 My name is Laho Namede. I am an Ethiopian working for International Water Management Institute, International Livestock Institute and the Challenge Programme Water for Food as a joint appointee. I'm the Nair Bezi leader for the Challenge Programme Water for Food. This book entitled Integrated Natural Assault Management in the Islands of Eastern Africa is an outcome of a very solid work in five African countries, East African countries, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Madagascar. It's an initiative which was responding to the commodity oriented CGI work. There was a meeting, a regional meeting between the CGI centers and the African National Couch Arts Systems and in between they have identified a gap which is relevant for both national systems and international systems that there is a very apparent gap in natural assessment research and both national and international issues are not handling. So that was the first time they conceived the program called Africa Islands Initiative and it has evolved from initially introducing soil fertility management to simple water management technologies to a bigger integrated natural assessment agenda over ten years time. And this book captures what farmers, researchers, regional institutions have learned over five years after ten years time on how to do natural assessment research, what are the incentive mechanisms for farmers to adapt NRM interventions but also what are the institutional mechanisms and the nutritional arrangements required to make natural assessment work for African farmers. The key successes and lessons is that one natural assessment management, particularly water share management is going beyond hydrological boundaries. So what's important is the social boundaries which are interacting across scales and are bringing different groups together from farmers to policy makers but also bringing issues together which are interacting and having trade-offs which are sometimes aligning and linking and the profits are much higher when technologies are linked together at landscape scales but also bringing the drivers, linking technology generators with users and learning and giving access for farmers, for researchers and for policy makers on how to work together. So the success wasn't in the technologies that were developed but in the whole participatory process of developing technologies getting people to work together, markets. I mean the success was one on how do you work under complex social and institutional arrangements and how do you bring farmers priorities and farmers knowledge into the main core research agenda and how do you identify potential adopters of technologies where are the niches for whom and how do you bring in the social structures and the governance structures particularly rules, bylaws into natural environment decision making. So it's a very interesting lesson. So it brings experiences from benchmark sites like 540 in the region to a regional and continual discussion using that evidence to influence policy. The policy impact is one, you know, researchers should go beyond top-down approaches they should bring in farmers into their choice of technologies into their decision making, into the planning of photosynthesis and landscapes and that has happened in this country very much and if you see how the Ethiopian Institute for Gotcha is operating now has been hugely influenced by this program. The second, I think, major contribution is creating institutional linkages in the region. You know there are very strong interaction between Ethiopian researchers, Kenyan researchers, Kenyan researchers with Tanzanian researchers where forums for interaction, where forums for learning where also forums for identifying gaps and bringing back to research and that has helped presenters to come together and work. Most of the evidence was generated with farmers which means that, you know, researchers from the National Cultural Situations were bringing farmers options to farmers fields and then identifying which technology is best working and where at which part of the landscape. In that process, farmers will get many other benefits. The second benefit farmers got is really access to the regional and global knowledge. You know, so that was farmers were getting evidence from elsewhere from colleague farmers, from farmer to farmer exchange, through videos, you know, films, posters. So they were aware of what's happening in other places. So and also created collective action beyond their farms. If you go back now to the southern part of Ethiopia you will see the farmers in Arakha have continued to work together in a watershed approach although the program has left the system like five, six years ago. So that has evolved over time to more consolidated landscape management. So what the challenge program and others could benefit from this is like first you need to integrate policy makers right from the planet. So as they know what's happening in the region, they know what's happening in the business and in the learning sites. So, you know, using that evidence, immediate evidence to policy making and giving a continual feedback is one which we could learn from this program. The second thing I think we learn from this program is, you know, the approaches this program was following was based on, you know, what's happening in the commission landscapes. We didn't consider external factors, we didn't consider drivers. So really adding drivers, adding externalities to what's happening and linking landscapes to other places is one thing which we can learn from this program. I think the third thing is really, you know, you can produce high quality global public goods while working with committees and with local issues. So most people are hesitant to go to the field and work with farmers who fear that they will lose the scientific, you know, evidence and opportunities to publish. But that is not true. So you can't do both while you develop research outputs. You can also bring the impact of the doubt.