Presented by Shirley Tarawali at the Nile Basin Development Challenge Science and Reflection Workshop, Addis Ababa, 4-6 May 2011.

1. Reflections on the Nile BDC science and reflection workshop Shirley Tarawali Nile Basin Development ChallengeScience and Reflection WorkshopAddis Ababa, 4-6 May 2011

2. Reflection wall Assessing science progress of the NBDC program and projects Reviewing and strengthening project complementarities and progress Reach consensus on core concepts and approaches

4. Science – not novel, limited and lacking depth and technical details

5. Science issues: scale effects, strategy for prioritization, community involvement, consensus, integration

7. Some misunderstanding; too academic

8. How to make operational:

9. Integration

10. Bottom-up vs top-down

11. Involve stakeholders and communities

12. Matching to on the ground conditions

14. RMS need to be over-arching; only some project complementarities highlighted

15. Potential for strengthening:

16. Bottom up approach – on the ground linking

18. Need for clarity on hypotheses and research questions

20. Linkage of innovation platforms and other dimensions (themes) not clear

23. More needed on linking livelihood with biophysical, modelling, poverty, climate change

24. Generic and conventional approach - needs to be translated on the ground

26. Is livelihood framework the most appropriate? Basis?

28. More required on integration with modelling (including gender) – working group

30. Integrating models, especially biophysical and socio-economic at appropriate scale(s) is major challenge

31. Need to apply to identify what works where and why

32. Clarify underlying assumptions

34. Issues of scale

35. Prioritization

36. Involvement of communities, NGOs

37. Practical implementation

39. Need to make this practical:

40. Incorporating users’ needs;

41. Consider sequencing;

42. Scenarios may be useful;

43. Consider both productivity and NRM;

45. Need to recognise limitations:

46. Modelling; concepts of ecosystems and resilience are not the only solutions

48. Ecosystem services – appreciated, but how to make practical not clear – eg:

49. Measure on the ground

50. Link to other components

52. Need to work this out in practice