Development Cooperation Handbook/Issues/Sharing knowledge and resources

Issue 10
Sharing knowledge and resources

⇒ Episode 7 - MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

⇒ playlist on YouTube

In other sections of this handbook

Learning and Knowledge Management

Communication Skills

The Vrinda Project

Article on Wikipedia ⇒ Knowledge management ⇒ Knowledge ⇒ Knowledge community ⇒ Knowledge ecosystem

Prolegomena

Cooperation actions are valued as much as they "produce results", i.e. achieve the expected objectives of improving the development opportunities of the target populations. And this is generally measured in improved food security, sanitation, improved health services, improved political representation of marginalized communities, etc.
What often goes underestimated is the learning that cooperation projects produce. And without an adequate system of collection and sharing of such learning, this asset may not be available to those who need it most, i.e. the local communities who are supposed to continue and expand with local resources the activities started with external support.

This project has made knowledge collection and sharing its central objective. And in order to serve well the our purpose we have asked the development stakeholders to tell us what what kind of knowledge that is most required by those who work to remove poverty. We also wanted to understand what are the challenges in collecting and organized learning from projects and what is the communication style that facilitates intercultural understanding.

We have learned that in spite of the fact that development actors have fully recognized that knowledge constitutes an essential resource for development, knowledge sharing constitutes a major challenge because many organizations consider their specialized know-how as a strategic asset and want to maintain their competitive advantage on others that compete in fund raising.

Testimonials

We asked different stakeholders to share with us their experiences of knowledge management and how we can contribute in filling the knowledge gap among development cooperation actors. We also want to compare the aptitudes of the peoples of different nations in assuming responsibility for global development and inter-cultural dialogue.

Below are the answers we collected. The work is in progress and you are welcomed to contribute.
Click on the name of the contributor to go to the page with the full interview.

Julian Parr

Agencies do not have resources to disseminate information though electronic media which are hugely expensive - Julian Parr

Changing People's Behavior is the greatest challenge - Julian Parr

Manoj Kumar

The knowledge cycle process gap - Manoj Kumar

Dialogo tra Silvia Costa e Francesco Brancatella

Sarebbe importsnte dare piu' fondi ai progetti perche' possano comunicare meglio -- Dialogo tra Silvia Costa e Brancatella

Lasciamo i giovani senza gli strumenti per capire e per vivere - Dialogo tra Costa e Brancatella

Occorrerebbe creare l'anno della lotta contro la poverta' del linguaggio - Dialogo tra Costa e Brancatella

Etikwa Ikutu and Rilli Lappalainen

Communication stereotypes (by NGOs and by media) about international cooperation - Ikutu and Lappalainen

Communication stereotypes (by NGOs and by media) about international cooperation (2)- Ikutu and Lappalainen

Jyoti Sapru

Knowledge and Social Harmony as Resources - J. Sapru

Catherine Ray - Spokesperson for EuropeAid

The challenges in giving visibility to the work done by EuropeAid - Ray

How to inform the EU citizens
of the development work
done with their money.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia

We have to distinguish between embodied and disembodied knowledge.

Shared goals and reciprocal trust create the "social capital" - Ahluwalia

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri TERI

The imporance of environmental education at school level - Pachauri

The only reason why we are not changing unsustainable habits is because the people are not informed - Pachauri

Shiva Kumar

Good evaluators are generally not good communicators - and that is where civil society should step in - S.Kumar

C.B. Rao UN Officer

There is a moral duty

Setting goals is easier then achieving them - C.B. Rao

What is being humane- C.B. Rao

Lucas Lai

I use my network to use my opportunities to highlight an issue, inform and try to make a change - L.Lai

Danièle Smadja

Knowledge and Social Harmony as Resources- Danièle Smadja

Education is a fundamental right and that is very important. If you say that social cohesion is a resource to go up the economic ladder in the sense that it has to be available for all and it everyone should have the possibility to have it. Even though we have a number of problems in Europe, even though we have a number of disparities in our society; social cohesion has been for many years in the heart of the architecture of the European Union. Social inclusion and social coherence has been in the heart of Europe and European policies. We are directly putting money in the big envelope of the government. But this is not limited in just signing a cheque to the government. We are a very important party in a number of discussion of the steering committee which is in charged of the implementation of the program. But we are also helping in designing and monitoring the program. Through our presence we can influence, but this does not mean imposing a model but offering our experience, proposing technical assistance, showcasing are lesson learned and also bad experiences from where they can learn and be a source of inspiration.