On several occasions during the years 2018/2019, Vanessa, Dunja and myself heard how people in our professional networks enthusiastically talked about the method “Working Out Loud” (WOL).
Sandra Gentizon, SDC
In SDC learning is taking place in the networks – learning about approaches, about experiences and about good practices. The networks meet regularly in f2f-events in order to engage in this learning. But does it have an effect? What is the outcome of these events? By Beverly Wenger-Trayner, co-author of the Value Creation Framework
SDC Programme Officers of West Africa and the Horn of Africa engaged in a joint learning process on pastoralism. In a series of meetings they collected, synthesized and exchanged experiences in eight key topics of this area. Manuel Flury and Charlotte Nager take a step back and reflect about the added value and the limitations of such an experience capitalization process.
By Manuel Flury, SDC, Addis Ababa and Charlotte Nager, SDC, Berne
This post tells the story of documenting a learning process. The initiative to systematize experiences in the area of pastoralism was launched in collaboration with the Agriculture and Food Security network. The Learning & Networking team decided to document exactly this process. Two ‘reporters’, Charlotte Nager and Hynek Bures, joined the workshop in Kenia, where around 20 people gathered to learn from each others’ experiences in the field of pastoralism. While the participants were involved in thematic thinking the two ‘reporters’ added an additional layer of reflection. This challenging endeavor will hopefully inspire future stories about learning.
By Hynek Bures, dubbed perceptions (more…)
It sounds wonderful: gaining real insight into the impact of a project from the point of view of intended beneficiaries! But can it satisfy the needs of development organisations to assess and report on the work they support? The answer is yes. A Beneficiary Assessment isn’t always going to be the right thing to do, but it can provide valuable evidence relating to project outcomes and impact.
By Riff Fullan, Helvetas
Dgroups is used as a communication tool within most of SDC’s thematic networks, allowing both the channel of information through newsletters as well as e-discussions among network members. Carsten Schulz from AGRIDEA reflects on his own experience with Dgroups as a tool and his evolution from a sceptical and critical reviewer to an “aficionado” of the newly designed next.Dgroups platform. (more…)
Social Reporting on and from face-to-face meetings of SDC’s networks became a trendy practice. This blog post looks behind the scenes and reflects on three questions: What is actually Social Reporting? What makes it social? And is it worth the effort? (more…)
Make implicit knowledge explicit und thus accessible to everybody! This is a request I often come across dealing with knowledge management issues. In how far is this possible? Kitchen recipes make it clear: Basic knowledge and skills can be described, but what about mastery skills? There are limits in transforming implicit into explicit knowledge. (more…)
In this post, we would like to share how the Swiss – Ukrainian Decentralization Support Project (DESPRO), a SDC funded project imple-mented by Skat Consulting is starting to introduce Knowledge Management (KM) in the Ukrainian Public Administration and to reflect on some important lessons learnt so far. (more…)
by Kuno Schläfli, Romana Tedeschi, Katharina Walker, Michael Reimann, Matthias Boss, and Adrian Gnägi
SDC used to be structured as a matrix organization. Operational geographic units managed funds and local context, technical units managed thematic knowledge, and together they were thought to implement effective projects. This setup became perceived to have improvement potential. In 2008, technical units were replaced by learning and exchange networks. One of the justifications for this move was that guidance and policies elaborated by the technical units were sometimes perceived to be too abstract, too general, not enough evidence based. One of the expectations towards the newly created networks therefore was that their guidance should look, feel, and act differently – “experience based good practice” was the orientation received. This post documents one of the first attempts by one of the new networks to distill “experience based good practice”.
SDC’s “decentralization and local governance network” (dlgn) met for its first-ever face-to-face encounter in November 2009 in Delhi. (more…)
by Adrian Gnägi
SDC has been experimenting with Social Reporting for roughly 2 years now (see two earlier blog posts by Tobias and by Adrian). After the latest experience with the meeting of SDC’s “decentralization and local governance” network (dlgn) in Sarajevo in March 2011, we think we are ready for mainstreaming. Below please find some of our main “lessons to be learned”.
Who should report?
The basic idea behind social reporting is that “all” participants in an event should report, thereby providing for polyphonic narration and democratic representation. While I fully endorse the value position this concept is based on, we found serious practical constraints when trying to implement it. There are attention & time use tensions & trade-offs between “participation” and “reporting”: social reporting turned out to mostly be night work. When disentangling issues, we realized that in using video reporting, voice can be separated from reporting work. Our current thinking therefore is that not everybody should be pushed to report on everything using all reporting media, rather: (more…)
By Manuel Flury
I A Peer Assist Workshop in Sarajevo – Learning with partners
In a three days workshop in Sarajevo in April 2009, the programme staff of the SDC Country Office met with colleagues of three partner organisations. The Cooperation Strategy 2009-2012 for Bosnia and Herzegovina focuses on capitalizing on acquired expertise and to profit from past investments made and strategic assets accumulated. Capitalising and documenting experiences has been the rational of the workshop. It looked at “disseminating” project achievements in a “new way”: to promote and to facilitate learning and change on larger levels of the society (scaling-up) and/or in comparable contexts (replication). The peer assist allowed the participants to learn from others: how can they facilitate societal change in their fields of primary health care, water resources management and municipal governance and administration.
There was consensus:
Facilitating societal change – learning from project experiences – requires time and patience and a high degree of professionalism in facilitating process and harmonisation among actors. (more…)
HIGHLIGHT
By the end of 2009 and after 40 years, SDC closed down its bilateral cooperation programme in Ecuador. The phasing-out started in 2006. The closure was planned “to be responsible, creative, and required the multiplication of successful effects and the highest levels of impact and sustainability. The capitalisation of the Ecuadorian experience has been considered as a primary objective within the Knowledge Mangement plan and the communication strategy.” You find the SDC Ecuador phasing out portal (in spanish). The virtual library includes an english Summary report “Local actors: The true Protagonists of their own Development”. (more…)