Showing posts with label community participation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community participation. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Participatory 3D Modelling in Western Samoa triggers behavioural changes and climate change resilience

Since 2012 the local government together with local communities in Western Samoa have carried out a total of 19 participatory 3D modelling (P3DM) exercises in the context of agroforestry management, water management and tourism development.

A participatory research was conducted between February and April 2016 to explore the effectiveness and potential of P3DM in the region. The study was done by Barbara Dovarch, PhD candidate at the Department of Architecture Design and Urban Planning, University of Sassari, Italy, sociologist and independent researcher, in partnership with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and Samoa’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE).

This participatory impact evaluation involved diverse members of local communities and MNRE technical staff. It focused particularly on the capacity of P3DM to generate deep-seated and long-lasting behavioural changes.

The results of the study demonstrates that P3DM contributes to natural resource management and climate change resilience and showed the transformative power of the process at various levels, such as community, NGO and governmental level.

Through the P3DM process, meaningful interactions between government representatives and community members resulted in greater collaboration and mutual learning. While government representatives have changed the way they approach local communities – from ‘teaching’ to ‘listening’ – communities have also changed their attitude towards land management and development.

Download the full report via: http://bit.ly/p3dm-ws

Monday, August 22, 2016

#12614 – Book Launch and Reception for ‘The power of maps: Bringing the third dimension to the negotiation table’, a CTA Success Stories publication on participatory GIS practice


IUCN World Conservation Congress 2016, Hawai’i, USA, 
Friday, 2 September 2016, 19:30-21:00
Room 314-UNDP Kauhale

Abstract of the session (including reception, drinks and snacks)


This session will see the launch of a collection of 12 impact stories about participatory 3-dimensional modelling (P3DM) – an innovative process that maps traditional knowledge as physical three-dimensional models. P3DM enables marginalised communities to present their territory – together with their own valuable knowledge – in a physical and visual form, offering an opportunity to monitor precious resources against outside threats and preserve them for future generations. It helps to foster sustainable natural resource management, gives a voice to grassroots communities and helps them to influence policy-making and make informed decisions on climate change adaptation. The Power of Maps: Bringing the third dimension to the negotiation table is published by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), which has been in the forefront of activities to promote the practice across African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

Speakers include those who narrated stories captured in the book and others who have been practicing P3DM across several continents and for diverse purposes.

Objectives of the event

  1. To launch a new CTA publication which is part of the ‘Success stories’ series
  2. To demonstrate the value of participatory mapping in three dimensions and its impact on identity building, informed spatial planning and community engagement
  3. To discuss how best to further upscale the deployment of the process in community-based initiatives

Format and Programme 

The general format of the workshop will be as follows (total time: 90 min):
  • Opening, introduction of speakers and key questions to be addressed (5 minutes)
  • Video address by CTA (3 min)
  • First set of two presentations (7-10 minutes each) (20 minutes)
  • Questions and answers, followed by discussion related to the first set of presentations (15 minutes)
  • Second set of two presentations (7-10 minutes each) (20 minutes)
  • Questions and answers, followed by discussion related to the second set of presentations and for general discussion as well.  (20 minutes)
  • Closing comments (5 min) 

Detailed programme:

19:30-onwards: Reception, serving of snacks and drinks

19:35-19:40 Opening, introduction of speakers and key questions to be addressed Dialogue moderator: Hindou Ibrahim, IPACC West Africa Coordinator

19:40-19:45 Address and introduction of the publication (video link); Giacomo Rambaldi, CTA Senior programme coordinator

19:45-20:05 First set of two presentations:
Senoveva Mauli, Solomon Islands Community Conservation Partnership (SICCP), Solomon Islands
Ana Fekau, Min of Environment in Tonga

20:05-20:20 Q&A and discussion (on first set of presentations)

20:20-20:40 Second set of two presentations
Nigel Crawhall, IPACC, South Africa
M’Lis Flynn, Wet Tropics Management Authority (on private capacity), Australia

20:40-20:55 Q&A and discussion (on second set of questions) Time allowed for general discussion as well.

20:55-21:00 Closing comments and distribution of copies of the publication to participants: Nigel Crawhall, IPACC, South Africa

Download programme






Friday, March 04, 2016

IWD2016 - Celebrating women: A champion for the rights of indigenous people

An encounter with an innovative technique known as participatory three-dimensional modelling was to prove a turning point in the life of a young tribeswoman from rural Chad. She now travels the globe to advocate for the rights of her own and other indigenous communities, and to press for their voice to be heard in negotiations about climate change, on which their futures depend.

Growing up as part of the M'bororo people – traditional semi-nomadic and nomadic herders living in Chad and neighbouring countries – nothing could have prepared Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim for the turn her life would take once she was introduced to participatory mapping. At the time, she was a young woman, working to gain recognition of her people's rights, and especially for access to the natural resources that are critical to their livelihoods.

Participatory three-dimensional modelling (P3DM), or participatory mapping, brings together traditional knowledge from local communities about their landscapes and ecosystems with data on physical features, such as land elevation and sea depth. The result is a scaled and geo-referenced three-dimensional (3D) model, which can be a powerful tool for knowledge building and communication, as well as for gaining recognition of local communities' rights to be involved in decision-making that affects their natural resources.

Hindou's introduction to P3DM came through the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC), a network of 150 indigenous peoples' organisations in 20 African countries. IPACC had been introduced to participatory mapping by CTA's P3DM expert, Giacomo Rambaldi, and supported in its use as a tool for gathering evidence for indigenous peoples' arguments in national and international negotiations.

A bitter conflict

Encouraged to learn about the practice through a P3DM exercise in Gabon, Hindou spent two weeks living with local pygmies and helping them to build a participatory 3D map of their jungle landscape. The pygmies had lost some of their hunting and fishing rights when a national park was created, and the mapping exercise succeeded in its goal of convincing the government that these indigenous people had a right to be consulted about decisions affecting their homeland.

Hindou was hooked.



"It was a long way away from my own community and very different, but I found the exercise exciting and interesting," said Hindou, who is Director of the Association des Femmes Peules Autochtones du Tchad (AFPAT) and IPACC's Executive Committee representative for the Congo Basin region. "It was the first time I had seen all the intergenerational people mobilised – women, youths, men and elders. I realised that if we did this in my own community, it could help resolve a great many issues."

That chance came in 2012, when, with CTA support, a mapping exercise involving Hindou's own M'bororo people was organised in the southern district of Baïbokoum, the scene of conflicts between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers. Increasing scarcity of natural resources, especially water reserves, was being exacerbated by climate change and population growth, and the bitter contention between the two groups was threatening to spiral out of control.

Hindou was closely involved in the P3DM event, organising the workshop that preceded it, which brought together herders, scientists, UNESCO and World Meteorological Organization representatives as well as government officials for the first time. Once again, participatory mapping proved to be a winning approach. The model-making process enabled all players to have an overview of the contested area, highlighting where the farmers had barred the routes used by herders to take their cattle to water and identifying a range of solutions that would be acceptable to all.

The mapping exercise showed that indigenous peoples could play an effective role in decision-making, from which they had always been excluded in the past. And it gave a new sense of self-confidence to all members of the community, especially women.

"We took the opportunity to increase the capacity of women to express themselves, showing men that the women had a voice and that their opinions were sometimes more valuable than those of men – and the men accepted this," said Hindou. "As a result, women had a greater say in community affairs."



Powerful traditional knowledge

At a personal level, the mapping exercise also proved an eye opener for Hindou herself.

"The impact on me was huge. This was my community, so I knew all the traditional knowledge, but it helped me to understand things that didn't belong to my own generation," she recalls. "It changed my life forever."

Hindou now uses P3DM in all her work, to illustrate the importance of conserving traditional knowledge, how to marry it with scientific knowledge and using both to combat climate change and protect the environment.

Although her roots are still firmly anchored in her community, Hindou has become used to travelling the world to make presentations and put the indigenous people's case to high-ranking officials in climate-change negotiations. For the past 10 years, she has been a regular participant at meetings of the UN Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. She is Co-Chair of the International Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), which represents the interests of indigenous peoples throughout the world and presents these at COP negotiations.

"Climate change is a massive problem for indigenous people because we depend on the environment. For any indigenous people, from any corner of the world, livelihoods are linked to natural resources, for our food and medicine, for everything, so if there are floods or droughts the impact is greater for us," she said. "Of course, it is highly unusual for someone of my background to be travelling the world and speaking at conferences and negotiating. But for me, it is important to change the life of my community. I know my people are proud of what I am doing and I can never give up my work. I want to help my community to adapt to climate change, and you cannot talk about climate change without talking about the rights of indigenous people."

Reposted from Spore with permission.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Samoa’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment receives award for engaging civil society via participatory mapping

On 25 September 2015 the Forestry Division of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Samoa (MNRE) received a Public Service Innovation and Excellence Award in the Environmental Friendly/Sustainable Development Initiative team category for the successful implementation of the Integration of Climate Change Risk and resilience into Forestry management in Samoa (ICCRIFS) Project.

The ICCRIFS Project is a 4 year project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The goal of the project is to integrate climate change risks into forestry management in Samoa. After being trained by the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development (CTA) in practising Participatory Three-Dimensional Modelling (P3DM) in 2012, staff of the ICCRIFS Project successfully facilitated a total of 18 P3DM exercises with communities in various sectors including water, forestry, tourism. The first P3D Model to be implemented (covering villages from Laulii to Falevao) became a very effective planning tool. It helped engaging the community by building capacity, knowledge and skills on environmental management, and ways to adapt and mitigate climate change.

The 2015 Public Service Innovation and Excellence Awards ceremony, took place on the 25th of September 2015 as part of the 4th annual Public Service Day. The Public Service Day is held to commemorate, celebrate and recognize the public sector’s contribution and service into achieving the national development of Samoa. Close to 50 Government Ministries and Public Bodies took part in this year’s celebrations.

These Awards are used to recognize the dedication of public servants in achieving their respective Ministry’s and Office’s objectives. Nominations of potential awardees were solicited from the general public in August and were thereafter assessed by an independent panel consisting of 3 members: the Chamber of Commerce President on behalf of the private sector, SUNGO Interim President Vaasilifiti Moelagi Jackson on behalf of the civil society, and the Chairman of the Commission.

The general public as well as schools were invited to take advantage of the opportunity to engage with Government agencies to gain an in-depth understanding of the functions and roles of each of the participating agencies and how these relate to their everyday life.

Related postTop UN officials Helen Clark and Naoko Ishii praising outcome of P3DM activities in Samoa

More information on the P3DM process and case studies are found here and here.

Friday, July 10, 2015

‘Participatory data’ and the formulation of Tourism Development Area Management Plans in Samoa

Developing agriculture to better serve tourism markets in the Pacific is knowledge intensive. The first step is to determine the tourism market’s demands for agricultural produce and then to match this with what is available from local production. But much of this information is not currently readily available.

Bridging this information gap was a key objective of the recent Agribusiness Forum: Linking the agrifood sector to the tourism-related markets coordinated by CTA and the Pacific Islands Private Sector Organisation (PIPSO) with support from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), the Pacific Agriculture Policy Programme (PAPP) and the intra-ACP Agricultural Policy Programme (Intra-ACP APP). This event, held in Fiji from 1 to 3 July 2015, brought together experts from government agencies, farmers’ organisations, community-based organisations, remote sensing and research bodies to identify the data gaps and discuss how to go forward.


Giving a community perspective, Amia Luatua from the Samoa Tourism Authority, shared Samoa’s work on tourism planning, showing how communities have used participatory 3D modelling (P3DM) to collect data that have been used to inform tourism developments.

Friday, May 23, 2014

A three-way dialogue on climate change

The peasant, the decision-maker, the researcher and Participatory 3d Modelling

In the numerous bus stations in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, all passengers, arriving from other parts of the country, with their bag of worries, know where to find a sympathetic ear. Aladji Ibrahim’s steps lead him to Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, the coordinator of AFPAT, an organisation which defends the rights of Bororos pastoralists. This is the start of a story of people, animals, space and human rights with, at centre stage, an outstanding “character”: a three-dimensional model. This tool, displayed within an administrative office in Baïbokoum, almost 600 km from N’Djamena, is proving to be an unexpected medium for promoting the dialogue between peasants, local authorities, scientists and national public authorities, all concerned about climate change, reducing conflicts between faming and herding communities, territorial development, the promotion of human rights, ...


Three-way dialogue on climate change

This documentary completes a trilogy of films, produced in phases.

November 2011: IPACC and AFPAT co-organised, with the support of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), a workshop on pastoralism, traditional knowledge, meteorology and the development of policies for adapting to climate change. Climate governance was the focus of the debates, with around the table indigenous herders from South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and Niger, meteorologists, ministers and representatives of international organisations. This workshop culminated in the so-called N’djamena Declaration , which emphasised the urgent need to involve vulnerable groups in the development of policies to mitigate climate change. It recommended the use of participatory approaches and visualisation tools to represent the available space at community level.


Climate Governance: A matter of survival for nomadic pastoralists

July–August 2012. The Baïbokoum workshop on Participatory three-Dimensional Modelling (P3DM), with as its theme the prevention and management of conflicts between farming and herding communities, implemented the N’djamena recommendations. The combination of the knowledge of indigenous communities and the skills of experienced facilitators resulted in the production of a physical three-dimensional model depicting in detail an area of 720 sq km at a 1:10,000 scale.


Dangers in the bush, map of good faith

One year on, what has become of the model, the result of the multi-stakeholder dialogue? The third documentary answers this question. It narrates the journey undertaken by Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim to Baïbokoum. At her destination, she meets pastoralists and edgy authorities. They would like to popularise the model with farmers, traditional community leaders and in local development programmes. But they lack the necessary technical and financial resources. Their cry from the heart is conveyed to N’Djamena by the tireless advocate of the cause of Bororos herdsman: Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim.

Thursday, May 08, 2014

A Guide to using Community Mapping and Participatory-GIS recently released

This guide, developed by John Forrester and Steve Cinderby from the University of York, UK, provides practical guidance aimed at lay users, community groups and students on whether community mapping and participatory geographic information systems are appropriate methods for the development issue you are investigating. The guide then talks you through the practical steps of designing, running and assessing community information collected using maps. The options, benefits and skills needed for of further analysis of the maps using PGIS are also discussed. Finally, alternative methods that could also be useful for community groups are also considered with links to other information sources.

The Guide to using Community Mapping and Participatory-GIS has been prepared as part of the Managing Borderlands project and funded by the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme of the Economic & Social and Natural Environment Research Councils

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Who Counts? The Power of Participatory Statistics

Local people can generate their own numbers – and the statistics that result are powerful for themselves and can influence policy. Since the early 1990s there has been a quiet tide of innovation in generating statistics using participatory methods. Development practitioners are supporting and facilitating participatory statistics from community-level planning right up to sector and national-level policy processes. Statistics are being generated in the design, monitoring and evaluation, and impact assessment of development interventions. Through chapters describing policy, programme and project research, Who Counts? provides impetus for a step change in the adoption and main-streaming of participatory statistics within international development practice.

The challenge laid down is to foster institutional change on the back of the methodological breakthroughs and philosophical commitment described in this book. The prize is a win–win outcome in which statistics are a part of an empowering process for local people and part of a real-time information flow for those aid agencies and government departments willing to generate statistics in new ways. Essential reading for researchers and students of international development as well as policy-makers, managers and practitioners in development agencies.

'This is a timely compilation of ground-breaking work which adds up to a powerful agenda for transformation. This book shows how we can quantify the qualitative, build the active agency of excluded groups and generate participatory statistics that have greater rigour and legitimacy than most conventional statistics.’ David Archer, Head of Programmes, ActionAid


Who Counts?
Edited by Jeremy Holland with an Afterword by Robert Chambers
Practical Action Publishing

Friday, April 01, 2011

The Role of participatory cultural mapping in promoting intercultural dialogue: We are not hyenas; a reflection paper

Cultural mapping involves the representation of landscapes in two or three dimensions from the perspectives of indigenous and local peoples. It is potentially an important tool for UNESCO in its efforts to help Member States and civil society to create platforms for intercultural dialogue, and increase awareness of cultural diversity as a resource for peace building, good governance, fighting poverty, adaptation to climate change and maintaining sustainable management and use of natural resources.

Cultural mapping, if applied wisely, can help to reach the objectives set out in the UNESCO “Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity" (2001) and related recent conventions : the “Convention of the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage” (2003) and the “Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions” (2005). Cultural mapping is furthermore relevant to the World Heritage Convention which dates back to 1972, but has undergone major changes since then, expanding the notion of a cultural site and promoting stronger involvement of populations living on the sites.

The aim of this paper entitled "The Role of participatory cultural mapping in promoting intercultural dialogue: We are not hyenas" is to critically consider how cultural mapping can become a good practice of intercultural dialogue and successfully further the aims of the Universal Declaration and the related conventions.

The paper is meant to assist indigenous and local peoples to consider their options and aspirations, to help civil servants and policy makers evaluate how mapping can be a useful tool in cultural policy and inventory work, and for those who are making maps to reflect on their practices.

Source: Nigel Crawhall, 2010, UNESCO

Building critical awareness of cultural mapping: a workshop facilitation guide

This Facilitation Guide is part of UNESCO's efforts to raise awareness of the opportunities and risks of cultural mapping, which is increasingly used in development work, including by UNESCO, Cultural mapping, if applied respectfully, can be an effective tool for exploring the spatial and territorial aspects of a community's cultural resources and for making the link between memory, imagination, land and maps.

The Guide builds on the experience of a pilot workshop entitled "Cultural Mapping and its Possible Uses for Indigenous/Local Communities" organized by the Division for Cultural Policies and Intercultural Dialogue at UNESCO, Paris, from 15 to 16 November 2006. It was held within the framework of the indigenous fellowship programme1 and brought together visiting fellows staff from across UNESCO Sectors and interested members of the public, including anthropologists and human rights activists. The workshop explored the opportunities and risks of cultural mapping in protecting and promoting the rights, cultures and aspirations of indigenous and local communities in the larger context of sustainable development.

This Guide aims to go beyond the circle of people who benefited from the workshop and reach out to others who wish to reflect upon and engage in the practice of cultural mapping both critically and constructively. It addresses two types of audiences: (i) representatives of indigenous/local communities involved in protecting and promoting their rights, cultures and aspirations, and (ii) individuals and groups with responsibility in programming and planning for sustainable development.

UNESCO, CLT.2009/WS/14