Change and innovation in the Volta Basin Development Challenge program

1. Change and Innovation in the
Volta Basin Development
Challenge Program
A Working Presentation
Karen Marie Greenough, PhD
V5, VBDC Science Meeting
18 September 2013

2. Contents
 The Research
 Objectives
 What’s happened
 Meeting & Tours
 Interviews
 Analysis
 Tentative “conclusions”
 VBDC Changes and
“Innovations”
 Fostering
Innovation?
 People: RTF &
Villagers
 Time
 Communication
 Investment

3. Objectives of the Research
 To discover changes – possibly innovations –
that result from project activities
 Among researchers, facilitators and extension
agents partnered or subcontracted within the
projects
 Among local project participants (and non-
participants): producers, NGO members,
extension agents, bureaucrats, chefferie
 To examine the characteristics of
“innovations” and “innovators”
 To provide some conclusions about the
above for future projects

4. Methods: Meeting & Tours
 VSS Tours
 V1 Learning Event,
Yako PGIS Tour
 V2 IP Meetings, BF & Gh
 V3 Feedback Meetings, BF & Gh

5. Methods: Meeting & Tours
 V4
 Commod Workshops, BF & Gh
 White Volta Basin Board Reorganization
Meeting
 V5
 Group d’apprentissage–Burkina
 Common System of Documentation
 Atelier de Concertation de Haut Niveau
 Field Tour & Reflection 2012

6. Methods: Interviews
 VSS Tour interviews
 Gave a broader picture of change and drivers of change
 Local participants and non-participants: 95
 “Non-participants” :
 People not selected to participate in IPs or workshops
 Interviews will show whether and how ideas generated by
project activities are spreading
 Researchers, Technicians & Facilitators: 45
 Many different stories and experiences
 Many different views of change and innovation
Place Based Project No. Place Based Project No.
Ouaga all 13 Tamale V2 1
Ouahigouya V2 4 Nyankpala V2 6
Bobo V3/5 5 Lawra V2 1
Dedougou V4 2 Babille V2 2
24 Wa V2 1
Participants & other interviewees Bawku V3 2
Dano V4 3 Binaba V3 1
Diébougou V4 6 16
Naburnye V4 1
Tiankora V4 1 Binaba V3/4 21
Diourawo V4 2 Lawra V2 30
Bouroum-Bouroum V4 1 Golinga V2 10
Gaoua V4 3 Digu V2 12
22 73
R,T,F based elsewhere V1 & 2 5 Total Interviewees 140
Participants & other interviewees
5V4
2V4Bolgatanga
Bapla
GhanaBurkina Faso
Researchers, Technicians, Faciliatators Researchers, Technicians, Faciliatators

7. Analysis
 Coding interview transcriptions & field notes
 Looking for patterns
 Validating (or not) hypotheses and tentative
conclusions
 Coming up with new hypotheses
and conclusions
 Reading
 Social Network Analysis
 People to people
 People to Structures
 Structures to Structures
 Mapping

8. Tentative “conclusions”
 Definitions of “innovations”
 There seems to be a difference between northern
and local researchers
 Local definitions : Not necessarily entirely new, but new to the
context, i.e. “new to us”
 Characteristics of Innovators
 Relatively wealthy: poor people do not have the
resources, including time, to innovate
 Connected: through commercial networks and/or associations
 Participants of projects tend to be selected because of
previous project work

9. Tentative “conclusions”
 Communication and innovation
 Face to face connections between people are most
beneficial
 Meetings cannot provide needed comprehensive
information
 Programs need to study “how” people communicate
within the projects and programs
 Projects & innovation
 All stakeholders must understand the precise type & level of participation
 “Stuff” & “Accompaniment”: need local contributions from the start
 People waiting for project activities or stuff seem less likely to innovate
 Development, especially participatory, takes time
“We underestimated the time needed. We need researchers as dedicated staff for the
project core. We need to have more modest expectations of impacts.”

10. VBDC Changes and “Innovations”
 Changes in outlooks, knowledge and skills
 Local researchers benefit from working with farmers
on trial plots.
 Villagers share knowledge that they have gained from
the projects.
 Villagers in Digu and Golinga build animal pens.
 Local researchers understand that policy must be developed from
the base.
“In drafting policy, there should be room for adjustment when you move
from one place to another.”
 Researchers, Tech, and Facilitators learn from each other.
“Well, in terms of experience, one new thing is working on water.”
“And then, the researchers’ manner of approaching the question. Don’t just
attack things like that. Really try to understand them and their causes.”

11. VBDC Changes and “Innovations”
 New interactions
 Between villagers who never worked together before.
 Between structures who have never worked together
before.
“The project has definitely strengthened relationships with
partner institutions.”
 New technologies and processes
 TAGMI
 Improved crop varieties
 Rainwater harvesting techniques
 The participatory techniques of
multi-stakeholder platforms

12. Fostering Innovation? … People
 Research for Development involves
 a multitude of very different kinds of people
 with very different understandings
 with very different goals
 They don’t always understand each other
 They can’t always talk to each other
 Their goals may be in conflict with each other
 They may only want “stuff” from each other
 Villagers want inputs and technology.
 Researchers want research results.
 Everyone wants their per diem.

13. Seeing like Researchers
“It’s complicated! We have to have complex partnerships for complex problems. Of course, there
are transaction costs.”
***********
“We need to involve the partner as early as possible to make them to understand the way we
imagine the process. This is the most important step of the project, and if we cannot succeed in
this first step, all the other steps will not work.”
***********
CPWF is “like a kind of laboratory, where people are testing and experimenting without being too
mindful what that would mean in terms of demands on people implementing the projects.”
***********
“But in recent years, I think innovation is more an issue of psychological appropriation. It’s very
important that local people have the impression that it comes from them, you see?”
***********
“This project was more like a trial and error. So we did not have the impression that it was
really, completely well-planned.”
***********
“It is very difficult to have a scientific project, and simultaneously to have to communicate to our
stakeholders. This requires different skills; it probably also requires different people.”

14. Seeing like Villagers
“They don’t like us.”
“I had to learn to humble myself.”
Researchers are a separate species:
 They have more money than we will ever see in our lifetimes.
 They travel very fast in rich vehicles; wear rich, fancy clothing;
live in rich, fancy houses.
 They will never understand or respect us.
 They can barely stand to be in the places we live.
 They won’t drink our water or eat our food.
 We watch them rush in and out …
 Knowing that when one project leaves another will come;
 Strategizing how to get as much as we can out of the one that is
here now;
 Wondering whether to risk resources by trying new technology.
 They can and do leave; we cannot.
1979 ABC diguettes en terre
DEF live fencing
1984-2004 GHI1 tree nurseries
natural regeneration
2005-2009 GHI2 cordonnes pierres
zaï
tech training
foyers améliorés
soap making
composting
2006-2009 JKL latrines
2012 foot pedal pump wells
2008 MNO open wells
cordonnes pierres
improved seed
tech training
management committees
improved zaï
composting
demi-lunes
2008-present PQR micro-credit
soap making
soumbala
rainwater harvest training
A Sketch of Projects in One Village

15. Fostering Innovation? … Time
 An Agricultural Innovation Systems approach
 departs from a linear transfer from researcher to farmer
 goes beyond previous participatory development approaches
 Participatory development takes time for ..
 understanding participatory approaches
 communication: face to face discussion and informal conversation
 for going in-depth to understand the context of situations
 Analysis of studies throughout the program takes time.
 Time must be designed into the program.
 Donors & directors must have the patience necessary for
engaging participatory AIS development.

16. Fostering Innovation? … Communication
 Developing innovations takes communication
 spontaneous
 conversational
 respectful
 two-way (“n”-way)
 The AIS program should monitor how communication is
happening among their stakeholders
 Can researchers exchange with each other informally and often?
 Are researchers, techs and facilitators engaging farmers in
respectful exchanges?
 Do researchers, techs and facilitators really understand the
participatory processes?
Me? almost nothing.
I mean, what is the
definition of an
innovation system?

17. Fostering Innovation? … Investment
 Who owns the development?
 Researchers are reluctant to give up control.
 Local stakeholders have little “stake” in the project.
 Why should stakeholders care that you are trying to develop them?
 An AIS program needs a careful balance between contributions
from local stakeholders and inputs.
 Stakeholders should contribute money from the very beginning of
project.
 This means, however…
 R4D personnel must deliver quality product.
 All financing must be transparent.
 All stakeholders must be engaged in two-way respectful conversations.

18. Acknowledgements
 Aly Diarra, research assistant
 Kalie Lassiter, intern
 Anna Tarrant, intern
 Karin Neumayer, intern
 Our translators in Ghana and Burkina, especially
Adam Hudu
 V5: Funke, Mahamoudou, Adjara, Joachim
 Everyone who gave their time for
interviews, allowed us to attend your meetings
and workshops, and helped us with our site visits.
 Thank you!!