditional knowledge as defensive protection against ‘biopiracy’ (the unauthorised use or misappropriation of
traditional knowledge without benefit sharing). These databases and registries may also find use
by communities in land title claims and defense against extractive industries.

The agreement, along with the Potato Park’s increasing economic revenues, led to the
development of an inter-community agreement for benefit sharing, which uses customary laws
and practices and provides incentives for conserving biodiversity and continuing indigenous
practices. For example, it includes provision for investing the benefits in training and skills
development for transmission of indigenous knowledge and practices and other kinds of capacity
building.

The transfer of Potato Park seeds to Svalbard Seed Vault was based on community rights to
participate in the FAO Treaty on PGRFA multilateral system, to control the use of their own seed
varieties, and to transfer and share seeds with others. This helps to promote recognition of
customary laws and understanding of the rights of communities and the nation at the level of
international policy.

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