On 25 July, the LIFE Maronesa team was invited to participate as a guest speaker in the webinar ‘Good practices for replication, transfer and policy uptake in LIFE projects’, organised as part of the LIFE CAP PT II – Portugal Capacity Building for Better Use of LIFE II project, developed by APA.
The project was chosen as an example of good practices for capacity building and governance. The presentation was given by the project manager, who shared some practical examples where the project was confronted with some adaptation measures during its implementation.
Notable examples include:
– The redesign of the Stakeholder Board, with changes to the entities included in the application, where other entities that interacted more naturally and frequently in the activities in which the project participated were included;
– The search for public and private funding during the project implementation phase to promote the replication and transfer of good practices;
– Even if some of the stakeholders and partners described in the application are not currently interested in participating and working on the project’s activities, it is worth moving forward with those who are interested at present so as not to delay the implementation of the foreseen activities.
– Through our work with schools in Vila Real, Ribeira de Pena and Vila Pouca de Aguiar, the formal invitation to participate in the project’s activities is often not the most effective approach.
– To increase the participation of the target audience, we propose organising activities with small incentives for socialising and recognition for the effort made. Offering snacks and picnics at meetings with rural communities, for example.
– We highlight the importance of communication initiatives that force us to step out of our comfort zone. Not having technicians and academics speaking to their professional groups and opening up the spectrum of interaction with other less frequent audiences.
At the end, there was time for questions from the other LIFE projects that participated in the webinar. To watch the presentation of our project, you can access it through the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip1nccmd5U8 (from minute 1:01:00).
