RiPPLE Blog

Around 70 participants attended the second MUS international symposium organized here in Addis Ababa at ILRI campus. With the objective of providing a platform for sharing and consolidating experiences and lessons learnt on different aspects of providing multiple –use water services and discuss implications for taking the MUS approach forward.

Mr. Abera mekonnen, representing Mr. Asfaw Dingamo , Water Resource Minister, officially opened the symposium by recognizing the importance of such event in bringing forward the issues and gaps in the sector  and help in addressing them . He also retaliate that the ministry of water resources has devised the universal access plan to address the lack of access of water in the country. Access to water for basic domestic uses alone however is not sufficient since people require water for small –scale productive uses in which case providing water for multiple uses is an important issue to be considered.

Following the opening remark lots of interesting papers and discussion where conducted.

Some of the interesting points raised for discussion include:

• Does MUS only focus on water and not on sanitation?
• Is MUS a holistic approach that includes IWRM or vice versa?
• Is MUS about multiple water services or systems?
• In one case study MUS was mentioned as expensive? But is it expensive than that of single use where we have o invest for each single purpose?

These were just a few points and lots of others have been also raised. What are your ideas on the above issues?

This is the keremt season in Ethiopia, driver of most of the Nile’s annual flow. In coming decades change will come to regional climate patterns, but how, where and when is only beginning to be understood. That the Nile regime will change is highly likely. But before rainfall reaches the river it replenishes groundwater, provides surface sources for livestock and drives key production systems. How will these be affected? What can be done to mitigate adverse impacts? How can communties begin a process of adaptation that will strengthen their livelihood security? Ethiopia’s National Action Plan on Adaptation helps point the way in some respects. But there is still a gap between the undertstanding of anticipated change and levels at which adaptation (policy and practice) can and should take place. The RiPPLE programme welcomes your views on these and related issues!

A new resource has been released on Learning Alliances, based on the experiences of a project from the International Center of Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

“Ever since 2003 the Rural Agro-Enterprises Development Project of the International Center of Tropical Agriculture, CIAT, has facilitated the Learning Alliance for Rural Agro-Enterprises in Central America. This initiative promotes collaborative learning processes amongst different social actors of research, development, public and private sectors leading to promote institutional innovations which facilitate the implementation of development activities and more effective policies that may contribute to generating sustainable rural livelihoods in developing countries.”

An executive summary in English and full report in Spanish are available at: PRGA News: Assessment of CIAT’s Experience with the Learning Alliance in Central America

The Addis Ababa office of the ‘RiPPLE’ Program, this year at the Stockholm 2008 World Water Week (August 17^th – 22^nd), is represented by its Policy Officer, Bethel Terefe.

In this International Year of Sanitation a key question is: how can the case be made for sanitation, to draw the attention of national governments, donors and funding institutions?

This issue is being debated at this conference.

Read the rest of this entry »

On my way to the World Water Week in Stockholm, the world’s largest annual international conference on water and sanitation issues, water shortage does not seem to be a problem: the city of Stockholm is surrounded by water and it is raining cats and dogs. However, in other parts of the world, where many of the participants come from, the situation looks very different. According to recent UN estimates, close to 1 billion people worldwide have still no access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion people have no access to basic sanitation facilities. But why has the world been unable to solve this water supply and sanitation crisis and what solutions will the international community of water experts come up with?

Read the rest of this entry »

This November, the MUS Group co-hosts a follow-up symposium with RiPPLE, in Addis Ababa, on “Multiple-use services: from practice to policy“. Building on achievements of the first symposium, this symposium seeks to explore recent research and practice experiences on MUS, provoke debate around lessons learnt and utilise these experiences and lessons to draw out some sound policy that can be carried forward.

Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a fairly active response to the blog post on the CGIAR Knowledge Sharing in research blog: Learning Alliance- light?!: exploring models that work posted on July 3rd 2008. Some interesting comments and perspectives have been shared–check it out and give us your own thoughts too.
In addition, with a general agreement by a number of contributers to the blog that we do indeed need to look at models that work and highlight their beneficial characteristics and activities, the discussion has also turned to how WE- as practitioners in these multi-stakeholder processes- can share with and learn from each other.

Read the rest of this entry »

To follow-up on the last blog post I made- there have been more posts, comments and discussion ongoing about Learning Alliances on the CGIAR Knowledge Sharing in Research Blog.

Of particular interest and a blog post which has set off a thread of discussion and ideas was the blog post entitled: ‘Learning Alliances-light?!: exploring models that work‘.

This post called into question whether we get too caught up and have to spend too much money, time and personnel to develop Learning Alliances in the way in which they are generally presented. Perhaps we need a lighter model-it suggests–one in which we utilize key components and characteristics that work and offer benefit such as facilitation of stakeholders gathering to identify problems and options, collaboration to work together to find solutions and ensure out- and up-scaling, and activities to learn together–things that work to advance research and development.

What parts of the LPA do you think are the best? which ones work? what would you choose to keep doing? what would you choose to stop? Is there a model or structure or operation within RiPPLE or outside that you think works best?
Read the rest of this entry »

Check out blog posts on lessons from WASPA project Learning Alliance at http://ictkm.wordpress.com/category/knowledge-sharing/ or at www.ks-cgiar.org

Hi all,

Sorry I am kicking off the blog posts in this category not with a post about the RiPPLE Learning and Practcie Aliances in fact–but to draw your attention to Learning Alliances in a different project (not even in Ethiopia). You may be interested to read the blog posts on lessons emerging from the use of Learning Alliances in another project–see note and link below. Comments can be made on that blog–but we can perhaps also start a discussion based on some of those ideas on this blog too.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dear all,

In addition to our Nile Regional Learning blog, we are also instituting other blog ’streams’. Initially we have categories on: Ethiopia Water Sector Progress, focusing in particular on moves towards achieving greater sector harmonisation and alignment, on mapping processes in support of sector development, on sanitation sector challenges and on links between water and growth in the region. You will shortly be able to register on the website in order to post blogs. So, once again, watch this space — or, alternatively, if you can’t wait, then start buy adding your thoughts as a comment to this post.

Looking forward to lively and forward-looking debate and commentary!

Alan Nicol

RiPPLE Director