Thank you so much Serge I mean I think that you know helps us in segwaying into another area now
that you spoke about the outcomes talk us through some of the challenges like how do you like
today measure those outcomes how are you making sure that okay those outcomes are being achieved
and you know you are able to help the fishing communities to actually experience those outcomes
maybe talk us through some of the challenges that you have in measuring and making progress on that
front so i hope this is where it gets interesting i do as you know there are many many challenges
first and foremost we're a young organization and we're three and a half years old we started off
you know by by building this you know to running various various projects that had their own
deliverables their own outputs their own outcomes and over time as we you know trials different
approaches into how we engage with fishers how we gain with the market how we connect these two
these two worlds and we've also fine-tuned and and and and updated our model we've grown we're now a
team of about 30 people so we spend a lot of time focusing on organizational building organizational
growth and aligning ourselves to to our missions in the different work streams but the starting
point really is is our theory of change how do we how do we articulate this this model in a theory
of change that allows for enough detail that we can also detect things in in the short term and
celebrate some of the outcomes in the short term of course as a as an organization we are you know
we are aiming for sustainable fisheries but aiming for sustainable fisheries is a long-term game
and this this is not a one two three year five year project these are longer term projects
that that need the need runway the need patience that need a lot of pieces of the puzzle to unlock
you know our vision and so some of the challenges that that we have and i'm gonna try and list list
a few key a few key ones is that you know how do we how do we build in patience and runway and
a very sequential step-by-step process where it's as important to to to detect
and and measure and grow the appetite for fishers to engage with our program to engage with data to
become more literate around how they use the data how they use the app how they talk about the data
in their own you know on their boats with their crew members in their fishery with you know with
their nascent organization it's as important to focus on that than well what is happening
in the fishery as a whole what is happening you know in terms of some of the ecological indicators
that we that we're trying to that you're trying to contribute to or outcomes that we're trying to
contribute to or the overall community development outcomes we're trying to contribute to and so
balancing that out is really hard it's really hard because of the pressure the pressure out there in
terms of well there is a climate emergency there is a fishery crisis funding funding is you know it
can be extremely competitive and and it very often you know i see many organizations chasing very
lofty goals and painting very very lofty goals so kind of getting down to to to reality almost
and and and that's you know that long run we're articulating that runway in our theory of change
in our impact measurement and convincing ourselves and the fishers and our funders that you know
making sure that a fisher uses the app every day not just once off and making sure that if fisher
has a conversation or enabling a fisher to have a conversation about the data and the dashboards
the access in their in in their in in the app is is as critical as connecting with the market
and obtaining a better price with the market or activating a fisheries improvement project
so that's a big challenge another one might do is is is making a very clear difference between
what what outputs are and and what outcomes are there's no doubt that as an organization and
and i i when i look around and i listen to other organizations or i'll read their annual reports i
think everybody is a little bit guilty to this but we often report on outputs we report on on outputs
why because those are the easier ones to to to report on you know the data flows more easily
through your system because completely direct that it's completely linked to your operations and very
often you know because you've got direct control on these outputs you know then they can make you
you look good you know i can tell you that we've trained hundreds of people and i can put that
on on in my impact report or in our impact report but what does that mean that we've trained so many
people and i think a big challenge in in in in the work we do as well as of course how we measure the
work we do and the the impact we have is to look well those people that have received training
what's changing for them what's changing not you know a week after the training but what's
changing for them in in the long term and and how do we even conceptualize train training those are
the important ones and and measuring those and creating and collecting the right kind of data and
deploying the right type of methodology and data collection process to to to collect data around
some of these out communicators that's hard that's hard for for everyone and it's the same with with
with our marketplace deployment it's very easy for me to tell you how many millions of rands
have been contributed by the market into into into Fishing communities directly into their bank
accounts because we run a traceability platform we run all all the payments and so i can again
tell you how many you know how many how many rents fishers are getting in south africa through this
program what's more difficult what's happening what's happening in that household what's
happening in this in this individual person's head in in her or his outlook on the fishery
in her or his you know appetite to reinvest in the fishery to to to bringing new in the fishery to
relook perhaps the gender relationships in in that same fishing communities those are the hard ones