 Sorry. Welcome back or welcome to the symposium if you're only tuning in now. My name is Ellen and I also work for the program and I will be your master of ceremonies for the second session, which is about to begin. In the session we will reflect on the struggles of sustaining project impacts beyond project timelines. So a bit of housekeeping before we begin. During the presentations, please feel free to express yourself in the chat and to share insights with each other. However, if you have questions for the speakers, then please place them in the Q&A feature of Zoom located in the toolbar and mention the name of the speaker. Feel free to also ask your questions in French. We will translate these to the panelists. Luckily, we're not up to my French translation skills, so we have French translators on the scene. And then after all the presentations are over, we will use the remaining time for discussion. During this period, you can also use the raise hand feature to ask your questions or to share reflections. We will then also address questions from the Q&A box. So please feel free to submit your questions there if you prefer. We will also be keeping the time for the presenters. So after eight minutes, you will hear a ring or a little bell, which indicates that you still have two minutes left to speak. And then we will ring a bell again for a total of 10 minutes. So let's begin our session, our second session called sustainability of impact. I would like to introduce first the moderator as well as the repertoire. So firstly, I would like to introduce Micha Werner, which is the moderator for this session. Micha's research interests are the application of hydrological knowledge, data and models in operational water management with a focus on hydrological extremes, such as droughts and floods, but also on water allocation and reservoir operation. With an interest in interdisciplinary research, he formerly worked at Delta Addis as a senior hydrologist. He is an active member of the scientific community as part of several research groups and serves as editor to the hydrology and earth system sciences journal. Then our reporter is Labo Mahole, and Dr. Mahole is a senior lecturer at the University of Botswana's Department of Architecture and Planning. She is a regional development planner by profession with a master in city planning. She has done a PhD in development studies, more specifically environmental policy analysis at the University of East Anglia in the UK. Her research focuses on natural resource governance, in particular the management of land and water commons. She also works on adaptation and resilience of communities to climate variability and change. Dr. Mahole is an environmental policy analyst and policy planning processes facilitator with a fast experience in stakeholder engagement and strategy planning, as well as facilitating mediations, negotiations, conflicts resolution, and empowerment. So we are very honored for your support during this session, so thank you very much. And now we are excited to see what's to come. So I'll gladly hand over the floor to Micha. Thank you so much, Ellen, and good afternoon, good morning, good evening to all, and welcome to this session on sustainability of impact. And I think this is a particularly exciting discussion. I'm sure as you all agree is, I think most of us who are gathered here that we're involved in, you know, that we cannot hear you. Oh, that is a problem. I'm sorry. Just check. Oh, can hear you well. Yes, yes, we hear you. It may be yourself. Thank you. Sorry. Maybe if someone could be so good as to send you an email that it may be on her side, or a message. Thank you. So I did I'll continue I think we, you know, I think all of us gathered here are very passionate about the work that we do and how we contribute to facing the challenges that climate variability and limited resources pose and working on trying to improve people's benefits, particularly of the most vulnerable. So we are really passionate about achieving impacts on the ground. But at the same time, we know that really achieving impacts is very challenging and in particular achieving impacts that are sustained sustainable. And I'm sure that, you know, in our work we've all had successes and but also need to acknowledge that there's some things that may not have worked quite as well as we as we had hoped they would when we started out. And, and there may be all sorts of barriers to to achieving impact sustainably, you know, be they financial be the capacity issues institutional things that are maybe completely out of control such as, or could be out of a control such as politically, but may also be you know how we actually design and implement projects, and, and how we build truly lasting partnerships which I think is very much something that we were trying to do here. And so I'm really excited to be moderating this session with three great speakers. And I'm also very excited to be doing this together with Dr. Laplacan McCollough from from University of Botswana. So Laplacan, I thought it'd be really nice. If you would also maybe would like to add a few words on your thoughts to this. Good afternoon. Greetings all. It's evening here. Greetings in all your times of the world times that are different. Yes, my name is Laplacan McCollough and the repertoire in this session. And I'm just excited that we've come to this point because I would just simply say, indeed about time. And I like the other caption that is within the title of this session, it is sustainability of impacts, but it says reporting, and beyond reporting impacts, because really putting can be quite superficial we all know, we all know that we can, you know, have our log frames plan to do things and then tick boxes thereafter. But then we are having a good and timely conversation about the impact. Did we tick boxes because we just did things or did we tick box because indeed there was a lasting impact to what we implemented so I'm excited to hear from the speakers. And I believe that we will all learn from each other, because I know that we have a common interest in lasting impact. Thank you. Thanks so much Laplacan. Looking forward to hearing more of your reflections later. So with that, I'd like to introduce the first speaker of the session versus the three. Dr class what he is an associate professor here at at IHC Delft in urban water governance and in the department of water governance also. His main expertise as or his main concerns are on water services governance, public water utilities and reform and inform or water services provision so class the floor is yours for the next 10 minutes. Thank you very much. Okay. There you go perfect take it away. Yep. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah, so in the next 10 minutes I would like to. Sorry, just some housekeeping before we begin class sorry about this. Is anybody else in the audience having issues with hearing the French translation. Those who are French speakers. If you're having issues with the French translation please let us know. Thanks. We continue. I think I continue. In the next 10 minutes, I would like to discuss a project activity that we have been undertaking in the past about six years, seven years. It's part of a project called the boosting effectiveness of water operator partnerships. And I would particularly like to focus on the activity of establishing and maintaining communities of practice as part of this project. The project itself bbop is a project that is a joint project of IHC Delft and the global water operators partnership alliance, which is part of UN habitat. And it's a project which has, which has been running for about 10 years now. And in the past seven years we have tried to establish communities of practice as part of that project. Maybe as an introduction, what operator partnerships are defined as being solidarity based peer support exchanges between two or more water operators on a non for profit basis in that strengthening capacity and enhancing performance. The idea is that utilities, water utilities, water operators can learn from each other by sharing experiences, sharing knowledge and in doing so strengthen and capacitate other water utilities. Currently, there are about worldwide about 400 water operator partnerships that are registered. There are probably more water operator partnerships but not all are visible on the radar of the global water operator partnership alliance. So we have 400 partnerships and at the same time, a lot of these water utilities, they face similar challenges, similar issues. And within these partnerships, a lot of the challenges and issues that occur, or that need to be dealt with within these partnerships are actually quite similar. So, rather than having 400 separate projects. The idea was, how do we make sure that that these partnerships learn from each other, how can they share experiences how can they make sure that they don't have to reinvent the wheel. The partnership is established and develops. And so the idea was, we could establish communities of practice, which sort of go across these 400 partnerships. And these communities of practice the ideas that within this community members can exchange knowledge they can share experiences they can bring questions they can get involved in discussions in debates. And the idea is that these communities of practice does sort of form a connection between these 400 different partnerships. We started with eight communities of practice in 2016. And we started with about 100 members. And initially these communities of practice were hosted by by it delft and developed also in collaboration with the waterworks program and the waterworks program is the program of what to operate the partnerships that the Dutch water supply sector has initiated in 2016 and which will run until 2030. Currently, we have nine communities of practice, and we have about 1200 members of these communities of practice. The communities of practice are currently hosted by the global water operator partnerships alliance. And what you see here are sort of the topics of the individual communities of practice so the different communities of practice have a particular focus related to water supply and sanitation services. The community of practice itself. A lot happens through a platform so we have sort of a Facebook like platform in which a lot of information is posted in which people can visit they can post questions they can post anything basically that they would like. At the same time we also use that platform for a lot of events or activities that we organize so there are webinars there are short courses project updates in all so far in 2023. Across the nine communities of practice we've had about I think currently about 60 events and I'm assuming that by the end of 2023 we will have about 80 events webinars courses, etc. On these different communities of practice. And the members are generally quite satisfied with the communities of practice. And what is interesting, particularly is that the events that are organized are only sort of the visible activities of the communities of practice, but behind the scenes under the water. A lot of interaction takes place between members so they have developed a personal network and they will approach each other directly, rather than using the platform that we have. So in this sense it. It all looks very positive and and very. Yeah, very good. But there is, but there are some some questions and some problems related to the functioning of these communities of practice. And the first is what they call the 99 one rule, which apparently applies to all communities of practice. And basically what it means is that 90% of the members of a community of practice are going to be passive members. And only 1% can be with some effort mobilized to occasionally be active and provide a contribution, and only 1% of communities of practice will actually be active all the time. And what we notice from the members is that there is an interest in learning and there's an interest in passive participation, but there is relatively little interest in active involvement and in becoming involved in moderation or facilitation of the community of practice. So if we take the 99 one rule as sort of a given what it means is that for these communities of practice to really become sustainable. They need to be extremely large. So rather than the 1200 members that we have at the moment, we would probably need about 12,000 members if these communities of practice were to be self sustaining. What is happening is that the lack of involvement of members is addressed through project funding. So we have project funding, both for waterworks and through the Bevel project, which allows for a team of moderators to organize activities to organize webinars to organize courses and to provide content which draws people to the community of practice. But it's all currently or all a large part of it is is funded by by external projects. What are some of the problems. So these communities of practice they focus on what utilities and most of the members are practitioners they are basically what utility staff. In most countries do not necessarily come to the office and switch on computers, they will come to the office and start working on operation maintenance, etc. So the community of practice for them to actually engage with it is is an activity that actually takes a bit of effort, which is a bit beyond their normal work. The normal work practices that they have. Also, if in many water utilities. A lot of employees go from crisis to crisis. And that means that time is scarce. If the workload is high, then you know what what a what a staff member what an employee will do is they will concentrate on their core activities. Knowledge exchange sharing experiences are not core activities and that means that contributions to a community of practice are going to be relatively neglected. The members prefer regional clustering. So, for example, the members in Latin America would prefer to have a Spanish COP. But that also means that these regional COPs are going to be relatively small. And then you have challenges relating to the 99 one rule. And so what is happening at the moment is we have a community of practice we have nine communities of practice which have 1200 members, which is having an impact. And what works has indicated that they will stop moderation and support of these communities of practice in 2024. The bevel project ends in 2025. That means there will be no support for no external support for these communities of practice. And then the question is what happens with these communities of practice after 2024 2025. We've had discussions about how to about the future of these communities of practice on the one hand there is this agreement that you know they are important tools for utility staff to exchange knowledge to gain knowledge to share knowledge. But at the same time, they are they don't seem to be sustainable by themselves as one of the participants during the discussion mentioned the history of the wash sector is littered with failed communities of practitioners. And as things are now, it is likely that these communities of practice will probably join this group of failed communities of practitioners after 2025. So it's very difficult for these communities of practice to become self sustaining and it's very difficult to sustain these communities of practice. And it's given the current structure of the COPs with 1200 members, it is unlikely that they will be sustainable after 2025. And I think the main question I have is if that is a problem. Is it these communities of practice because they have an impact. Perhaps, you know, it's not so bad that with external funding being required over a longer period of time, this impact can be guaranteed. Sorry, thank you. I'm involved in a DPC three project is the beautiful name small hold of farming families adept African Louisville aquifers to strengthen their own resilience. But that only started a few months ago, but the predecessor was called a for labs. And that is what I would like to talk about. Did a for labs have impact and I speak on behalf of many of our partners, which I will, at the end of my presentation will mention. So this is the outline of my presentation will, which I don't want to dwell on. This is a typical view of a center and it occurs in very dry areas and this is perhaps six months after the last rains. And you can see that there is riparian vegetation, which is green, meaning have access to water. That's not so very complex, because oftentimes the water is very shallow underneath of the sand, as you can show. As you can see on this slide. Nice isn't it. And they occur perhaps on 15% of the land area of Sub-Saharan Africa. So it is significant. But they occur in areas that are often considered marginal to socioeconomic development. And this is partly due because of the water scarcity they experience. Now a for labs was has been working in three regions where sent rivers occur in Ethiopia Tigray in the same bubble in the middle and south and in Mozambique in the Gaza province. And a for store project adds three other partners that I will mention, perhaps later, but what is perhaps interesting is that the presentation of violet material yesterday on the RTI river in Kenya. Also mentioned the McQuanee in Cajado areas and where beautiful sent rivers occur. And the problems are very specific there that we can mention later. So a for labs started in 2016 17 and ended in 2022. It aimed to promote the use of water stored in sent rivers by resource poor small hold of farmers for irrigation in order to enhance their resilience in Ethiopia Mozambique and Zimbabwe. And we wanted to do this also with action research together with farmers. And this is the concept that we developed with our partners. So this is the typical sand river. And by drilling a small well point either inside the river bed or next to the river bed. If the underground here is connected to the sand river and a small solar pump, and then farmers can start to irrigate. But it's important to realize is that for this option, you do not have to build an irrigation canal or an irrigation reservoir, because the reservoir and the canal is already given by nature. Therefore, this is a relatively cheap option available also to resource poor farmers. Now, to just for you to get a feel of it. This is a plot of Donna Anita in Mozambique. And this is in a dry season and this is her plot of 2000 square meters, which is all irrigated. And in the far end you can see the limpo river, which is largely a sand river. Okay, this is your song. Now what was the intended impact away for labs. There were several. The first is, we wanted to improve the vulnerable dryland livelihoods of resource poor smallholder farmers. And the second one is, we wanted to influence policymakers and practitioners by influencing their irrigation policies, namely that sand rivers are viable water source, because in several countries this was in the country that we were studying this was really well known, and that irrigation development can focus on individual farming families rather than on groups of farmers in an irrigation scheme. Of course, we also intended to have other impacts, but these are not covered here in this presentation, which intended impacts were achieved. The resource poor smaller farmers. He showed that irrigation development along centers in parts of Mozambique Ethiopians in buffer is indeed a viable, feasible and reliable livelihood options for resource poor farmers. And we have improved 19 the livelihoods of 19 farming families. The majority of whom were female headed households. And actually these female farmers were the most consistent of the farmers that were in our group. However, we will not we don't know for sure whether their livelihoods will remain strong in the future. We hope so and we have strong beliefs so but we don't know for sure. We also acknowledge that the number of farming families that we reached in each initially is still very small. And therefore we are happy that there is a follow on project. Here's an example of one of the farmers that benefited from our experiment and experimented together with us. Here she's starting up her small pump and the well point here is in the in the center river connected aquifer. This is the same plot I just showed with the other video. This is Donna Anita. She is 67 years old. She's a widower. She doesn't speak Portuguese. She lives in Mozambique, but she can only speak Shangan. And she is very conversant with her plot and her new pump, which she has been operating over six years successfully. And this is how the how then she applies the water to her crops. Simply with a hose pipe. No big fuss. So what were the impact that we had this policy makers and practitioners. That was a bit more challenging. We wanted to enrich the irrigation development portfolio in these three countries with new design options for send rivers. To be honest, our achievements were modest and mainly focused in one of the three countries. And this can be made visible is concrete in a in for instance the mention of sand rivers in a new policy maker, sorry, a policy paper that they produced. What was also very interesting was that our activities came to be known by the Limpopo Watercourse Commission. And this is the commission that that is in charge of the transboundary Limpopo Basin which comprises Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. These watercourse commissions tend to focus on the big things like building big dams and all that stuff. And we could show that irrigation development is possible without needing to build dams, even in relatively semi-arid to arid environments. We also convened special sessions at several regional conferences, which then promoted our ideas. We developed a new concept, adaptive investment pathways, but this concept has not yet received significant buy in. It was also an impact that we were not achieving. We had hoped and actually planned to especially target young farmers because we thought the young farmers will be ambitious to engage in this new project. But to our surprise it proved difficult to engage them. The sand river option that we pursued requires a full-time commitment in the field. At least six days in a week, eight hours of work, which apparently happens to be not very appealing to those rural youngsters that we tried to engage. There are unintended impacts, yes. But it was very exciting in our project that some of the A4 Labs partners compared ways how they technically drilled well points in the sand and how best to do this. And this yielded actually a new best practice. And the comparative analysis between Mozambique and Zimbabwean and Dutch technologists proved to be very interesting. And another unintended impact was that in the Tigray post-Civil War restoration program for rebuilding irrigation, now the solar pumps that we introduced in Tigray have become a standard solution. What lessons can we learn? First, action research is exciting, but you cannot go faster than the pace of those in charge of the experiments. And these were the farmers. You have to go with the flow. But what was also very interesting was that the different partners designed the agreed actions in a very different way. And this may result in unexpected outcomes. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. But the point is that all these are learning opportunities. And one of the examples is the scheme irrigation development approach versus the individual farming family approach. Monitoring proved difficult. And finally, but I have to mention this, that A4 Labs wanted to prove the concept of using centrifuge. So there we donated a pump and a well point to the participating farmers. But in a new project, A4 Store, we want to see how we can promote this type of thing. Whereby farmers pay back, pay for the pumps. And there too, we need the revolving funds. And the donor involved did not allow us to finance such funds in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia or elsewhere. And now we are trying to interest local governments and irrigation departments to fund such revolving funds. This is more difficult and more time consuming. But if we succeed, then the impact is likely to be much greater. The impact of A4 Labs was co-created by the farmers themselves and together with the partners involved. And these were mainly those. I want to thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Peter. And I'm sure some of those points you raised there, also structural projects and something that will enter in our discussion in a minute. In the panel discussion. Just looking here at this, any immediate questions that that would pop up and that we, I mean, maybe one question while we switch to Elizabeth. And there was a question that came up from Seppo Motsamai here. Indeed, you focus very much on younger farmers, but maybe this is something we can also include in the panel discussion later, because I think it's also interesting for these communities as a practice. But how did that engage with farmers that are older farmers or did you engage people across the board, if you like. Now, that was the amazing part that the elderly farmers were the ones who easily adopted the new technologies and worked on it. So, and it was their stamina, actually their motivation, where they used to perhaps irrigate by hands, you can imagine, or not at all. And they were so amazed by the water they could get with this small pump that they were happy to work and and they didn't mind to spend six days a week in the field. So, but we have to find ways also to engage the new generation, I think. Right. I think that's an interesting, but I don't know how this, how we should be doing this help us. Okay. Yeah. Everybody gets thinking. Yeah, because with that, I'd like to move on indeed and very warm welcome to Elizabeth lick the food. And Elizabeth is the director of I crack, which I don't know the exact acronym but it's the groundwater research Institute and I'm sure she'll say the acronym of the UN category to institute. I think it's exciting because I think it comes from a slightly different perspective into this discussion which I think is really interesting. She's a hydrologist hydrogeologist with a broad experience in Latin America, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the interest I obviously research in groundwater but particularly so in arid and semi-arid environments, groundwater dependent ecosystems, the management of groundwater, and but also looking at that from local heritage and local and ancestral knowledge perspective I'm excited to hear from me Elizabeth, take it away. Thank you very much. Yes, let me share. I don't know why I cannot share. Before I add but now, yes. Here it comes. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Perfect. So, so yes, as you said, I will not present any, any project. But I will present the reflections at organization level. And this organization is is I Greg and you see it. It's it's a long name international groundwater resources assessment center. So, I have already a few slides and I will present the reflection not only mine but also the team about impact at the level of our organization and the sustainability of him. Yes. So, yeah, about I Greg, it's briefly an independent organization is in the Netherlands and we are between a research center data center knowledge hub, working under the US piece of UNESCO and WMO but also with many other organization. So, we, as I like a vision award where groundwater is used systemally and equitably but not only also what we're, we're that time for mission knowledge about groundwater resources is known is accessible and is accessible and to anyone who need it. So, with this mission, we will do we provide evidence based information and knowledge and groundwater worldwide, essentially to support decision making and decision making it's, it's a different level and can be mainly high level to unit agencies but also at national level and hopefully going down to the users. Um, so, um, we we try to submit from data to information to knowledge. Assuming that with knowledge, come to awareness and the responsibility of accountability and sustainable actions. Um, but yes, we still mission and vision for a small team of small organization of five, six person in the Netherlands. So we are here in house partner of IHC obviously there is a lot of questions. Um, what, what, and I reckon 20 years this year, so it's good momentum so to, to, to reflect. And what are the impact of our work and and those are work as an impact and and if there is an impact, if is it positive, is it sustained. So, and when then, what are the drivers behind so, so, yeah, I think that we all development workers researchers we immediately assume that that we do have an impact but it is often an assumption so so starting to review the different activities, projects, products, tools, develop a biogric during those 20 years, we found out that and and I'm sorry because unfortunately we I cannot show any quantitative assessment of that and but I hope that that it will be possible soon. So it's, it's a really a qualitative assessment. So we saw that many activities implemented at that barely maybe merely a punctual impact if any. And we want to speak about activities, well, mainly workshop or support that we can give to to to stakeholders to countries, so different ways. So, and hardly have any impact beyond the activities and also many tools and that we have developed, for example, platform for sharing information, data, or guidelines to implement or to to produce information and to analyze data. So many of those tools are not used the day after the end of the project. So, and the cause are multiples when starting to try trying to find out. So, yeah, so there is question like, does this workshop was was responding to the needs and the needs comes first of course of the participants and and does the methodology used was adequate. And does the tool developed is responding also to to a need of the users is the tool presented a lasting benefit for the users. And even assuming that we answer yes to all those questions that this does those are mandatory questions and but but not sufficient to ensure a sustainable impact and and and there is, I mean, a lot of information points issues have been already raised in the conversations. There are so many factors that can hinder the impact finance, etc. But I think we, we, we identified what is under our, our, our control, and that where we can really maybe change and the way we are doing things. Firstly, we saw that any action project activity, which is not integrated in, in, in, in, with, in a strategy in the local context in, in, in or integrates with other activities project initiative in the context of little chance to have lasting impact. And this is, this is really this needs for a huge collaboration between all actors. And, and this is absolutely not happening now in many, in many, in many projects and context. So, this is one point and, and the second point, I, I forgot. The second point is that our role is to support local actors local partners to be behind the curtains and so we really, we are not enough knowledgeable of the local context to to ensure what has been said before and to ensure that our intervention will not have a negative impact. And, and then another decision that we took is really to have only and to open all our data information results, etc. And not only it's important, but also it's not enough. But engaging in an innovative communication way to ensure that the users and the decision makers that needs this information can get, get easily the information produced. And then maybe the most important and the most challenging point, how we, at the end of a project or after the end of an activity, how we, we, we, we, we, we follow up. We need to support because we know that the ending of a project, probably, and also the no action. So, and there, the idea is, of course, it's a lot to work with donors and how we can with our programmatic funding as organization, as any organization, we have a programmatic funding, a core funding, and this is through the water and development partnership program, and we have projects. So how are with our programmatic core funding, we are able to to to give a follow up to to to one year, two year, three years project know. So if we in a project we are strengthening the national groundwater monitoring program of country. And we can always be here somehow if there is a question if there is a problem and be able not only to maybe not to do ourselves but connect to who can, but not to to to to finish all or to disappear after one point. And what I want to finish is, yeah. As it has been mentioned, and this is the title of the of the of the same in the webinar, the young reporting, but I think we have all a huge responsibility, because what we see that donors. We need to educate somehow donors and and to to make them understand the reality on the ground. And if we don't report correctly off of we put it always nicer. The impact we had the beneficiary who had, we don't serve the cause and and and we don't but yeah it's very difficult because we are listening okay if I put all negative in my report. I'll get first next time. So this is all I think a discussion that we have reflection that we have to engage with donor. And also, maybe to accept our own limitations. I mean, in this sustaining impact. And that's all you very much. And I think you raise some extremely interesting points that I'm sure will come into the discussion, particularly these, these last reflections coming going back to donors and especially about, yeah, being honest with ourselves. I guess indeed and what we hope to achieve and before we go to the full question answer session or the panel discussion. Let me just ask one quick question from there from the audience here in terms of what's, yeah what actors at what sort of level are the actors that you mainly target, you know they're more institutional at the community or local level. And, you know, so what was your main sort of. Yeah, yeah. This is a very good question and one year and a half that we're working on that. No, but no, basically, we, we mainly work at international so and national level. This is our main institution, but this awesome national province. We work a lot with regional centers or so for example, but not at community level. Yeah. Okay, which I think is also great thing I think it's very important to know and also what mandates one has I think as an organization or what legitimacy one has as an organization. To to to work with. Thanks. So thank you to, well, a great hands to, to the three presenters for very interesting reflections I think on different perspectives. And we'd like now to, yeah, to open a slightly wider discussion maybe also cutting across three, the three presentations. And so I'd like also to invite folks to, you know, put questions that they have in the in the question and answers session and the Peter in great class if you can also come on and draw on your camera there you go and we understand your challenge Peter but we know that you're there. And I'd like to start and it's an interesting question I think, you know, it's, it's, it's maybe something that you touched on Elizabeth about going from projects to more programmatic. I think Peter touched on it to some degree of, you know, starting also going from what I call beyond the pilot phase. In this class you were also talking about this that okay the establishing community of practice but okay what happens next kind of thing and so. Yeah, I was kind of thing maybe starting with you class on that so you know what lessons do sort of the implementers of community of practice, take away from the implementation and how they carry that into their organizations because I guess what you would say, you know, when the people that they're doing it outside what they normally do so they were just sort of asking them to do something extra. But how, you know, can it be maintained to be more meaningful. You know, can you sort of translate the successes of the community of practice back into the service organization to maybe give it a space for people to make it Yeah, so I mean what we notice with the communities of practice is that a lot of the, the real impact is, is not seen. It's not visible in the community of practice, it's, it's where one member contacts another member directly to because they're working on a similar issue or similar thing. They ask directly for help. And they communicate and they exchange knowledge. But this is not visible in the community of practice as such community of practice is just sort of a in the end it's it's you know we organize events. We allow for the personal networks of these utility staff members to develop and to get to know other people that may be working in a similar activity. So that that makes it a bit difficult. And I think, I mean, so I mean I work for it Delft and we are a knowledge institute so we do knowledge management basically be it education or training or research. But for what a utility employee. I mean, knowledge management is sort of, you know, it's interesting. And it's relevant, but it's not their direct activity. And it just means that if, if there is a crisis, work wise or if there is something that needs to be done, these kinds of activities are the first to go. And, you know, this is also because I get these these questions particularly with the communities of practice you get these questions about how sustainable are they. And I, you know, they're not. And I don't think that's a problem. I mean, if you look at the impact that it has versus the costs of maintaining them, be it externally funded. I think they're still worthwhile. That's interesting. I mean, I would agree. But I mean, it's indeed that that challenge of. Yeah, I mean, if you try to explain this to, if you try to explain the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they're not very happy with that. Right. So I think that leads me to your question. I think that Elizabeth raised but I'd also like to ask it to Peter because you also raised it. And so maybe I'll do it a double hop because it just came in also from from Jennifer Boron, both to Elizabeth and Peter. So, you know, the sort of the donor's perspective and I think that's also something that you just mentioned actually class sort of, you know, the language that maybe the donors speak and their perspectives. How does that really actually, you know, determine the project sustainability. And, you know, should, should we maybe trying to change those perspectives or work with donors in different perspectives and setting up projects and then Peter, would you maybe comment on that if you'd exposed. Maybe. Yep. Yeah, I think that, you know, problem. But we have for this for supporting resource poor farmers who want to start irrigating from centers. The support they need is very small. We, we estimate it is between the 500 and 1000 euros or so, and they will be able to pay it even back. It is for irrigation departments much easier to go to the World Bank and get a $20 million loan for a large for developing a large irrigation scheme, which does a lot of harm, and which will not be properly maintained, then to give 20,000 people a loan of 1000, which is also 20 million. They will even pay it back. And that is the quagmire that is the big issue that I am facing. And that is what I would like to discuss with the PG GM is big club and with all the banks and with the, the, the effects of this world, you know, the adb, how to solve that problem. Because the money is very little, but it is important that the farmers themselves the investment because it should be theirs. And you mentioned maybe in that I was ever thinking that it's bit of a scale issue, let's say that maybe the thinking that some of the institutions the donors that you mentioned are thinking very light scale and there's maybe a disconnect I mean, because I think often the objectives are the same. Elizabeth you, you mentioned also this going from a project to a more programmatic type approach which I thought was quite interesting because I agree that often a project has a lifetime it comes to an end. We speak different languages but programmatic already sounds different. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is a how we can focus and integrate in in our programmatic program long term programs and funds. The follow up of the project that means that all should be very aligned and very focused and somehow the project and the, the programs. But yeah, there is also really a needed to to much more. I mean, regarding donors. I mean, we have to the reporting is very important and and often we do not measure impact on on and sometimes because we cannot because the end of the project I mean you measure the impact from the end of the project so so how we can then I think there is a long term relationship with the donors and the discussion and conversation that we have to to to that we need to have and and and to integrate always a follow up. Yeah, so it's not easy because of course. Yeah. Well, I was thinking this follow up time because I think that's interesting that it often depends a little bit on on all sorts of, you know, in a sense also opportunities and you know that's I think that's that's the reality I think being realistic. To what degree and I think that's, you know, maybe across setting up communities practice and maybe the A4 lab example. And of course I Greg is more problematic but in, let's say projects, do we give space to that let's say space to this question of sustainability of bring perhaps bringing that in line indeed with, as you mentioned Elizabeth, you know, national sort of something so it actually fits into what's already going on I think class you you you also tip from that. Is that something that we should spend more focus on or was a reflection there. Yeah, I mean, interesting. Maybe the sustainability issues should should be a deal by by the by the beneficiaries know the country is I mean depending on the level of your working and this is something that should be discussed at the beginning and and with the donors with the beneficiaries or the countries or the and we decide I mean we know that it's difficult so how we will deal with the impact and the sustainability how we will measure it, how we will be sure that we have a positive impact and this is going to happen. So maybe this is something that it's not all on our responsibility. I mean the implementers or it's something that we have to share. Right. That's an interesting. Thank you. Thank you. Indeed. Hand has been raised by Anna Hammond. Apparently, I think you can't put something in the questions. Would you like to pop your question. Reaching out also to the technical. Yeah, you can now unmute your mic and ask your question, if you would like to. Anna Hammond. Are you still here. Sorry. I didn't raise my hand. That was a technical problem. Sorry. Okay, thanks. We went, we weren't sure we were because your hand keep coming up so we thought we'd give you space there. Okay, sorry that changed my flow now. Also, just a reminder, there's also some quite specific questions that are coming in on the question and answer that's to the panelists. So, you know, specific questions to iGRAC and to class and also to Peter, and you know, please take your time also afterwards to respond to those. Let me see. Yeah, maybe coming back. Back to this, this, this question on donor funding and coming back to you class also. And maybe we can follow up with Peter also and that's the sustainability of these, let's say this approach that you that you're presenting on the sand rivers. I do know about the class about the existence of communities of practice that that are then not supported by donor funding. I mean, I'm sure that there are communities of practice that that exists and that flourish, or maybe not without that key component. Yeah, what, what, you know, what makes those work what makes us take and maybe other too much under the radar when we, when we design that said these community of practice initiatives as you presented. Yeah, I mean, I mean, there are, I think most of the communities of practice, especially when they start up they will need some kind of. I mean, not necessarily perhaps not necessarily donor funding, but it could be something needs some kind of organization or Institute needs to support the community of practice. The, and I think this is also quite interesting in terms of the comparison with with Peter is that so the communities of practice and the knowledge exchange that they do with in the what operate partnerships and the people project is not the immediate work that they do. And I think with Peter with his project, it's much the direct link with daily subsistence and daily activities is a bit stronger in the case of my communities of practice. You know, it's, it's, it's, it is almost for utility staff member, it makes more sense to reinvent the wheel when it was to invest time in a community of practice, although if you would look at it. You know, at the end, ultimately, it's it's a lot more efficient and a lot more effective if you would invest time in a community of practice. But it's it's simply the incentives that it that a staff member has would prefer that or would would lead them to reinvent the wheel rather than invest in a community of practice. And then that's a very difficult. That's a very difficult. Yeah, to break. Yeah. Peter, would you want to respond to that because I think it's, it's interesting to think about what is the incentive of, let's say, you know, need a farmer and living next to the limpo river for example to engage with, you know, this approach. What are your thoughts. Yeah, my thoughts are a bit, you know, but what is amazing in the experience that we have in in a few countries is that the government departments are not aware of the scope of the water availability incentive. They think that these were these are dry rivers, although the local people they still remember and that this is really true. The big drought we had in southern Africa was in 1992. It was a huge drought. It has not repeated itself fortunately yet. And we have several stories of people who says, all the well drive well driver accept the water in the sand rivers. So it is a fairly reliable resource but still there are proposals for instance in the limpo to build a big dam in my pie. And then I think, okay, God has already built the dam. It's a nature based storage there. And let's first utilize that source before we develop large infrastructure and we engage donors. So we do not even have need much donors, but is needed is that it is cheap for smallholder farmers to borrow money. And that is very difficult because they need very little money. But it's very difficult to get cheap money. It's very expensive. If you are poor, you don't have the money you have to borrow it. So the best is that you get it from your uncle or your brother or your sister. And that is perhaps the best development option. If you think about it. Yeah, I was thinking also about about incentives, let's say to, yeah, I mean I. And we are working closely with the irrigation departments and I know them very well because I've been trained in the same way as they have been trained thinking in large schemes in in in all those types of things. And to have a farmer led approach is is alien to to to to the to the trade of irrigation. And that's what we have to to engage with. I'm really sure about it. We are now working at that level, which is also maybe the work that the level that iGRAC works at. But yeah, as you say this institutions of because I mean that's also an incentive question I guess you know that someone who's working at the more institutional level to you know to consider that or to engage with that. Elizabeth, have you any thoughts on that. And this is the challenge of groundwater. Yeah, it's making more difficult because it's it's it's hiding in and and and you cannot see the impact. Sometimes decades or long long term. So this is a bit challenge so that's why I mentioned quickly and but but just as a reflection or so we really have to think about communication and how we communicate how we engage with this needed knowledge. But not the way we have been doing it up to now. It doesn't work. So yeah, with stories with with serious gaming with even with institutions. This is done even in, I mean, in Europe or in the in the difference to to to pass messages. And, yeah, there is there is, I think we, this is where we need to be innovative. How to cross those. That's an interesting. But there's a couple of questions also in the in the, let's say in the hands raised. Mohammed, you, Rahman, you have a question that you would like to pose to the panelists and think we can give you permission to talk. Can I do that. Go ahead, Mohammed. Mohammed, are you there. If not, then maybe we can park your question. And I would like to ask even Rodriguez who's an ex student of yours classes class. So you know each other that's really great that you're here. Even you had a question. Ah, okay, sorry. I'll come back to you, Mohammed. After even, I see that I have to do the unmuting I didn't know that. I think you're both unmuted. Even could you pop your question. I think I see in the chat that you can unmute yourself. Your mics may not be working. We still seem to be challenged with. Let's see. I don't see any. Okay. Sorry for that. Let's see. Well, maybe I'm not sure if we can get the, let's get the technology to work. So, so maybe coming back a little bit to also reflecting on a question in the, in the chat which, which actually started with class but I think it. You also addressed it and maybe to some extent Elizabeth, but this question about, you know, what professional backgrounds are engaging in these communities of practice, for example, so. I mean, I think there's this 99 one ratio is quite interesting right that that okay, you know, we engage with a lot of people but in the end it's, it's, let's say it's a small selection of people who actively remain engaged and it depends on that. And the question is, you know, what, what's professional backgrounds is dominant in that and, and do you see sort of big differences across this 99 one ratio so you know there's many wide range being engaged but that's a very specific. Yeah, a number of people not have had a special specific interest and maybe I think that was also some that came up. Some people, someone said, yeah we want new technologies or something. Right. So, do you see something like that specific specific interest and sort of in the groups that are involved class. I mean, we see that there are. So you have people who have a certain affinity for a particular topic. So, for example, there's one COP on customers and customer management, and then, you know, you have two or three people who all of a sudden are extremely engaged with some kind of software. And what we notice is that initially that discussion takes place on on the platform within the COP. But quite quickly they, you know, they find each other and they move away from the COP and they basically start their own small group. So I mean, I think with the COP that we have at the moment, they create a lot of spin offs, but these spin offs are are not very visible. And that makes it also very difficult to, in terms of impact. There is always a lot of question about what is the impact of your project and can you show the impact. And that that is very difficult if it's not very visible. Well, as I would say that, you know, creating spin offs is a is a is a great thing. Right. But, but, but the thing is that these spin offs are not necessarily registered or it's not, you know, I mean, just just members who contact each other directly and then they, you know, who see it. And they have a, I mean, this is I think perhaps also the link to the technology. I mean, they have a certain affinity or certain appreciation or a certain interest in that particular topic that they, you know, that they really care about. But it's, it's what I notice is that these people tend to start their own smaller communities that we don't really don't really register for us. Thanks for class. I see now in the chat indeed. If even the space to ask a question. Yes. Hello, can you hear me now. Perfectly. Okay, sorry, sorry for that. Okay, hello, hello class. Hello everyone. To try to look for incentives in COPs. My best advice, I have 22 years working in the water utility. So my best advice would be to keep to try to look for, for projects that can be put or ideas that can be put in place. So community community of practices about practice. So let's practice. So the idea to try to mobilize funds and try to keep people on the loop is to try to mimic the private sector. For instance, when was the COVID, the pandemic, the private sector also in the water utility sector. They, they created some communities for try to implement some technologies to improve the health and sanitation as well. So my idea would be that if we, if we try to just as class said, try to not not reinvent the wheel and try to put in place some technology that is working already in a bigger utilities or bigger actors. It's, it's good to, to implement those ones in Latin America, Africa, Asia. And once you have the technology in place, it will bring knowledge, it would, it would bring new, new public management and so on. So my, my advice would be that try to try to mimic the private sector to put to mobilize funds. So thank you. Thanks, thanks even quickly sponsor class, maybe interesting to hear about Peter and Elizabeth about this question of the private sector. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it is about the, I mean, I agree that it's about the mobilization of funds. But, you know, this is I think also what. So the question of sustainability is linked to this mobilization of funds. And once that mobilization of funds is not successful for whatever reason. It also basically means the end of the COP. So it's a continuous it's, it's, it's a, you know, it's sustainable for as long as the funding is there. And that's a bit the challenge of a COP. And maybe a query and we won't come into a close but Elizabeth also, what do you think about private sector, also in groundwater and sustainability because I think there's some questions even on the chat about sustainability groundwater. And this mobilization of funds by the private sector reflections if you have. Yeah, I mean, this is the key, of course, and there are so many users of groundwater. And speaking as a resource and and thinking about the protection and the, and the wise management of the, of the resource. So in this sense, they are part. Yeah, so we have a lot of discussion about engaging of course funds and from the private sector and which could be engaged. I mean, of course, this, this, this is a I think we, we, we anyway have to engage because with them and that they are part made often in the local context that they are part of the, of the office and and probably, but yeah, it's so difficult to, to, to, to, yeah, to, to make part of sometimes. I mean how you, you, you assume also agenda, you know, that you cannot control this is the main problem. Thanks. Thanks. Peter also, I mean, I think that's also an interesting question of maybe in a completely different context. But I would love to listen to Lapo. 20 seconds for you and then Lapo comes in. I've said enough, I think. So I'm just curious to know what Lapo's view is on this session. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. And what else can I do now but indeed because indeed we were coming to the close of this question so thanks very much for that and sorry that we had some technical challenge and I'd like now to hand over to Lapo to give probably quite challenging reflections on on what has been heard. Thank you. Good afternoon, my friends want to hear from me. Hi, Peter. And hi everybody. Yeah. Like I said, in the beginning, I'm really excited for us to have this dialogue. I think it was just about time. Thinking in a particular way, and I ended up at a completely different space altogether. Initially, I, I thought, you know, we need to introspect and think about why do donors and experts do what they do. How do we engage as a development experts in these things? What exactly do we want out of this? And I was thinking that are we sure we are abreast or quite confident of the capability and capacity of those who you want to impact to actually carry on the impact all the way into the future as we want impact sustainability. That is where I started. I started by thinking that we are all wrong in our approach, in terms of assuming that those who we want to impact can be actually be impacted in the way that we are doing things that we might have to have a mind shift, or a different thinking in whether we have really reviewed and are sure that the impact that we want to bring can actually be received. If we looked into what people are facing in terms of their, you know, social spending in terms of their economic spending and in terms of the environment within which they exist, are they able to receive what we want to how we want to impact them? And are we able to deal with such things as capture? Because what has happened a lot is that there is usually lack of impact because the resources, especially the ideas, get captured for different reasons that we did not intend them for. In other words, when we get into situations that we want to impact, we tend to go along with already empowered stakeholders like NGOs, like government institutions, you know, we tend to be interested in those or we get pulled by those because they tend to be on the same platform with us. So in other words, I will say maybe we need to step back and level the platform of engagement so that those who we really want to be impacted that's one, two, it can be sustainable because it's carried by them. So I'm telling you that this is where I started, but then I changed all together after I had the presentations. The presentations actually pointed to there is impact, but we are unsatisfied with it. And we are not able to report it. I think the example of BEOP, class presentation of the COPs, I think we want impact that we can take further. We are known, we donors and we experts to want to know where we go from here, to want to, by doing a particular project, we want to initiate the next project. And this is where you want to see impact that we can see either with our reading eyes or with our mind eyes. When you presented the class, I found that the networking happens as intended. The intention here was to create a platform for interaction and networking and general communication by practitioners. The problem is they took it offline of the main platform that was created. It remains impact, but we can't follow it. And the way donor funding works, and the way we experts work is that we have to be able to trace it. That's not a bad thing. But the problem is when we think impact is actually not happening. So for me, I think there were spin offs, although the spin offs were not visible, because they were outside the platform. Now, of course, there are expenditures in terms of expertise in terms of technology in terms of all the resources that are spent in creating the platform. So can we just create it for something that is for an invisible impact? That is very difficult for us. And that is where I say what to do, because there is invisible impact. But you did say something that was very interesting. You said a lot of the people who were in the COP that was created with a big number of people, 12,000 I think, one had preferred regional and small. I think really small is good. People feel comfortable and can participate better and small. Unfortunately, sometimes in our donor driven, we want to see big. We want big, we want visibility. So I got a lot more on this because this project was a big example of how I had changed my mind now to say, in fact there is impact. We're just complaining that we can see it. If we go on to the fall ups, I believe that almost the same story. The only thing that I can bring out here that was interesting and a little different from what happened here is the intended impact on the youth. The project had hoped that the sustainability of improvement of livelihoods could be carried over by the young people who then invest in this. Also, another thing that happened here that was the issue was that the project felt that the impact on policymakers was insignificant. The policymakers were not interested in this thing. Luckily, we have had a very good session in that the session kept answering each other. Then came in Elizabeth. Elizabeth, one line that answers Peter's issues was that sometimes when you have an activity which is not integrated in the strategy in the local context strategy, that can be a problem for sustainability. In order for something to be sustainable, the program, and we must have of course a program approach, but the program must emphasize on strengthening local level programs. In other words, there is nothing wrong. Actually, there is everything good about the sand rivers, but we dig in into the local strategy into the national frameworks and see where we can embed it so that it can be carried over by the local actions in order for it to be sustained into the future. I, at the end, as the speakers were concluding here, they did speak about what about the, I think we went back to the spin off again. The spin off and the impact depends on whether in the national or local frameworks, whatever the project is bringing can be embedded somewhere in order for it to be carried over by the locals. I must make a special mention of what Peter said about the financing of the future and talked about borrowing money from family. In fact, in Southern Africa, that is a serious and real development strategy. It's called Meshello, meaning you pour into each other, where families come together and contribute a bit of money for one of them to invest in something, and then the following the next time there is a coming together, investing in one of the family members, so on and so on. It's being a Meshello pouring onto each other like that. In fact, I think where a small amount is needed for investment, where the big banks and big donors would find it insignificant, as we found that the invisible spin offs were insignificant, where it is like that. So I'm told to that that is time away, where it is like that, I think the pouring into each other can be a strategy to do. So sometimes these things have to be very local and homebrewed in order for them to have impact that you can see. For me, that was my take from this very beautiful project, and a very timely and necessary conversation that we had to have. Thank you very much. Thank you so much Lapo and I think that's really a wonderful, wonderful reflection also to end this discussion and, and actually a kind of a phrase that comes up to me immediately is one which Elizabeth I think recognizes very much but not just on ground what is making the visible, the invisible So not just making ground what the visible which is extremely challenging but also making impacts which might happen through spin offs and other small connections that may not be in the indicators that we are making those visible and thinking about that visibility of impact is maybe a nice closing thoughts to this discussion. I just forgot one point. I think we also need to reach that point as well, that we have to be aware that we push experts to a place where they want big huge impact, where actually a small incremental impact, which have a multiplier effect would be the best. Thank you. Thank you so much and I would like to thank big hand to Lapo to Elizabeth to class to Peter, and of course most of all to the whole audience, and that and thank you for the patients for for staying with us. If you have more questions, please do reach out to the presenters through email and, and you know some of the questions have been answered and sorry for not attending to all questions. Thanks so much to Ein and Ellen, and for doing the technical backstopping here and with that I'll hand over. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you very much. And so you already thanked all of the panelists and speakers and attendees today, but we would also like to thank you. So we would like to end the day or the session with thinking you had the amazing moderator and rapporteur that we had for this insightful session. And so all of the speakers for enriching us by sharing work and experience from the field. So this is already the end of day two of our symposium. We would like to thank all of you for your time and attention and insights and questions that you shared with us. So tomorrow we will begin the day again at 2pm CET with what remains to be our most awaited session. Well, whereas this session was amazing as well, of course. So the final is something that's happening tomorrow, which is a panel for sharing failures and learnings. So we thank you first of all for all of your patience as we experienced some technical failures during this very session. And we hope to learn from it for tomorrow's session. So we will leave it at this. We will leave the webinar open for five more minutes to allow you to complete your conversations, exchange contacts and chat in the chat box. So we thank you again for joining and have a great evening.