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Learning is something we all do. Yet at organisational level,
it often proves difficult. Learning organisations are increasingly in
fashion in the business community. They have been described by one consulting
firm as:
"those that have in place systems, mechanisms and
processes that are used to continually enhance their capabilities and
those who work with it or for it, to achieve sustainable objectives
– for themselves and the communities in which they participate."
That definition would not be out of place in the mission
statement of many civil society organisations. Some of those organisations
working in health, communication or development are helping to shape our
understanding of learning.
Profiles of learning organisations
British Overseas NGOs
for Development (BOND)
BOND is the United Kingdom’s broadest network of voluntary organisations
working in international development (often called non-governmental organisations
- NGOs). BOND’s learning and training team is developing approaches
which encourage individuals and organisations to become more involved
in identifying and meeting their learning and training needs. An organisational
learning paper sets out basic issues and approaches to improving learning.
It points out that:
"The real purpose of working towards developing a Learning
Organisation is to increase your organisation's effectiveness. The outputs
include: more effective identification of problems rather than symptoms;
wasting less time on red herrings and 'revolving door' problems that just
keep coming back; increasing the choice of strategies available for meeting
problems; shifting energy from individual and territorial struggles to
agreed common objectives."
Contact details
www.bond.org.uk
E-mail bond@bond.org.uk (general
information)
E-mail information@bond.org.uk
(publications)
BOND
Regent's Wharf
8 All Saint's Street
London N1 9RL
UK
Tel +44 (0)20 7837 8344
Fax +44 (0)20 7837 4220
Bernard van Leer Foundation
The Bernard van Leer Foundation seeks to enhance opportunities for children
0-7 years, growing up in social and economic disadvantage. It supports
projects in more than 40 countries aimed at developing contextually appropriate
approaches to early childhood care and development (ECD) and to share
knowledge that draws on the experiences generated by the projects, with
the aim of informing and influencing policy and practice.
In 1999, the Foundation began a three-year Effectiveness Initiative (EI).
This is an in-depth, qualitative look at what makes ECD programmes work
for the people who take part in them, and for the communities that are
intended to be enriched by them. Working collaboratively, 10 projects
operating in different settings are investigating the interplay between
a project’s processes, activities and outcomes. They are mapping
what makes a project effective, and under what conditions; what supports
and what hinders it within a given context; and what these findings say
about effective programming in early childhood development.
This goes well beyond normal evaluation. It has involved developing new
investigative tools and, because lessons are being drawn out across any
combination of the 10 sites, it has also involved developing new ways
to bring together, and reflect on, disparate data. The first findings
identified several significant factors that impact on project effectiveness.
These factors include:
- relationships with funders
- staff and leadership turnover
- planned leadership succession
- disparities between programme design and implementation
- the personal growth of staff
- the roles of women
- the role of ideologies
- impact of natural disasters.
Contact details
www.bernardvanleer.org
E-mail registry@bvleerf.nl
Bernard van Leer Foundation
PO Box 82334
2508 EH The Hague
The Netherlands
Tel +31 (0)70 351 2040
Fax +31 (0)70 350 2373
Partners in Population and
Development
Partners in Population and Development (Partners) is an inter-governmental
alliance of 16 developing countries, created to promote and improve the
transfer of knowledge, expertise and skills in population and reproductive
health through South-to-South collaboration. A key aspect of the South-to-South
knowledge transfer process is documenting successful experience from which
other countries can learn. Partners has developed a number of documentation
tools and systems to prepare successful program models for transfer to
other developing countries.
One such tool is a Manual for Documenting Practices in Reproductive Health,
Population and Development for South-to-South Collaboration. The manual
notes that the key to the functioning of a network is the usefulness of
the information it provides, and adds this is also true for the documentation
of successful experiences. It says:
"usefulness for exchange, over the long term, should
be the overriding evaluation criterion for the documentation process.
The documented experience should inspire others to follow through, and
learn by doing, in their own reproductive health programmes through
South-to-South exchanges."
Contact details
www.south-south.org/
E-mail partners@ppdsec.org
Partners in Population and Development
GPO 2925
Dhaka 1000
Bangladesh
Tel +880-2 988-1882, 882-9475
Fax +880-2 882-9387
Worldview International Foundation
The Worldview International Foundation - based in Sri Lanka - strives
to be in the forefront of the communication revolution by the constant
application of new communication technology to promote sustainable human
development. Since 1979, it has trained more than 50,000 development workers
from 45 countries in communication, and executed 650 grassroots projects
in 23 countries.
One such project involves International Family Health (a UK-based sexual
and reproductive health agency), Worldview’s international office,
and three country offices (in Nepal, Sri Lanka and The Gambia). Together,
they operate a project aimed at facilitating communication about sexual
and reproductive health among adolescents. In all three countries a key
approach has been to create participatory HIV prevention education in
small group discussions with young people.
The partners have learned much about their roles in that partnership and
about effective communication methods. ‘South to South’ and
‘North to South’ and ‘South to North’ exchange
has been a central element of the project. There have been many benefits
of the south to south exchange visits; different cultural definitions
of participation have been examined; the similarities of the elements
of a successful sex education programme; and how the political context
may differ but working within it has been approached in similar ways.
Among the lessons learned are that partners need to be encouraged to discuss
mistakes and challenges as much as successes and competition needs to
be eliminated from the process. A major lesson learned is how much more
advanced the Southern partners have been in terms of capacity to develop
participatory programmes with all community stakeholders and subsequent
material development.
This programme is finding that learning and capacity in the Southern or
national partners needs to be given more recognition and better integrated
into policy through standard recognised mechanisms; talking about the
importance of ‘South to South’ by northern partners should
also lead to more ‘South to North’ exchange.
Contact details
www.wifoundation.org
E-mail: wif@wifoundation.org
Worldview International Foundation
12 Arethusa Lane
Colombo 6
Sri Lanka
Tel +94 01 589648, 074 510728/9
Fax +94 01 589225
International HIV/AIDS Alliance
The International HIV/AIDS Alliance (the Alliance) is an international
development NGO set up in 1993 by a consortium of international donors.
The Alliance responds to the need for a specialist, professional intermediary
organisation to work in effective partnership with non-governmental and
community-based organisations in developing countries, as well as with
national governments, private and public donors and the UN system. The
Alliance's mission is to support communities in developing countries to
play a full and effective role in the global response to AIDS.
The Alliance has focused on building strong partnerships
and on learning from the process. A useful toolkit – Pathways to
Partnerships – contains a range of valuable lessons and suggestions
on how to improve their effectiveness. A summary of the process is the
need to record and monitor efforts to build partnerships; review and evaluate
how building partnerships has made a difference; and then tell others
about the successes and difficulties that are encountered along the way.
The Alliance is interested in learning about other NGO experience and
lessons in building partnerships.
Contact details
www.aidsalliance.org
E-mail mail@aidsalliance.org
International HIV/AIDS Alliance
Queensberry House
104-109 Queens Road
Brighton BN1 3XF
UK
Tel +44 1273 718 900
Fax +44 1273 718 901
International Development Research
Centre (IDRC)
The International Development Research Centre is a public corporation
created by the Canadian government to help communities in the developing
world find solutions to social, economic, and environmental problems through
research.
IDRC recognises that evaluation makes an essential contribution to learning
and decision-making about research. It focuses on promoting evaluation
as a planning and management tool, building capacity for evaluation, and
assessing the use and impact of research for development. At well as developing
the Centre’s own capacity and system for evaluation, it works to
expand evaluation partnerships with Southern institutions and other donors,
and seeks to strengthen the evaluation capacity of its research partners.
A recent IDRC report argues for a different approach to evaluating development
programmes – one that focuses planning, monitoring and evaluation
on targeted behaviours, actions and relationships within the project or
programme’s sphere of influence, as well as on learning how to increase
effectiveness in relation to the ultimate goals. An Outcome Mapping process
is suggested.
The report also notes that when donors and their recipients
try to be accountable for achieving impact, they are severely limiting
their potential for understanding how and why impact occurs. With Outcome
Mapping, programmes ‘identify the actors with whom they will work
and then devise strategies to help equip these selected partners with
the tools, techniques, and resources to contribute to the development
process’.
The approach has been enthusiastically received by IDRC’s Southern
partners, apparently because ‘it enables them to tell their story
in ways that realistically reflect the conditions and challenges they
face’.
Contact details
www.idrc.ca
E-mail info@idrc.ca
IDRC
PO Box 8500
Ottawa
ON K1G 3H9
Canada
Tel +1 (613) 236 6163
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