CCSL+Core+Team+Meeting+Q3

CCSL Core team meeting Q3 toc


 * Attending**: Ben Garside, Blane Harvey, Cecilia Schubert, Marissa van Epp, Wiebke Foerch, Ewen Le Borgne.

__**Agenda**__:
 * Fund-raising (**Wiebke**)
 * Follow-up from evidence-gathering workshop (**Liz**)
 * Influencing plan (**Liz**)
 * Comms plan + rotating activities (**Cecilia**)
 * Web / wiki ( ** Pete ** )
 * ToC (**Ewen**)
 * Learning briefs and publications: Happy families + Sandbox (**Ewen / Pete**)
 * Next team meeting: F2F in late November (where / what / why / how) (**All / Ewen**)

__**Meeting minutes**__:

** Fund-raising (Wiebke) **
Not much progress. Second call for the Transformations proposal is due in October - sthg to look at in the December meeting. Talked to GIZ with Philipp in the summer. Selling CCSL as a standalone set will not get us far - probably true for many donors - but perhaps in December we can come up with that 2-pager concept note in December to explain the ToC behind CCSL embedded in climate change/Food sec work. If we find a national partner and post him/her … ? We don’t have strong national partners in this initiative (yet) so sthg to work on… With GIZ, if we can demonstrate stronger cross-CRP linkages with strong national partners we would get more chances for successful proposals. But we need to package this not as CCSL… Q: Has the pitch been around a ‘community of practice’? What is the offer put on the table in those discussions? A: We discussed in broader terms with GIZ. They’re interested in governance, institutions, learning etc. They are interested in our evidence-based approach. They’re likely to wait for more stuff to come out. The most complete idea was the SIM (??) idea. Comment: Sell this as a partnership. J. Butler finds it difficult in AusAid to promote too, but introducing this as a collaborative approach is helpful. And building capacities ‘This creates a platform to move away from output-driven research towards learning-based outcomes’... In order to do that we need that peer-to-peer learning platform. Would be good to develop this on a one-pager. With CARIAA, CSIRO, IIED etc. we have strong international partners, but not national ones for now. And GIZ want to see the cross-CRP collaboration… Should consider the possibility of drafting a number of different products depending on potential partners/interests. Could work on this for the December meeting. We have more than enough to draw the 1-2 pager. December would be about mapping donors…

** Follow-up from evidence-gathering workshop (Liz) **
Marissa has worked a lot on this: the zero draft builds on the June workshop and the 5 key areas that participants came up with. We revisited these and managed to keep most of them but found some were more process- or outcome-oriented. We tried to sort that out and ended up with the following: Four types of indicators: process-based, learning outcome, value/practice and impact indicators. The ToC evolved from a big mix of indicators (e.g. CSIRO has mixed indicators). Ultimately: More effective social learning should lead to better outcomes. Learning changes will lead to improved values/practices… and then affecting impact on institutions and the system as a whole. We now want to elicit comments from you all, Pete etc. and run it by M&E experts.
 * Capacity building
 * Good engaging
 * Challenging institutions
 * Iterative learning (leading to looped learning)

Earlier we can share on the Yammer page, the better. Divide between the learning and impact indicators within the document would benefit from some feedback. Plan was to share with the sandbox and workshop participants around mid-October Tanya may be good to include in request for feedback.

Peer assist process: In 2015 mostly virtual assistance, given the expected budget, for 5 peer-assisted projects where we would review project materials, having discussions with the project teams, examine framework and indicators etc. as they start gathering data and pulling data back from these projects and synthesising it and writing that up for the report which’d be supplemented with 2 webinars and other online stuff on the sandbox (Yammer). We would like to suggest one direct peer assist if possible (e.g. IIED, CARIAA??). In addition, depending on generic funding proposals and donor mapping we could try and apply this for 3 specific calls/opportunities… Q: Could we think about a model to get interns to help you pull out stuff from the case studies? We probably could find money in our budget to source interns for this work… A: We could have a more administrative function (including chasing people etc.) but synthesising requires research level folks. It will be difficult to do process documentation throughout and having more hands at bringing that stuff up would be helpful.

CARIAA have a major meeting tentatively planned for April 2015 on the margins of an adaptation conference in Nairobi and that should focus on engagement, best practices around engagement, learning from various institutions and we have reasonable budget for that and Blane could pitch to add one day on documenting, using social learning to document outcomes etc. We could use CARIAA but also other Africa-based groups to take part to that event. Maybe an opportunity to put on the calendar.

Keen to get some initiatives using the framework to showcase early results. Documentation for other projects would start in 2015. __ ACTION __ : All to review the framework and share with Ben & Mari __ ACTION __ : Ben / Mari to share this with M&E specialists and sandbox __ ACTION __ : Blane to inform us about the April 2015 event

** Influencing plan (Liz/Blane) **
This builds endorsement for CCSL activities… This requires reviews from all Great to have. __ ACTION __ : All to review the plan - possibly Blane & Wiebke to do this f2f on this in Nairobi. Q: How do you see this to link up with the comms plan/strategy? A: This is a sub-set in the comms plan/strategy for influencing. __ ACTION __ : MVE will discuss links to Comms Strategy with Liz

** Comms plan + rotating activities (Cecilia) **
We do have a comms plan and are trying to push out output-related activities for the 3 strands (e.g. blog posts, stories coming up in relation with the cases presented in London in June etc.)... Also working on updating the CCAFS website bringing up-to-date info on the process we’re in. Many updates on the wiki (colour scheme, logos etc.) and feedback welcome. Trying to get feedback about the CCSL products we develop. In 2015 we (Cecilia) could start drafting a plan with a better understanding of our audience, using surveys etc.

Would be interesting to know, out of the products we’ve been posting, what has garnered a lot of attention (e.g. papers, brochures accessed a lot, stories read a lot).

__ ACTION __ : All to forward your comments on the website & wiki. __ ACTION __ : ELB, CS to work on pulling stats from these outputs - and prepare a report for Dec. 2014/Jan.-Feb. 2015 including qualitative feedback from our audience. March-April ready.

Question: Is Prolinnova still interested in taking part in the CCSL activities moving forward? A bit difficult to know where those partnerships are going. Need to track where it’s going and what the interest is. Seems to have a much greater interest in practical guidance rather than conversations around the conceptual discussions.

** Web / wiki (Cecilia) **
See above.

** CCSL Theory of Change (Ewen) – see attached **
Ewen developed graphic representation and ToC document to accompany. Has shared with meeting group. Can work on feedback and awaiting feedback from others before sharing with others in the sandbox. __ ACTION __ : ELB to share the doc on the CCSL sandbox.

It needs to link up with the doc that Ben/Marissa have developed. Are these aligned?

__ ACTION __ : ELB, BG and MVE to review respective theories of change and look at alignment.

** Learning briefs and publications: Happy families + Sandbox (Ewen / Pete) **
Some of the learning briefs have been posted and shared. Ewen will share the Happy Families brief one more time on the sandbox and then consider it to be the finalised set of feedback.

__ ACTION __ : ELB to share the happy families’ brief on the sandbox and invite specifically Tonya to get feedback. By late October, taking stock and finalising this so this brief can be developed in late 2014.

** Next team meeting: F2F in late November (where / what / why / how) (All / Ewen) **
December 15-16-17 seems to work best (see Doodle results: [|http://doodle.com/fprtcwyvee63yfgz#table] ). Interest in doing it around Nairobi if others are willing. Could do it like the last retreat.

Check on who can come over to Nairobi?
 * Wiebke, Ben, Marissa, Ewen/Peter, Phil ok. Pete and Carl to reconfirm. Pete available but not on 17 Dec.
 * Blane: difficult to organise at that time of the year (budget issues - fixed amount). Possibly can be fixed with Wiebke/Phil.
 * Important to agree on what all will be covered in a meeting
 * 3 days agreed - arrival 14th; departure evening of 17th

Key items on the agenda:
 * Funding / donor mapping;
 * Taking the framework to a big step forward (finalizing it and getting it reviewed by workshop participants by then);
 * Planning of activities;

__ACTION __: Wiebke to book a lodge for our group… __ACTION __: All to signal to Wiebke our plans to bring partner/relatives… __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">ACTION __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">: Take this agenda up with Pete & Carl…

__<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">ACTION __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">: ELB to share minutes + reconfirmation of the dates / venue for the Q4 meeting.