Weaknesses
- Less flexibility: The structured procedure, praised as an advantage above (see strength 1) is at the same time a weakness, as the workshop methodology is less flexible than the one designed for stakeholder workshop 1. Steps cannot just be skipped without hampering the result in case of time pressure, for example.
- Bugs in the Facilitator software: The Facilitator software in its current version is not as easy-to-use as was expected; it still had some software bugs. (Communication with the US-American authors of the software revealed that they are most probably going to re-program the Facilitator).
- Hardly possible to define a broader SLM strategy: The short duration of the 2nd stakeholder workshop does not allow an in-depth discussion as would be needed to define/improve a broader SLM strategy. However, such a strategy is required to properly embed the selected technologies in a broader context and perspective, taking into account the relevant socio-economic, institutional and policy issues.
- Options coming from the WOCAT DB (enter the process in the 2nd workshop only): being new in the process, these options might be 'overlooked' and therefore kicked out in the course of the process as the local options have already been discussed a lot during the 1st workshop and participants are more identified with them (as happened in Spain). Similar difficulties regarding the exchange between study sites (or other sites, i.e. options from the WOCAT DB) have been reported from Tunisia, saying that people are conservative and sometimes skeptical regarding technologies they don't know themselves.
