1. Building Impact and Partnerships in Africa Developing Theories of Change #impactafrica

2. Projects
Unravelling biofuel impacts on ecosystem services, human wellbeing and poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa
Exploring the ecosystem limits to poverty alleviation in African forest-agriculture landscapes – (ECOLIMITS)
Alternative Carbon Investments in Ecosystems for Poverty Alleviation (ALTER)
Coastal Ecosystem Services in East Africa (CESEA)
Sustainable poverty alleviation from coastal ecosystem services (SPACES)
We need to understand what is driving change and the political economy of the environments we work – this means confronting notions of ‘neutrality’ and assessing whether evidence is ever an apolitical exercise – whose evidence matters. But keeping eyes wide open about how research could be used and the incentive structures around operating in these spaces.
Policy is not one man’s job – Engaging at lower levels can be strategic. And providing actionable but not prescriptive recommendations – providing a menu of options is preferable.

3. Group work
Break up into your respective projects and appoint a rapporteur who will report back in the plenary.
In this session we would like each group to discuss their impact strategies and map out your theory of change, answering some of the questions in the note provided
We will ask you to break up into your respective projects.There are 4 projects.
For those who are not involved in an ESPA project, please feel free to join any project you wish. If you didn’t pick up a briefing note about the projects yesterday please come and see and I can give you an overview.
PI Fiona Marshall’s project – Risks and Responses to Urban Futures looking at the peri-urban, looking at poverty and environmental degradation in peri-urban zones
PI Manoj Roy’s project – Institutions for Urban Poor’s Access to Ecosystem Services – looking at the access of the urban poor to Ecosystem services and their exposure to disservices in Bangladesh and Tanzania
We also have ESPA partners from the Mountain Evo project (the PI is not here today) – which is looking at the value of environmental virtual observatories and citizen science in monitoring Ecosystem Services in mountainous regions and influencing decision-making
Finally we have ESPA partners from the project the Political Economy of Water Security (the PI again is not here to day) – which is looking at water security in hill and mountainous regions in south asia and the trade-offs and decision making process involved in such contexts.

4. Key Questions
Key partners: who the project is or will be seeking to work with to enhance research uptake, use or impact.
Communication – in what format, to whom, how?
The broader context- drivers of change, governance and institutions
Opportunities for scaling up?
Transition strategy – planning for the end of the project
Are there synergies/ any new partnerships we can build with people in this room?
How do we make our research useable, accessible and understandable. How can we use local knowledge based systems to best effect. Create those informal space to share knowledge and build trust. Can we be more creative in our communication, winning hearts as well as minds, using stories, metaphors, film, memes etc.
What about the broader context – how can we better understand the wider political economy and better influence policy, decision-makers?
Are there opportunities for scaling up your work?
What happens next after your project ends? Is there a transition strategy in place? How can we sustain dialogue among key partners.
Myself, Becky, Raj and Sam will be floating around and will help you.