Sharing knowledge among NGOs and CSOs in Guyana
A Facebook conversation about NGO partnership ended with a question about how can NGOs and other organisations and individuals share knowledge about their work and learn and build on their experiences.
It is true that knowledge is a commodity and the competition for scarce funds or other reasons results in reluctance to share knowledge. There is a lot of discussion on collaboration vs/and/or/ competition around and this discussion should happen in Guyana. This is not a Guyana story alone, as quoted in this paper Knowledge Management Practices and Challenges in International Networked NGOs: The Case of One World International "
Knowledge sharing
The sharing of knowledge is a part of Knowledge management . In the Guyana civil society context means moving sometimes from doing the same things over and over again, to also move from going from one project to another without taking stock of what was learned from each project. Knowledge sharing requires an organisational and individual commitment It requires some vulnerability and a sense of accountability as well.
Here are some examples of civil society knowledge sharing in Guyana which have worked.
1. Organisational policy of sharing
Some NGOs do research and create reports which are shared for public use. The Internet is an excellent tool for making those reports available. Help & Shelter, goes further in that they have shared on their website, all of their project proposals (often tightly protected by many others in a competitive funding world) and reports. Help & Shelter also shares their statistics.
Many NGO project reports end up in lost shelves or forgotten when projects have been completed. Some organisations might not have the capacity to manage their own websites. There are some free options around such as Google Sites.
Some donors might lock their grantees into copyright arrangements which prevent sharing their knowledge. However, there might be ways of sharing the reports which contain a lot of information about the kinds of things which have been done.
2. Learning events
The Volunteerism Support Platform facilitated an Action Learning Network which ran a series of interesting workshops. The presenters included individuals who are working in different sectors . There were a variety of topics, selected by the members of the ALN. The interactions involved sharing of how people dealt with different kinds of experiences.
There were other events like the Facilitator's Forum a few years ago , which had some voluntary meetings to discuss facilitation themes. There might be other fora of organisations and individuals which meet to share their experiences of how they do their work and the lessons they have learned while doing the work.
One thing to watch is that in the rush to appear successful there is no evaluation of things which might not have worked. There might be other political reasons for deciding who owns successes.
It is true that knowledge is a commodity and the competition for scarce funds or other reasons results in reluctance to share knowledge. There is a lot of discussion on collaboration vs/and/or/ competition around and this discussion should happen in Guyana. This is not a Guyana story alone, as quoted in this paper Knowledge Management Practices and Challenges in International Networked NGOs: The Case of One World International "
"Knowledge sharing particularly at inter organisational level is often said to be hindered by “dynamics of power, opportunism, suspicion, and asymmetric learning strategies which can constitute processual barriers to collective knowledge development”
Knowledge sharing
The sharing of knowledge is a part of Knowledge management . In the Guyana civil society context means moving sometimes from doing the same things over and over again, to also move from going from one project to another without taking stock of what was learned from each project. Knowledge sharing requires an organisational and individual commitment It requires some vulnerability and a sense of accountability as well.
Here are some examples of civil society knowledge sharing in Guyana which have worked.
1. Organisational policy of sharing
Some NGOs do research and create reports which are shared for public use. The Internet is an excellent tool for making those reports available. Help & Shelter, goes further in that they have shared on their website, all of their project proposals (often tightly protected by many others in a competitive funding world) and reports. Help & Shelter also shares their statistics.
Many NGO project reports end up in lost shelves or forgotten when projects have been completed. Some organisations might not have the capacity to manage their own websites. There are some free options around such as Google Sites.
Some donors might lock their grantees into copyright arrangements which prevent sharing their knowledge. However, there might be ways of sharing the reports which contain a lot of information about the kinds of things which have been done.
2. Learning events
The Volunteerism Support Platform facilitated an Action Learning Network which ran a series of interesting workshops. The presenters included individuals who are working in different sectors . There were a variety of topics, selected by the members of the ALN. The interactions involved sharing of how people dealt with different kinds of experiences.
There were other events like the Facilitator's Forum a few years ago , which had some voluntary meetings to discuss facilitation themes. There might be other fora of organisations and individuals which meet to share their experiences of how they do their work and the lessons they have learned while doing the work.
One thing to watch is that in the rush to appear successful there is no evaluation of things which might not have worked. There might be other political reasons for deciding who owns successes.
Comments
Post a Comment