Knowledge Management and Organisational Learning for Development: KM4Dev Workshop Background Paper

Summary:

Have you ever wondered:

• What are the origins of knowledge and learning focused approaches to change in development?
  

• Are these approaches (KM and OL) diverging or converging?

• What will the third generation of KM/OL approaches look like?

The background paper for the Brighton KM4Dev Workshop explores issues that will be at the heart of our discussions in July. Written for the workshop by Kath Pasteur, Jethro Pettit and Boudy van Schagen of IDS, "Knowledge Management and Organisational Learning for Development" offers an accessible review of experience and literature.

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  KM4Dev_2006_Background_Paper.pdf

Grupo Chorlaví – Building a Social Learning Network 1998-2005

Summary:

This document consists of the systematization of the experiences of the CG from its start in 1998 up to the year 2005. The Chorlaví Group (CG) is an initiative aimed at supporting the social learning process focussing on institutional and production transformation in rural, poor and traditionally marginalized areas in Latin America and the Caribbean. The systematisation provides the framework for critically analyzing the process that the CG has undergone since its creation. It is meant to document the CG’s development process and identify lessons that might be interesting and useful for other learning networks.

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  System. Chorlavi Group Final.pdf

Knowledge Sharing, Communities of Practice, and Organizational Change at the World Bank Group

Summary:

This article by Lesley Shneier, Sr Knowledge Specialist at the World Bank, chronicles the Knowledge Management initiative from its early days through 2005. Lesley was a member of the original 5-person KM team that introduced knowledge sharing to the World Bank and grew it into a world-class institution-wide program.

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Danida's Professional Networks - case story

Summary:

The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has established an open access internet based network for professionals working in development assistance. The case story gives a brief summary of the lessons learned.

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  Case Story Danida Networks_rev.doc

Successful Communication: A Toolkit for Researchers and Civil Society Organisations

Summary:

It is sometimes assumed that we need more communication of evidence within the international development field. This is not necessarily true. More communication can simply end up as a form of 'pushing knowledge down a hosepipe, in the hope that at least some of it will come out the other end'. What we need is far better communication of evidence within the international development field. This handbook is therefore designed to help development actors communicate better. It presents 23 tools, divided into the following categories: 'Planning', 'Packaging', 'Targeting' and 'Monitoring'.

 

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Knowledge Management and Knowledge Sharing for Development: Donor & NGO Experiences and Tools & Techniques

Summary:

This bibliography was prepared by Stephanie DeMoss, USAID Development Information Services in August 2005, following an information request on the KM4Dev list by Cindy Arciaga.

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  Resources on KM & KS_Final Branded Version 11-05.pdf

Knowledge for Development?

Summary:

Summary of King and McGraths book "Knowledge for Development?" The book provides a detailed analysis of what the new knowledge-based aid means at the level of discourse and practice in four leading development co-operation agencies. Aid has become more policy oriented and there is a greater emphasis on national ownership of development and policy dialogue between donors, governments and civil society. The case of the PRSPs may illustrate this. This new way of working in aid brings with it new knowledge needs and a new importance for knowledge as a major theme of development and co-operation. The new focus draws heavily on wider arguments about the centrality of knowledge to economic success and about the connective power of new ICTs. Arguments about the importance of knowledge economies have been directly translated into the development context to argue that knowledge is the key determinant of development.

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Toward An Interdisciplinary Organizational Learning Framework

Summary:

Organizational learning theory is multidisciplinary with no current consensus regarding a model for organizational learning theory. This paper searches for points of agreement regarding organizational learning among organizational theorists, then gives special attention to the economic perspective of organizations and learning. Much of the neoclassical theory of the firm, a set of human resource holders maximizing profit under a known production function, is under question. Organizational theorists now generally embrace the relevant transaction cost and agency perspectives. Harvey Leibenstein, Harvard economist, views the firm in terms of internal efficiency, embraces Argyris & Schön’s perspective of organizational learning as a process of error handling, sees the individual actor’s motivation to admit, detect and correct error as a special case of the productivity problem, and analyzes it from a game theoretic, agency like manner. Leibenstein’s perspective respects much of the noted concordance regarding organizational learning.

http://www.tonypolito.com/wri_orgl.doc

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Future needs session

Summary:

Notes from the "Future Needs of the KM4Dev Community" small group session, held at the KM4Dev workshop 2005 on June 20

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  KM4Dev_future session.doc

Full survey results

Summary:

From June 1 to 17, 44 members of KM4Dev (just over 10 %) reponded to a short survey, which sought to find what their needs were and how they wanted to be involved in the community. Here are the survey full results.

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  full_survey_results.htm

USAID Knowledge for Development Strategy - Overview

Summary:

This is a high-level overview of the USAID Knowledge for Development Strategy that has been endorsed by the Agency Business Transformation Executive Committee (BTEC). The strategy was the product of the BTEC Knowledge for Development subcommittee. A detailed results framework and strategy narrative are being developed.

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  Strategy_Presentation-posted.ppt

Knowledge Society, Knowledge Management and ICT

Summary:

Editorial contribution by Walter Fust, Director of SDC, to a publication edited by the Community Development Library Dhaka /Bangladesh, outlining SDC's KM approach.

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  SDC-ICT_and_Knowledge_Management_030123495.doc

Sharing Knowledge for Development at the World Bank

Summary:

This PPT provides an overview of KM activities at the World Bank.

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  KSatWB_Sept2003[1].ppt

Quest for Knowledge in a Think-Tank

Summary:

In Knowledge Management Journal, Vol. 8, Issue 3, November 2004. This article is the first of two submissions on the development of a knowledge management strategy in the UK based “development sector” organization, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). This article outlines the Institute’s knowledge management strategy objectives and the results and challenges that have emerged from the initial knowledge management audit. The article highlights how the knowledge management initiative was positioned as a key focus of the organization’s strategy, the way knowledge audit was used to identify existing organizational knowledge and knowledge gaps, and how the identified obstacles for successful knowledge management were factored into the knowledge management development processes.

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  ODI_KMMagazine.pdf

Implementing Knowledge Strategies: Lessons from international development agencies

Summary:

Study by Ben Ramalingam of ODI. This study synthesises existing research on knowledge and learning in the development sector, and draws out eight key questions for examining related strategies and systems in development agencies. Together, these questions make up a comprehensive Knowledge Strategies Framework, which bears close resemblance to the framework used by the ODI to assess complex processes of change within the development and humanitarian sector. The dimensions of this new Knowledge Strategies Framework are mapped out as Organisational knowledge, Organisational links, Organisational contexts, and External factors. The study then presents the analysis of data collected on current knowledge and learning practices in 13 selected case study organisations . This data was gathered via desk based reviews, interviews, consultations with agency staff and focus groups. The Knowledge Strategies Framework is used to analyse and synthesise these findings, to formulate the recommendations of the study, and to suggest key next steps.

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