The two days were full of enthusiastic reflection and inspirational crafting of future path ways. While the core team of IWMI and USQ set the tone, the ACIAR representative remained witness and supportive to all that was said and reflected upon.

The stories from Saptari (Nepal) were fascinating while the accounts of women led initiatives from Modhubani were smoothing and inspiring. Bangladesh achieving self-sufficiency in rice production and use of technology in regulating ground water use, proved example to be learned and imbibed. The stories from the fields of North Bengal brought by the scientists of UBKV and social scientists and practitioners of CDHI were pleasant to the ear. How the community engagement has changed the over all environment was quite evident from the presentations.
All the learning helped in carefully crafting future path ways. Nepal’s proposal of the project site inception meeting speaks of their inclusive approach which can be an important input for the other sites.
Modhuboni’s plan of a collaborative / cooperative firming is an important point to consider. Coochbehar’s need based planning and proposed involvement of line departments offers great hope for sustainability.

IWMI and USQ laid out a participatory monitoring framework contributed to by all the project partners. Larger involvement of farmers- male and female -in the monitoring and evaluation could offer realistic understanding of the functioning of the project.
Over arching focuses’ on the engagement with the community would make the program inclusive in the real séance of the term. The wherewithal, of the engagement process and tool is both an opportunity and challenge. Equally important are integration of gender into technology and agriculture which can make the project outcome gender sensitive and gender inclusive. We at CDHI benefited from this important event not only by the structured deliberation but through yours encouraging feedback on the sidelines of the event. It offered us a great forum to learn.

Thank you partners! for your kind visit and ‘sweating in and out’, which did not dampen your creative spirit -we feel encouraged.
Look forward seeing you all soon. CDHI team,
September 9-11, 2015
Jalpaiguri