More effective and sustainable investments in water for poverty reduction

Engagement model

Throughout its implementation, the project promotes the engagement with national stakeholders to strengthen linkages between knowledge generation, policy decisions and changes on the ground. A dialogue among key stakeholders at national and lower levels (practitioners, researchers, government, private sector, donors, NGOs, farmers associations, etc.) provides them with a platform for discussion on knowledge gaps, research needs, findings and implications for implementation. The ultimate goal is to design successful approaches for the wider adoption of promising agricultural water management solutions.

The following illustration shows schematically the engagement model and how it moves away from a pure knowledge generation activity to an interactive process leading to decision support and change fostering at the country level.

 

Elements of the engagement model include:

  • An in-depth mapping of key stakeholders, their priorities, their roles, power relations and their needs in order to develop engagement strategies and ensure wide dissemination of agricultural water management solutions;
  • The appointment, in each country, of a dialogue team composed of a national focal point (high level decision maker in the Ministry in charge of agriculture water management), a facilitator (a national expert with strong networking skills) and technical advisors;
  • A process of national and sub-national level consultations aimed at involving all stakeholders in discussing information needs, validating research findings and acting to support the development of business models for specific agricultural water management solutions. Such consultations are the platform for interaction between researchers, technical experts and decision makers;
  • A series of cross-country and regional exchanges on specific agricultural water management solutions and their implementation on the ground, backed by several high profile project advisors.

By identifying the key water-related and non-water constraints for small scale irrigation development, the project will be able to focus research on these constraints and propose a set of agricultural water management solutions in response to these constraints.