FRAO-FIDAfrique BLOG

A successful 2nd IFADAfrica Knowledge Management and Learning Workshop for group Three (Botswana, Letsotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe), Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

By Monica Gakindi
The second IFADAfrica workshop for Group Three members (Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zimbabwe), kicked off on the 1^st of August 2011 at the Victoria Falls Rainbow Hotel, Zimbabwe. There were about 30 participants, with representatives from the four countries. Though I did not make it to be at the opening and morning session on the first day of the workshop- since my flight had been cancelled without prior notice- I could tell, from the participant’s responses, that they had a very good and energetic start.

Having attended similar workshops for other groups, I must say that what fascinated me about this group was their energy and openness in discussions. The team spirit was very high all through the workshop period and I didn’t, at any one time, spot a dosing participant.

The facilitation of the workshop was done in a very innovative way – from beer assisted open sessions to the information market, information sharing was extensive and you could tell that participants would not have minded more time for the discussions.

At the beer –assisted session, participants presented innovative ideas of how they were implementing the various projects in their countries. In this session, I was particularly impressed by a presentation by the Zimbabwe team that has used the podcasting technology to carry out agricultural extension work. What is even more fascinating with it is the fact that it is done by the farmers themselves who undergo a training on how to carry out interviews with fellow farmers and how to capture the information as podcasts. This allows for sustainability of the extension services. In fact, this idea was introduced when the project started facing challenges with extension workers sourced externally. Other presentations included the study circles by the Zimbabwe team (AFRICARE), Communities of Practice by IFADAfrica, M&E for impact by the Swaziland team (SWADE) among others. The open sessions gave room for people to ask questions and seek clarifications from whatever topic was of interest to them.

Another innovative facilitation methodology that impressed me was the information market. Participants discussed their progress (at country level) against what they had planned in their action plans since the previous year. In an open room and at different corners, each country put up their work and chose 4 presenters among themselves. All other members gathered around each country in small groups and when the moderator rung the bell, the members from one group moved to the next till all members had listened to presentations from all countries. This gave a chance for more participants to present and also for the presenters to benefit from other presentations.

Participants expressed a deeper understanding of the KM + L system that was presented in a nice graphical manner. Most indicated that they were able to see the linkages between the four major components (Monitoring &Evaluation, Information Management, Communication and Innovation and Experimentation) with Learning and Adaptation being the motivation and the driver of them all.

Much was also discussed about the challenges of implementing an effective KM+L system in the various countries. What came out clearly was the issue of higher level management/leadership and/or government buy - in of Knowledge Management and a lack of commitment from them (apart from Swaziland who seemed to have overcome it). In addition, a lack of awareness of KM by the various players was also mentioned as a key challenge.

On the last day, discussions were held on various issues that came out strongly during the other two days. These were issues around Learning and adaptation – How and when we know that learning and adaptation is taking place in the organization, how to create a culture of sharing in organizations and how to keep institutional memory – skills and networks of individuals, documents, and records of events.

To crown it all, later that afternoon and courtesy of the host team, we had a tour to the spectacular Victoria Falls –one of the seven natural wonders of the world. I marveled at the size and depth of the falls, the beautiful rainbows and the thundering that could be heard even from the workshop room about 3 KM away. The workshop ended on the 4th/August/2011 with a synthesis meeting that was attended by representatives from the four countries, the organizers and the facilitation team.

In my honest assessment, this was a real learning experience for all and I have no doubt that if lessons learnt will be implemented in the various organizations and projects represented at the workshop, a lot of positive change will happen in the way performance of the various duties are carried out.