Lead Africa Manual - Chapter Six

Chapter SIX SECOND NATIONAL SESSION 6.
SECOND NATIONAL SESSION

SCHEDULE
LEAD Africa Associate Training: Second National Session

Group A: 7 – 12 June 2010 and Group B: 28 June – 4 July 2010
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Dakar or Lagos Dakar or Lagos Dakar or Lagos Field Visit Sites Dakar or Lagos Dakar or Lagos
Session 1: Session 3: Session 4: Session 8: Session 9: Session 12:

Opening (continued) (continued) Field Visit Site Visit Site Visit Group
Welcome & Systems International Groups Work – presentations
Objectives, Thinking for Strategies on Carousel on Key on Site Visit
Leadership Transformational SD (MAE&D) – Questions and Learning and Key
Teams Interim Change Climate Change Reflection on the Questions
Work Learning & -Applications Site Visit
Plenary Exchange

Leadership Introduction to Introduction to (continued) Public Speaking (continued)
Teams: PDP International National & Local Field Visit and Presentation Site Visit
Update and Strategies on SD Responses Skills Presentation
Learning Goals for (MAE&D) to NRM – Plenary Discussion
Session Homework and & Learning
Input Exchange
Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch

Systems (continued) (continued) (continued) (continued) Leadership Team
Thinking for International National & Local Field Visit Public Speaking Work – PDP
Transformational Strategies on Responses to and Presentation Reflections on the
Change Key SD– Climate NRM Skills Session
Concepts Change

(continued) (continued) Leadership (continued) Site Visit Groups Intro to Virtual
Systems International Teams: LAP and Field Visit with Coaches – Work, Preparing
Thinking for Strategies on PDP Work Preparation for for Pan-African
Transformational SD (MAE&D) – Presentations Session and
Change - Tools Climate Change Session 7: Closing
Field Visit
Introduction
Welcome Dinner Dinner (Site Special Dinner Dinner Dinner

Reception Visit Groups)
Social Media Lab Social Media Social Media Social Media

Open Lab Open Lab Open Lab Open

6.2 Chapter SIX SECOND NATIONAL SESSION
Learning Journey Map
LEAD Africa • Second National Session
ONLINE Day 3 Leadership Interim Work:

PREPARATION: National & Local Teams: LEAD Virtual Learning
PDP Work, LAP Responses to Associates & Preparation
Work & Online Natural Resource Projects for Pan-African
Discussion Management, Session
Field Visit
Personal Introduction
Development Plan
Day 4 Day 6
Field Visits Site Visit Group
Reporting, Leadership
Teams, PDP Work &
Closing
Day 1 Day 2
Introduction Part II: Systems Day 5
to the Second Thinking
Site Visit Group
Natural Session, Applications,
Discussion &
Updating, & Part I: International
Analysis Sequence,
Systems Thinking Strategies on
Presentation Skills
Tools Sustainable
Training
Development –
Climate Change
Pan-African Session>>
Chapter SIX SECOND NATIONAL SESSION 6.3
Understanding the Second

National Session:Mapping
your Learning Journey
Where do you want to go? During the module:
• Get into the habit of capturing your thoughts and
The Second National Session in the LEAD Africa
feelings at the end of each day. We will start and
learning sequence, in a nutshell, builds on your
end our days with daily reflections to share.
learning, adds some fascinating new content
and skills areas to your suite of sustainability and
leadership tools, and provides some exciting,
interactive opportunities to apply all this, through an
integrated case study.
The Second National Session will also provide a

continued opportunity to work on your PDP and
your LAP project with your Leadership Groups.
In addition, each of you will have the chance to
work in a new working group for this session
to undertake the Field Visit discussion-analysis-
reporting sequence around the thematic learning of
the session.
Before you arrive

Before you arrive at the Second National Session,
you should:
• Complete the at-home and virtual work listed in
Chapter 4 of this Manual. Including:
• Complete your virtual learning module.
• Take part in as many online activities as possible.
• Decide which themes interest you most.
• Do some background reading and prepare
yourself to speak about your country’s national
response to resource management, and the
multi-lateral environmental agreements (MEAs)
your country has signed about climate change.
• Write down three things that you want to learn
from the programme that helps you advance
on your discussion with your Leadership Group
about your learning priorities.
Making the Most of Your

Learning Journey
Welcome back! As we noted in our description of the First National

Event, we don’t expect you all to follow the route
You are about to set off on your second learning exactly. Some of you will stop off on the way and
event with your 20 Fellow LEAD Africa Associates have a really interesting conversation with another
to continue your search of knowledge and participant or perhaps a local stakeholder that
understanding around sustainable development you will meet during our field visits. As a result of
and leadership challenges and how we can address that conversation you might begin to see things
them. In order to help you understand where we are differently. Good networking will also bring about all
going, and how we are going to get there, we have kinds of conversations along the way. Be an active
again documented the Second National Session networker during your time here.
learning journey again in three different ways to
accommodate our different learning styles. For some tips on how to engage in the session
activities, with Panels and with the different
• The Second National Session schedule networking opportunities of the Programme, go
• The Second National Session Learning back and re-read the first few pages of Chapter 5:
Journey map First National Session.
• The Step-by-Step Guide to the Second

National Session programme
Please familiarise yourself with the purpose and

aims of the Second National Session by reading
through this Chapter in advance of Day 1 of our
event.
As we did for the First National Session, we have

again taken a systematic approach to designing
the Second National Session programme. As we
have tried to show in the learning journey map
and the step by step guide to the Second National
Session programme there is a logical progression
from the interim online sessions to the Site Visit
Group presentations on Day 6. This journey includes
outside expert speakers, skills sessions, Leadership
Team work, Site Visit Group work, field visits,
stakeholder discussions, informal group networking,
and group presentations. Each session or activity
is designed to build on what went before. Step-
by-step you will acquire the knowledge and skills
required to make sense of complex local scenarios,
and in particular, to identify ways of strengthening
leadership around sustainable development
challenges, and opportunities.
STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO THE

SECOND NATIONAL SESSION
From the online preparation to Working Group Presentations

Event Content Outcome
Online Preparation, Interim PDP • Orientation and introduction to Associates will:
and LAP Work the Second National Session:
• Know what to expect from the
Purpose, content and structure
programme and the Second
• Virtual Learning: Online National Session
module selected by individual
• Be motivated to do some initial
Associates to contribute their
reading/research into the main
PDP Learning Priorities
topics;
• Leadership Teams work on their
• Have an opportunity to ask
LAP Projects
questions and seek answers
• Next steps taken on achieving
PDP Learning Priorities
• Progress on LAP Projects
Day 1: Introduction, Progress • Orientation to the week, Associates will:
Reports and Reception interactive progress reports on
• Know what to expect from the
PDP and LAP processes
Second LEAD National Session
• Leadership Teams meet
• Update themselves on the PDP
• Designate Site Visit Groups and LAP work of their peers
• Develop their learning objectives
for this week
• Be assigned Site Visit Groups
Site Visit Groups • Main themes and cross-cutting Associates will:
issues related to a Field Visit
• Deepen their understanding of
substantive themes related to
sustainability – see Session 7 for
more information.
• Explore cross-cutting issues
illustrated by the field visit
theme.

Day 1, 2 & 5: Skills Modules and • Systems Thinking Associates will:
Workshops
• Public Speaking and • Learning and apply systems
Presentation Skills thinking to analysing sustainable
development challenges and
opportunities
• Use systems thinking tools and
methods to indentify challenges
and opportunities for leaders in
the site visit area
• Communicate their ideas and
learning effectively to different
stakeholders to bring about
behaviour change
• Design and deliver compelling
presentations
Day 2, 3 & 6: Thematic Modules • Regional themes and cross- Associates will:
cutting issues
• Deepen their understanding of
• International Strategies on Africa specific SD issues, and
Sustainable Development their knowledge of cross-cutting
(MAE&D) – Climate Change issues such as natural resource
management, and multi-lateral
• National and Local Responses to
agreements on environment and
Natural Resource Management
development (including climate
change)
• Apply this learning to an in-situ
case study through a site visit.
Day 4: Field Visits • To be announced by each Associates will:
Member Programme (see short
• Try out and test their learning so
summaries in Session 8)
far by engaging with people and
their environment
• Draw on examples of “real
life” sustainable development
projects to create compelling
presentations on the topic area.
Day 5 & 6: Site Visit Groups • Reflection time Associates will:
Discussion, Analysis and
• Creating presentations to be • Analyse, synthesize and develop
Reporting
delivered to the whole group information on sustainable
development challenges and
opportunities linked to their site
visit in a compelling manner

Day 6: • Site Visit Group presentations to Associates will have:
the whole group
Site Visit Groups and • A good understanding of the
Leadership Teams • Leadership Groups reflect on main sustainable development
session and learning objectives challenges and opportunities in
the site visit area and how they
• Session Closing and Wrap up
are linked to the regional and
global content.
• Delivered compelling
presentations describing
fresh ideas for addressing
the challenge of sustainable
development in the region
• Practice giving and receiving
feedback
• Developed key message to
take forward to the Pan-African
Session and discuss on the
online forum.
• Reflected on progress and
learning in their Leadership
Groups
• Become clear on tasks and
activities between this event
and the upcoming Pan-African
Session.
Module Overview
Key dimensions of the Second These Site Visit Groups will have the opportunity
to follow an application sequence that includes: 1)
National Session Thematic inputs from experts in cross-cutting issues
The First National Session for LEAD Africa related to the site visit, 2) Site visit experience
Associates focused on “Foundations in leadership where stakeholder engagement will provide an
for sustainable development in Africa”, and the in-site opportunity to question, collect information
Second National Session of the programme focuses and interact with local experts with difference
on “Applications for change towards leadership for perspectives; 3) An analysis sequence that provides
sustainable development in Africa”. key questions for exploration to create shared
meaning and generate new ideas from the site
The Second National Session aims to add to and use visit experience; 4) Group work to develop a shared
the baseline information gained in the programme presentation on learning from the site visit; and 5)
thus far, to have Associates apply it to a particular Formal presentations from each of the Site Visit
case study, as well as to their own work and groups followed by a discussion.
contexts. A combination of Skills Modules and of
Thematic Sessions help to develop this thinking The Site Visit Group work provide both an
further and practice using this knowledge on a real opportunity to apply the combined sustainability
case. Specific areas of focus are National and Local and leadership learning through a group work
Responses to Natural Resource Management, experience, while at the same time, this group
and International Multi-Lateral Agreements on work provides a “laboratory” with a new group to
Environment and Development, and International continue to practice new learning about leading
Strategies on Climate Change. and developing group processes, effective
communication, decision-making, trust-building and
Associates will continue to explore their product delivery.
assumptions about leadership through the
continuation of the work on their PDP through their Skills modules are woven into the exploration of
Leadership Teams, which will start with a brief this case study based application of sustainable
progress report, and go on with developing their development and leadership. In the Second
learning goals for the week. Reflection on progress National Session, several tools will be provided to
made on the final day in the Leadership Teams will strengthen the Associates’ work during and after
complete this Session’s PDP learning cycle. the Session. These include Systems Thinking
for Transformational Change, which focuses on
The Leadership Teams will also meet again together developing systemic thinking through a set of useful
with their Coaches during this Second National concepts and diagramming tools. These are first
Session, after their initial progress reports in the applied in the work of the Site Visit Groups to help
Opening Session of the week. better understand the case study.
For the Second National Session, the main working The second skills module focuses on Public
group will be newly constituted Site Visit Groups. Speaking and Presentation skills and will help
These mixed groups will provide an opportunity to Associates consider their style and methodology in
work with a new group of Associates and practice communication and to help them create and give
the team skills developed in the other types of feedback on powerful presentations.
groups in which Associates participated (and
continue to participate) in the First National Session.
Overall, the Second National Session is designed

to provide participants with a dynamic learning
experience that brings them into direct contact with
people, places and sustainability challenges. The key
dimensions of the Second National Session are:
• Knowledge enhancement, skills development and
increased personal awareness;
• Blended learning journeys underpinned by
cutting-edge theory and models
• Access to senior leaders, innovators and
entrepreneurs;
• Local, regional and global perspectives;
• Behind the scenes visits to public and private
places;
• Conversations with a wide range of stakeholders;
• Personal and team challenges based on real
scenarios;
• Social learning through knowledge sharing and
continuous networking;
• Online workshops and forums;
• High quality workbooks
• A passion for leadership and sustainability.
SCHEDULE: DAY 1
Time Event Content

09:00 Session 1: • Welcome by LEAD Member Programme Director and
Opening Session staff
• Schedule and Objectives of this Session – Reminder of
Norms
• Pairs discussion: Spotting good practice in the Ways We
are Working
• Check-in by Associates on their PDPs and LAP work
• Plenary discussion on progress – what is working and
what might we be doing differently?
10:30 Coffee break
10:45 Session 2: • Leadership Teams meet to update each other in more
Leadership Teams detail and to set their learning goals for this session.
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Session 3: • Systems Activity
Systems Thinking for
• Introduction to Systems Thinking, Spotting Systems, and
Transformational Change
our group as a system
• Systems archetypes
• Goals setting
15:30 Coffee break
15:45 Session 3: cont. • Systems Activity
• Exploring Behaviour Over Time
• Looking at Trends and Scenarios
• Application to our own cases
17:30 End of the Day Debrief and Review
18:00 Welcome Reception with
Dinner
20:00 Social Media Lab Open Available for Associates
SESSION 1 OPENING SESSION
Overview Indicative Content

In this session we welcome you back! We also take • Welcome
the opportunity to reiterate our vision for the Second • Getting the most out of the week
National Session and help you plan and prepare
for the week ahead. An update of progress and • Reviewing the Vision
change will continue our process of getting to know • Application Discussion: Ways of Working of the
each other better and continuing to build trust and group (See Chapter 5: First National Session for
rapport. These processes are critical to becoming notes)
an effective team. Good teamwork and good team
• Individual Updates of PDP and LAP work
leadership will again be critical to sharing and
capturing your learning from the week. This week
you will be working with your new Site Visit Group, Method
and delivering a compelling presentation on Day 6 of
• Trainer input
your learning from the Field Visit on Day 4. We will
form these groups in Session 1. • Individual Work
• Paired Discussion
Session Aims • Paired Interviews
• To welcome the group to LEAD Africa’s Second • Postcards
National Session.
• To reiterate the aims and objectives of the Second
Support Materials
National Session;
• The Participant’s Manual
• To check in and update one another on changes
and progress in your PDP work, and LAP project. • LEAD Africa Forum
Learning objectives
By the end of the session you will be able to:
• Describe the aims and objectives of the Second
National Session;
• Articulate your own progress and desire for
additional inputs to your Personal Development
Plan and LAP work.
• Identify several opportunities for you to contribute
to the PDP and LAP work of others.
QUICK, MAKE SOME NOTES!
In the plenary you will have the opportunity to give a two-minute update of your progress on your PDP and
on your role in your Leadership Team’s LAP. What are you going to say?
SESSION 2 LEADERSHIP
TEAMS UPDATING

As Associates worked significantly on the Personal • Self-facilitated Leadership Team discussion
Development Plans, as well as their LAPs during the • Goals definition
interim period between the two National Sessions,
including completing an online virtual learning
module of their choice, this session provides time Method
for sharing and updating in more depth with other • Small group work
members of your Leadership Team.
• Storytelling
The Leadership Teams meet in this session to
• Individual reflection
exchange and share on their learning experiences
from the interim work. They also have the
opportunity to design their own learning goals for
this Second National Session. They also share
ideas how the Leadership Team, and its coach, can
support fellow members’ work towards meeting
their learning priorities.
Session Aims
• To provide an opportunity for Leadership Teams
to meet and update each other on progress
• To develop together individual learning goals for
this Second National Session.
• To identify ways to support each other’s learning
in this event.
Learning objectives
• Articulate your progress on your PDP and the
support you need from your Leadership Team.
• Define your own learning goals for this session.
• Help your fellow Leadership Team members in
their learning with specific and targeted actions of
their request.
SESSION 3 SYSTEMS THINKING

FOR TRANSFORMATIONAL
CHANGE
Overview Session Aims
Many if not most people would agree that • To develop participants’ ability to use the
sustainable development issues, like climate change vocabulary and habits of a systems thinker in
for instance, is a complex problem that requires order to become more effective when making
coordinated global solutions if we are to halt a major decisions affecting their environment;
phenomenon like global warming. There is no one • To enhance participants’ communication and
silver bullet to bring about the transition to stop problem solving skills.
climate change chaos. There is no single policy,
technology or mechanism that will bring about the
level of transformational change required to ensure a Learning Objectives
transition to a low carbon society.
By the end of the workshop participants will be able
Systems thinking is well suited to exploring global to:
complexity. One of LEAD’s original core skills • Describe the key concepts that underpin the
modules, systems thinking, offers a way of viewing systems thinking approach;
complex global problems holistically, and trying
to find ways of facilitating self-sustaining positive • Analyse challenges from a systems thinking point
change. LEAD believes that insights from the field of of view;
systems thinking can help us to discover new ways • Apply systems thinking tools, in particular
of effectively addressing complex challenges and behaviour-over-time graphing and feedback loops;
opportunities. In society, government, economics,
• Begin to think how to integrate systems thinking
and the environment, many systems do not behave
into their personal and professional lives.
as we would like. For example, increasing land use
for bio-fuels impacts on food production capacity,
prices of important food items rise, a nation’s Indicative content
population often grows faster than its jobs, and
corruption may be growing. • Key systems thinking concepts and definitions
• Exploring behaviour-over-time
These are all problems, at least for some people,
and in each case we would like to see a different • Facilitating self-sustaining change
behaviour. • Applying systems thinking principles
Systems thinking is one way of perceiving,
understanding, communicating and, sometimes, Method
changing the factors that cause “problems”. This
session is designed to transmit key sustainability • Theory Input
and systems thinking concepts without the need to • Participative exercises
learn the entire field in an easily communicable and
• Individual and small group work
applicable form.
• Practice applying the tools to your work
OVERVIEW OF SYSTEMS THINKING
By Daniel Aronson, host of the Thinking Page (http:www.thinking.net)

This article is © 1996-8 Daniel Aronson
Systems thinking has its foundation in the field the past or on the actions of others, and those
of system dynamics, founded in 1956 by MIT stemming from ineffective coordination among
professor Jay Forrester. Professor Forrester those involved. Examples of areas in which systems
recognised the need for a better way of testing thinking has proven its value include:
new ideas about social systems, in the same way
• Complex problems that involve helping many
we can test ideas in engineering. Systems thinking
actors see the “big picture” and not just their part
allows people to make their understanding of social
of it.
systems explicit and improve them in the same
way that people can use engineering principles to • Recurring problems or those that have been
make explicit and improve their understanding of made worse by past attempts to fix them.
mechanical systems. • Issues where an action affects (or is affected by)
the environment surrounding the issue, either
The Systems Thinking Approach the natural environment or the competitive
environment.
The approach of systems thinking is fundamentally
• Problems whose solutions are not obvious.
different from that of traditional forms of analysis.
Traditional analysis focuses on the separating the
individual pieces of what is being studied; in fact, Use Of Systems Thinking
the word “analysis” actually comes from the root
meaning “to break into constituent parts.” An example that illustrates the difference between
the systems thinking perspective and the
Systems thinking, in contrast, focuses on how perspective taken by traditional forms of analysis is
the thing being studied interacts with the other the action taken to reduce crop damage by insects.
constituents of the system—a set of elements that When an insect is eating a crop, the conventional
interact to produce behavior—of which it is a part. response is to spray the crop with a pesticide
This means that instead of isolating smaller and designed to kill that insect. Putting aside the limited
smaller parts of the system being studied, systems effectiveness of some pesticides and the water
thinking works by expanding its view to take into and soil pollution they can cause, imagine a perfect
account larger and larger numbers of interactions as pesticide that kills all of the insects against which it
an issue is being studied. is used and which has no side effects on air, water,
or soil. Is using this pesticide likely to make the
This results in sometimes strikingly different
farmer or company whose crops are being eaten
conclusions than those generated by traditional
better off?
forms of analysis, especially when what is being
studied is dynamically complex or has a great deal of
feedback from other sources, internal or external.
The character of systems thinking makes it

extremely effective on the most difficult types of
problems to solve: those involving complex issues,
those that depend a great deal dependence on
If we represent the thinking used by those applying controlled explodes and they cause more damage
the pesticides, it would look like this: than the insects killed by the pesticide used to.
In other words, the action intended to solve the

problem actually makes it worse because the way
its unintended side effects change the system ends
up exacerbating the problem.
Insects
Pesticide 0
Damaging In fact, some studies suggest that a majority of the
Application
Crops 25 insects that cause the most crop damage each
year became problems to begin with because of
exactly this cycle.
Graphically, the way this happens can be

represented as:
(Reading the Diagram: The arrow indicates the
direction of causation - that is, a change in the Numbers of Insect A
amount of pesticide applied causes a change in damaging crops
the numbers of insects damaging crops. The letter
indicates how the two variables are related: an “s”
means they change in the same direction - if one Numbers of
goes up then the other goes up, and an “o” means Insect B
they change in the opposite direction - if one goes
up then the other goes down (or vice versa). This Pesticide
diagram is read “a change in the amount of pesticide application
applied causes the number of insects damaging
crops to change in the opposite direction.” The
belief being represented here is that “as the amount Numbers of Insect
of pesticide applied increases, the number of insects B damaging crops
damaging crops decreases.”)
Total Number of
According to this way of thinking, the more pesticide Insects damaging crop
is applied, the fewer insects there will be damaging
crops, and the less total crop damage.
The temptation is to say that eliminating the insects According to this understanding, the greater the
eating the crops will solve the problem; however pesticide application, the smaller the numbers of
that often turns out to not be the case. The problem Insect A (the original pest) that will eat the crop. This
of crop damage due to insects often does get leads to an immediate decrease in the numbers of
better - in the short term. Unfortunately, the view insects eating the crop (note that this is the effect
diagrammed above represents only part of the those applying the pesticides are intending).
picture. What frequently happens is that in following However, the smaller numbers of insect A eventually
years the problem of crop damage gets worse and lead to greater numbers of Insect B (the hash marks
worse and the pesticide that formerly seemed so on the arrow indicate a delay), because insect A is
effective does not seem to help anymore. no longer controlling the numbers of insect B to the
This is because the insect that was eating the crops same extent. This leads to a population explosion of
was controlling the population of another insect, insect B, to greater numbers of insect B damaging
either by preying on it or by competing with it. When crops, and to greater numbers of insects damaging
the pesticide kills the insects that were eating the the crop, exactly the opposite of what was intended.
crops, it eliminates the control that those insects Thus, although the short-term effects of applying
were applying on the population of the other insects. the pesticide were exactly what was intended, the
Then the population of the insects that were being long-term effects were quite different.
With this picture of the system in mind, other A better way to deal with our
actions with better long-term results have been
developed, such as Integrated Pest Management,
most difficult problems
which includes controlling the insect eating the So many important problems that plague us today
crops by introducing more of its predators into the are complex, involve multiple actors, and are at least
area. These methods have been proven effective in partly the result of past actions that were taken to
studies conducted by MIT, the National Academy of alleviate them.
Sciences, and others, and they also avoid running
the risk of soil and water pollution. Dealing with such problems is notoriously difficult
and the results of conventional solutions are often
The way that the broader perspective of systems poor enough to create discouragement about the
thinking creates the understanding necessary for prospects of ever effectively addressing them.
better long-term solutions was also evident in work One of the key benefits of systems thinking
I did with a company whose industry was being is its ability to deal effectively with just these
deregulated. They seemed to be doing everything types of problems and to raise our thinking to the
right in working on a customer-relations problem level at which we create the results we want as
they were experiencing: they had a team of capable individuals and organisations even in those difficult
people working on it, they were using a process situations marked by complexity, great numbers of
that had been successful many times in the past, interactions, and the absence or ineffectiveness of
and they even had affected customers giving them immediately apparent solutions.
feedback on proposals to rectify the situation.
However, they were having difficulty seeing the

big picture of how the way they historically did
things was contributing to the problem. Working
together over two days, I was able to help them see
how the problem was being exacerbated and the
most powerful actions they could take to solve it.
The session ended with the creation of a strategy
for addressing the problem that was unanimously
supported by the team and the customers.
By seeing the whole picture, the team was able to

think of new possibilities that they had not come
up with previously, in spite of their best efforts.
Systems thinking has the power to help teams
create insights like these, when applied well to a
suitable problem.
(Other examples of positive results obtained by

systems thinking in service, human resources, and
high-technology industries can be found in Peter
Senge’s classic ‘The Fifth Discipline’ and in ‘The
Systems Thinker’ newsletter, published by Pegasus
Communications.1)
1. Senge, Peter, The Fifth Discipline NY: Currecy/Doubleday, 1990. Pegasus Communications can be reached at (781)
398-9700 Note: Daniel Aronson is not affiliated with Peter Senge, Currency/Doubleday, or Pegasus Communications
PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A
SYSTEM
By Donella H. Meadows Very frustrating. So one day I was sitting in a
© 2000 Whole Earth meeting about the new global trade regime, NAFTA
and GATT and the World Trade Organisation.
Folks who do systems analysis have a great belief The more I listened, the more I began to simmer
in “leverage points.” These are places within a inside. “This is a HUGE NEW SYSTEM people
complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living are inventing!” I said to myself. “They haven’t
body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in the slightest idea how it will behave,” myself said
one thing can produce big changes in everything. back to me. “It’s cranking the system in the wrong
The systems community has a lot of lore about direction, growth, growth at any price!! And the
leverage points. Those of us who were trained by control measures these nice folks are talking about,
the great Jay Forrester at MIT have absorbed one small parameter adjustments, negative feedback
of his favorite stories. “People know intuitively loops, are PUNY!”
where leverage points are. Time after time I’ve done
an analysis of a company, and I’ve figured out a Suddenly, without quite knowing what was
leverage point. Then I’ve gone to the company and happening, I got up, marched to the flip chart,
discovered that everyone is pushing it in the wrong tossed over a clean page, and wrote: “ Places to
direction!” Intervene in a System,” followed by nine items:
The classic example of that backward intuition was 9. Numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards).
Forrester’s first world model. Asked by the Club of
Rome to show how major global problems, poverty 8. Material stocks and flows.
and hunger, environmental destruction, resource 7. Regulating negative feedback loops.
depletion, urban deterioration, unemployment, are
related and how they might be solved, Forrester 6. Driving positive feedback loops.
came out with a clear leverage point:
5. Information flows.
Growth. Both population and economic growth.
Growth has costs, among which are poverty and 4. The rules of the system (incentives,
hunger, environmental destruction, the whole list of punishment, constraints).
problems we are trying to solve with growth! 3. The power of self-organisation
The world’s leaders are correctly fixated on 2. The goals of the system.
economic growth as the answer to virtually all
problems, but they’re pushing with all their might 1. The mindset or paradigm out of which the
in the wrong direction. Counterintuitive. That’s goals, rules, feedback structure arise.
Forrester’s word to describe complex systems. The
Everyone in the meeting blinked in surprise,
systems analysts I know have come up with no
including me. “That’s brilliant!” someone breathed.
quick or easy formulas for finding leverage points.
“Huh?” said someone else. I realised that I had a lot
Our counter intuitions aren’t that well developed.
of explaining to do.
Give us a few months or years and we’ll model
the system and figure it out. We know from bitter In a minute I’ll go through the list, translate the
experience that when we do discover the system’s jargon, give examples and exceptions. First I want to
leverage points, hardly anybody will believe us. place the list in a context of humility. What bubbled
up in me that day was distilled from decades of
rigorous analysis of many different kinds of systems
done by many smart people. But complex systems parameters aren’t important, they can be, especially
are, well, complex. It’s dangerous to generalize in the short term and to the individual who’s
about them. What you are about to read is not standing directly in the flow. But they RARELY
a recipe for finding leverage points. Rather it’s CHANGE BEHAVIOR. If the system is chronically
an invitation to think more broadly about system stagnant, parameter changes rarely kick-start it. If
change. That’s why leverage points are not intuitive. it’s wildly variable, they don’t usually stabilise it. If
it’s growing out of control, they don’t brake it.
9. Numbers Whatever cap we put on campaign contributions,

it doesn’t clean up politics. The Feds fiddling with
Numbers (“parameters” in systems jargon) the interest rate haven’t made business cycles go
determine how much of a discrepancy turns which away. (We always forget that during upturns, and
faucet how fast. Maybe the faucet turns hard, so it are shocked, shocked by the downturns.) Spending
takes a while to get the water flowing. Maybe the more on police doesn’t make crime go away.
drain is blocked and can allow only a small flow, no
matter how open it is. Maybe the faucet can deliver However, there are critical exceptions. Numbers
with the force of a fire hose. These considerations become leverage points when they go into ranges
are a matter of numbers, some of which are that kick off one of the items higher on this list.
physically locked in, but most of which a popular Interest rates or birth rates control the gains
intervention points. around positive feedback loops. System goals are
parameters that can make big differences.
Consider the national debt. It’s a negative bathtub,
a money hole. The rate at which it sinks is the Sometimes a system gets onto a chaotic edge,
annual deficit. Tax income makes it rise, government where the tiniest change in a number can drive it
expenditures make it fall. from order to what appears to be wild disorder.
Congress and the president argue endlessly about Probably the most common kind of critical number
the many parameters that open and close tax is the length of delay in a feedback loop. Remember
faucets and spending drains. Since those faucets that bathtub on the fourth floor I mentioned,
and drains are connected to the voters, these are with the water heater in the basement? I actually
politically charged parameters. But, despite all the experienced one of those once, in an old hotel in
fireworks, and no matter which party is in charge, London. It wasn’t even a bathtub with buffering
the money hole goes on sinking, just at different capacity; it was a shower. The water temperature
rates. took at least a minute to respond to my faucet
twists. Guess what my shower was like. Right,
The amount of land we set aside for conservation. oscillations from hot to cold and back to hot,
The minimum wage. How much we spend on AIDS punctuated with expletives. Delays in negative
research or Stealth bombers. The service charge feedback loops cause oscillations. If you’re trying
the bank extracts from your account. All these are to adjust a system state to your goal, but you only
numbers, adjustments to faucets. receive delayed information about what the system
So, by the way, is firing people and getting new state is, you will overshoot and undershoot.
ones. Putting different hands on the faucets may Same if your information is timely, but your response
change the rate at which they turn, but if they’re the isn’t. For example, it takes several years to build an
same old faucets, plumbed into the same system, electric power plant, and then that plant lasts, say,
turned according to the same information and rules thirty years. Those delays make it impossible to
and goals, the system isn’t going to change much. build exactly the right number of plants
Bill Clinton is different from George Bush, but not to supply a rapidly changing demand. Even with
all that different. Numbers are last on my list of immense effort at forecasting, almost every
leverage points. Diddling with details, arranging electricity industry in the
the deck chairs on the Titanic. Probably ninety-
five percent of our attention goes to numbers, world experiences long oscillations between
but there’s not a lot of power in them. Not that overcapacity and undercapacity. A system just can’t
respond to short-term changes when it has long- supporting its retirement. Not much to do about it,
term delays. That’s why a massive central-planning because five-year-olds become six-year-olds, and
system, such as the Soviet Union or General sixty- four-year olds become sixty-five-year-olds
Motors, necessarily functions poorly. predictably and unstoppably. The same can be said
for the lifetime of destructive CFC molecules in
A delay in a feedback process is critical RELATIVE the ozone layer, for the rate at which contaminants
TO RATES OF CHANGE (growth, fluctuation, decay) get washed out of aquifers, for the fact that an
IN THE SYSTEM STATE THAT THE FEEDBACK inefficient car fleet takes ten to twenty years to turn
LOOP IS TRYING TO CONTROL. Delays that are over.
too short cause overreaction, oscillations amplified
by the jumpiness of the response. Delays that are The possible exceptional leverage point here is
too long cause damped, sustained, or exploding in the size of stocks, or buffers. Consider a huge
oscillations, depending on how much too long. At bathtub with slow in and outflows. Now think
the extreme they cause chaos. Delays in a system about a small one with fast flows. That’s the
with a threshold, a danger point, and a range difference between a lake and a river. You hear
past which irreversible damage can occur, cause about catastrophic river floods much more often
overshoot and collapse. than catastrophic lake floods, because stocks that
are big, relative to their flows, are more stable than
Delay length would be a high leverage point, small ones. A big, stabilizing stock is a buffer.
except for the fact that delays are not often easily
changeable. Things take as long as they take. You The stabilising power of buffers is why you keep
can’t do a lot about the construction time of a major money in the bank rather than living from the flow
piece of capital, or the maturation time of a child, of change through your pocket. It’s why stores
or the growth rate of a forest. It’s usually easier to hold inventory instead of calling for new stock just
slow down the change rate (positive feedback loops, as customers carry the old stock out the door. It’s
higher on this list), so feedback delays won’t cause why we need to maintain more than the minimum
so much trouble. Critical numbers are not nearly as breeding population of an endangered species.
common as people seem to think they are. Most Soils in the eastern US are more sensitive to acid
systems have evolved or are designed to stay out rain than soils in the west, because they haven’t got
of sensitive parameter ranges. Mostly, the numbers big buffers of calcium to neutralise acid. You can
are not worth the sweat put into them. often stabilise a system by increasing the capacity
of a buffer. But if a buffer is too big, the system
gets inflexible. It reacts too slowly. Businesses
8. Material stocks and flows invented just-in-time inventories, because occasional
The plumbing structure, the stocks and flows and vulnerability to fluctuations or screw-ups is cheaper
their physical arrangement, can have an enormous than certain, constant inventory costs, and because
effect on how a system operates. When the small-to-vanishing inventories allow more flexible
Hungarian road system was laid out so all traffic response to shifting demand.
from one side of the nation to the other had to pass There’s leverage, sometimes magical, in changing
through central Budapest, that determined a lot the size of buffers. But buffers are usually physical
about air pollution and commuting delays that are entities, not easy to change. The acid absorption
not easily fixed by pollution control devices, traffic capacity of eastern soils is not a leverage point for
lights, or speed limits. The only way to fix a system alleviating acid rain damage. The storage capacity of
that is laid out wrong is to rebuild it, if you can. a dam is literally cast in concrete. Physical structure
Often you can’t, because physical building is a slow is crucial in a system, but the leverage point is in
and expensive kind of change. Some stock- and- proper design in the first place. After the structure is
flow structures are just plain unchangeable. built, the leverage is in understanding its limitations
The baby-boom swell in the US population first and bottlenecks and refraining from fluctuations or
caused pressure on the elementary school expansions that strain its capacity.
system, then high schools and colleges, then jobs
and housing, and now we’re looking forward to
7. Regulating negative feedback Prices that reflect full costs will tell consumers
how much they can actually afford and will reward
loops efficient producers. Companies and governments
Now we’re beginning to move from the physical part are fatally attracted to the price leverage point, of
of the system to the information and control parts, course, all of them pushing in the wrong direction
where more leverage can be found. Nature evolves with subsidies, fixes, externalities, taxes, and other
negative feedback loops and humans invent them to forms of confusion.
keep system states within safe bounds.
The REAL leverage here is to keep them from doing
A thermostat loop is the classic example. Its it. Hence anti-trust laws, truth-in-advertising laws,
purpose is to keep the system state called “room attempts to internalise costs (such as pollution
temperature” fairly constant at a desired level. Any taxes), the removal of perverse subsidies, and other
negative feedback loop needs a goal (the thermostat ways of leveling market playing fields.
setting), a monitoring and signaling device to
The strength of a negative feedback loop is
detect excursions from the goal (the thermostat),
important RELATIVE TO THE IMPACT IT IS
and a response mechanism (the furnace and/or air
DESIGNED TO CORRECT. If the impact increases
conditioner, fans, heat pipes, fuel, etc.).
in strength, the feedbacks have to be strengthened
A complex system usually has numerous negative too.
feedback loops it can bring into play, so it can self-
A thermostat system may work fine on a cold winter
correct under different conditions and impacts.
day, but open all the windows and its corrective
Some of those loops may be inactive much of the
power will fail. Democracy worked better before
time, like the emergency cooling system in a nuclear
the advent of the brainwashing power of centralised
power plant, or your ability to sweat or shiver to
mass communications.
maintain your body temperature. One of the big
mistakes we make is to strip away these emergency Traditional controls on fishing were sufficient until
response mechanisms because they aren’t often radar spotting and drift nets and other technologies
used and they appear to be costly. In the short term made it possible for a few actors to wipe out the
we see no effect from doing this. In the long term, fish. The power of big industry calls for the power of
we narrow the range of conditions over which the big government to hold it in check; a global economy
system can survive. makes necessary a global government.
One of the most heartbreaking ways we do this is in Here are some other examples of strengthening
encroaching on the habitats of endangered species. negative feedback controls to improve a system’s
Another is in encroaching on our own time for rest, self-correcting abilities: preventive medicine,
recreation, socialisation, and meditation. exercise, and good nutrition to bolster the body’s
ability to fight disease, integrated pest management
The “strength” of a negative loop, its ability to keep
to encourage natural predators of crop pests, the
its appointed stock at or near its goal, depends on
Freedom of Information Act to reduce government
the combination of all its parameters and links, the
secrecy, protection for whistle blowers, impact fees,
accuracy a rapidity of monitoring, the quickness
pollution taxes, and performance bonds to recapture
and power of response, the directness and size of
the externalized public costs of private benefits.
corrective flows.
There can be leverage points here. Take markets, for

6. Driving positive feedback loops
example, the negative feedback systems that are all
but worshipped by economists, and they can indeed A positive feedback loop is self-reinforcing. The
be marvels of self-correction, as prices vary to keep more it works, the more it has power to work some
supply and demand in balance. The more the price, more.
the central signal to both producers and consumers,
is kept clear, unambiguous, timely, and truthful, the The more people catch the flu, the more they infect
more smoothly markets will operate. other people. The more babies are born, the more
people grow up to have babies. The more money
you have in the bank, the more interest you earn, beat. And just the tiniest further nudge sends it into
the more money you have in the bank. The more the chaos.
soil erodes, the less vegetation it can support, the
fewer roots and leaves to soften rain and runoff, the I don’t expect the world economy to turn chaotic
more soil erodes. The more high-energy neutrons any time soon (not for that reason, anyway). That
in the critical mass, the more they knock into nuclei behavior occurs only in unrealistic parameter
and generate more. ranges, equivalent to doubling the size of the
economy within a year. Real- world systems do
Positive feedback loops drive growth, explosion, turn chaotic, however, if something in them can
erosion, and collapse in systems. A system with an grow or decline very fast. Fast-replicating bacteria
unchecked positive loop ultimately will destroy itself. or insect populations, very infectious epidemics,
That’s why there are so few of them. wild speculative bubbles in money systems, neutron
fluxes in the guts of nuclear power plants. These
Usually a negative loop kicks in sooner or later. systems are hard to control, and control must
The epidemic runs out of infectable people, or involve slowing down the positive feedbacks.
people take increasingly strong steps to avoid being
infected. The death rate rises to equal the birth rate, In more ordinary systems, look for leverage points
or people see the consequences of unchecked around birth rates, interest rates, erosion rates,
population growth and have fewer babies. The soil “success to the successful” loops, any place where
erodes away to bedrock, and after a million years the more you have of something, the more you have
the bedrock crumbles into new soil, or people put the possibility of having more.
up check dams and plant trees.
In those examples, the first outcome is what 5. Information flows

happens if the positive loop runs its course, the
second is what happens if there’s an intervention to There was this subdivision of identical houses, the
reduce its power. story goes, except that the electric meter in some
of the houses was installed in the basement and in
Reducing the gain around a positive loop, slowing others it was installed in the front hall, where the
the growth, is usually a more powerful leverage residents could see it constantly, going round faster
point in systems than strengthening negative loops, or slower as they used more or less electricity.
and much preferable to letting the positive loop run. Electricity consumption was 30 percent lower in the
houses where the meter was in the front hall.
Population and economic growth rates in the world
model are leverage points, because slowing them Systems-heads love that story because it’s an
gives the many negative loops, through technology example of a high leverage point in the information
and markets and other forms of adaptation, time structure of the system. It’s not a parameter
to function. It’s the same as slowing the car when adjustment, not a strengthening or weakening of an
you’re driving too fast, rather than calling for more existing loop. It’s a NEW LOOP, delivering feedback
responsive brakes or technical advances in steering. to a place where it wasn’t going before.
The most interesting behavior that rapidly turning In 1986 the US government required that every
positive loops can trigger is chaos. This wild, factory releasing hazardous air pollutants report
unpredictable, unreplicable, and yet bounded those emissions publicly. Suddenly everyone could
behavior happens when a system starts changing find out precisely what was coming out of the
much, much faster than its negative loops can react smokestacks in town. There was no law against
to it. those emissions, no fines, no determination
of “safe” levels, just information. But by 1990
For example, if you keep raising the capital growth emissions dropped 40percent. One chemical
rate in the world model, eventually you get to a company that found itself on the Top Ten Polluters
point where one tiny increase more will shift the list reduced its emissions by 90 percent, just to “get
economy from exponential growth to oscillation. off that list.”
Another nudge upward gives the oscillation a double
Missing feedback is a common cause of system Nine people on a team, you have to touch every
malfunction. Adding or rerouting information can be base, three strikes and you’re out. If you get caught
a powerful intervention, usually easier and cheaper robbing a bank, you go to jail.
than rebuilding physical structure.
Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the USSR and
The tragedy of the commons that is exhausting the opened information flows (glasnost) and changed
world’s commercial fisheries occurs because there the economic rules(perestroika), and look what
is no feedback from the state of the fish population happened.
to the decision to invest in fishing vessels. (Contrary
to economic opinion, the price offish doesn’t Constitutions are strong social rules. Physical laws
provide that feedback. As the fish get more scarce such as the second law of thermodynamics are
and hence more expensive, it becomes all the absolute rules, if we understand them correctly.
more profitable to go out and catch them. That’s Laws, punishments, incentives, and informal social
a perverse feedback, a positive loop that leads to agreements are progressively weaker rules.
collapse.) To demonstrate the power of rules, I ask my
It’s important that the missing feedback be restored students to imagine different ones for a college.
to the right place and in compelling form. It’s not Suppose the students graded the teachers.
enough to inform all the users of an aquifer that the Suppose you come to college when you want to
groundwater level is dropping. That could trigger a learn something, and you leave when you’ve learned
race to the bottom. It would be more effective to set it. Suppose professors were hired according to their
a water price that rises steeply as the pumping rate ability to solve real-world problems, rather than
exceeds the recharge rate. to publish academic papers. Suppose a class got
graded as a group, instead of as individuals.
Suppose taxpayers got to specify on their return
forms what government services their tax payments Rules change behavior. Power over rules is real
must be spent on. (Radical democracy!) Suppose power. That’s why lobbyists congregate when
any town or company that puts a water intake pipe Congress writes laws, and why the Supreme Court,
in a river had to put it immediately DOWNSTREAM which interprets and delineates the Constitution,
from its own outflow pipe. Suppose any public or the rules for writing the rules, has even more power
private official who made the decision to invest in a than Congress.
nuclear power plant got the waste from that plant If you want to understand the deepest malfunctions
stored on his/her lawn. of systems, pay attention to the rules, and to who
There is a systematic tendency on the part of has power over them.
human beings to avoid accountability for their own That’s why my systems intuition was sending off
decisions. That’s why there are so many missing alarm bells as the new world trade system was
feedback loops, and why this kind of leverage point explained to me. It is a system with rules designed
is so often popular with the masses, unpopular with by corporations, run by corporations, for the benefit
the powers that be, and effective, if you can get the of corporations. Its rules exclude almost any
powers that be to permit it to happen or go around feedback from other sectors of society. Most of its
them and make it happen anyway. meetings are closed to the press (no information,
no feedback). It forces nations into positive loops,
4. The rules of the system competing with each other to weaken environmental
and social safeguards in order to attract corporate
(incentives, punishments, investment. It’s a recipe for unleashing “success to
constraints) the successful” loops.
The rules of the system define its scope,

boundaries, degrees of freedom. Thou shalt not kill. 3. The power of self-organisation
Everyone has the right of free speech. Contracts
are to be honored. The president serves four-year The most stunning thing living systems can do is to
terms and cannot serve more than two of them. change themselves utterly by creating whole new
structures and behaviors. In biological systems that like punctuated Darwinian selection. For technology
power is called evolution. In human economies the raw material is the body of understanding
it’s called technical advance or social revolution. In science has accumulated. The source of variety
systems lingo it’s called self organisation. is human creativity (whatever THAT is) and the
selection mechanism is whatever the market will
Self-organisation means changing any aspect of a reward or whatever governments and foundations
system lower on this list, adding or deleting new will fund or whatever tickles the fancy of crazy
physical structure, adding or deleting negative or inventors.
positive loops or information flows or rules. The
ability to self-organise is the strongest form of When you understand the power of self-
system resilience, the ability to survive change by organisation, you begin to understand why biologists
changing. worship biodiversity even more than economists
worship technology. The wildly varied stock of
The human immune system can develop responses DNA, evolved and accumulated over billions of
to (some kinds of) insults it has never before years, is the source of evolutionary potential, just
encountered. The human brain can take in new as science libraries and labs and scientists are the
information and pop out completely new thoughts. source of technological potential. Allowing species
Self-organisation seems so wondrous that we tend to go extinct is a systems crime, just as randomly
to regard it as mysterious, miraculous. Economists eliminating all copies of particular science journals,
often model technology as literal manna from or particular kinds of scientists, would be.
heaven, coming from nowhere, costing nothing, The same could be said of human cultures, which
increasing the productivity of an economy by some are the store of behavioral repertoires accumulated
steady percent each year. For centuries people have over not billions, but hundreds of thousands of
regarded the spectacular variety of nature with the years. They are a stock out of which social evolution
same awe. Only a divine creator could bring forth can arise. Unfortunately, people appreciate the
such a creation. evolutionary potential of cultures even less than they
In fact the divine creator does not have to produce understand the potential of every genetic variation
miracles. He, she, or it just has to write clever in ground squirrels. I guess that’s because one
RULES FOR SELF- ORGANISATION. aspect of almost every culture is a belief in the utter
superiority of that culture.
These rules govern how, where, and what the
system can add onto or subtract from itself under Any system, biological, economic, or social, that
what conditions. scorns experimentation and wipes out the raw
material of innovation is doomed over the long term
Self-organising computer models demonstrate that on this highly variable planet. The intervention point
delightful, mind- boggling patterns can evolve from here is obvious but unpopular.
simple evolutionary algorithms. (That need not
mean that real-world algorithms are simple, only Encouraging diversity means losing control. Let
that they can be.) The genetic code that is the basis a thousand flowers bloom and ANYTHING could
of all biological evolution contains just four letters, happen!
combined into words of three letters each. Who wants that?
That code, and the rules for replicating and
rearranging it, has spewed out an unimaginable 2. The goals of the system
variety of creatures.
Right there, the push for control is an example of
Self-organisation is basically a matter of evolutionary why the goal of a system is even more of a leverage
raw material, a stock of information from which to point than the self-organising ability of a system.
select possible patterns, and a means for testing
them. For biological evolution the raw material If the goal is to bring more and more of the world
is DNA, one source of variety is spontaneous under the control of one central planning system
mutation, and the testing mechanism is something (the empire of Genghis Khan, the world of Islam,
the People’s Republic of China, Wal-Mart, Disney), of hundreds or thousands or millions of perfectly
then everything further down the list, even self- rational people.
organising behavior, will be pressured or weakened
to conform to that goal. That’s what Ronald Reagan did. Not long before he
came to office, a president could say, “Ask not what
That’s why I can’t get into arguments about whether government can do for you, ask what you can do for
genetic engineering is a good or a bad thing. Like all the government,” and no one even laughed. Reagan
technologies, it depends upon who is wielding it, said the goal is not to get the people to help the
with what goal. The only thing one can say is that if government and not to get government to help the
corporations wield it for the purpose of generating people, but to get the government off our backs.
marketable products, that is a very different goal,
a different direction for evolution than anything the One can argue, and I would, that larger system
planet has seen so far. There is a hierarchy of goals changes let him get away with that. But the
in systems. thoroughness with which behavior in the US and
even the world has been changed since Reagan
Most negative feedback loops have their own goals, is testimony to the high leverage of articulating,
to keep the bath water at the right level, to keep the repeating, standing for, insisting upon new system
room temperature comfortable, to keep inventories goals.
stocked at sufficient levels. They are small leverage
points. The big leverage points are the goals of
entire systems. 1. The mindset or paradigm out of
which the system arises
People within systems don’t often recognise what
whole system goal they are serving. To make Another of Jay Forrester’s systems sayings goes:
profits, most corporations would say, but that’s just It doesn’t matter how the tax law of a country is
a rule, a necessary condition to stay in the game. written. There is a shared idea in the minds of the
What is the point of the game? society about what a “fair” distribution of the tax
load is. Whatever the rules say, by fair means or
To grow, to increase market share, to bring the foul, by complications, cheating, exemptions or
world (customers, suppliers, regulators) more under deductions, by constant sniping at the rules, the
the control of the corporation, so that its operations actual distribution of taxes will push right up against
become ever more shielded from uncertainty. the accepted idea of “fairness.”
That’s the goal of a cancer cell too and of every
living population. It’s only a bad one when it isn’t The shared idea in the minds of society, the
countered by higher-level negative feedback loops great unstated assumptions, unstated because
with goals of keeping the system in balance. unnecessary to state; everyone knows them,
constitute that society’s deepest set of beliefs
The goal of keeping the market competitive has about how the world works. There is a difference
to trump the goal of each corporation to eliminate between nouns and verbs. People who are paid less
its competitors. The goal of keeping populations in are worth less. Growth is good. Nature is a stock
balance and evolving has to trump the goal of each of resources to be converted to human purposes.
population to commandeer all resources into its own Evolution stopped with the emergence of Homo
metabolism. sapiens. One can “own” land. Those are just a few
of the paradigmatic assumptions of our culture, all of
I said a while back that changing the players in a
which utterly dumbfound people of other cultures.
system is a low-level intervention, as long as the
players fit into the same old system. The exception Paradigms are the sources of systems. From them
to that rule is at the top, if a single player can change come goals, information flows, feedbacks, stocks,
the system’s goal. flows. The ancient Egyptians built pyramids because
they believed in an afterlife. We build skyscrapers,
I have watched in wonder as, only very occasionally,
because we believe that space in downtown cities
a new leader in an organisation, from Dartmouth
is enormously valuable. (Except for blighted spaces,
College to Nazi Germany, comes in, enunciates a
often near the skyscrapers, which we believe are
new goal, and singlehandedly changes the behavior
worthless.) Whether it was Copernicus and Kepler paradigm, and to regard that whole realisation as
showing that the earth is not the center of the devastatingly funny. It is to let go into Not Knowing.
universe, or Einstein hypothesising that matter
and energy are interchangeable, or Adam Smith People who cling to paradigms (just about all of
postulating that the selfish actions of individual us) take one look at the spacious possibility that
players in markets wonderfully accumulate to the everything we think is guaranteed to be nonsense
common good. and pedal rapidly in the opposite direction. Surely
there is no power, no control, not even a reason for
People who manage to intervene in systems at the being, much less acting, in the experience that there
level of paradigm hit a leverage point that totally is no certainty in any worldview. But everyone who
transforms systems. You could say paradigms are has managed to entertain that idea, for a moment
harder to change than anything else about a system, or for a lifetime, has found it a basis for radical
and therefore this item should be lowest on the empowerment. If no paradigm is right, you can
list, not the highest. But there’s nothing physical or choose one that will help achieve your purpose. If
expensive or even slow about paradigm change. you have no idea where to get a purpose, you can
listen to the universe (or put in the name of your
In a single individual it can happen in a millisecond. favorite deity here) and do his, her, its will, which is a
All it takes is a click in the mind, a new way of lot better informed than your will.
seeing. Of course individuals and societies do resist
challenges to their paradigm harder than they resist It is in the space of mastery over paradigms that
any other kind of change. people throw off addictions, live in constant joy,
bring down empires, get locked up or burned at the
So how do you change paradigms? Thomas stake or crucified or shot, and have impacts that last
Kuhn, who wrote the seminal book about the for millennia.
great paradigm shifts of science, has a lot to say
about that. In a nutshell, you keep pointing at the Back from the sublime to the ridiculous, from
anomalies and failures in the old paradigm, you enlightenment to caveats. There is so much that
come yourself, loudly, with assurance, from the new has to be said to qualify this list. It is tentative
one, you insert people with the new paradigm in and its order is slithery. There are exceptions to
places of public visibility and power. You don’t waste every item on it. Having the list percolating in my
time with reactionaries; rather you work with active subconscious for years has not transformed me into
change agents and with the vast middle ground of a Superwoman. I seem to spend my time running
people who are open-minded. up and down the list, trying out leverage points
wherever I can find them. The higher the leverage
Systems folks would say one way to change a point, the more the system resists changing it-that’s
paradigm is to model a system, which takes you why societies rub out truly enlightened beings.
outside the system and forces you to see it whole.
We say that because our own paradigms have been I don’t think there are cheap tickets to system
changed that way. change. You have to work at it, whether that means
rigorously analysing a system or rigorously casting
off paradigms. In the end, it seems that leverage
0. The power to transcend has less to do with pushing levers than it does with
paradigms disciplined thinking combined with strategically,
profoundly, madly letting go.
Sorry, but to be truthful and complete, I have to
add this kicker. The highest leverage of all is to
keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms,
to realise that NO paradigm is “true,” that even
the one that sweetly shapes one’s comfortable
worldview is a tremendously limited understanding
of an immense and amazing universe.
It is to “get” at a gut level the paradigm that there

are paradigms, and to see that that itself is a
Systems Thinking
Suggested Reading List
• Booth Sweeney, L and Meadows, D.L. The Systems Thinking Playbook Vols 1, 2, and 3. (1995-2001) –
Dozens of games for teaching systems principles.
• Brodie, R. Virus of the Mind (2004) – see his website http://www.memecentral.com
• Capra, F. The Turning Point (1982) – On the transition to a “systems mindset.”
• Diamond, J. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive (2006)
• Ford, A. Modeling the Environment (1999) – Good introduction to system dynamics modeling as applied
to the environment. College text.
• Gladwell, M. The Tipping Point (2000) – How social change can spread like a virus.
• Journal of the Systems Dynamics Society, Systems Dynamics Review.
• Kim, D., System Archetypes III, (2000).
• Krafel, P. Seeing Nature (1999) – Systems approach from a non-systems analysis point of view.
• Kuhn, T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) – How scientific paradigms change.
• Meadows, D.H., The Global Citizen (1991) – Systems essays. More recent essays (May 1996-Feb 2001)
can be viewed at www.sustainabilityinstitute.org
• Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. Beyond the Limits (1992) – A systems thinking and
modeling approach to global sustainability.
• Oshary. B, Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organisational Life (2007)
• Oshary, B, Leading Systems: Lessons for the Power Lab (1999)
• Schwartz P. The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World (1996).
• Senge, P. The Fifth Discipline (1990) – Popular introduction to organisational learning and systems thinking
archetypes.
• Senge, P., Jaworski, J. Scharmer, O, & Flowers B. Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People,
Organisations and Society (2005)
• Sterman, J. Business Dynamics (2000) – The text of the field of system dynamics modeling. Includes
best material on advanced causal loop diagramming.
• Sweeney, L.B. When a Butterfly Sneezes. (2000) – Kids’ stories.
• Vennix , J.A.M. Group Model Building: Facilitating Team Learning Using System Dynamics (1996).
Websites
• www.sustainabilityinstitute.org – SI website, including systems essays, research papers, and more links.
• www.systemsprimer.com – good introduction to systems diagramming.
• home.earthlink.net/~tomfid/sdbookmarks.html – many links to other System Dynamics sites.
• www.stewardshipmodeling.com/ – links to other System Dynamics sites.
• www.pegasuscom.com – Pegasus Communications – books, training materials, and conferences on
systems thinking and organisational learning.
• www.clexchange.org - K-12 info, newsletter, curricula, conferences The Creative Learning Exchange
encourages a view of education for primary and secondary schools based on discovery as the essence of
the learning process and advocates systems education implemented through learnercentered learning.
• www.watersfoundation.org – The Systems Thinking and Dynamic Modeling (ST/DM) site provides
educators with background information, examples, and guidance in the use of systems thinking and
dynamic modeling in K-12 education.
• www.hps-inc.com/navbar/otherSysResources.htm – “Links” page of High Performance Systems (authors
of STELLA and ithink software).
• www.vensim.com/resource.html – “Links” page of Ventana Systems (authors of Vensim software).
SCHEDULE: DAY 2
Time Event Content

09:00 Session 3: cont. • Night Thoughts: Group Check In
• Systems Exercise
• Working with positive feedback loops – finding Tipping
Points
10:30 Coffee break
10:45 Session 4: • Economic and ecological globalization: Concepts and
Part I - Introduction to International definitions
Strategies on SD (MAE&D)
• Overview of multi-lateral environment and development
agreements Post-Earth Summit (1991)
• Discussion of implications of agreements ratified by our
countries.
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Session 4: cont. • Defining climate change – key concepts and related topics
Part 2 -Introduction to International such as REDD and CDM
Strategies on SD (MAE&D) -
• Screening of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth
Climate Change
15:30 Coffee break (in session)
15:45 Session 4: (cont.) • Discussion on film
Introduction to International
• From Kyoto to Copenhagen
Strategies on SD (MAE&D) -
Climate Change
19:00 Dinner
SESSION 4 PART 1 - INTRODUCTION

TO INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIES ON
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Overview In response to the developed countries, who go to
international negotiations with the same strategy,
It is long recognised that most ecological and which is one where any result should have as little
economic challenges cannot be addressed by one impact on their standard of life, Southern countries
nation alone. Increasingly nations and governments have had the same answers all along. They are
are coming together to create global economic prepared to take action to save the world’s ecology,
systems, and the best illustration is the creation of as long as the industrialised (Western/developed)
the World Trade Organisation and followed later by countries are willing to supply the needed financial
numerous environmental treaties that have come and technological support. Neither leaders from
since the mid nineties. the North or South have had the vision required to
see that the environmental and economic treaties
There are however major short comings with these
are about the sustainable sharing of the earth’s
processes. Firstly, two processes of globalisation,
ecological space and resources.
economic and ecological2, are not accompanied by
any form of international governance. As a result, Given this situation then there are numerous treaties
political leaders do not often have any interest in and conventions which do not produce the expected
ensuring that the emerging global market or global results.
ecological policies are managed in the best interest
of the maximum number of people and on the basis
of the principles of good governance and precaution. Session Aims
Secondly, there is no near clear and transparent • To help Associates to understand that
mechanism to integrate economic and ecological globalisation is not only relevant to economics,
globalisation. but also ecology; that the ecology and economy
are interrelated.
The tendency of nation states is to take positions
that derive maximum economic benefit for their • To explore the numerous multi-lateral agreements
national economies. When they meet to agree rules and treaties (more than 200 exist) on environment
and regulations on ecological globalisation then they and development and their complexity.
strive to achieve this with no, or a minimum, cost • To explore how negotiations have turned global
to their national economies, if no benefit can be common resources, that were earlier treated
derived. are free and available, into national properties
As a result, environmental diplomacy has turned (for example, the UN Conference on the Law of
into petty business transactions, instead of the the Sea gave national control to these exclusive
establishment of fair and just global environment economic zones.)
systems. While these business transactions are built
on mutual benefits regardless of their societal costs,
governance systems must be built on principles of
democracy, justice etc.
2 ¨Ecological globalisation is the consequence of the ongoing processes of economic growth and ecologi-
cal globalisation, which not only stitch the world’s economies together but also take national production and
consumption levels to a point that threatens the worlds ecological systems¨
Learning objectives Bibliography

By the end of the session you will be able to: UNEP: http://www.unep.org/dec/links/index.
html
• Identify the most relevant conventions and
treaties for your country. Kyoto Protocol: http://unfccc.int/portal_
• Understand these convention’s objectives for francophone/essential_background/
your country and the region. kyoto_protocol/text_of_the_kyoto_protocol/
items/3275.php
Indicative Content Copenhagen Accord (advance unedited version):

http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_15/
Part 1a: (20 min) application/pdf/cop15_cph_auv.pdf
Economic vs. Ecological Globalization: Concepts and UNFCCC : http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/
definitions. Open discussion on terms and concepts publications/negotiators_handbook_fr.pdf
to be explored such as economic and ecological
globalization, and multi lateral agreements on Global Environmental Negotiations
environment and development. http://csestore.cse.org.in/books/greenpolitics/
green-politics.html
Part 1b: (30 min)
International treaties since 1991 and Earth Summit
Agreement: A short presentation on the treaties
since the Earth Summit. This will be followed by
discussions.
Part 2: (30 min)

In-depth discussion and exchange amongst the
Leadership Teams on the conventions and treaties
ratified by their members’ country/countries.
Method
The approach will be a combination of interactive
learning tools such as presentations, and exercises.
Associates will primarily be contributing with their
knowledge of the treaties and conventions, and
discussions will be based around this.
Preparation
Associates will prepare for discussions on treaties
and conventions ratified by their country.
SESSION 4 PART 2 -
INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIES
FOCUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Overview and institutional borders, and any response will
require collaboration and strong alliances, which
No region in the world today, and no sector, cannot come about without strong leadership -
business, group or individual can afford to disregard leadership with a vision for new, appropriate African
the effects and impacts of climate change. The development models.
impact of climate change on the world economy for
example has been estimated to be more that the This learning module will seek to examine the
two World Wars combined, or more than 6.8 trillion climate change responses and leadership needed
dollars, if the appropriate measures are not taken. on all levels to face the challenges and grasp
The human ‘costs’ are immeasurable . the opportunities. This will be done alongside
presentations on the key terminology, discussions
With regards to Africa then it is not possible to and film screenings.
envision the future of the continent without taking
into account the challenges of climate change.
Africa, because of its vulnerability to climate impacts Objectives
and its climate-dependent economic sectors, is one 1) To examine the concept of climate change and
of the most vulnerable continents. Whilst Africa is related topics such as mitigation and adaptation
at high risk, climate change also provides a unique etc. along with initiatives such as REDD,
opportunity for a new and more sustainable and CDM and national and international strategies
socially equitable developmental pathway. (NAPA, NAMA etc).
Climate change is however often seen as ‘less 2) To facilitate discussion on the challenges
pressing’ than other developmental concerns, and and opportunities of climate change on the
African countries are generally more interested continent, especially in relation to appropriate
in addressing under-development than climate development models and the leadership
change. This viewpoint is not unique to Africans, required to achieve results and lasting change.
but is shared by many developing countries. It may
be primarily a consequence of the African view 3) To examine and discuss national and regional
that the causal responsibility for climate change strategies and initiatives on climate change,
lies elsewhere and therefore the imperative and especially NAPAs and NAMAs and national
responsibility for action must be borne by the and local projects initiatives.
industrialized nations.
4) To determine the leadership needed in the
To address the challenge, strong and visionary climate change response on local, national and
leadership is essential and particularly African regional levels.
leadership as opposed to the historic reliance on
external agencies and bi-lateral partners to set 5) To examine the LEAD Associate Projects in the
the development agenda. Climate impacts are light of climate change and the challenges and
across the board in all sectors, crossing national opportunities that it presents.
3 The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Published by the Treasury of the United Kingdom. October
2006.
Approach
The approach will be a combination of learning tools
such as presentations, screenings and exercises.
The associates will primarily be contributing with
their experiences around climate change and the
related topics, and also in relation to their LAPs.
Preparation for module

Before the Second National Session: Associates
joining this module will need to have awareness and
knowledge of basic climate change discourse, and
be familiar with the Kyoto Protocol, the Copenhagen
Accord, and related topics such as adaptation and
mitigation.
During the Session: Each Leadership Team will

prepare a 3-minute presentation on their LAP and
how climate change impacts on it. Each Associate
will furthermore be required to research national and
regional strategies on climate change, alongside the
Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen Accord.
OUTLINE OF MODULE
Outline of module
Part 1: (90 min)
Defining Climate change: Presentation on climate
change and related topics such as mitigation and
adaptation etc. along with initiatives such as REDD,
CDM and national and international strategies
(NAPA, NAMA etc)
Part 2: (120 min)

Screening of Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
followed by discussion.
Part 3: (60 min)

From Kyoto to Copenhagen to…: Presentation on
the process up the recent Conference of Parties
in Copenhagen and the next steps. This will be
with emphasis on the negotiations from an African
perspective and the leadership required for the
process to succeed. Discussions will be based
around the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen
Accord.
Part 4: (60 min)

African Leadership on Climate Change in Africa:
This part will examine the needs for Leadership on
climate change on regional, national and local levels
and what kind of leadership.
Part 5: (90 min)

‘Local’ Climate Change: This part will examine
national and regional strategies on climate change,
and the effect on a national level. The short LEAD
Africa film ‘Where we used to fish we now grow
food’ will be shown, and the Associates will present
on their LAPs and the impact climate change will
have on these.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• ‘Leading the way’, LEAD Africa, www.leadinafrica.org

• Where we used to fish now we grow food, LEAD Francophone Africa, www.leadinafrica.org
• Al Gore ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, 2006
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: http://unfccc.int/2860.php
• ‘The key stages of a fair agreement’ , Recommendations by the Climate and Development Network:
http://climatdeveloppement.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/francais3.pdf
http://climatdeveloppement.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/anglais2.pdf
• Kyoto Protocol: http://unfccc.int/portal_francophone/essential_background/kyoto_protocol/text_
of_the_kyoto_protocol/items/3275.php
• Copenhagen Accord (advance unedited version):
http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_15/application/pdf/cop15_cph_auv.pdf
SCHEDULE: DAY 3
Time Event Content

09:00 Session 4: cont. • Night thoughts: Group Check in
International Strategies on SD
• African Leadership on Climate Change in Africa
–Climate Change
• Local Climate Change and film screening, “Where we
used to fish, we now grow food”
• Leadership Groups present LAPS in light of climate change
10:30 Coffee break
10:45 Session 5: • Institutional, legislative and economic aspects of natural
National and Local Responses to resources management
Natural Resource Management -
• Environmental action plans and PRSPs
Homework Exchange and Input
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Session 5: cont. • Local conventions and practice - applications of local
National Responses to Natural knowledge to NRM
Resource Management
15:30 Coffee break
15:45 Session 6: • Dedicated time for Leadership Teams to work on LAPS
Leadership Teams: LAP Work with Coaches
• Design for Pan African Networking Fair inputs
Session 7: • Site Visit Group Work Overview
Introduction to the Field Visit and
• External Speakers: Panel Introduction to the Site Visit Case
Key Issues
Study – Stakeholder Perspectives
• Discussion
19:00 Dinner in Site Visit Groups Site Visit Groups will eat dinner together and discuss the site
visit.
SESSION 5 NATIONAL AND

LOCAL RESPONSES TO NATURAL
RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
Overview Method
This session explores a range of national and local • Interactive presentations
ways governments and communities are working • Exercises
towards natural resources management. A variety
of national level plans, from NAP/CD to NBPs (see
related paper for explanations of many acronyms), Preparation for the Module
complemented by local conventions aim to help
Each Associate will identify the national strategies
manage and sustainably exploit natural resources.
on NRM and the bodies coordinating them in his/her
However, the lack of synergy and coordination
country.
makes natural resource management a challenge
that needs addressing further.
Session Aims
• To analyse issues related to the management
of natural resources worldwide, and at regional,
national and local levels;
• To also view natural resources management
issues from the political, institutional, economic,
social and cultural perspective.
Learning objectives
• Identify and discuss the various national and local
agreements that your country or community has
entered into with the aim to manage its natural
resources;
• Enumerate a series of challenges and options for
these instruments to ensure higher impact.
Indicative Content
• Institutional, legislative and economic aspects of
natural resource management
• Environmental action plans and PRSPs
• Local conventions and practice of natural
resources management
MODULE OUTLINE
Part 1: (45 min) Part 3: (90 min)

Institutional, legislative and economic aspects Local conventions and practice:
of natural resources management:
The objective is to share analyses and experiences
The aim will be to identify and analyze the major on local knowledge applied to natural resources
challenges related to the implementation of Natural management and to present local conventions as
Resource Management (NRM) strategies. This will sustainable natural resources management tools.
be presented for in-depth discussion amongst the Points such as the following will be addressed:
Associates including issues of:
• Status of natural resource : trends and deep
• Complex and multiple problems due to the NRM cause(s);
institutional framework;
• Culture and natural resources;
• Constraints in the elaboration and efficient
• Cultural dimensions in natural resources
implementation process of environmental and
management;
NRM policy;
• Africa’s assets and advantages relating to natural
• Problems associated with the adequacy of
resources management;
sectoral policies and inappropriateness to a NRM
global context; • Local conventions: local knowledge mobilization
tools.
• Dispersion of decision centres and break up of
environmental management responsibilities; This will followed by a film screening on local
• Lack of clearly defined areas of competence and conventions, and followed by group work on the
responsibilities for public institutions; NRM strategies and conventions relevant to their
respective sectors and countries.
• Predominance of self-contained operational logic.
Illustrations will be accompanying the presentation.
Part 2: (45 min)

Environmental action plans and PRSPs:
The objective is to present international, regional

and national frameworks pertaining to environmental
protection, the preservation of natural resources,
and the fight against poverty. Their logic of
elaboration, modes of intervention, advantages and
weaknesses will be addressed. This will consist in
particular of determining possible interconnections
and in developing different plans addressing
specific environmental issues and the PRSP. This
will be followed by group discussion amongst the
Associates.
NATIONAL AND LOCAL RESPONSES

TO NATURAL RESOURCES
MANAGEMENT (NRM)
Sustainable management of natural resources is critical to human existence and therefore lies at the
forefront of environmental concerns around the world. It is essential in dealing with poverty for at least two
reasons. Firstly, it is intended to meet the long-term nutritional needs of the world’s population, however
if the erosive impact caused by the degradation of natural resources on production capacity continues,
meeting future food requirements will be detrimentally affected.
Secondly, balanced natural resources management helps fight poverty by providing better sources of
income to farmers, cattle breeders and others generating income from food production and other natural
resource related occupations whilst contributing to the well-being of human settlements.
Ecosystems Services and their Links to Human Well-being
Ecosystem Services Determinants and Constituents of Well-being
Provisioning Services Security

• Ability to live in an
Products obtained from environmentally clean and
ecosystems safe shelter
• Food • Ability to reduce
• Fresh water vulnerability to ecological
• Fuelwood shocks and stress
• Fiber
Basic Material for a Good
• Biochemicals Life
• Genetic resources • Ability to access
resources to earn income
and gain a livelihood
Regulating Services
SUPPORTING
SERVICES Health
Benefits obtained from
regulation of ecosystem • Ability to be adequately
Services necessary processes nourished
for the production of
• Climate regulation • Ability to be free from
all other ecosystem FREEDOM AND
avoidable disease
services • Disease regulation CHOICE
• Ability to have adequate
• Soil formation • Water regulation and clean drinking water
• Nutrient cycling • Water purification • Ability to have a clean air
• Primary production
• Ability to have energy to
Cultural Services keep warm and cold
Nonmaterial benefits Good Social Relations

obtained from ecosystems • Opportunity to express
• Spiritual and religious aesthetic and recreational
• Recreation and values associated with
ecotourism ecosystems
• Aesthetic 45 • Opportunity to express
cultural and spiritual
• Inspirational
values associated with
• Educational ecosystems
• Sense of place • Opportunity to observe,
• Cultural heritage study, and learn about
ecosystems
Source: UNDP, 2003, Ecosystems and Human Well-being: A framework for Assessment: Summary, Island Press.
by some countries regarding natural resources

Ecosystem services are the benefits people
management and the fight against the threats facing
obtain from ecosystems. These include
these.
provisioning, regulating, and cultural services,
which directly affect people, and supporting National Climate Change Adaptation Action plans
services needed to maintain to other services. (NAPAs) and National Environmental Action
Changes in these services affect human well- Plans (NEAPs) also define policy orientations and
being through impact on security, the basic necessary interventions related to sustainable
material for good life, health, and social and natural resources management, the protection of
cultural relations. These constituents of well- biodiversity, integration of environmental concerns
being are, in turn, influenced by and have an in sector policies and reinforced information and
influence on the freedoms and choices available environmental training. NAPAs are a framework
to people. to guide the coordination and implementation of
countries’ adaptation initiatives to address current
It is clear that all these potential benefits of and anticipated adverse impacts of climate change
ecosystems referred to above, are largely dependent through a participative approach and the setup
on the improvement of ecosystems management in of synergies with other relevant environmental
order to ensure their conservation and sustainable programmes. As for NEAPs, they seem to be
exploitation. Yet, while the demand in terms of central to governments’ environmental strategies
benefits (water and food in particular) derived from since they directly address the sustainability of
ecosystems is increasing, anthropogenic activities “capital – resources”, now a global concern. They
(competition for access to resources among are also aimed at contributing to poverty reduction
other things) decreases the capability of many by improving the populations’ productivity and
ecosystems to meet this demand. In addition, there environment.
are natural factors related to global warming, to
natural disasters (drought, desertification, floods, National Biodiversity Plans (NBPs) are intended
etc.), to the degradation of natural resources to build the capacities of countries in preserving
(significant reduction of biodiversity, deforestation, land and sea biodiversity. In this sense, they aim
soil degradation and others). The awareness of at resolving the issue of biodiversity degradation
the dramatic nature of these contrasted evolutions by improving its value and its reproduction
makes people understand the necessity to take capacity. NBPs participate in governments’
steps to protect the environment and to fight against capacity development to address the poverty
natural resources degradation. issue, through actions to: combat genetic erosion,
protect and adequately manage ecosystems,
Be it at the international, national or local level, include biodiversity in sectoral strategic options,
there are a significant number of strategies aimed set adequate institutional and policy frameworks,
at efficient management of natural resources. initiate information activities, training and production
In fact, to address degradation and threats on development, and use knowledge on biodiversity.
these resources, governments and international Regarding this issue, it is worth mentioning the
organizations have held numerous summits- among existence of poverty reduction strategic documents
these the Stockholm Summit in 1972, the 1992 (PRSPs). These PRSPs, which are designed
Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, the World Summit according a participatory process involving national
for Sustainable Development, Johannesburg stakeholders and external development partners,
in 2002 – all of which resulted in declarations in particular Breton Woods, describe policies and
including recommendations, principles, as well as macroeconomic, structural and social programmes
action plans regarding environmental protection that developing countries intend to implement over
and management for sustainable development. a relatively long period of time to favour growth and
For example, it is worth mentioning the existence, reduce poverty.
among others, of national desertification action
plans (NAP/CD), national natural resources Apart from national strategies guided by an
management plans, Tropical Forests Action Plans intervention logic imposed by international and
that draw upon reflections and experiences acquired development institutions, the existence, at the local
level, of endogenous initiatives is a fact to be noted.
Within some local communities, particularly in the

Sahel, local conventions are adopted by populations
as contractual tools negotiated at the local level
for sustainable natural resources and environment
management. These local conventions that are
dissimilar to recommendations and principles
defined worldwide without being incompatible
with them, are local agreements developed by
people who are aware of the degradation of their
resources and are committed to again enjoying the
more favorable situation as they did in the past.
These conventions raise the issue of the global and
historic management of resources, a competence
transferred within the framework of decentralization
policies.
One of the major problems encountered with

environmental strategies is their lack of coordination.
In fact, while the Declaration of the United
Nations Conference on the Human Environment
held in Stockholm in 1972 invited governments to
“adopt an integrated and coordinated approach
to their development planning so as to ensure
that development is compatible with the need to
protect and improve environment for the benefit of
their population”, we can easily see the numerous
policies being implemented these days and the
lack of synergy between them, which results in the
dispersion of efforts without tangible results.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Cotula Lorenzo, 2009, Legal tools for citizen empowerment: Getting a better deal from natural resource
investment in Africa, London, International Institute for Environment and Development. Available at:
http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/G02476.pdf
• Holmberg Johan, 2007, Natural Resources in Sub-Saharan Africa: Assets and Vulnerabilities, A contribution
to the Swedish Government White Paper on Africa commissioned by the Nordic Africa Institute, Brussels.
Available at: http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/08/35/07/1b807683.pdf
• MacLean D., Andjelkovic M. & Vetter T., 2007, Internet, Governance and Sustainable Development.”
Winnipeg, Manitoba, International Institute for Sustainable Development. Available at: http://www.iisd.
org/pdf/2008/igsd_common_agenda_bg.pdf. Accessed 29
• Pan-African Secretariat, 2005, “Regional Co-operation on Global Environmental Change Research in
Africa”, Workshop Report, Nairobi. Available at: http://www.igbp.net/documents/AFRICANESS-
REPORT.pdf
• UNEP, 2003, Ecosystems and Human Well-being: A framework for Assessment: Summary, Island Press,
212 pages.
• Tall Serigne M. & Guèye Mamadou B., novembre 2003, Les conventions locales au Sahel. Un outil de
co-gouvernance en gestion des ressources naturelles, IIED Sahel, 27 pages.
SESSION 6 LEADERSHIP TEAMS

WITH COACHES

This session provides the Leadership Teams with • Self-facilitated working session.
an open working time during the session schedule. • Brainstorming on Pan-African Networking Fair
Leadership Teams at this stage of the Programme design
will have submitted their proposal and received
comments on it from their Coach. They will have • Reflection on Leadership Team process and
already begun their work to implement the project progress, facilitated by Coach
and will benefit from this dedicated session for
them to structure and use to advance their LAP Method
discussions. The will also begin to think about their
input to the Networking Fair at the upcoming Pan- • Small group work and reflection
African Session, at which they will display and share
the results of their LAP with Associates from across
the LEAD Africa programme.
The Coaches will participate with comments and

observations on Leadership Team development
process, and facilitate a reflection at the end of the
session.
Session Aims
• To provide Leadership Teams with dedicated time
to advance their LAP together.
• To provide Leadership Teams with an opportunity
to reflect on their process with inputs from their
Coach.
• To begin to consider the Leadership Team’s
contribution to the Pan-African Networking Fair.
Learning objectives
• Take the next step in LAP implementation as a
Team.
• Design the Leadership Team’s input to the Pan-
African Networking Fair.
• Identify opportunities to team development from
the experience and experiential learning from the
Leadership Team process.
NOTES FROM LEADERSHIP TEAM

REFLECTIONS SESSION
Thought Starters:
Q: What am I noticing about the way my Leadership Team is working?
Q: What is working well in terms of helping us develop the team and make progress on
our project?
Q: What could we be doing differently that would help us make even more progress? (e.g.
What should we be doing differently, doing more of, or stop doing?)
Q: How is leadership exerting itself? How is this working?
Q: How can I apply the experience and knowledge that I am gaining in working with a
productive team, to the teams that I build and work with in my own context?
SESSION 7 INTRODUCTION TO THE

FIELD VISIT AND KEY ISSUES
Overview Session Aims

In the Second National Session, the Site Visit is • To introduce a group work sequence for
a central feature offering an in-situ experiential application of sustainability and leadership
learning opportunity to see on-the-ground concepts and learning to a case study including a
application of the principles and practice discussed. field visit;
The Field Visit also provides a discussion forum • To have an introduction to the field visit case
for exchange with stakeholders dealing with the including perspectives of key stakeholders in the
complexity and interplay of social, economic and area.
political issues surrounding management of the site
and related issues. • To delve deeper into three cross-cutting issues
of the field visit, including economic, social and
This session begins with an overview of the group political aspects;
work that the Site Visit Groups will undertake
throughout the rest of the event. This group
work includes: Exploring the field visit issues and Learning objectives
themes, attending the field visit, a discussion and By the end of the session you will be able to:
analysis sequence to explore some key questions
around the field visit, group preparation of a shared • Link theoretical learning to a real case study;
presentation, and presenting the group’s findings • Test your assumptions about opportunities and
and thoughts on the site visit to the plenary of fellow challenges of leadership for sustainability with
Associates. real stakeholders in a case study;
After the process is introduced, the Field Visit • Work with a new team to understand a case and
itself will be introduced by a panel of stakeholders explore the meaning of the group’s learning.
representing different sectoral interests at the
site, including: government, business and civil
society. These guests will provide insight into their
Indicative Content
perspective of the challenges and opportunities • Introduction to the Site Visit Group Work
around the field visit theme.
• Introduction to the Field Visit Case study and
Associates will have the opportunity to interact related themes
with the Panel, ask questions and probe their • Interactive panel of Stakeholders representing
contributions. This discussion will be followed by different sectors in the Field Visit Area
three sessions that further explore different aspects
of the site visit case study, from a higher level of • Explanation of the inter-relation of the three
perspective: 1) Resource Management Issues issues to be covered in Sessions 7, 8 & 9 that
and national responses to resource management, follow.
including a focus on the economic issues; and 2)
International Strategies for Sustainable Development Method
– Climate Change.
• Trainer Input
• Stakeholder Panel and Discussion
• Site Visit Group Work
Introduction to the Site Visit Group Work

In the last four days of the Second National Session, a Site Visit Group will work together to explore and
make recommendations on a case study and a related field visit. This case study includes thematic issues
and complexities around natural resources management, climate change, and Pan-African integration
dynamics, which are explored further in various sessions during the week.
This group work includes:
Step 1 Exploring the field visit issues and themes Day 2 • Sessions 4, 5, 8,
Step 2 Attending the field visit Day 4 • Session 8
Step 3 A discussion and analysis sequence to explore some key Day 5 • Session 9
questions around the field visit
Step 4 Group preparation of a shared presentation Day 5 • Session 11
Step 5 Presenting the group’s findings and thoughts on the site Day 6 • Session 12
visit to the plenary of fellow Associates for feedback.
Site Visit Group Presentation

Each Site Visit Group will have the opportunity to prepare a plenary presentation, with support from a Skills
Module on Day 5: Public Speaking and Presentation Skills. The presentations will be 10-15 minutes long and
can take any format. A set of questions will be offered for consideration.
Introduction to the Field Visit – My Notes

PANEL OF STAKEHOLDERS –
MY KEY LEARNING
1. What is happening?
• Globally
• Regionally
• Locally
2. What are the challenges and opportunities?
• Globally
• Regionally
• Locally
3. What are my reflections / insights / conclusions?
4. What needs to happen to bring about change?
5. What questions do I still have?

SCHEDULE: DAY 4
Time Event Content

09:00 Session 8: • Associates will actively participate in a full day Field Visit
Field Visit which explores a set of cross-cutting issues within a
particular geographical area.
• Departure times will be announced and local transportation
will be provided.
10:30 Coffee break
10:45 Session 8: (cont.) • The Field Visit will continue, including visits with local
Field Visit stakeholders.
12:30 Lunch • Lunch will be held in the community.
14:00 Session 8: (cont.) • The Field Visit continues through the afternoon with
Field Visit further visits and opportunities to discuss the opinions of
local people.
15:30 Coffee break
15:45 Session 8: • At the close of the day, Associates will be provided
Field Visit transportation back to their hotel, in some cases, dinner
will also be taken outside the hotel for this day.
17:30 End of the Day Associates will return to the meeting venue and hotel.
19:00 Special Dinner
SESSION 8 FIELD VISIT
Overview seen and heard into a compelling presentation on

your Site Visit Group theme. In this section, a brief
Remember, be curious! summary of the site visits for the three LEAD Africa
Member Programmes is given. More information
LEAD aims to provide “behind the scenes” access
specific to your National Programme site visit, with
to leadership for sustainable development in
information about the sites and stakeholders you will
action. On Day 4 of the Second National Session,
meet, will be provided to you in preparation for this
you will be visiting some carefully selected sites
session.
and stakeholders in and around your workshop
venue. The sites you visit will be determined by
the theme of your National Session. The site visits Learning objectives
are an opportunity for you to test and apply the
knowledge and skills you have acquired during Following the site visits you will be able to:
the week from the thematic modules on National • See and interpret the challenges of sustainable
Responses to Natural Resources Management, and development from different stakeholder
International Strategies on Sustainable Development perspectives;
– particularly climate change. It also will help us
• List some of the challenges and opportunities
practice our skills modules on Systems Thinking,
of moving towards a sustainable, low carbon,
and Public Speaking and Presentation Skills. They
society;
also provide a wonderful opportunity to work in a
small group on a task that explores sustainability in • Use listening and questioning skills to engage
practice and starts the process of making meaning local stakeholders in meaningful dialogue;
of what is happening to move us closer to achieving
• Capture information and feedback from
sustainable development .
stakeholder accurately and transparently.
The site visit were selected to demonstrate the real-
world challenges faced by different stakeholders
What to take
related to sustainable development and climate
change through the lens of different sectors and As you will most likely be out for the day, you might
their different aspirations and goals. want to have or take the following:
During the Field Visits relevant to the theme you • Small backpack
have been exploring over the course of the week • Background materials and notebook paper/pen
ask yourself:
• Good walking shoes
• What are the cross-cutting issues?
• Comfortable clothes
• What are the challenges?
• Water and snacks
• What are the opportunities?
• Camera or video camera (for your presentation in
• What patterns, inter-relationships and systems Session 12)
are we spotting?
• Any additional special equipment for your
Don’t be a tourist. particular Field Visit will be communicated to
you prior to the Session, along with logistics
On your return from the Field Visits, your task as
considerations.
a Site Visit Group, will be to turn what you have
BRIEF FIELD VISIT AND CASE

STUDY SUMMARIES
Even with a coordinated LEAD Africa curriculum,
national and sub-regional differences are important
to explore to further tailor the curriculum of the
Second National Session to the realities of the local
LEAD Member Programme Office. As such, there
is a similar structure to learning within the LEAD
Offices in Africa, but the case studies will be hand
selected to be most relevant to Associates in that
Programme.
LEAD Anglophone West Africa

In LEAD Anglophone West Africa’s Second 3) Because of the high level of salinity, farmers
National Session, LEAD AWA Associates will look can no longer use the fields to grow crops; 4) The
forward to Case Studies for this session centred loss of biodiversity is also one of the population’s
around, “The Effects of Human Activities on main concerns with the example of the Mangrove
Coastal Management: A case of Epe Coastal disappearing (use of the trees for domestic
Settlement” as well as “The Church Gate Group firewood); and 5) The local population is facing
- Business and Sustainability Considerations in further challenges through increasingly scarcity of
the Trans-Border Textile Trade of West Africa”. fishing resources.
LEAD-AWA field visits will cover the Nestle Plant

Agbara, Ogun State- the waste management plant,
and The Egbim Gas Thermal Plant, and Ikorodu- one
of the main nodes that feeds the national electricity
grid. More background information will be provided
to you in the First National Session.
LEAD Francophone Africa

In LEAD Francophone Africa, the Second National
Session field visits will cover the topic of “Coastal
Erosion: The Petite Côte and the Iles du Saloum
Local Responses: Local initiatives have been
on the Atlantic Ocean. The site visit will include
initiated by local populations, the “Ecoguides” (an
visiting the Iles du Saloum, which is a group of islands
association of young motivated people supervised
located in Western Senegal which are threatened by
by LEAD Fellows) and other communities. These
coastal erosion. The field visit will cover the following
local initiatives include: 1) Protection, restoration
area: Joal-Fadiouth, Djifer and Palmarin.
and reforestation of the Mangrove; 2) Replanting of
The Challenges to the islands include the following: coconut trees along the beach and 3) Awareness-
1) Coastal erosion is increasing the salinity of the raising amongst the fishermen to avoid fishing
arable fields and is destroying housing and hotels; during the reproduction period and to avoid using
and 2) During the 1980s coconut trees were planted mines (explosives). LEAD Francophone Africa
to prevent coastal erosion but most of them have Associates will explore these challenges and
disappeared; responses during their field visit.
SITE VISIT NOTES

SYSTEMS I SPOT
See if you can use some of our systems diagramming tools -Consider possible trends,
systems variables, how they interconnect, etc.
SCHEDULE: DAY 5
Time Event Content

09:00 Session 9: • Night thoughts: Group Check in
Site Visit Groups Work – Carousel
• Site Visit Groups will work independently on a set of key
on Key Questions and Reflection
questions, using the carousel technique.
on the Site Visit
10:30 Coffee break
10:45 Session 10: • This skills module will introduce some tips and tools for
Public Speaking and Presentation effective public speaking.
Skills
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Session 10: cont. • This session continues after lunch.
Public Speaking and Presentation
Skills
15:30 Coffee break
15:45 Session 11: • Site Visit Groups meet with their Coaches to prepare their
Site Visit Groups with Coaches – presentations for delivery on Day 6.
Preparation for Presentations
19:00 Dinner
SESSION 9 SITE VISIT GROUPS

WORK – CAROUSEL ON KEY
QUESTIONS
Overview
In this session, the Site Visit Groups will each
consider a set of discussion questions, using the
Carousel discussion technique. In the same room,
building on the other groups’s work, this session will
prompt an analysis of the observations during the
Field Visit. This information will serve as inputs into
the preparation of the Site Visit Group presentation.
Session Aims
• To provide some key questions for discussion to
help understand and dig deeper into the theme
and observations of the field visit.
Learning objectives
• Discuss and present some of your group’s key
learning from the Site visit.
• Use the collected knowledge of the group as
input to your thinking process.
Indicative Content
• Carousel small group discussion
• Questions will be given on site.
SESSION 10 PUBLIC SPEAKING

AND PRESENTATION SKILLS
Overview
This two-part skills module comes just prior to
the Site Visit Group’s presentation preparation
session and will serve as an input to that process.
Public speaking and presentation skills are crucial
leadership capabilities which benefit from continual
learning and practice. This session will act as
a reminder of some of the key components of
designing and delivering a powerful presentation and
communication intervention.
Session Aims
• To concentrate on key principles in designing and
delivering excellent presentations.
• To practice presentation skills prior to the formal
presentations.
Learning objectives
• Design and structure a powerful presentation;
• Deliver a presentation with more confidence.
Indicative Content
• Understanding your audience
• Structure and content
• Making a connection
• Impact
• Language Tools, visuals and other techniques
• Presentation
POWERFUL PRESENTATIONS
TEN TOP TIPS
One: Is your presentation Be sure you:
necessary? Tell them what you are going to say
• Decide why you are giving a presentation and Tell them

what you want to achieve. Tell them what you told them
• Presentations are about influencing: you may only
have one opportunity to persuade an audience to
make a choice, get involved, change their mind,
Four: Only connect
and take a set of actions. • How do I want to come across?
• Presentations are also good for building trust • What control do I have over:
between the speaker and their audience but also –– General Appearance
for networking between individual members of
the group –– The three Vs of communication: visual, verbal,
vocal
Two: Prepare prepare prepare –– Eye contact
• Research your audience –– Body language
• Put yourself in their shoes –– Use of language / jargon
• What are their expectations? • You have about 6 seconds to make a positive
impression…
• What are the norms in the organisation?
• What do they know about the topic? Five: The stickiness factor
• Are there any gaps in my knowledge? • Picture says more than 1000 words
• Visuals: create interest, fast, memorable
Three: Structure
• Pre-prepare flip charts
Simple presentation structure:
• Avoid death by PowerPoint: reduce word count
Introduction
• Touch: give them something to play with
Position
Problem Six: Be yourself
Possibilities • Conversation, tell a story, importance of stories
Proposal • Make them laugh if you can: appropriate humour
Summary • How do I manage nerves? Breathing
Even simpler presentation structure: • What should I hold back? Don’t tell everything
Beginning, middle and end • Remember you are your best selling point
Seven: Rehearse, rehearse, Listen to your audience

rehearse Be ready to change plan
• Timing, speed Importance of touch
• Audibility, pitch and tone Take handouts
• No more than one slide a minute Dress code – think what is appropriate?
• Prune, edit Make your case
• Ask a friend to be your audience Win people over
Know when to stop
Eight: Listen to your audience Summarise
• Ditch the presentation if you have to Rehearse
• Be prepared for questions Anticipate questions
• Have questions ready for your audience too Follow up – how can people contact you?
Nine: After you have finished Evaluating presentations1

• Follow-up: it is important to explain how to
Think about these criteria as guidelines to evaluate a
contact you
presentation:
• Take handouts, examples
• Was the presentation still being talked about in
positive terms by the audience while they were
Ten: Make the most of it leaving?
• You only get one chance to engage people: don’t • Did people discover any learning points from the
waste it presentation?
• Did the presentation prompt people to make a
Punchy presentations checklist mental commitment to do something differently
in the future?
Is a presentation required?
• Were people moved by the presentation?
Research your audience, organisational culture,
previous
Congruence
experience, expectations
Was everything about the presenter congruent?
Plan – begin, middle, end
Structure – who are you, what are you going to Was the content (the “what”), the methods they
talk about, used (the “how”) and what they personally stood for
(the “who”) sending the same message?
for how long, tell audience what to expect,
Or were the presenter’s actions at odds with what
what they can or can’t do
they said?
Signpost – give clear directions
Use eye-catching visuals
Consider language / avoid jargon
Appropriate humour
Source: Style, gurus and super models, Sue Knight, People Management, 25 November 1999
SESSION 11 SITE VISIT GROUPS

WITH COACHES – PREPARATION
FOR PRESENTATIONS
Overview Learning objectives
Over the course of this week, you have been By the end of the session you will be able to:
working with a Site Visit Group to explore a number
• Agree and implement a plan to design and deliver
of sustainability and leadership themes as well
a compelling presentation
participate in a Field Visit which exemplifies these
themes. • Work effectively as a team, identify tasks and
allocate roles and responsibilities
Today you have a full session (105 minutes) to plan
and prepare your Site Visit Group presentation on • Make sense of what you have seen and heard
your learning from the Site Visit. We encourage you and make recommendations
to take a risk, be creative and think outside the box • Use a presentation criteria to design and present
when considering how you are going to engage your your recommendations effectively
audience with your presentation and its topic, while
• Manage tasks and monitor your time effectively.
sharing your key learning from the week. It is up to
you how you use your time, but you might find it
helpful to divide the time that you have between:
1. Creating a plan that includes identifying tasks,

timing and allocating roles and responsibilities
2. Identifying how your coach can be most helpful

in contributing to the groups’ work
3. Deciding how you can work most effectively

together as a group
4. Making sense of all the information you have

gathered so far from the speakers, thematic
modules, site visit and each other.
5. Preparing your presentation.
You will make your presentation in Session 12.

Each Group has up to 10 minutes to make your
presentation. After the presentations you will have
some time to take questions/feedback on your
presentation.
Session Aims
• To help you and your Site Visit Group plan and
prepare a compelling presentation.
PRESENTATION GUIDELINES & TIPS
Thought Starters • What connections can you make with your

knowledge and experience of similar situations
Here are some questions you might use to start elsewhere?
your Site Visit Group discussion:
Presentation Assessment Criteria

Process questions
We have developed some criteria to help you frame
When thinking about how you are going to work as and design your presentations. You will find an
a group you might want to consider: Observer Feedback Form in your workbook to use
• What are the tasks and how are you going to when listening to the other presentations.
manage them?
• What knowledge, skills and experience do you
have in the group? What roles do you need?
• How are you going to organise and share the
information you have gathered over the week?
• What are the most effective methods for getting
your message across, how are you going to
engage your audience?
• How will you monitor and review your progress?
Content questions
When thinking about the working group theme you
have been exploring over the course of the week
you might want to consider:
• What is your objective assessment of the
situation? What systems are operating here?
• What are the challenges and opportunities at
different levels?
• What would a sustainable future look like?
• What changes are needed to build this
sustainable future?
• Who are the key stakeholders to make change
happen, and how can you engage them?
• Where are the leadership gaps and how can they
be filled?
• What else needs to happen?
Presentation Criteria Questions to Consider

Getting the message • What are the key messages?
across
• How clearly are they communicated?
• Is there a clear structure to the presentation?
• Is it clear what kind of leadership /action/changes are required?
Technical ability • Range of presentation tools and methods
• Visual: Do you make use of images/video to get the message across?
• Verbal: How do the words you use add weight to the message?
Delivery style • Are you comfortable making eye contact?
• Audibility: Consider the volume and pace of delivery
• Vocabulary: Do you explain (or avoid) technical terms and jargon?
• Body language: Are you expressive? Consider your level of movement – are
you using the space around you?
Impact • What is most engaging for your audience?
• How do you ensure the audience is inspired and remembers your key
messages?
• Is it clear what should happen as a result of your recommendations?
• Remember you will be delivering your presentations to the most supportive
audience in the world – your fellow Associates
Presentation Parameters Indicative Content

In Session 12, each Site Visit Group will have • Project planning
10 minutes to deliver their presentation. • Team work
If you choose to use PowerPoint, we suggest • Information synthesis and analysis
that you limit the presentation to 10-12 slides. We
• Presentation skills
encourage you to use even more creative methods!
Remember fun is a key part of learning!
Support Materials
Extra credit! For using systems diagrams to explain
your points. • Your individual and group research and
observations
Note: In fairness to all working groups,
presentations will be timed and there will be no • Skills modules
exceptions to the 10 minute rule. • Thematic modules
• Case studies and field visits
Method • Guest speakers
• Inputs • Background papers
• Group work • The workbook
• Feedback • Each other
SCHEDULE: DAY 6
Time Event Content

09:00 Session 12: • Night thoughts: Group Check in
Site Visit Group presentations on
• Presentations
Site Visit
• Learning and Key Questions
10:30 Coffee break
10:45 Session 12: (continued) • Plenary Discussion and learning exchange
Site Visit Group presentations on
Site Visit – Discussion sequence
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Session 13: • Leadership Groups have time to reflect on learning and
Leadership Team Work – PDP progress made during the session
Reflections on the Session
15:30 Coffee break
15:45 Session 14: • Introduction to the Virtual Work
Closing Session
• Group reflection on Second National Session
• Preparation for the Pan African Session
• Closing words
17:30 End of the Day
18:00 Participants Depart
SESSION 12 SITE VISIT GROUP

PRESENTATIONS ON SITE VISIT

Having synthesized all the information you have • Language Tools, visuals and other techniques
absorbed over the course of the week, and spent • Presentations by Site Visit Groups
yesterday preparing your presentation with your
Site Visit Group, now is your chance to take centre • Group discussion and feedback session
stage and shine! The purpose of this session is to
give you an opportunity to present your findings Method
and recommendations to your fellow Associates.
Each Site Visit Group will have 10 minutes for their • Presentation and Plenary discussion
presentation. You are required to attend all the
Working Group presentations. You may wish to
use the Observer Feedback Form as a tool to help
you capture the learning on the topic, the style of
delivery. There may also be time afterwards to give
and receive constructive feedback.
Session Aims
• To explore the interconnections among the field
visit themes and the themes of the session.
• To practice making effective and powerful
presentations in teams
• To get and give feedback on the work of the Site
Visit Group
Learning objectives
By the end of the session you will have:
• Inspired and engaged your audience by using a
range of presentation tools and techniques
• Delivered your message in a compelling way
• Explored different presentation styles and modes
of communication and identified those that best
suit the audience
• Developed a better understanding of the session
themes and how they interconnect.
OBSERVER FEEDBACK FORM
Listening and Observing: Key considerations for effective presentations
Getting the Message Across What I saw/heard

What were the key messages?
How clearly were they communicated?
Was there a clear structure?
Was it clear what changes were required?
Technical Ability What I saw/heard

Range of presentation tools and methods
Visual: did they make use of images to get their

message across?
Verbal: how did the words used add weight to the

message?
Delivery Style What I saw/heard

Eye contact: Comfortable, uncomfortable?
Audibility: Too quiet, too loud, too fast, too slow?
Vocabulary: Did the speaker explain technical terms

and jargon?
Body language: Were the speakers expressive?
Impact What I saw/heard

How engaged were you?
What do you remember most about the

presentation?
Did you learn anything new?
Did you feel inspired to do anything differently?
Was it clear to you what should happen next?
Other Notes on the presentations:

SESSION 13 LEADERSHIP TEAM

WORK – REFLECTIONS ON THE
SESSION
This session provides open work time for the • PDP progress on learning goals
Leadership Teams to reflect on their progress, • LAP progress
on their PDP learning objectives for this session,
their LAP projects and Next steps for the Net Fair • Next steps for the Networking Fair
preparation and for the completion of their LAPS.
Method
Learning objectives • Open and self-facilitated session with Coaches

• Celebrate the progress seen in the PDP and LAP
activities
• Know the next steps and your role in the
preparation of the Networking Fair contribution of
your Leadership Group.
Conversation Notes:
SESSION 14 OVERVIEW OF
INTERIM WORK AND SESSION
CLOSING
Overview thinking and doing? Between information input
and time for reflection?
Evaluation and assessment is a critical element of all
• Interactive discussions: How happy were you with
LEAD Africa training modules. Giving and receiving
the speakers in terms of the knowledge and skills?
feedback helps us all to reflect on ourselves; to
consider what we have learned; the journey we have • The skills modules: How happy were you with the
been on; and the journey yet to come as we move trainers and the design of the skills sessions?
forward. It is an opportunity to reflect on personal • Site visits: How relevant and useful were the site
learning objectives and to what extent they have visits in terms of the learning objectives?
been achieved. What do you have still left to do? Of
• Networking: Have you been able to start the
course it is too early to say what kind impact this
processes of developing a sustainable network of
training session will have upon our efforts to build
peers?
sustainable futures, in all the different sectors that we
work. However, we can at least begin to measure the • How have you found working in a cross sector
success of the Second National Session against the multi-cultural group?
learning objectives, and look to the future. • Your LAP projects: Have you had an opportunity
to progress on your LAP?
This session will begin with reflections on the week’s
events and learning, both individual, and group. A
formal feedback form will be distributed for collection Learning Outcomes
of ideas which can be used for the development of • Greater self awareness
future National Sessions. Reflections will be shared
• Input into the Personal Development Plan (PDP)
in plenary, just prior to an overview of the interim
virtual work options. These tasks are described in this • Sense of achievement
Manual Chapter 4: Virtual Programme Work. Final • Inspiration and confidence to try out new ways of
closing words from the LEAD Africa staff will close being a leader
this final session of the Second National Session.
• Connections
• Feedback for LEAD and ideas that can be fed into
Session Aims our process of continuous development
• To begin the process of reviewing and evaluating
the extent to which the LEAD Africa Second
Method
National Session has met its stated objectives;
• Working by ourselves, in pairs and in groups, we
• To share with the whole group key insights,
will explore and uncover our responses to the
learning and reflections on the week;
Second National Session and working in new
• To look forward to the Second National Session; groups.
• To celebrate our achievements. • We will be using a number of complementary
quantitative and qualitative review and evaluation
Indicative List of Evaluation Topics tools and methods including:
• Course content: What new insights into • Self evaluation forms

leadership and sustainable development • Peer review
(particularly climate change) have you gained? • Evaluation form
• The process: Were you happy with the design of
the course? Did we get the balance right between

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Chapter SIX SECOND NATIONAL SESSION 6.

SECOND NATIONAL SESSION

LEAD Africa Associate Training: Second National Session

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6

Session 1: Session 3: Session 4: Session 8: Session 9: Session 12:

Session 2: Session 4: Session 5: Session 8: Session 10: Session 12:

Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch

Session 3: Session 4: Session 5: Session 8: Session 10: Session 13:

Session 3: Session 4: Session 9: Session 8: Session 11: Session 14:

Welcome Dinner Dinner (Site Special Dinner Dinner Dinner

Social Media Lab Social Media Social Media Social Media

Learning Journey Map

LEAD Africa • Second National Session

ONLINE Day 3 Leadership Interim Work:

Understanding the Second

The Second National Session will also provide a

Before you arrive

Making the Most of Your

Welcome back! As we noted in our description of the First National

• The Step-by-Step Guide to the Second

Please familiarise yourself with the purpose and

As we did for the First National Session, we have

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO THE

From the online preparation to Working Group Presentations

Event Content Outcome

Event Content Outcome

Overall, the Second National Session is designed

Time Event Content

SESSION 1 OPENING SESSION

Overview Indicative Content

QUICK, MAKE SOME NOTES!

Overview Indicative Content

SESSION 3 SYSTEMS THINKING

OVERVIEW OF SYSTEMS THINKING

By Daniel Aronson, host of the Thinking Page (http:www.thinking.net)

The character of systems thinking makes it

In other words, the action intended to solve the

Graphically, the way this happens can be

However, they were having difficulty seeing the

By seeing the whole picture, the team was able to

(Other examples of positive results obtained by

9. Numbers Whatever cap we put on campaign contributions,

There can be leverage points here. Take markets, for

In those examples, the first outcome is what 5. Information flows

The rules of the system define its scope,

It is to “get” at a gut level the paradigm that there

Time Event Content

SESSION 4 PART 1 - INTRODUCTION

Learning objectives Bibliography

Indicative Content Copenhagen Accord (advance unedited version):

Part 2: (30 min)

Preparation for module

During the Session: Each Leadership Team will

Part 2: (120 min)

Part 3: (60 min)

Part 4: (60 min)

Part 5: (90 min)

• ‘Leading the way’, LEAD Africa, www.leadinafrica.org

Time Event Content

SESSION 5 NATIONAL AND

Part 1: (45 min) Part 3: (90 min)

Illustrations will be accompanying the presentation.

Part 2: (45 min)

The objective is to present international, regional