Revisiting the OLM’s

1. Revisiting the OLM’s Alan Duncan NBDC Reflection Workshop 15-16 Nov 2012

2. OLM’s explained • Projects are framed around Outcome Logic Models: • Actor(s) who will change in the same way • Change in Practice / Behaviour • Change in Knowledge, Attitude and/or Skills required to achieve Practice change • Project’s strategies for achieving these changes in KAS and Practice • Research output(s) involved in change

3. For example….

4. Hierarchy of influence… • For example in N2: • Planners • Implementers • Farmers and communities • Researchers • Policy makers

5. A different way of running a project…. • All our activities should in some way contribute to the changes we set out at project inception • Some scope for changing OLMs since NBDC embraces “adaptive management”

6. What has been our experience? • We have struggled with measuring change – M&E (&L) • We have revisited the OLM’s too infrequently • We have struggled to connect the projects using OLM’s

7. But still time to use them more effectively • OLM’s were a good idea • We now have a chance to look at them again and see what we have achieved • Can we harmonize OLM’s so that projects are working together to achieve change?

8. N2 Impact Narrative Past development interventions in agriculture in Ethiopia are more disappointing than research suggests they should be. Experience is that impact on rural livelihoods has been limited for a variety of reasons, including: i) blanket approaches favored by policy makers have mixed success ii) interventions are typically technology-oriented and not supported by effective policies and institutions iii) research is insufficiently linked with development; iv) lack of understanding of the inter-linkages (biophysical and social) that occur between different landscape components; v) specific institutional and administrative bottlenecks exist at various levels of planning, implementation and uptake. N2 will address these deficiencies, focusing on study landscapes in the Ethiopian Blue Nile. It will work directly with the range of actors required for success in those landscapes, including those engaged in planning, implementation, and innovation and uptake at farm/community level. Those actors directly engaged in N2 will have awareness of the water use and livelihood benefits of strategic RWM, and increased capacity to use tools and approaches to better target and implement RMS. N2 will also contribute indicators, data and analysis required for targeting and extrapolation of RMS to larger scales, particularly by N3 and N4, ensuring these are useful to next users by co-developing frameworks for analysis. In addition, N2 will provide synthesis and landscape scale scenarios to help policy makers understand what RMS recommendations would 'look like' on the ground to enable tailoring of policy and administrative interventions related to 'how-to' target, plan, implement and/or enable innovation and uptake of RMS.

9. N2 Impact narrative made easy • Past development interventions in agriculture in Ethiopia haven’t worked. • Why? • blanket approaches favoured by policy makers have mixed success • interventions are typically technology-oriented and not supported by effective policies and institutions • research is insufficiently linked with development; • lack of understanding of the inter-linkages (biophysical and social) that occur between different landscape components; • specific institutional and administrative bottlenecks exist at various levels of planning, implementation and uptake.

10. N2 Impact narrative made easy • N2 will address these deficiencies by working directly with the range of actors required for success in those landscapes…. planners, implementers, and farm/community level. • Those actors will have • awareness of the water use and livelihood benefits of strategic RWM • increased capacity to use tools and approaches to better target and implement RMS. • N2 will also contribute indicators, data and analysis required for targeting and extrapolation of RMS to larger scales, particularly by N3 and N4, ensuring these are useful to next users by co-developing frameworks for analysis. • In addition, N2 will provide synthesis and landscape scale scenarios to help policy makers understand what RMS recommendations would 'look like' on the ground to enable tailoring of policy and administrative interventions related to 'how-to' target, plan, implement and/or enable innovation and uptake of RMS.

11. N3 impact narrative made easy • N3 focuses on targeting and out-scaling RMS throughout the Ethiopian Blue Nile. • It will engage with researchers, implementers and policy makers in the region to tailor training, methodology development, final results and communication strategies to their needs. • N3 will work closely with national research institutes to further develop and implement the targeting methodology. Different scenarios will be evaluated, recommendation domain maps produced and policy messages extracted. • Those actors more loosely engaged in N3 will gain awareness of the benefits associated with targeting RWS to the social and ecological context and will be able to interpret and use the results of the project. • Within the regional research institutes we expect to see an increased capacity and positive attitude to use tools and approaches to better target and outscale RMS. • N3 will benefit a lot of the activities of N5 in terms of engagement and communication with a wide range of stakeholders. It will contribute data and analysis to N2 and N4.

12. N4 Impact narrative made easy • N4 focuses strongly on showing whether RMSs are effective. • It will use landscape level understanding of the RMS and interventions through the work of P2 and targeting of these interventions through out the Blue Nile using P3 results and use these to understand the consequences taking various factors in the upstream-downstream linkages. • It will engage various actors such as planners, policy makers, investors and researchers early on so the process will be based on the principle of co-development of tools and methods and co-creation of knowledge and provide platform of partnership. • The outputs will provide ample evidence on the consequences and the implications related to socio-economic, environmental impacts and resources sustainability. • These outputs provide useful evidence and knowledge that support decision making, negotiations and prioritization of investments. Since the outputs generated will be based on extensive consultation, analysis, co-creation and validation, the results will lead to an outcome that can be widely applied.

13. N5 Impact narrative made easy • The coordination project will change how the various RWMS actors in Ethiopian highlands currently work, their behavior, skills and attitudes through : • working in partnership with other NBDC actors, adding value to what they are doing, accessing the various technologies, practices and approaches relevant to their work but also where they could complement other initiatives; • collective engagement in terms of influencing policy through a consolidated agenda and collective action; • For policy makers, this will present an opportunity to demand and influence how these various actors work and where they should prioritize their investment. • In general, all actors would easily locate their work in the bigger whole and ensure the NBDC agenda is addressed through collective efforts and better communication among actors, using innovation science.

14. Moving ahead… • Do we recognize these impact narratives in what we are doing? • Where have we got to so far? • What are the gaps and redundancies we see? • Can we combine efforts in the final year to achieve development impact? • What would this look like? • What action is needed to get there?

15. Global OLM