Our collaborative Lesson Learning series aims to highlight the policy implications of our experience in the field.

We were all involved in the inception phase of the Jigawa Enhancement of Livelihoods (JEWEL) project which is managed by ITAD on behalf of DFID. The purpose of JEWEL is to reduce poverty of the primary stakeholders (farmers, herders and fisher-folk) who rely on the Wetlands of the Hadejia-Ja’amare-Kamadugu-Yobe basin. The project approach depends upon facilitating increased co-ordination, collaboration and information exchanges among key stakeholders (mainly civil servants, NGOs and the primary beneficiaries) as a means of improving management of the natural resources of the Wetlands.

The inception phase aimed to:

• improve awareness and understanding of the difficulties of common property resource management
• improve lines of communication between all stakeholders
• facilitate self-awareness and change of attitudes
• raise levels of capability, responsibility and accountability
• contribute to decision-making

The key mechanism employed was participatory training and fieldwork with relevant groups of stakeholders to collect baseline data in 3 separate phases:

3. Poverty, Environment and Livelihoods (CRA)

The workshops drew out perceptions of civil servants, NGOs and villagers on the current situation in the Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands. All agreed that the root cause of the problem is water distribution across the basin.

Too much or too little water has had different effects on the environment at the village level. The direct impact on people’s livelihoods varied between villages but throughout the Wetlands, it was characterised by the often dramatic loss of traditional livelihood activities.

As a result, people are being forced to adapt their livelihood activities but options are limited and show an increasing dependence on, and competition over, access to common property resources (CPRs) which is aggravating environmental damage. Relative access to trading opportunities and services (through government and NGOs) are also impacting on the livelihoods of individual households.

The villagers, particularly women, describe their increasing vulnerability in terms of their inability to meet the daily welfare needs of their families. Women illustrated their worsening situation in terms of increased stress, household conflict, poor health and nutrition, loss of social capital and out-migration of men.

The description of the current situation reflects important considerations of scale and time that need to be taken into account in planning and sequencing activities. The project will need to impact at all three levels and involve a range of stakeholders to do this (see below).

While the most important issue to address is always seen as water distribution, this will take time. Meanwhile, people’s immediate welfare needs are likely to become an increasing priority in the short-term as the environmental situation continues to deteriorate. It is possible that villages may even become so preoccupied with their welfare needs that they are unwilling or unable to contribute to action at a higher level.

This means that the project will need to support activities that contribute, either directly or indirectly, to attacking the root cause (water distribution) in the long-term; while offering context specific support to address issues affecting several communities; and specific initiatives for the most vulnerable members of specific communities, in the shorter-term.

The value of PLA is often characterised as empowerment of primary stakeholders and this is equally important for JEWEL. Our experience has also shown the benefits of PLA with intermediaries. Using the PLA methodology not only as content but as the teaching/learning mode means civil servants are better equipped to use it as a tool for data collection.

The most significant shifts in attitude amongst participants seem to be achieved as a result of ‘de-centring’. In other words, where the participatory approach enables them to place their own professional responsibilities in a wider context and to see how their own particular area of work links (or fails to link) with that of others. Participants begin to see, at least, other adjacent pieces of the jig-saw and, at best, something of the whole picture. This de-centring undoubtedly contributed to the increasing motivation shown by the participants for forging and maintaining links across institutional, state and organisational boundaries

Using participatory techniques for ongoing action, reflection and for evaluation of training and fieldwork experiences, both formatively and summatively, provides practical evidence for participants, in a dynamic and involving way, of the flexibility and broad applicability of PLA methodology. The value of doing fieldwork with a large number of participants is that it provides ample opportunity for the sharing of different perspectives and the triangulation of findings: "Interaction with group members and institutional members has widened my knowledge and perceptions. The integrated approach of different professionals looking at a problem and coming out with a solution acceptable to all, will obviously bring about good conservation, manage environmental degradation and solve conflicts over common property resources."

In particular, PLA practice in the field encourages the development of empathy with the lives of primary stakeholders (rather than a more diffuse sympathy for the plight of others). This seems to result from the opportunity to ‘stand in someone else’s shoes’ - to see, hear and experience the world from the other’s perspective.

The learning environment helps to develop ‘personalised’ relationships between workshop participants and villagers (as well as between workshop participants themselves) which can be exploited in overcoming perceived barriers to effective communication.

State civil servants are ‘the filling in the sandwich.’ They are under pressure from ‘above’ and ‘below’. They are the ones to build bridges between communities on the ground and the politicians with decision-making power. Civil servants are not members of the communities for which they have responsibility and they have no direct political power. Their most important ‘capacity’ is, therefore, their power to influence – to represent accurately, but also with conviction, the needs and the views of the communities. Accordingly, any training needs to enable them to maximise their capacity to influence - not just to be informed and sensitised about the needs and problems of the communities, but to understand and become committed to the need for productive and progressive change. PLA has shown itself to be a powerful methodological tool in this respect.

The inclusion of women as consultants, trainers, participants in training / fieldwork and as respondents in the field has been shown to have the following advantages:

• a more complete and a more complex picture ( and potentially a more constructive one) of conflict and livelihoods issues emerges
• gender conflicts in the private sphere are awarded significance in the public sphere. For example, while male pastoralists wish to continue their traditional way of life, women pastoralists say "we have to move with the times", Reduced access to resources through environmental degradation and reallocation of land can cause greater internal / invisible conflict within the household as women strive to meet the daily welfare needs of their families
• the contribution that women make to family / community livelihoods is made explicit and their particular needs identified: for example, an analysis of food processing tasks (for subsistence and income generation) identified 15 different tasks carried out by women, only 3 by men
• the invisible role of women as peace-makers within and between families and communities is highlighted: there are traditional women opinion leaders who can provide advice and are asked by male leaders to mediate in a range of situations
• the capacity and motivation of women for innovation and diversification to improve livelihoods is recognised: for example, as women lose access to farming land, they have turned to collecting and weaving doum palm, producing local foodstuffs and processing smoked fish
• monitoring and evaluation can be enhanced by the inclusion of indicators chosen by women, based on their perceptions of change in relation to the well-being of their household
• awareness of the need to develop mechanisms through which women can be fully involved in decision-making, capacity building and conflict resolution has developed among male participants: "women are able to talk about all issues that affect the family but very rarely get the chance... the women seem more enthusiastic in PRA methods, always ready to provide frank information about their situation..."
• women participants provide good role models: their involvement in training increases their confidence and motivation to encourage greater participation by other women

This document is based on work carried out in a project funded by the UK DFID, for the benefit of developing countries. The views expressed are not necessarily those of DFID

Lesson Learning is edited for CIDT by Pat Daniel