This paper is about a process and practice which is bringing representatives of tribal communities in three Indian states together with district, state and national government officials, around the issue of aquaculture services provision. The project comprises a year-long series of visits, fieldwork, workshops, case studies, a consensus-building process, literature research, reviews and documentation. Among its aims are building shared understandings of government services provision among recipients, implementers and policy-makers, and facilitating an equitable dialogue towards policy change.

Consideration is given to how three of STREAM’s guiding principles – being people-focused, participatory and practical – are being transformed from concepts into practice. This is being done by applying STREAM’s emerging “process monitoring and significant change” system. Insights are being gained into:

• The practicalities of people’s actual participation in influencing policy change.
• The interplay of people’s opportunities and choices to improve their livelihoods.
• How different people’s expectations of each other, and how they work together, can change through mediated experiences
• What it means to work with diversity and the realities of being tolerant.
• Rights-based approaches to development work.