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

Mutual learning

"Farmers, probably for the first time in their life, met experts and managers from the desertification-related GO's and NGO's to solve their problems with equal rights of expression." (Eskisehir, Turkey)

Most workshop reports do not contain much information on the learning process itself. However, from the evaluations made by participants and moderators some relevant information can be deduced.

One of the objectives of stakeholder workshop 1, and maybe the most important one, is to initiate a mutual learning process among different stakeholders in the study sites. This learning process is mainly based on sharing knowledge and experience and jointly reflecting on current problems and possible solutions.

In fact, it is not possible to assess what exactly has been learnt by different stakeholders, or which changes in perceptions or attitudes have occurred. Nevertheless, the workshop evaluations give some hints on how this process of mutual learning has evolved and developed.

Table 24: Hints on evolving mutual learning processes

In both Turkish sites it was mentioned, that (local) stakeholders are not used to participative approaches and that in workshops, farmers are usually in the role of recipients of technical know-how. These farmers especially appreciated to be listened to by external participants.