ElDidi, Hagar

Experiential learning games are increasingly applied as participatory engagement tools to improve management of the commons, strengthen self-regulation of resource use and enhance constructive interaction of resource users. Pilot studies have shown that combining games with community debriefings and technical planning instruments can support institutional and behavioral change. Nevertheless, there is poor evidence on the potential of experiential learning games to achieve impact on a larger scale. We applied a package of experiential learning tools for groundwater management in 1779 communities in five states of India. As a largely invisible common pool resource, groundwater management requires effective coordination among users. In India, this coordination is still poor which is one explanation for half of all wells showing falling water tables. Our experiential learning interventions intended to improve water users’ system understanding, strengthen water related norms, support local water governance, and trigger sustainable water management behavior. A rigid impact assessment was conducted in 472 communities in Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. Our results indicate that individuals who participated in the interventions more likely reported contributions to the maintenance of community water infrastructure. We also found that women more likely reported to participate in agricultural household decision making after playing the game. At the same time, we did not find the expected effect on knowledge, norm, and institutional change indicators. This challenges our theory of change which assumed that behavioral change follows understanding, norms and institutional change. Our results confirm the ability of experiential learning games to support collective action. At the same time, we see the need to better understand the mechanisms of how they trigger behavioral change, especially when being applied on a larger scale.

Agroecology offers a helpful approach for a coordinated effort to build equitable, accessible and just relationship-based food systems. The practice of agroecology is evolving from a primarily production-based intervention on some farms to encompassing positive changes of food systems at multiple scales. An agroecological transition is a systemic transformation and a multidimensional process which deeply involve various stakeholders across the food system, including farmers, governments, markets, supply chains, consumers, agricultural infrastructure, technical norms and standards, etc. We analyze how multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) and approaches can enable and shape such multi-actor processes of agroecological transition at different stages or “levels” of the transition as depicted by Gliessman’s (2007) transition pathway framework. We examine configurations of MSPs to better enable agroecological transition at each of the levels. The CGIAR initiative on Agroecology established Agroecological Living Landscapes (ALLs) to support the co-creation, scaling and enabling of agroecological innovations and practices with farmers in eight countries. Combining lessons from the literature and using the eight country ALLs as MSP case studies, we collect data on ALL structures, the institutional arrangements and involvement of different stakeholders in various countries. We map the relevant actors to the transition pathway and identify which stakeholders are necessary to be involved at different levels/stages of agroecological transition and how, deriving lessons about proper configuration of MSPs. We argue that while MSPs are essential at later stages of the transition (levels 4 and 5), they are also useful in enabling farmers to transition through levels 1-3. However, to be effective, they need to be configured differently with varying institutional arrangements to suit each of the levels of the transformation pathway and scales of operation.