These are notes from the main document on the questions of issue 2, the tech gap. The questions were:

• How are cops in the south dealing with (lack of) access to technology and connectivity?
• How to deal with differences in peoples’ technology skills?

Issue 2: Gaps in Technology and Information Access

A range of solutions are being used to increase sharing of knowledge and information in developing countries—locally, regionally, and nationally. Mobile phones have an important role to play in this process as more people in developing countries have access to mobile phone than access to Internet. Farmers, producers, community water associations, and natural resource management groups are some of the groups making use of this technology to find and share information and solutions.

Internet access and use may be growing rapidly, but in many areas, especially in Africa, the use of the internet as a primary knowledge sharing tool remains limited. Many organizations lack the infrastructure, means, and capacity to use the internet. More traditional means such as face-to-face meetings, radio programs, and publications are more effective methods to reach these groups. In addition, the internet as a knowledge sharing resource in Africa is hampered by cultural and social differences between the organizations that offer these tools and knowledge on the internet and recipients in Africa. Donors need to keep in mind that local organizations are able to define their own needs and most effective knowledge sharing strategies. (M. van Doodewaard, 2006, KM4dev Journal 2 (3) 40-47)

Nevertheless people from even remote locations are discovering tools such as Yahoo and Google groups and are finding ways to use e-mail as a communication tool even when then have limited access to regular connectivity. Groups with online access in urban areas can download and share information with small local groups without access. It is also vital that people working in headquarters with ready access to information stay connected and up to date and actively engage in sharing information and experience with people in the field.

Solutions for bridging gaps in technology and information with farmers

Learning teams on the Linking Local Learners community linkinglearnings.net), are using a number of effective solutions to facilitate local knowledge sharing among farmer networks. Communication can be vertical through a network structures and horizontal among farmers. Examples include:

• Notice boards at public centers e.g. market places, religious places, and various offices for the farmers to get the right updates.
• Farmers with mobiles phones have been encouraged to get information through their phones.
• Linking up with the district information offices and other partners to source and share information with farmers at area branch and local branch levels.
• Organize and/or use field days, agricultural shows, trade fairs and exhibitions to get information and share with other farmers.
• Meetings held at different levels: 1) Meeting of networks at the district, division. local and national.. 2) Information shared at monthly group meeting by the individual groups.
• Make enough copies of the information downloaded from the internet for sharing with others in the farmer group or village so that all can keep up with new information and online discussions. This will also mean organizing enough face-to-face meetings at the different farmer groups and villages to find out information needs and discuss what is being learned from the internet.
• Set up learning groups within the local branches, field schools and also selecting interested farmer groups within the local branches. This would help in accessing information. The information gotten from the learning groups would be shared through regular publications e.g. newsletters. For effective utilization of this information, hold field days, demonstrations and exhibitions.
• Source information from relevant institutions e.g. from the district information library, ministry of agriculture, ministry of livestock and fisheries and from the Internet. This information will be shares together with the local branch members and the head office.

(Linking Local Learners http://www.linkinglearning.net)

Literate farmers share rice growing techniques in India

To increase crop productions several communities of rice farmers in India joined together to write and produce a monthly newsletter (which has been produced now for 15 years), which discusses a wide-range of crop and rural enterprise issues. Literate farmers write about their own first-hand experiences with new techniques (with photos and illustrations), and one farmer’s experience may be elaborated on or challenged in a future issues. Farmers can also submit questions for other farmers to answer. Advertising supports publication costs.

(Experiences with Communities of Practice in India. Intercooperation in India Working Paper 1. 2005 http://www.intercooperation.ch/offers/download/ic-india/wp-1.pdf)

 Tactics to improve local knowledge sharing

• Identify local knowledge system
• Use existing social structures
• Find most appropriate media
• Involve communities in setting priorities
• Involve communities in production of “information”
• Incorporate new ideas but use local resource
• Build capacity of local groups to organized themselves and demand information
• Create opportunities for discussion and intermediary groups
• Better understanding of what makes knowledge and innovation systems work and become sustainable

(Global Development Network Workshop Report: Knowledge Sharing for Development, Cairo Egypt, February 27-28, 2005. www.gdnet.org)

Lessons learned from an ICT4D community of trainers

• “Technologies supporting distributed communities of practice are rapidly developing, and the ICT4D trainers’ community may make use of a wide range of technologies. Yet, starting with using the tools that are available and that people are familiar with is the most appropriate.”
• “If interactions can be supported with face-to-face contacts, development will be more rapid. Judicious use of travel funds may be extremely helpful.”

(IICD, http://www.ftpiicd.org/files/research/briefs/brief_CoP.pdf)

Difficulties encountered by Communities of Practice in the MENA region

• “While increasingly difficult to control, government officials still attempt to block certain websites and web activity, and monitor websites. [...] Citizens of Arab countries are aware of the watchful eye of government on the Internet, and would, therefore, be more reluctant to engage in the open and frank exchanges of views that CoPs engender.”
• “Statistics show that Arab states are low in use of the Internet, compared to other regions of the world.”
• “The lack of Arabic content is partly the result of the difficulties of working with html in Arabic. This has created a self-perpetuating problem because online communities do not have the specialized scientific or educational materials they need to engage in electronic knowledge exchange in Arabic. They will therefore be more likely to use English or French, thus marginalizing some segments of society and restricting involvement to the more educated classes who are comfortable working in a foreign language.”

(Johnson E.C. and R. Khalidi, 2005 – Communities of Practice for Development in the Middle East and North Africa – KM4D Journal 1(1). http://www.km4dev.org/journal/index.php/km4dj/article/view/15 )

We summarise below the main points raised in response to the Josien’s original questions on the KM4Dev list( http://tinyurl.com/35bhvr ). Any additional comments are very welcome, especially on the issues relating to long term CoP support raised by various people and in particular Carl Jackson’s suggestion about long term annuity (10 – 15 years).

*************************************

Many of the contributors to the discussion trace a connection between funding and time. Carl Jackson considers the “funding curse or cure” issue at the emergence of a CoP as being subject to the question “are we as a facilitators of a possible community time rich or time poor?” He suggests that “if the answer is time rich then funding may be a curse, if time poor it could be a cure (but like many things needed – still best in moderation)”
Carl goes on to propose an interesting approach to community funding: “if someone wants to invest in a community then a long term financial vehicle would be better than an annual budget, more like an annuity that would provide modest funds for say 10-15 years (do any CoPs live longer than this naturally?) and then the original capital is returned to the funder.”

Also on the question of time, Beverly Trayner underscores the importance of “budgeting for the management and coaching of potential users in the design process” and this leads Neil Pakenham-Walsh to suggest that Beverly’s original design principal be amended to:
* consult potential users about the design of the community, and include them in the design process – as far as possible within budgetary and human resource constraints.

Neil goes on to give the example of the 4 health-related communities of purpose he has been involved with where large Dgroups have been cultivated using a middle ground approach to consultation/ exclusion in their design and setting up. http://www.km4dev.org/journal/index.php/km4dj/article/viewFile/96/222

Still on the question of funding and time, Riff Fullan argues that “even CoPs with no formal funding are in fact funded insofar as the tools and the time and energy members put into the community (or at least a portion of those things) are themselves funded.” He emphasizes that “the challenge – and it is a big one – is to find strategic ways to collectively direct the funding *and* the energy such that, at a given historical point in the life of a CoP, the exchanges around activities, dialogues, information, knowledge, etc., that need the greatest support get such support.” Riff would prefer to see the question of life after funding in the context of the more general question of “how to sustain life, and the answer is not always the same for different CoPs, or even for the same CoP at a different point in time.”

Tony Pryor, meanwhile, considers the most appropriate type of community structure and agrees with Josien’s view of “some sort of spectrum from a pure COP to a task force, etc., and some type of evolution/flow between the two” and believes that “thinking of COPs in a “pure” form – voluntary, self-governed and essentially nonformal – is a bit narrowing.” Tony, agreeing with Nancy’s comments on sustainability, goes on to add that “Not everything deserves to be/should be continued forever. Thinking of sustainability only in financial terms can get one in trouble.”
As an example of supported purpose-built CoP , Tony cites the example of KM4Dev where “it can wander and roam, but it does have some parameters defined by the ‘host’ Does that somehow not make it a COP?”. He sees the value of hosting in a variety of contexts: “And the ‘host’ could be an NGO, a govt entity, a for profit firm – it makes no difference. Having a hosted CoP does not ‘spoil’ the CoP, to my mind.”

Bill Williams

“Life after funding” is the first focus on Cops for Dev. discussion

Many communities are externally funded. Clearly, people have various opinions about this. Among the 5 interviewees we find a range of opinions:

• Communities never work unless 100% on their own power

• Communities of course must start from the need/demand on members’ side, but looking for funding for specific activities might help strengthen and develop the community and give facilitators AND members more space to work for the community

• Communities that started with funding and support from outside (like KM4dev) can give good results.

But irrespective of opinions about desirability of funding in the first place, it remains a fact that many communities ARE externally funded. The authors asked the following question:

How can you build in capacity so that these communities can transition (from one-off) and continue to function autonomously after the life-span of the funded activity is over?

And this is some of what they answered:

Beverly Trayner comes with very useful principles during cop design:

* consult potential users about the design of the community, and
include them in the design process;
* use a platform and or tools/technology that can easily be
taken over by someone from within the community when the
funding runs out;
* keep the tools simple at entry level with the option of more
functions as people become more familiar with it;
* use of aggregators so pages stay updated without anyone doing
anything;
* support a community of practice of technology stewards within
the larger community who can support their own
community/group/NGO.

Summarizing  Joitske Hulsebosch’s reaction and adding to the list:

* Be very careful in choosing when to foster a CoP or not;
Include people who are passionate to learn in the domain
* Careful planning and design: spontaneous birth is an illusion
* natural hosts; an organization or institution who can be a
natural host or convener for the CoP
* Be clear beforehand what your intentions are getting support
for it. It’s important that the sponsor is prepared to be
flexible and support the CoP till it’s viable.

Lucie Lamoureux mentions how funding of specific projects can help
to partially fund a community (and strengthen it). Especially if
implemented by the community as a community activity.

Nancy White distinguishes at least 3 ways into this: “donor driven
or community driven or both. In my experience donors talk about
sustainability, but don’t really know how to support that from a
process standpoint and rarely seem to want the longer engagement to
mentor the process. (…)
Now, the second and third ways in – community led. If the “funded
program” is designed for life after funding, ownership and
participation in that design should logically include the community,
NOT JUST the donor. So maybe we turn some of our design expectations
over a bit and do more participatory design. It is changing the
fundamental relationship between funders and communities. Big big
change.”

Ueli Scheuermeier is soundly skeptical: “I usually say, that if a
community can’t get their act together and organize themselves to
keep going, then it’s a dud in the first place. Usually there needs
to be a core of at least 3-4 people who just keep digging away at it
and continue to exchange. Others will watch and join. The argument
that this all costs I feel is totally wrong: I have been highly
active in communities that simply got themselves a Yahoo Group, and
that’s that. To be blunt: The biggest problem for continued
autonomous functioning after the initial funding ceases is the
initial funding. If I were a funding agency trying to support the
emergence of CoPs, I would only fund something that is already
working on a shoestring. But more often than not, funding agencies
kind of initiate CoPs with the hope that they will continue. Wrong:
What funding agencies initiate is usually what is on their own agenda.”

“Ah, here’s a variant: Guys in a funding agency may feel they need
to get something going for themselves. Fine, then let’s not let them
project this outside and launch a CoP to take care of that. They
should be organizing their own little informal CoP among themselves
to take care of the issue, and that may eventually become more
formalized.”

Also see on this issue: -a blogpost on lessons learned about “life after funding” <http://cops4dev.wordpress.com/2007/09/17/notes-on-issue-1-life-after-funding/> from case studies from CoPs cultivated in the MENA region, other by CARE, and ICT4D by IICD. (by the three authors, Ruter, Mantey and Williams)

Questions to all readers:

* -What would YOU add to (or strike out of) the tentative list
started by Bev and Joitske of “design principles for autonomous
communities”?
* -Do you agree with the perspective of funders (donors AND ngo’s)
as pursuing their own agendas and not very capable of long term
guidance of communities? Why (not)?
* -How would you suggest to “change the fundamental relationship
between funders and communities” ?

(fragment from main report, by Mantey, Rüter, Williams)

Lessons learned from an ICT4D community of trainers

• Pay attention to existing networks and links, internationally and locally, as people indicated that there are a large number of these professional networks already.
• Developing of a clear sense of local control and focus on the side of actual practice is extremely important and will depend on the legitimacy of community members who take on the leadership role. Development of such capacities requires culturally sensitive facilitation.
• Just as the success of a community of practice depends on a certain amount of passion for its domain, supporting communities requires a level of commitment and constancy because the community has to grow fairly organically. The timeframe which must be kept in mind is quite long, bearing in mind the diversity of trainers’ practices involved.

(IICD,  http://www.ftpiicd.org/files/research/briefs/brief_CoP.pdf)

CoPs for development of the MENA region

• A general advice to donors could be to assess the potential of (emerging) CoPs in terms of sustainability, before deciding to support them. During support, donors should encourage activities that increase the sustainability of the community.
• Donors are e.g. recommended to “support CoPs to build partnerships with like-minded networks globally.”
• And to “Identify the organic need for focused CoPs. Creating supply-driven networks will usually lead to failure. […] An organic need for networking is another critical success factor. While donors can encourage and facilitate existing networking efforts in the region, they should not get involved where demand for networking activities is not clear.”
• A limited understanding of what a CoP entails can significantly affect the relevance and quality of CoP activities. [...] As a result of this limited understanding, CoPs can be easily mistaken for short-term activities, meaning CoPs may get started but that they will not last. Donors who are thinking of supporting CoP activities should be aware of this, and adjust their expectations accordingly.
• The most important issue determining a CoP’s success is leadership. A committed, energetic leadership is vital. For potential donors, it is important to gauge the commitment/passion of leaders before deciding to support a CoP.
• Diversifying funding sources has been another important lesson identified by the Sustainable Livelihoods CoP which has managed to build partnerships with donors and with research institutions. By ensuring that the sources of funds are diversified, they have managed to guarantee better chances of sustainability and continuity.
• The other two CoPs invested more modestly in face-to-face meetings, attempting to optimize their funding by arranging side meetings during larger events. Funding was thus maximized, and they were able to build on the content being discussed at the larger events as a means of generating content for the CoP. This appeared to be quite a successful strategy.

(Johnson E.C. and R. Khalidi, 2005 – Communities of Practice for Development in the Middle East and North Africa – KM4D Journal 1(1). http://www.km4dev.org/journal/index.php/km4dj/article/view/15  )

Communities of Practice at CARE

• CARE doesn’t fund its communities: “Given that CARE country offices operate under very tight resource constraints, a community can be successful only if it can demonstrate that it can add immediate value to areas of strategic importance to CARE. Moreover, CARE does not have the resources for dedicated facilitation of communities. Therefore, CoPs at CARE need to consist of self-motivated individuals, who are passionate about their area of expertise, and are committed to the growth of knowledge in strategic areas of interest to CARE. Thus the formation of communities at CARE is an active choice by members from different country offices who want to make the time to engage with each other because they perceive the value of sharing knowledge for themselves and for the organization.”
• CARE created a “5-step model called the 5-D model to help potential community members design viable communities at CARE and manage them through their life cycle.” The model is described in the article (source below).

(KM4D Journal 1(1):

Ramaswamy, R., G. Storer and R. Van Zeyl. 2005. Designing sustainable communities of practice at CARE. http://www.km4dev.org/journal/index.php/km4dj/article/viewFile/16/36

Here it is: “a slightly more formal discussion with accompanying facilitation and synthesis on the theme of “Communities of Pratice in Development Contexts”

I have been invited to help with facilitation and in this post I intend to give you some introduction, in a separate post the discussion will be kicked off.

• Some people within KM4dev did a project on Communities of Practice in development contexts, which they like to share with us
• We intend to start a discussion on KM4dev’s email group. Posts will have as the first part of the subject line “CoPs4dev”.
• To prime discussion excerpts from a larger document will be used.
• KM4dev community is asked to react, complement, share their views; we intend to facilitate and synthesize the discussion.
• A cops4dev blog  (THIS blog) is used as a central place to gather resources as well as to provide access to non-KM4dev members.
• All are encouraged to use as a del.icio.us tag “cops4dev” for additional resources you might come across.

• Look at the next post with some provocative questions on funding of CoPs and join the discussion!

Authors:
•           Patricia Mantey (Knowledge Management Specialist at the Academy for Educational Development, Washington, US)
•           Bill Williams (Lecturer at Setubal Polytechnic, Portugal)
•           Dorine Ruter (KM specialist at ETC, Netherlands)

Interviewees:
•           Ueli Scheuermeier
•           Nancy White
•           Joitske Hulsebosch
•           Beverly Trayner
•           Lucie Lamoureux

The questions  ~These are the questions the authors asked, which we intend to discuss in sequence

1. Life after Funding

• How can you build in capacity so that these communities can transition (from one-off) and continue to function autonomously after the life-span of the funded activity is over?
• How can donor support encourage collaboration between NGOs so as to facilitate community building?

2. Gaps in Technology

• Do you have any experience or insight to share regarding how communities in developing countries are finding ways to overcome differences in access to technology and connectivity to share knowledge and experience to support their activities?
• Likewise, what are useful ways of approaching the issue of different levels of technical expertise?

3. Differences in Communities

• Are there significant ways communities in developing countries are different to those in developed countries? If you look at the development sector, you might say it has a specific learning culture, focusing on action and output, just like the health sector or education sector has its own culture.
• How would this culture influence the way communities of practice can be utilized?
• Which tools will work better because of this culture?
• Is there a specific sequence of events or tools that will do well in this culture?

4. Multiple Cultures and Languages

• Community members may be from different cultures or speak different languages. On what levels and in which ways does this affect how the community works? E.g. what is the effect on community meetings or group hierarchy or chemistry?
• Example, challenges, and solutions (for members and / or facilitators) in these contexts?

5. Donor Pressure and Expectations

• How can you manage the expectation of donors when working with communities they fund to prevent the donor from dominating the community (e.g. language, topics addresses, and rhythm) and expecting specific outputs, but at the same time support an effective community that is viewed by the donor as an effective investment?
• What about ownership of the outputs and issues of intellectual property rights? Examples of communities with effective relationships with community funders/sponsors?

The result
The end result of this project is in one document. It contains interviews, case descriptions, highlights, and a resource list. Interviewees had a change to review their contribution. The document is here: Cultivating Communities of Practice in Development Contexts. We will post excerpts and “goodies” from the main document for the different stages of the discussion.

Way of working
We thought the following might work to focus contributions: 
-start with one sub-theme i.e. “Life (of communities of practice) after funding”
-a start-of post with some excerpts (from the main document) on the relevant theme and some questions
-invite reactions, clarifications from the interviewees, additions, critiques, feed-back
-synthesize the discussion 

Why a blog?
We have opened a blog to have a public, central place where all resources can be stored and easily found back. Start post and summaries will be posted here. It is a central place to read up in case you have missed some parts of the discussion. It is also a place where non-KM4dev members can access the discussion. Although the blog could be used for contributions of non-KM4dev members, the km4dev list is where we invite the discussion to take place.
The tag “cops4dev” can be used to tag resources: these are shown on the blog through an rss-feed.

blog: http://cops4dev.wordpress.com/
tag: http://del.icio.us/tag/cops4dev

Just to keep you informed (and prepared), please note that we’re planning to facilitate an online discussion about ‘communities of practice in development contexts’. We’ll pick one issue within this large theme, to help focus the discussion.

The discussion is scheduled to take place in the first weeks of September 2007. Please keep an eye on this blog for more information. Any outcome will of course also be published here.

First report – June 2007

Please find attached the report of our project so far. In this blog post you’ll find the introduction. More info will follow soon!

Report: Cultivating Communities of Practice in Development Contexts