Browsing by Author "Jamin, Jean-Yves"

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Improving Participatory Processes through Collective Simulation: Use of a Community of Practice
(2013) Dionnet, Mathieu; Daniell, Katherine A.; Imache, Amar; von Korff, Yorck; Bouarfa, Sami; Garin, Patrice; Jamin, Jean-Yves; Rollin, Dominique; Rougier, Jean-Emmanuel
"Stakeholder and public participation in natural resources management (NRM) is now widely accepted as necessary to achieve sustainable development outcomes. Yet, effective implementation of participatory processes necessitates well-calibrated methods and tools, as well as carefully honed facilitation skills that are difficult to gain without practice. Practitioners and academics leading these processes are thus encouraged to better reflect on, prepare, and justify their interventions, before starting to work in the field with stakeholders. Our paper shows how a Simulation Community of Practice (SCoP) was set up to support improved participatory practice. The specificity of this community is that its members not only discuss planned participatory interventions, but also simulate these processes by adopting roles of future participants, and by working through the different steps of the workshop that will be later implemented in the field. The evaluation of our approach shows that individual and social learning of participants in the SCoP is developed, leading mainly to improved facilitator skills and to calibration of the participatory methods and tools being tested. A space is also provided for deepening reflection on the purposes of the participatory process and the values that guide these interventions. Our experience could provide a model for others around the world to set up their own SCoP to support participatory NRM practice. Further improvements to our SCoP and new ones could be made by enhancing the feedback mechanisms between the field sites and the community, in order to encourage more cumulative learning and to reinforce the members' interest, maintaining their involvement in the community over time."
Ostrich-like Strategies in Sahelian Sands? Land and Water Grabbing in the Office du Niger, Mali
(2012) Hertzog, Thomas; Adamczewski, Amandine; Molle, François; Poussin, Jean-Christophe; Jamin, Jean-Yves
"In recent years, large-scale agricultural investment projects have increased in sub-Saharan Africa as a result of the growing appetites of local and international investors for land resources. Research has so far mainly focused on land issues, but the water implications of these land deals are starting to surface. Taking the Office du Niger (ON), in Mali, as a case study, we show that while around 100,000 ha is currently being cultivated, mostly by smallholders, a total of 600,000 ha of land has been allocated in the past ten years to investors in large-scale farming. This process has largely bypassed the official procedure established by the ON at regional level. The allocation of new lands has shifted to the national level, with an attempt to recentralize the management of land deals and associated benefits at the highest level, despite contrary efforts by foreign donors to strengthen the ON. This article describes the complex allocation process based on 'behind-closed-doors' negotiations. It then analyses the implications of the land deals on water issues by focusing on the strategies of actors to limit the risk of future water shortages, the current and expected difficulties in water management and allocation, and the emerging spatial and social redistribution of benefits and risk that signals a process of water grabbing."