Constructing Learning and Knowledge

Management Systems.

FIDAMERICA

Nairobi, April 2009

What do we Intend to Do?

FIDAMERICA aims to construct Learning and Knowledge Management Systems (LKM). To reach this objective, FIDAMERICA implements a multistage methodology to identify and draw lessons learned and recommendations from public and private institutions regarding innovations or development components in projects supported by IFAD and its partners, focusing on three topics: productive transformation with an emphasis on market access, institutional development, and local project management.

What do we intend to do?

LKM applied to the development processes help to identify and analyze successes, errors, methodologies, and useful strategies to work towards poverty reduction. Throughout this process, the successful outcome of FIDAMERICA has depended largely on the active participation of 45 public and private organizations, which integrated nine learning and knowledge management cycles between 2006 and 2008.

The seven phases of a practical methodology to learn and manage knowledge F

What do we Mean by Systematization?

It is a critical interpretation of one or several experiences, which based on the ordering and reconstruction, identifies and makes explicit the rational of the processes under analysis, the factors what influenced such a process, how they did relate to each other and, why the have related in such a manner.

Key Elements of the Systematization

• It is a process of critical analysis• It is bases on the concepts of ordering and

organizing• It aims to improving the practices• It is a participatory process, carried out by the

actors of the process that is systematized• It is usually completed with the help of a

facilitator• It is a multi-view analysis

The Focus of the Systematization

• The systematization focuses on processes already completed by direct and indirect actors of a rural development project or any other intervention directed to transform the social reality and the endogenous or natural process of a rural society

• The systematization does not focus on the project. It focuses on the experience (process), retrieving, describing, analyzing and communication what happened due to the implementation of the project or intervention

What do we Want to Systematize?

• Technological innovations• Rural development components• Particular experiences

Criteria for selecting a process• A successful experience• A failed experience

Ask actors what they want to learn about

Develop a three year plan to construct a LKM system

The Systematization Axe

• A working focus is needed in order to complete a critical analysis of a selected process. Some questions or working hypothesis are also requested to define and select data gathering to complete the systematization.

• The axe of systematization defines the specific aspects on which the hole analysis will concentrate

• The systematization axe becomes the central question that guides the entire exercise → extended or concentrated?

• Working hypothesis help to focus the systematization. They are set to learn about how this happened, how the intervention was completed, what ere the factors determining the process and why. This questions make the difference between a narrative and a critical systematization

What are the Key Issues of a Systematization Repot?

• The initial situation (What was the problem or the opportunity that motivated the intervention & the elements of the context)

• The intervention process (What happened? When? With which method? With which means? Who was involved? What is the context?)

• The present situation (How does it compare to the initial situation. What is the context?)

• Findings, conclusions and recommendations• Lessons learned

The Systematization in Practice

1. Selecting the systematization team → actors, informants, facilitator

2. Defining the process to be systematized

3. Defining milestones of the experience

4. Defining the systematization exe (What do we want to learn about the experience selected for the systematization?)

5. Identification of direct and indirect actors

6. Secondary source information review

7. Formulation of working hypothesis

The Systematization in Practice

8. Collecting primary source information

9. Ordering and critically analyzing available information

10. The devolution workshop

11. Writing the systematization report

12. Communication and utilization strategy