Report and synthesis of Stakeholder Workshop 1

Table of Contents

1. Authors
2. Introduction
   1. Background
   2. Objectives
3. Workshops
   1. How the methodology was used
   2. Participants
   3. Duration
4. Results from the single exercises
   1. Causes and effects of land degradation identified through the water and biomass cycles
   2. Local indicators
   3. Stakeholders' influence on, and motivation for sustainable land management
   4. Assessment of locally applied technologies and approaches
   5. Outline of an overall strategy for sustainable land management
5. Workshop evaluation
   1. Stakeholder involvement and participation
   2. Atmosphere
   3. Methodology
   4. Mutual learning
   5. Objectives and results
   6. Recommendations from study sites
6. Overall conclusions
   1. Have the objectives been attained?
   2. Strengths, weaknesses and challenges
   3. Limitations and problems
7. Annex: List of stakeholder workshop reports

How the methodology was used

The WB3 training workshops in Spain and Morocco were attended by representatives from 14 out of 16 study sites, i.e. from Italy and Crete nobody participated. In the case of Italy we were informed from the beginning that participatory approaches are difficult to be used in their context, as stakeholders have become participation-tired; and the Crete study site team had already selected another approach for interacting with stakeholders due to their leading role in WB2. For both study sites it was agreed with the project management that they would use another approach.

The following table gives an overview on which study sites did use the WP3.1 methodology, how it was used and which major adaptations* / deviations from the suggested procedure as found in the workshop reports were made.

[*The WP 3.1 methodology, i.e. the methodological and didactic workshop guidelines are designed as a flexible instrument, which gives the workshop moderator a certain room for manoeuvre to adapt the methodology to the group process (for more details see -> DESIRE Manuals and Training Guides, No. 6, October 2007).]

Table 2: Overview on how the WP 3.1 methodology was used

E = external participants WS = workshops L = local participants SST = study site team

Methodology used as suggested in the workshop guidelines: 12 out of 16 study sites have used the WP 3.1 guidelines, although some of them not fully. 10 out of these 12 study sites have conducted all of the suggested exercises.

In Morocco and Tunisia an earlier version of the WP 3.1 guidelines have been used, because the Moroccan workshop was a pilot workshop to test the methodology, and the Tunisian colleagues had been invited to this pilot workshop as their training on the methodology. After the pilot workshop, the procedure of a few exercises has been changed though, but the general direction of exercises and discussions remained the same.

Methodology not used: 4 out of 16 study sites did not use the suggested WP 3.1 methodology. In the Mexican study site no stakeholder workshop was conducted at all. In the Italian study site a series of information and discussion events have been organised for stakeholders. In the two Greek study sites stakeholder events have been organised but each with a quite different approach, i.e. 'Nominal group technique' with 65 participants in the case of Crete, and presentations to (38) stakeholders made by the researchers in Nestos Basin.

These 4 study sites are generally not considered in the synthesis (unless otherwise stated), as there are either no results from stakeholder workshops at all, or the approach and methodology used was too different from the WP 3.1 methodology as to compare results.

Discussion

WP 3.1 intends to initiate a mutual learning process among different stakeholders by the means of specific participatory exercises to foster joint reflection, knowledge exchange and interaction between different stakeholders. The authors assume that workshop participants in all study sites did learn from each other. However, the intended mutual learning process based on sharing knowledge and experience and jointly reflecting on current problems and possible solutions is presumed to have occurred to a higher or lesser degree in the different study sites. On the basis of information we have, we can not make reliable statements. However, we do have some reservations regarding whether mutual learning was attained in study sites where either the methodology and /or the composition of the learning group has been considerably changed (see Table 1). This concerns the following study sites:

• Tunisia: timing of the participation of different stakeholders, it seems as if during the first two days (transects) land users have mainly played the role of informants.
• Russia (both sites): land users are strongly underrepresented in the workshop, in Saratov, the big majority of participants were either representatives of research institutions or GOs and in Djanibek representatives of different village administrations. In the case of Djanibek also the division into two parts with land users only participating in the second part is problematic.
• China (first workshop): the way participation of different stakeholders was timed, no direct interaction between local and external stakeholders occurred except with researchers. However, in their additional WP3.1 workshop this problem was solved.
• Chile: the short duration, changing participants, strong methodological changes and own workshop objective (to define research agenda).