Public speaking, presenting with confidence, being able to influence others and letting them understand the value and unique opportunities of good research work are critical skills for ILRI staff.

The default presentation tool for such presentations is Microsoft Powerpoint. It is indeed a powerful tool, but if not handled well, this simple presentation tool can induce ‘death by Powerpoint‘. Another problem with Powerpoint is that most people are used to it and more often than not, in conferences, they automatically switch to ‘Powerpoint mode’: a rather active absorption of the presentation, without paying too much attention to the speaker.

An alternative has emerged in the past few years (it first appeared in late 2009): Prezi.

Prezi is a dynamic presentation tool that works in a very different logic to Powerpoint: the latter is essentially a series of linearly connected slides that tell a story. Prezi is a physical canvas – like a drawing board – where all elements are plotted and you navigate around that canvas, zooming in on elements of it and out to other elements to tell the story.

Both tools enable embedding various media: audio, video, graphs and pictures, though Prezi even allows embedding Powerpoint presentations.

Since ILRI’s recent annual program meeting, we tried using Prezi, here’s the presentation by Alexandra Jorge on Napier Grass:

More ILRI presentations on Prezi

Why bother using Prezi?

Perhaps one of the following reasons might want to make you try Prezi?

• Prezi gives a very dynamic slant to your presentations, which is more likely to keep your audience awake than a series of Powerpoint slides.
• Prezi forces you to put less text in a ‘slide’, which means people can read the text easily and listen to you carefully at the same time.
• As you have less ‘support text’, you can more easily talk around the text on the screen. It strengthens your narrative, your sense of telling stories, and perhaps forces you to rehearse a bit more, which is a very good precondition for success in public speaking.
• Prezi allows you to move around your canvas so you can go anywhere in your presentation without having to clumsily move back on the  menu of your slides.
• Your audience may not know about Prezi yet, and you may capture their imagination like you never have.
• It’s a new tool, and every new tool requires you to think slightly differently about your work, stimulating your creativity and parallel thinking skills.

Mind that Prezi, like Powerpoint, can also be used in really bad ways and create a nauseating experience induced by motion sickness. On the other hand, mastered well, Prezi can display great creativity that strengthens the narrative behind the presentation, and give a sense of confidence to scientific speakers, and a good reason to believe that their work might be listened to and perhaps used more as a result.

Prezi may work for you or not, but trying it will be useful to think about your work and learn from your own practice. Many people condemn tools for what they do, though usually the practice of the tool is what causes bad experiences, not the tool itself, but until you try it and see successful examples, you can’t really tell, so when it comes to Prezi, you might as well…

For more information about Prezi, its advantages and disadvantages you can see: 

• Top 10 Prezis of 2012
• How to use Prezi
• 5 reasons to use Prezi
• The problems with Prezi and two reasons I rarely recommend Prezi
• Prezi: a dynamic presentation or nauseating experience?
• Why the best prezis use grouping and layering
• Prezi for dummies cheat sheet

Social learning featured highly on the agenda of this event from the start, thanks to the inputs of various sandbox members including the sandbox facilitation team – which was invited to co-facilitate the Knowledge Exchange – including Ewen le Borgne from ILRI’s Knowledge Management and Information Services.

A group of about 70 participants engaged in the event with the intention to learn, share, reflect and act, in various plenary sessions and working group slots around the four main strands of the event:

• Whose knowledge counts? Locally-held knowledge for climate change adaptation (convened under the auspices of IDS and the CCAFS Climate Change Social Learning Sandbox)
• Brokers, translators and intermediaries: new roles and challenges for putting knowledge into practice (convened by the International Development Research Centre of Canada and IDS)
• How to learn from climate change evaluations in and between organizations (convened by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), the Evaluation Office of the Global Environment Facility [GEF-EO] and IDS)
• Extreme events and disaster risk reduction (convened by IDS)

Two loops of learning

With intellectual and financial sponsorship of the CCSL initiative, the idea of the organizing team was to turn this Exchange into an exciting opportunity to undertake an experience through three learning loops. The table below – adapted from CCSL sandbox work – served as a basis to explain some of the differences between the three loops of learning.

Each of the conversation strands explored what is currently going on (experiences and results), what could be (ideas to bring people together and solve issues) and what should be (through a transformative process). The Exchange indeed allowed participants to develop rich pictures of the current state of work around intermediaries and knowledge brokers, learning from evaluation, disaster risk reduction and the issues of power that affect climate change initiatives (in the ‘Whose knowledge counts’ strand).

The second group’s work was also very rich and unraveled many good ideas, possible ideals to go forward, based on strong discussions, a thorough exchange of ideas and a joint formulation of possible solutions.

The intermediaries’ group explored the central question of whether knowledge brokers and intermediaries are indeed a role (embodied in a position) or a function, i.e. a set of tasks and responsibilities that can be spread across people and time.

The learning & evaluation group worked around three different topics: how to communicate evaluations in more effective and compelling ways, how to possibly influence policy and policy-making through the results of evaluation and finally how to develop some space for theory-based approaches to evaluation (approaches that explicitly address assumptions and look at a broader context than just one intervention).

The ‘Whose knowledge counts’ and the ‘disaster risk reduction’ groups developed a series of steps to undertake to progressively achieve the ideal vision that they developed after the first session’s back-casting exercise (visioning exercise and working out steps from there to now).

Locally owned knowledge in policy – a future #climatelearn twitter.com/petecranston/s…

— petecranston (@petecranston) March 5, 2013

There was a lot of good learning in this case, but was that really enough to transform participants and lead them to action?

Transformation and action?

In his opening address and in a supporting blog post, Lawrence Haddad, Director of IDS, reminded all participants that it is notoriously hard to learn and act upon that learning. This Exchange was alas no exception. Perhaps the ambitions to bring participants to reflect in totally novel ways were too high, due to the short duration of the event, to the nature of the participants’ group which -not diverse enough- and to the very limited opportunities to combine the two in a joint working experience that could seriously and deeply challenge everyone’s assumptions.

Not much triple-loop learning happened, therefore, although some participant mentioned that it sometimes takes months or even years to realize the effects of being exposed to a conversation – as though learning would go dormant and wake up at a future moment when its fruits are ripe for harvest.

As for action, the ‘marketplace of actions, ideas and commitments‘ suggests that some action will come out of this Exchange. It is certainly the intention of the organizers to review these actions in a few months’ time. However one of the (learning and evaluation) group was also ‘shockingly honest’ in admitting that the ideal picture sketched about influencing policy is fundamentally flawed and doomed.

Shocking honesty #climatelearn ideal evaluation process will never happen. Huge barriers – Political context, donor incentives + many more.

— Tan Copsey (@tancopsey) March 6, 2013

Learning, transformation, action… we might want to think about the transitions between these rather than focus on each of them.

Frances Seballos of IDS reflected on learning about learning. Her blog post should follow shortly and might give additional impressions on the challenges of a complex social process around an event for an even more complex agenda – climate change.

Read notes about the event

Read more about the Climate Change and Social Learning sandbox

Communication has been central to the program (2009-2013) through various interventions. After a rather intensive and successful first period in the new phase of the NBDC vis-à-vis its communication, the management of the NBDC have officially requested additional support from the ILRI communication team to assist with the regular organization and documentation of monthly team meetings, in addition to ongoing tasks (publishing, sharing stories, facilitation and documentation of special events).

Planning NBDC activities for researchers (photo credit: ILRI/Le Borgne)

The communication team supported this planning workshop through co-designing the event, facilitating it and documenting it on a wiki. This type of support is quite typical of the services rendered by the team for other projects as well (see the list of events).

The priorities of communication work in the program had already been reviewed a few months ago. With this planning workshop and National Platform stakeholder consultation, these priorities are likely to be updated, with added emphasis on repackaging existing information for specific audiences (farmers, researchers, planners, policy-makers and the NBDC team) and to engage them in the last phase, progressively preparing the embedding of the program’s legacy in the institutional context of the Ethiopian land and water management sector.

As the NBDC is increasingly becoming one integrated program – rather than several projects, and as the partners and other Ethiopian institutional actors are expected to play an increasing role, the need for more coordination, cooperation and indeed more communication has never been as strong.

Read notes from the February National Platform meeting

Discover pictures from the February National Platform meeting

Read notes from the November planning meeting

Discover pictures from the November planning meeting

In May 2012, CCAFS organized a workshop on communication and social learning in climate change to examine how social learning and communication could further CCAFS objectives to generally support better local decision making on climate change in agriculture and food security. The event brought together participants from CGIAR centres but also non-governmental organizations and donor agencies. Out of the workshop, the CCAFS teamset up a series of followup activities.

Social learning is a fuzzy concept which was debated at length in May and led CCAFS social learning work to focus on five promising themes: endogenous social learning, documentation of social learning, time scales, social differentiation and social learning in CCAFS. Several projects were undertaken to unpack the concept and existing experiences.

In particular, a CCSL ‘sandbox‘ was set up as a space to source ideas and discuss these issues. The sandbox is also intended to help seed joint initiatives that could lead to social learning ventures supporting CCAFS’s objective to improve local decision-making about climate change adaptation. Essentially, the sandbox consists of a wiki and a Yammer network.

CCAFS also funded a stock-taking exercise of social learning and related initiatives across CGIAR – looking for expertise and experiences to build on.

These were discussed in a November 2012 workshop to review the lessons and insights gathered through the years. In addition, this workshop planned some additional activities around priority areas for CCAFS (and possibly other CGIAR research programs).

Through the three days of the event, participants have thus heard about the stocktaking project they organized a ‘show-and-tell’ marketplace featuring some of these experiences in more detail; they pictured what social learning in climate change could look like (see here and here).

To better make sense of the rich CGIAR social learning experience – as represented by the 128 social learning cases compiled by consultant Julian Gonsalves, participants agreed to develop a narrative to explain the rationale of social learning (in climate change and food security and beyond, as there is value for all other CGIAR research programs), and to try and pin down a framework that explains how the different social learning initiatives fit today’s research for development challenges. The workshop paved the way for additional work on these two tracks and on a number of other ‘next steps‘.

Over the course of 2012, the KMIS team has worked closely with CCAFS – on the event design and facilitation, establishing the sandbox, helping connect the various project partners (IDS, IIED, Euforic services, and others), and generally moving the process forward.

In March 2013, CCSL moves to the UK and the USA with a series of events planned to bring these ideas into other forums. From the sandbox, social learning is stepping into the wild – but the unknown is where social learning thrives…

Read notes and see products from the November meeting.

See a selection of pictures from the November workshop.

Find out more about the climate change social learning sandbox.

Looking back

In 2011, the various sessions were organized for staff to get acquainted with different communication and social media  tools they could use in their research work, such as Yammer, iGoogle, wikis, blogging among others.

Last year the focus shifted away from tools and sessions were organized around six blocks of communication and knowledge management. These included:

• Engaging audiences in our research (see the presentation)
• Organizing effective events and conversations (see the presentation)
• Public awareness (see the presentation)
• Finding and managing information (see the presentation)
• Working with multimedia (see the presentation)
• Publishing and design (see the presentation)

Facilitated and organized by the ILRI communications team, the idea was to help participants understand the value of communication in research and how they can apply it in their work. The sessions were web streamed to other ILRI offices around the world. More than 150 ILRI and hosted institutions’ staff participated in them.

Evaluations conducted after each session revealed areas to improve including: quality of the sound especially when web streaming the sessions; targeted sessions instead of general audiences; more practical hands-on ‘tools’ sessions rather than theoretical presentations.

Plans in 2013

We are drawing lessons from past cycles to organize a better cycle this year. A survey aims to gather a more solid feedback and recommendations for improvement. A new set of klinics will kick off in the second quarter of this year.

If you attended a Komms Klinic in 2012, please share your feedback.

For 2013, we anticipate to focus on communication tools training,  for instance, repackaging our existing materials and incorporating content from the social media guide for African climate change practitioners.

More information

• Keep updated about upcoming sessions on the Komms Klinics training wiki, on ILRI’s Yammer (restricted access), on our Google Calendar, and on posters across ILRI campuses.
• See all Komms Klinics ever organized on this ILRI training wiki page.
• To join a session or for more information, contact Tsehay Gashaw or Ewen Le Borgne in Addis Ababa, Angeline Nekesa or Evelyn Katingi in Nairobi.
• See the communications tools used across ILRI
• ILRI staff: Find answers to ILRI communication questions at http://ilri-comms.wikispaces.com

The various presentations and other information are online

Some of my take-aways:

• MOOCs are getting massively talked about (see this COL post or wikipedia) and we heard some experiences from MSU and the Sloan Consortium. It seems to  be a heavily academic-driven trend with MOOCs seen as massive tools to democratize access to higher education (and to create delivery efficiencies).  While online and distance and open learning has massive potential in our world, also for CGIAR with its massive knowledge assets, I found the focus on the ‘course’ to distract us from the purpose …. learning. So maybe rather than focusing on the course as output we need to focus on the outcome learning … making sure it is massively useful rather than massively open or online.

• Mobiles are another buzz and Dileepkumar Guntuku (ICRISAT) took us through the range of opportunities they provide. One of the challenges mobiles present to research and educational organizations like ILRI is around the relevant and purposing of the content we generate. I recall once hearing from Nokia that their ‘live tools’ application had to re-write/re-purpose almost all they content they got from public bodies; none was in a format they could easily re-use. So we tried in this session to look at the open content we produce and how it can be connected via mobile devices with rural communities.

My colleagues Paolo Ficarelli and Sharbendu Banerjee (CABI) kindly contributed insights from the m-Kisan project via yammer.  Sharbendu argued, yes, ‘formal’ open knowledge of the type we have can flow through mobile channels, but only if the content has been interpreted and repackaged before entering the repository (eg to convey scientific information in 165 characters!). Paolo emphasized that the processes of validation and verification with local practitioners are heavy and time-consuming … and that really we need to be able to work with many well-informed and effective intermediaries.  So, yes we can get our ‘formal’ knowledge on to mobile platforms and out to rural communities – but it needs a lot of re-packaging, validation and especially strong intemediary partners much closer to farmers than we are!

• Quality assessment of the open educational resources that are being produced was another popular topic. David Kernohan from JISC took us through the various aspects arguing that some of the processes with ‘regular’ educational resources are the same as for open resources. I sensed an underlying concern here that much of this new ‘massively’ open content is not as good quality as it could be, that the actual delivery is not always up to standard, and indeed that the educational platforms and resources are not properly checked against a range of technical, pedagogical, legal, and other criteria.  We undertook a group exercise to map possible quality assessment steps n the production of OER … where the focus disappointingly was mostly on the ‘product’ and not on the process leading up to it (our group started from excellent participatory problem/demand definition as the necessary first step in assuring quality of the resulting product).

• The work of student innovation scholars in the AgShare project (phase 2 is just approved by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) was discussed in several sessions. We learned how MSc curricula at some universities in Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia were adapted to enrich the student experience, provide a wider range of action research ‘products’ for communities and to co-create further (open) learning and teaching materials.  It’s a very interesting approach, not least as it encourages the students to adopt open rich diverse communication and knowledge sharing approaches. The final thesis remains; it is complemented by the many other knowledge products generated in the course of the action research. This complements the approach we try at ILRI to make much more knowledge open along the entire research process and to produce much more than just ‘final’ articles…

I was asked to talk about ‘Methods for Measuring Impacts of Open Research, Open Content and Open Data’ and then facilitate a discussion around some of the challenges this entails (see the presentation). I drew on an earlier presentation on ways we support learning and reflection through more open knowledge.

In this presentation I shared some basic metrics (views of services and content, going up massively after we began using more ‘open’ channels and platforms) and asked if this was enough. Can we prove, through views or downloads, that being open is more ‘impactful’, and on what? What other types of indicators might b want to use?

Using a very simple structure, I hesitate to call it a theory of change, I suggested we could look at openness in terms of the content, knowledge, tools, platforms, process etc that we use (the outputs). Making these more open is indeed probably desirable but how do we measure the usefulness of this.Thus I suggested we could try and link more openness of an output with a larger outcome – such as research or educational quality, transparency, efficiency and so on.  These types of outcomes are where the knowledge management group in ILRI is mainly focused. Open knowledge is OK, but effective research is what we want to achieve. We can also move beyond outcomes and try to associate more open knowledge through research outcomes to impacts in communities … such as more money, better education, less hunger. But this seems to be very difficult.

Taking this simple outputs, outcomes, impacts framework, I shared some examples where these can be seen. Thus, the open data people seem to be making a direct link between (more) openness and impact on citizens’ lives; the value proposition of OER is more about educational outcomes; and the open access movement is getting beyond open articles to the outcomes these can have on scientific productivity.

Summarized, some outcomes we may achieve through more open knowledge (and all it entails) include:

• Cost savings, efficiency and product acceleration [of service providers]
• Empowerment and engagement [of ‘customers’, of partners?]
• Greater transparency [of decisions, of actors …?]
• Access, availability, visibility [of content]
• Return on investment [by funders]
• Improved quality [multidimensional - of education, research, government …]

View the presentation:

‘Putting science into use’ is now the buzz phrase and indeed it has always been the case…practically. Once upon a time, there was no useful electricity. Then in 1792, one Benjamin Franklin after much work found that electricity could be tamed and three short centuries later it is hard to imagine a world without electricity if you are a city dweller like me. Where would the world be in terms of travel if the Wright Brothers had not made their first crude plane? It is the improvement made subsequently on their crude object that has given us today’s jet and each moment one cruises above our heads, we never imagine life without it.

Why am I writing this? Because thanks to science being put into use, I don’t have to go down the hill and across the ridge to the next valley to get water for my household. I belong to the privileged few in Africa that can turn on a tap and voila! There is running water (most of the time). So I have energy to spare to, think, reflect and put my thoughts into writing because someone else improved the art of sharing by multiplying my pen…I can use this computer then put my article on a blogpost that you will read and we never need to meet!

Writing to put science into use requires the scientific innovators who spend most of their day dreaming, questioning, cross-checking and searching for yet more evidence. It also requires those light-hearted people we call cartoonists and illustrators because someone once said “a picture is worth a thousand words”. I don’t know how many words an illustration is worth but I do know it helps to break the monotony of the reading but also explains better what the words are saying. Then there is the bully editor, like me, who constantly asks “can we please say it in a simpler way”. Often this is not possible and each person waits for the previous one to complete before they move to the next step.

Here is where the ‘Writeshop’ process comes in. Have you ever thought of bringing together scientists, writers, administrators and accountants for the sole purpose of talking, understanding and writing a proposal? Or farmers, writers, extension workers, researchers, the community you work in – both literate and illiterate to write a community adaptation manual?

At a recent CGIAR knowledge and communication workshop, I learned that this process can bring together people who routinely don’t work together even though they are involved in the same things from different angles. And after stripping all the big words to their bare bones, each person can walk away with their famous elevator pitch for Bill Gates (funding) or to explain to grandma what exactly it is you do at work.

Listening to writeshops guru, Paul Mundy speaking at the workshop was, simply enlightening. Several writeshops later, I learned a different approach from Mundy. Leave with a draft of your chapter, policy brief or manual. Until then, in every writeshop I had participated in, we brainstormed, took notes and everyone went back home to write on their own. In some cases, we had disastrous results.  There were times when the draft that later came was completely different from what been discussed previously. This meant the notes had not even been used, rendering the previous writeshop a complete waste of time.

Three things I learned from Mundy: A writeshop is for writing; the quick formula involves advance preparation, writing at the writeshop and being critiqued, revisions often being done away and then publishing. Finally, it is the editors who steer the process, moving with authors to a particular direction.

Other posts from this workshop:

http://wle.cgiar.org/blogs/2012/11/26/blurring-the-boundaries-between-research-and-communications/

http://infoilri.wordpress.com/2012/11/10/co-creating-knowledge-in-r4d/

group discussions to identify good practices

In October 2012 the Knowledge Management and Information Services (KMIS) team at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Addis Ababa worked day and night to help make a success of an AgriKnowledge ShareFair ‘Towards Food and Nutrition Security in the Horn of Africa.’

The Horn of Africa has suffered several droughts in the last 10 years. Each time, governments, the international community and NGOs agreed that long term measures were needed to prevent another tragedy.

In October 2012, FAO and other partners convened an ‘AgriKnowledge ShareFair‘ that brought together people from fifteen countries from Africa’s most drought prone regions to address recurrent droughts and chronic food insecurity in the Horn of Africa. They discussed and shared good practices and ways to scale them.

The event took place on the ILRI Ethiopia campus; it also received substantial organization and communication support from ILRI.

Some of the organizers of the ShareFair

Ideas for the event germinated in May 2012 during informal discussions; they concretized in August and September and turned into  a major logistical activity with 200+ participants, tents, stands, discussions, and of course heavy communication.

The KMIS team contributed to:

• Preparing the overall event organization, design and facilitation;
• Producing posters, banners and brochures
• Setting up communication tools and platforms – a blog, wiki, and photo sharing;
• Producing content updates through blogposts, twitter, a daily newsletter and video interviews;
• Training FAO staff on how to use the tools.

It proved to be a challenging and a learning exercise – organizing the content, organizing and structuring the issues, and managing the print process. Luckily we were able to draw on other similar large events such as the Livestock Exchange and the AgKnowledge Africa share fair that adopted similar engaging and participatory approaches.

In the closing session, Dr. Castro Camarada, FAO Coordinator for Eastern Africa congratulated the team for their great communication support, especially for social reporters that helped make the event more visible.

The ILRI ‘communication’ team comprised: Apollo Habtamu, Liya Dejene, Peter Ballantyne, Tigist Endashaw, Tsehay Gashaw and Zerihun Sewunet. Colleagues in ILRI operations (housing, catering, ICT and engineering also played important roles in making the event a success!)

Read the Daily Tail:

• 23 October Issue
• 24 October Issue
• 25 October Issue

See some of our photos

Most of our blog posts are here

Videos

Story by Tsehay Gashaw, Zerihun Sewunet, Liya Dejene and Peter Ballantyne

In a recent workshop co-organized by Water, Land and Ecosystems and Livestock and Fish research programs on: ‘Organizing, Managing, Communicating and Leveraging Information and Knowledge to Support and Deliver CRP Results  in Addis Ababa, Beth Cullen a researcher currently working at ILRI emphasized the role of knowledge co-creation in agricultural research. Beth pointed out that co-creating knowledge can lead to:

• The breakdown of knowledge/power hierarchies that exist between scientists and farmers hence better collaboration between scientists and farmers;
• End users of research become active partners in production of knowledge rather than objects of research and passive receivers of research outputs-which are necessary for easier adoption of best practices, better uptake and impact of research outputs;
• Creates a range of insights and potential solutions especially in an era of unpredictable change;
• Co-creating knowledge helps to ensure that institutional and policy issues as well as power dynamics are taken into account, rather than ‘magic bullet’ or blueprint approaches.

Organizing, Managing, Communicating and Leveraging Information and Knowledge to Support and Deliver CRP Results (photo credit: ILRI/Zerihun Sewunet).

Co-creating knowledge can be strengthened by communication tools such as participatory radio, video and the use of local languages. These tools ensure that research outputs are appealing to end users, are developed in a simpler language and that their outcomes are mutually owned.

Research that is made simpler and more compelling through such means tends to reach more people and get them to take action.

During the same workshop,Freyhiwot Nadew – Ethiopia Country Director of Farm Radio international described a case study of co-creating knowledge using participatory radio. She reported that Farm Radio’s participatory radio strategies have contributed significant changes in the knowledge and practices of farmers and their communities.

Nadew explained the process of engaging farmers in Farm Radio’s programming: “Farmers participation in radio is allowed at all levels – from planning to implementation and evaluation of the project, we involve farmers in the decision-making process, including making decisions about the contents, duration and program schedule”, she said. The farmers, or their representatives, also have a voice in the management of radio program projects.

Nadew assured participants that participatory radio is a great strategy of co-creating knowledge and supporting farmers to adopt new technology in agriculture.

At the end of Beth Cullen’s presentation, it was clear that local knowledge creation has become more widely recognized as a key contributor in sustainable development. Most successful development efforts leverage local technologies, local systems of knowledge, and the local environment in their plans. This in turn creates mutual respect between the stakeholders involved, encourages local participation, and builds partnerships for joint problem resolution.

The 4 day workshop which targeted participants from various information, knowledge, science and communication domains revolved around;

• Communicating for wider influence and impact – Reaching and engaging with and influencing wide audiences,
• Research for impact – Translating outputs into research, development and policy outcomes, getting knowledge into use,
• Knowledge sharing and learning –Enriching organization/program/project learning, interaction and exchange,
• Publishing – Capturing and disseminating research products and outputs,
• Internal communication – Linking and connecting teams among other important issues in knowledge management and communication.

More resources on the workshop can be accessed on:  http://kmc4crps.wikispaces.com/

See Beth Cullen’s work on participatory video

See Farm Radio’s work with ILRI’s IPMS project

Other posts from this workshop:

http://wle.cgiar.org/blogs/2012/11/26/blurring-the-boundaries-between-research-and-communications/

http://infoilri.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/writing-our-science-for-development-a-new-look-at-writeshops/

Workshop participants sharing lessons

From September to late October 2012, the Africa RISING program held a series of review and planning workshops. These followed a series of other inception, design and project workshops held since January 2012.

The Knowledge Management and Information Services (KMIS) team of ILRI contributed to this series of workshops: through design, organization, facilitation, social reporting and sometimes formal reporting. This role grew out of initial meetings in early 2012 when the project leaders came to recognize the usefulness of communication and facilitation in their activities. This facilitation support was to help participants tease out results and stories from, for example, the early win projects as well as shaping plans and directions for the coming years.

The communication team from The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) also contributed to these efforts, joining the ILRI team, supporting the organization of the recent workshops and generating important media stories in East and Southern Africa or supporting the visit of members of the US Senate and of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on official visit in Ghana.

What are some lessons from this work?

The end of an inception phase is a good period to harvest lessons and insights from the early work – particularly as they are expected to contribute to a broader research program as is the case with the new phase of Africa RISING in Ethiopia and the other mega sites (East and Southern, and West Africa).

• The complexity of Africa RISING means that a lot of important questions have been explored iteratively. This is very useful, yet challenging, as some key questions remained unanswered for too long – such as site selection, the development of a research framework and of a monitoring and evaluation framework.
• The absence of definitive and clearly localized answers regarding site selection meant that some concrete details (of research planning, monitoring etc.) were postponed.
• Many of the workshops helped clarify some aspects of the work. At the same time, different workshops involved different people and some participants were not aware of progress made in previous workshops, opening up new cycles of negotiations and conversations that were once thought finalized.
• We concluded that it would be useful in future to develop a short set of presentation slides summarizing the key advances and results of each workshop, to build ‘the Africa RISING story’ all along and inform everyone of the boundaries set and results achieved at each step of the process.
• The early win projects and other areas of Africa RISING showcased the creativity of the staff involved in developing new tools and methods/approaches, developing new or strengthening existing partnerships, and they also testify that Africa RISING teams are dedicated to working in an integrated manner across institutions.

As the program starts a new stage, communication and knowledge management support will be all the more important to ensure Africa RISING research informs the people that need it most, from farmers to policy-makers and donors.