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UNFPA Knowledge Sharing Strategy
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UNFPA Knowledge Sharing Strategy Document in MSWord
EXPERIENCE
In 1999, the NPO from Equatorial Guinea came to HQ to attend
the Global Meeting. At that time the CO was working on the introduction
of SexEd into the school curricula, but had almost no references
and assistance from the CST was affected by language constraints.By
contacting the LACD, the NPO was able to connect with colleagues
in Latin America who had gone through similar situations and
were therefore in a position to provide valuable insights.The
NPO also got educational materials and textbooks, which were
adapted to the national context.Thanks to this exchange of expertise
between colleagues worlds apart, one field office has been able
to learn from another's experience and thereby successfully
carry out its tasks in a timely ands cost-efficient manner. |
The UNFPA Knowledge Sharing is about connecting people with behaviors
that seek and share knowledge as 'the way we work', putting in place
simple ways of capturing, distilling, validating, storing, applying,
and reusing what we know for learning and innovation; last but not
least, it also relies on technology to enable the know-who, know-how
and know-where to be found and accessed wherever it resides.
At its most basic, Knowledge Sharing is simply about transferring
the dispersed know-how of UNFPA more effectively to its parts. It
is, in fact, the systematic and continuous capture of know-how built
from years of experience inside and outside our institutional boundaries
so that others can perform immediately with the competence of an
old hand - even hundreds of old hands - without always having to
ask the old hand for help and advice.
UNFPA has a very specific and challenging mandate; it strives to
achieve its objectives in so many countries. We undertake similar
projects and activities in various countries under somewhat differing
environments, timeframes and under varying circumstances. However,
learning from our own and other's experience and making this know-how
available for subsequent activities, will eliminate repetitious
mistakes, reduce the need for repetitive experimentation and prepare
the ground for identification of real issues that have to be tackled.
For UNFPA to utilize its accumulated technical
and operational know-how, generated across the world at great expense,
it is necessary that it become a knowledge-based, open organization,
i.e., that it prepare the ground for using and sharing experiential
knowledge. Core to meeting this challenge are three key elements
that are discussed further in this paper:
- The creation of Knowledge Networks - a formally established
group of thought leaders focused on sharing knowledge that is
critical to UNFPA
- The creation of Knowledge Assets - 'living' repositories that
provide focused, useful, and insightful know-how from actual work
around the world. This includes our most critical asset, our people
- The creation of a strategic pilot program that will apply world
leading knowledge sharing practices in real action to meet real
challenges. To walk the talk across UNFPA.
To individual staff members, the value of continuously learning
may be best expressed in a new ability to quickly connect with colleagues
to access and benefit from institutional memory as well as externally
generated knowledge. Take project development (PD) for instance.
Access to parsed UNFPA PD experience - knowledge nuggets - would
allow new designs to build on proven strategies, and help identify
and utilize the staff resources on which to draw. As in the case
of Equatorial Guinea, we would not have to reinvent the wheel or
resort to guesswork when designing projects. A team of experienced
colleagues willing to help and whose help is valued and acknowledged
would be there to help us. We would become more effective and learn
from each other's experience.
EXPERIENCE
In February 2001, the NPO from Turkey was invited to India to
provide technical support to undertake a needs assessment field
mission to several districts of Gujarat that were affected by
an earthquake.The NPO made an important contribution based on
his experience in handling UNFPA response to the earthquake
that hit Turkey two years ago. As a result of this collaboration
UNFPA was able to deploy the right human and technical resources
to India in a record time. |
By sharing what we know, we also gain a tool for self-improvement:
during the project design process, for instance, effective sharing
requires the capability to identify better and more effective ways
of solving old as well as new problems, and integrating this experience
into both design and design tools.
To UNFPA, the overarching value of knowledge sharing (KS) is derived
from our capability to identify and integrate resident, acquired
and external knowledge. This includes knowledge denoting business
methods, analytical and operational capabilities, as well as the
organizational awareness of these capabilities. It also provides
clarity over system resources and shortfalls as well as enhanced
productivity and lower cost, due to efficiently applied best practices.
Three components are essential to knowledge sharing: people,
processes, and technology. In order to share, UNFPA must promote
a culture connected by a "shared belief" in the value
of sharing and learning. Processes that promote sharing must be
transparently introduced into the day-to-day activities of staff
members and technology must be in place to facilitate and enable
sharing across time and space.
People are the cornerstone of knowledge sharing. When we talk about
know-how and know-who we are basically referring to what we and
our colleagues -both inside and outside UNFPA- have learned over
our lifespan and is applicable in our work. A key factor in ensuring
that sharing is successfully implemented is our perception that
there is something in it for each one of us: Ownership comes from
holding a stake. A clear understanding of the meaning and implications
of sharing, as well as proper motivation mechanisms are therefore
essential components of any knowledge sharing strategy. For instance,
it is assumed that sharing will translate into receiving assistance
from colleagues and that we will in turn be expected to contribute
as well. What we know may be highly relevant in contexts other than
our own CO, CST or HQ unit as well. Imagine for a moment that you
have several years of experience in working with mobile health clinics
before joining UNFPA. Upon entering UNFPA you may never again be
requested to use the accumulated expertise on the issue on the country
where you are stationed, perhaps because by now a vastly improved
road network has made such systems redundant. Yet your knowledge
about mobile health clinics may be extremely helpful to another
country team which has identified mobile units as the correct solution
to an urgent problem. The bottom line is that by sharing what we
know, we will be more than "Representative", "Programme
Officer", "NPPP", "Financial Assistant"
or "Secretary" anymore; we will be part of a global learning
community called UNFPA.
In terms of human resource management, both existing and new elements
will be used to encourage the enrollment and active sharing of know-how
in the UNFPA global community. These include adequate job descriptions,
revised competencies and IPP/PAR system, a rotation policy and succession
plan, and most importantly training and learning opportunities,
including mentoring.
It is essential that transfer of know-how be perceived not as an
additional burden but rather as a new and different way of doing
business. Knowledge Sharing must be an integral part of staff members'
succession and career plans as much as other learning processes,
and must be properly acknowledged through the IPP and PAR systems.
The introduction of new or revised competencies system will allow
UNFPA to tap into our collective expertise while allowing each one
of us to grow professionally. In brief, sharing will need to be
recognized and rewarded at the individual as well as team level.
The example set by senior staff is extremely important, as with
all management matters. Early and earnest buy-in, as well as active
participation by senior staff in this new way of delivering our
mandate is critical to its success.
People willing to share knowledge -and systems set up to enable
them to share - need processes to act as vehicles for connecting.
Research suggests that people do not know how to present their experiences
and know-how in simple ways. Asking people to fill in long questionnaires
is not an answer. Presently, UNFPA has a number of such instruments
in place. They include, to name but a few, annual reports, project
reports, and travel reports. Many of the reports generated by staff
members are currently underutilized as vehicles for sharing relevant
experiences, and seen as little more than formal requirements. A
trip report sums up an agenda, rather than focusing on the one fact,
contact, process etc., which made the trip worthwhile, and which
is the one element where knowledge lies buried, namely in its usefulness
to someone else. Such instruments are seen as mere formats, cumbersome
requirements, and therefore not necessarily compiled with a view
to sharing information, much less knowledge. They are produced in
isolation of whatever else happens in the organization.
EXPERIENCE
In 2001, the UNFPA country office in Guatemala was asked to
advise the government about setting up a contraceptive logistics
system for the entire country. The CO did not have this area
of expertise internalized.During a regional planning meeting,
the Representative raised his concerns about this request to
the Nicaragua Representative who happened to know an expert
in his country. The expert was deployed to Guatemala and fulfilled
the tasks at entire satisfaction of UNFPA and the government.
As result of this contact, UNFPA was able to provide adequate
assistance and to expand the scope of activities in Guatemala.
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UNFPA needs knowledge sharing processes where people report only
the information, insights, ideas and potential pitfalls and stumbling
blocks that might be useful inputs to some other staff member's
thought processes. Although this might seem to exclude most of the
formats we presently use, it does not. It calls for a revised type
of "format", based on a different type of thinking. To
tickle the imagination, a checklist would do, regularly updated
and added onto by any staff member with a bright idea. This means
that a trip report could be filed, for instance, with no more information
than a single recommendation or observation of value. A staff member
could use such a checklist for inspirational guidance, and do some
serious thinking about the value of an event. If the list if good
enough, at least one item on it will spark an original idea. Annual
reports should follow similar lines for sharing purposes. All people
presumably read reports looking for that single gem that will make
it stand out and stick. Executive summaries are living proof of
the need to be concise yet analytical. They contain the gist of
value added in both form and substance.
Technology is used as a tool to capture and disseminate data, information,
experiences and know-how for subsequent utilization. It can help
increase the efficiency of individuals and their understanding of
processes, by bringing people, information and experiences together.
Where there is will and desire, no matter how geographically dispersed
or culturally diverse an organization may be, technology can be
an effective tool. The key is human and organizational willingness
and attitude, which no technology can replace.
EXPERIENCE
In year 2000, a resource mobilization strategy and several implementation
and monitoring tools were developed by Vietnam office.
The strategy was shared with Peru CO and at the fundraising
and advocacy training in Malaysia in November 2001. The strategy
and the experiences in implementing it were shared with most
COs in Asia and the Pacific.
RDB has extensively used the strategy and the tools as an example
when conducting training on fundraising in other regions.
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Technology has been used sparingly in the Fund and mostly at basic
levels. Recent years have seen much progress in terms of standardization
of office automation equipment and methodologies, use of computerized
information systems for managing programme resources, enhanced communication
abilities through the use of email and access to Internet-based
information.
What should our strategy to put in place the tools we need in support
of a learning and sharing community look like?
UNFPA is a global organization that needs "to know what it
knows" and as such it needs to have a system that allows this
knowledge to be shared easily between all its organizational units.
So, we need to have an infrastructure that makes this possible.
This requires, at its most basic level, good and reliable connectivity.
To create and share knowledge requires tools for electronic storage
and retrieval. Once captured these elements have to categorized
and classified so that they can be easily found by any user. The
tools required will include web-based environments that allow e-document
management, taxonomy (orderly classification and grouping of documents)
and translation tools.
In UNFPA's environment it is likely that people in different parts
of the globe are working on the same type of project or activity.
Also, there may be experts in the field whose knowledge might be
required elsewhere without the possibility of physical presence.
In such cases, a web-based environment should be accessible as a
platform for interaction between experts, administrators and partners.
EXPERIENCE
EXPERIENCE
One of the most important challenges in the area of sexual and
reproductive Health is its operationalization. In order to take
the most of their national experiences, Mali, Madagascar and
Cameroon launched together an initiative called "Symposiums
on the Operationalization of Sexual and Reproductive Health".
This successful experience allowed for a fluid exchange of know-how
among professionals of those three countries that served to
identify common priorities and needs, formulate a minimum set
of services and standardize training programmes. These symposiums
paved the way for the creation of an informal but very effective
community of practitioners around that subject matter that will
certainly lead to significant improvements in the delivery of
country programmes.
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Such collaboration can be real-time and in document format only.
But it has been proven that face to face contact is much more effective
than electronic correspondence. Therefore, UNFPA should explore
the possibilities of introducing collaborative tools such as video
conferencing as much as is practicable.
The essential thing in all of these technology environments is
that they should be easy to use, should not require central control,
and individual spaces should be manageable by the owners of the
space. In reality, the collection of these tools will lead to a
Knowledge Sharing Technical Environment (KSTE) that replaces our
BBS or the Intranet and the Extranet with a much more useful repository
of knowledge and information. The challenge will be to encourage
us all to use the tools that are being made available. =
Other elements that need to be in place are the tools that are
required for the day-to-day operational matters of organization,
for financial, management and administrative accounting, workflow
environments, etc. All such applications should be web-based and
integrated with the over-all knowledge-sharing environment of the
Fund. The question of ERPs, financial and substantive databases,
programme, project activity schedules, will to be addressed individually
in such a manner that they will be integrated part of the KSE.
Where are we now as an organization? We have good and dedicated
staff, valuable processes and improving technology. We need to build
on these to configure each component to a learning and sharing environment.
Our staff need to be empowered to better be able to contribute to
each other's development and therefore to the organization. We need
to revise our core reporting processes to be more supportive of
a knowledge capturing environment, and our technology needs to be
better configured to create, store and share knowledge as well as
to connect staff. The move towards a knowledge sharing and learning
culture is a progressive evolution and will be facilitated by testing
out the approaches in a series of pilot projects. These pilots have
to be clearly designed to demonstrate the value added by deliberate
knowledge sharing in a selected environment.
The pilots are to show us what does or does not work. They must
contain the various core aspects of a knowledge sharing culture
in UNFPA. This means focusing on field offices and how they interact
internally and with other field offices, CSTs and Headquarters colleagues.
We can only really learn by doing. The benefits of a knowledge sharing
strategy must be central to the work of all staff in the Organization.
These pilot projects need to be selected, implemented and evaluated
in the next nine months so that, by the end of 2002, it I clear
to the organization what the benefits and challenges are of a knowledge
sharing strategy in UNFPA.
Finally, we must not fall into the trap of focusing exclusively
on technology. UNFPA must maintain a balanced approach and ensure
that the necessary investment in technology is supported by investments
in our people and the processes that are essential to a successful
introduction of knowledge sharing into the Organization.
In order to share what an organization and its individuals know,
there are two approaches that are critical to our program and that
will appear in discussions as we move ahead:
- Communities of practice (CoP) - are groups of people who do
the same sort of work who get together (on-line, or in person)
to help each other by sharing tips, hints, ideas, and best practices.
These people can be professionals within an organization, or in
several organizations, or they can simply form a non-work-related
community. They may not all know each other, yet feel a sense
of community because they have similar interests and face similar
challenges. They realize the value of sharing knowledge with their
peers, and learning from each other. Communities or Practice are
informal and, while of great power to the organization, are really
focused on benefit to the individual practitioners.
- Knowledge Networks (KN), are a formal and structured team that
focuses on domains of knowledge that are critical to the Organization.
They have clear accountabilities, roles that are part of their
standard jobs, performance contracts with the organization and
use action-oriented collaboration to achieve measurable results.
While not a community per se, the Knowledge Network leverages
and nurtures CoPs for the benefit of organization.
The UNFPA Knowledge Sharing Working Group (KSWG) is proposing to
implement the knowledge network approach in UNFPA as the one most
relevant for transforming UNFPA into a results-oriented organization.
As an operational agency, we need to have readily available a continuously
updated knowledge-base for quality programming; as a funding organization,
we need to share knowledge on how to streamline processes; and so
forth. These are permanent needs of the organization, as well as
clearly identified areas we need to improve as indicated by the
Field Needs and Strategic Assessments
The domains of critical knowledge will be defined by the Knowledge
Networks and will be developed through action-oriented collaboration
in support of actual work in progress in UNFPA. The Pilots are described
later in this paper. Critical to the effort is the creation of our
Knowledge Assets… the living repositories of our collective
know-how that will actually be applied in the Pilots and will be
evolving as we actually do our work. So at any point in time, the
Knowledge Asset will represent the very best and most current knowledge
in areas that are critical to UNFPA..
A graphic representation of a Knowledge Asset follows:
A typical knowledge asset (KA), such as the one pictured above,
would be structured around the critical stages involved in a given
process. The KA would target capturing and packaging knowledge around
those critical stages, starting from the policy level and following
a sequence that would ultimately provide feedback at the policy
level, in such a way that UNFPA policies would be constantly updated
based on the experience gained by the organization. Communities
of practice (CoPs) could be created around each one of those critical
issues to tackle specific issues.
In 2002, the KSWG will be launching three pilots. These are on
the issues of Adolescents, Quality of Care and Vesico-Vaginal Fistulae.
The overall purpose of the KS pilots is to tangibly demonstrate
to UNFPA staff what KS is, and what are its benefits and value-added.
The knowledge network approach will also allow for testing elements
being proposed by other Transition Working Groups, such as those
related to staff competencies, PARs, and training plans. Some reporting
formats, such as the mission reports will also be tested in order
to align them with the KS functions recommended in the new Technical
Advisory Paper. KNs would ultimately be developed by the organization
to permanently manage what we know about areas critical to our mandate
and which have been identified as essential to country programming
and other non-programme issues like resource mobilization and finance
and administration.
The network being created around Adolescent Development will enable
focused exchange among staff working on similar efforts, including
tapping into available in-house knowledge and experience on which
to build for future programming. It will also provide all staff
with ready access to state-of-the-art knowledge in selected areas
of this field - synthesized and tailored to UNFPA programme needs.
Knowledge-sharing is expected to enhance programme effectiveness
by networking among staff members and facilitating access to lessons
learned, good practices and on-line evidence-based resources.
On Quality of Care, the pilot network will be centered around an
interregional project being implemented in India, Kyrgysztan, Mauritania,
Nepal, Peru, and Tanzania, which represents a new approach to quality
of care by increasing the users' capacity to demand and obtain quality
in SRH care through awareness-raising of reproductive rights and
other forms of community mobilization. The project will develop
a systematic approach to bringing together above-mentioned demand
issues and supply factors in SRH care. The Knowledge Network will
create a process for expanding common perspectives of what quality
of SRH care entails for UNFPA programming purposes.
The network on Vesico-Vaginal Fistulae will create a process for
addressing and integrating Fistula concerns and know-how in the
reproductive health care and services. This network will increase
programme skills of staff and counterparts, improve utilization
of programme resources, speed implementation, reduce programme costs,
and capture learning/knowledge for use by Fistula Team and UNFPA
as a whole.
The strategies applied through the pilot projects will be assessed
in October 2002. These pilots will also be instrumental in aligning
knowledge sharing components with elements proposed by other transition
working groups like Strategic Direction, Human Resources and Training
and Learning and will allow for capturing critical insights to be
considered for the progressive unfolding of the knowledge networks
fund-wide from 2003 onwards
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As a collaborative effort, the Knowledge
Sharing Working Group prepared this document totally on-line through
the BBS Discussion Forum. Colleagues from Headquarters and Country
Offices were brought together in this endeavor, living proof that
for organization-wide collaboration. Apart from acknowledging the
support received by all HQ units, the group also wants to recognize
the invaluable contributions made by colleagues from COS in Senegal,
Equatorial Guinea, China, Vietnam, India, Turkey, Nicaragua and
Guatemala.
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