Date
07 Feb 2020
An online resource hub will enable government and communities to benefit more widely from land restoration
Drylands cover more than 40% of the world’s land surface and are home to more than two billion people. These areas, and the people, plants and animals that live in them, are predicted to face unprecedented threats as a result of climate change. Dryland regions often experience unpredictable rainfall patterns and severe land degradation, which is exacerbated by climate change.
Through effective land restoration and the prevention of farming practices that contribute to land degradation, we can enhance biodiversity and increase communities’ resilience to the effects of climate change.
Strong collaboration and robust data are essential components in the successful prioritization, planning and implementation of land restoration as well as for policy development.
The CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems is a global research-for-development program connecting partners to deliver agricultural solutions that enhance natural resources and the lives of people who rely on them. The Program funded World Agroforestry (ICRAF) to apply a user-centered, co-design approach for development of an online, open-access, dashboard-style Resource Hub. The Hub will include real-time information, data and maps on key progress indicators for restoration, including baseline assessments of social and ecological variables, in an accessible format,.
Makueni County, Kenya
The Hub will be co-designed with key stakeholders for Makueni County in Eastern Kenya. The County is semi-arid with a high level of land degradation. The majority of the population are dependent on small-scale agriculture to both feed their families and provide a basic income.
To address these challenges, Makueni County Government actively supports numerous innovative projects targeted at improving market access, agricultural productivity, land restoration and improved nutrition. However, the activities of these initiatives could be enhanced through better integration and coordination.
To engage with stakeholders, and as an initial step in the development of the Hub, the County Government and the ICRAF team and partners — International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the private sector and non-governmental organizations — engaged in an initial workshop in Makueni County, 8–9 August 2019.
The Makueni County Government was represented by three County Executive Committee (CEC) members and three Chief Officers, including Hon Lawrence Nzung’a, CEC Department of Agriculture, Irrigation, Livestock and Fisheries and Hon Julius Kaloi, CEC Department of Lands, Mining, Housing, Physical Planning and Urban Development.
‘[The Resource Hub] will help us to see what has been happening, show trends, be driven by credible data, support prioritization and help us in making the right and sustainable decision,’ said Hon Philip Wambua Ndambuki, CEC for Gender, Children, Culture and Social Services.
The workshop was designed using the Stakeholder Approach to Risk Informed and Evidence-based Decision-making (SHARED) methodology developed by ICRAF to ensure a tailored process centered around the use of evidence in decision making.
Representatives of multiple sectors within the county were engaged, along with partner groups, to address the root causes of land degradation and encourage knowledge exchange and collective planning.
The first activity was to understand the perceptions of degradation, including the challenges to overcoming degradation and the underlying causes of these challenges and which stakeholders had to be involved in the process.
A key recommendation from the County was the development of a database of existing activities within Makueni to identify gaps and needs for the county, mobilize partners and make accessible the tools available for prioritizing and implementing future investments.
Another key activity of the workshop was the use of a ‘data wall’ to allow participants to interact with existing datasets, including maps, for Makueni County.
Key to the establishment and utility of a Resource Hub for the County is the sharing of data on the performance of land restoration and agricultural land management practices. To start this off, ICRAF presented results from monitoring restoration activities in Makueni over the past four years through the Dryland Restoration Project, for example, the performance of different sized planting basins to conserve soil and water, as well as the survival rate of six tree species planted with varying management strategies using the planned comparison approach.
In addition, Tor-Gunnar Vågen, head of the ICRAF GeoScience Laboratory, presented maps of soil organic pH, soil erosion prevalence, soil pH, and tree cover for the County of Makueni, at a scale of 30 m resolution. Participants agreed that the maps could be used to prioritize interventions as well as track changes over time, including for assessing the impact of land management practices on key indicators.
Decision cycles were developed by different groups of partners to identify when they undertake planning, monitoring and reporting. From this, the groups were able to share the data they collected, as well as the quality and availability of that data. The groups were also able to discuss the types of stakeholders they were trying to reach with the data and what approaches they had found successful for sharing data. From this and other discussions, potential modules and indicators became apparent for the Resource Hub.
When discussing the Resource Hub for the County, other online data platforms and the County vision for data management were presented. There was agreement to develop the Resource Hub and a core team and workplan were agreed.
What is a Resource Hub?
The Resource Hub is a ‘decision dashboard’ that is a visual display of interactive information and data at a central online point.
Dashboards allow information and data to be quickly and easily communicated to key users and decision makers. Decision dashboards are customized to the context and user. They can include quantitative and qualitative information shown in a range of visualizations that work best for the target audience, such as graphs, charts, photographs, videos, documents and maps.
Designed by users for users, decision dashboards aim to allow trends and links to be drawn between information not often seen together in order to inform decision-making.
A decision dashboard is developed using a cross-sectorial approach with different indicators and module data pooled and analysed together to highlight key links and trends and move beyond sectorial formulation of interventions. Six decision dashboards have been developed by ICRAF, which are available online via the ICRAF Geoscience Landscape Portal.
Next steps
The next steps include assimilating the data from Makueni County and partners to populate the Resource Hub. This includes communicating the objectives and utility of the Hub with partners not at the workshop.
A workplan was established that will, over the course of a year, see the core team undertake a range of activities, including collecting and sharing data with partners, championing support from their units; standardizing data collection tools; reviewing the Hub prototype; and building capacity for using the Hub. Regular face-to-face update meetings with the core team have already begun and key datasets from the County have already been shared and uploaded to the Resource Hub database. Another key contribution are the datasets (see below for links) collected and curated by CGIAR centres.
The Hub will be launched during June–September 2020, becoming an integral tool for data management, evidence-based planning, monitoring and learning in the County.
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Useful links
Datasets
Magaju C, Winowiecki LA, Nyaga J, Mumani I, Carsan S, Muriuki J, Muthuri S, Mutua F, Mbuvi C, Maithya S, Mwende M, Muendo S, Sinclair F, Vagen T-G. 2019. Tree Planting Data 2017 – Kenya. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11766.1/FK2/UUSV0P, MELDATA, V1
Winowiecki LA, Magaju C, Nyaga J, Mumani I, Crossland M, Muthuri S, Mutua F, Mbuvi C, Maithya S, Mwende M, Muendo S, Sinclair F. 2019. Farmer Profiling Data – Kenya. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11766.1/FK2/E4MRCZ, MELDATA, V1
Winowiecki LA, Magaju C, Nyaga J, Mumani I, Wafula L, Crossland M, Muthuri S, Mutua F, Mbuvi C, Maithya S, Mwende M, Muendo S, Sinclair F. 2019. Farmer Profiling Data – Kenya. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11766.1/FK2/E4MRCZ, MELDATA, V1
World Agroforestry (ICRAF) is a centre of scientific and development excellence that harnesses the benefits of trees for people and the environment. Knowledge produced by ICRAF enables governments, development agencies and farmers to utilize the power of trees to make farming and livelihoods more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable at multiple scales. ICRAF is one of the 15 members of the CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future. We thank all donors who support research in development through their contributions to the CGIAR Fund.