Past President reflects on IAALD

At the CGIAR communications, information and knowledge sharing meeting this week at ILRI, Kenya, IAALD past president shared his view about the dynamics of our association.

Watch the video:

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‘AgKnowledge Africa’ Share Fair

Join us in Addis Ababa from October 18-21, 2010 to showcase the ways agricultural and rural knowledge in and of Africa is created, shared, communicated, and put to use.

Like the 2009 edition in Rome, this event will be a ‘fair’ that brings together the diverse knowledge of the continent and the multiple innovative ways it is created, shared, communicated, and applied. We will be sharing the experiences of a wide range of people and organizations: Farmer organizations, extensionists, researchers, students, academia, policy shapers, information and communication specialists, private sector actors, international and regional organizations, and governments.

We will cover a wide range of knowledge types and modes of sharing – oral, visual, drama, music, video, radio, documentary, publishing, storytelling, web-based, geospatial, networked, mobile, computer-based, SMS, or journalistic.

The heart of the fair is a series of thematic ‘learning pathways’ in a process of mapping, sharing and connecting people and activities. These pathways will showcase how African ‘talents’ are creating, sharing and using rural knowledge - at the grassroots, in research and policy, and through intermediaries. The pathways will focus on agriculture and climate change, land, livestock, and water.

The Share Fair also comprises:

● SKILLS & TOOLS: A learning day at the start where participants can share practical tools and approaches that enhance their own knowledge sharing and use in agriculture.

● FOCUS GROUPS: Self-organized spaces where participants get together to explore experiences in specific issues and topics. Examples are:
○ Africa’s knowledge sharing traditions – storytelling, traditional wisdom, etc
○ Making knowledge mobile
○ Relief, research, development – connecting along the continuum
○ Indigenous knowledge – listening to the roots
○ Telecenters – emerging roles in knowledge creation and sharing
○ Radio
○ Extension and advisory services across phones
○ Participatory GIS and spatial data
○ Lost in Translation - Traducture
○ Knowledge and communication along and in support of value chains

● FOCUS ON ETHIOPIA: A forum for knowledge-sharing initiatives and actors in Ethiopia to showcase their activities and results.

● MARKETPLACE: An alternative to the usual exhibition, we aim to create (traditional) interactive spaces where goods and knowledge are transacted.

● FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Much traditional knowledge is ‘captured’ and passed on through food – the recipes and the ways it is prepared and presented. We aim to highlight and showcase the links between food and knowledge sharing.

● BUNNA: A traditional Ethiopian meeting space with coffee, wireless and conversation zone.

Why Attend?

● You will take back insights and lessons learned on how knowledge is being created, exchanged and put to use within and across organizations and with rural communities.

● You will be able to attend training sessions and get to know possibilities to implement various knowledge sharing tools and methods in your own daily work.

● You will get an opportunity to share what you do and make connections with others working on similar projects!


Find out more about the event, how to participate, how to register!

Social media for research communication: Opportunities and threats

From 5-7 July 2010, ILRI and IKM Emergent hosted a learning and exchange workshop in Nairobi on research communication. Participants came from research and development organizations in East and Southern Africa. The wiki from the workshop shows the work of the participants.

The end session included a review by participants of the opportunities and threats provided and posed by social media for research communicators:

The opportunities:

• we can better manage our e-resources
  
• social media add interactivity to our work (it helps 'spread our wings')
  
• social media facilitate easy, cheap, speedy finding, sharing and connecting of credible information
  
• with social media, we can reac new audiences in real time
  
• social media increase the visibility of us and our institutions
  
• with social media, it is easier to identify research gaps
  

The threats:

• lack of control over social media could lead to over-exposure and abuse of our products
  
• we could lose our privacy
  
• do they lead to unsocial behaviour, with an over-reliance on personal virtual connections over inter-personal ones.
  
• there are threats to the ownership of our work
  
• Will ICT-challenged individuals ever buy in to these approaches?
  
• social media requires some creativity ... which may be off-putting to people who do not think they are creative
  
• limited or low bandwidth holds back social media use
  
• social media may be perceived to be time wasting
  

We also asked participants to identify some next steps they might take resulting from the workshop. Responses included:

• training colleagues
• moving from baby steps to giant leaps ...
• 'BEING' social, there is no other option
• applying the tools in my own work ...
• changing the way we approach research work

Knowledge sharing in Ethiopian extension

The Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) project in Ethiopia employs ICTs and rural information centers to support extension.

A recent article in ICT Update reports on progress and approaches; see also the recent poster prepared for a UNECA exhibition:

Innovation platforms and networks

Two growing and related trends in agricultural research and development are the notions of 'innovation systems'and 'value chains'. This coming week the relation between ICTs and value chains will be discussed online on the e-agriculture platform.

I recently interviewed some researchers attending an ILRI workshop about their research work on innovation systems:

In this video, Ranjitha Puskur shared some lessons coming out of the DFID-funded Fodder Innovation Project.

She briefly introduces the innovation systems approach that underpins the project: Essentially, the aim is to form and facilitate a network of different actors in a chain or continuum of knowledge production and its use, mobilizing all their various resources and capacities to address a problem.

She emphasizes that "getting a network of actors isn't an easy process, it takes time". Different organizations with different interests and motives have to be brought around the table to contribute and benefit. "It needs great facilitation skills and negotiating skills which are not very often core competences of researchers like us."

Beyond facilitation of this network formation, "we also see that linkages don't happen automatically" ... we need facilitating or broker organisations to create them.

Alan Duncan (see video) talked about a related IFAD-funded 'Fodder Adoption Project.'

The project helps multiple groups of stakeholders (the whole value chain) - farmers, private sector, dairy coops, the government - get together in 'innovation platforms' where they can develop joint actions that address livestock fodder problems.

Initially the project focused on technologies. As the process evolved, other issues came in, more actors joined the platforms, and the technologies - growing improved fodder - acted as a catalyst for people to come together to discuss a wide range of other issues (dairying, health, etc). Fodder proved to be a useful 'engine' for the group to identify a much wider range of issues to address - along the whole value chain.

He explains that this type of work facilitating stakeholder platforms is "not trivial." But it is essential: "Technology is only one small part of the equation and really a lot of it is about human interactions and how organizations behave."

ICRISAT's Andre Van Rooyen (see video) explains the 'innovation platform' approach he uses to engage with smallholder farmers in Southern Africa.

"Our hypothesis is that farmers will only invest in improved technologies when they are part of an effective marketing system."

"Innovation platforms allow us to bring in value chain players" that provide credible information and opportunities that are attractive for farmers to adopt.

He argues that there are many brilliant technologies available, but the challenge is to get these into the context of farmers so they can see and experience the real benefits.

Innovation systems provide the opportunity or platform to do this.

"Using this process, we can identify the real challenges, not our challenges as scientists, but what the farmers are struggling with."

See more postings on innovation systems

Seven ways to link research knowledge to action

What helps to close gaps between knowledge and action? What helps take research knowledge beyond the realm of ‘knowledge for knowledge sake’ and convert it to changes in behaviour, practices, policies, institutions and uptake of new technologies?

A new paper by Patti Kristjanson and colleagues at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) presents seven principles that might help us institutionalize and scale out what works best.

The paper argues that "researchers have traditionally focused on research outputs–articles, methods, technologies, trainings–rather than research outcomes. But it is by jointly defining with project partners the desired outcomes of a project–including changed behaviors, policies, and practices–that links between knowledge and action can be discerned and strengthened."

The full article is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Late last year, Patti introduced the Innovation Works initiative at ILRI:

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See also her video commenting on the role of communication in agricultural innovation processes.

ILRI InfoCentre, delivering livestock information worldwide

We recently caught up with agricultural information specialists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Addis Ababa and Ethiopia.

Richard Fulss, ILRI's Information Manager reflects on the activities of the Infocentre. He cites the main opportunity/challenge as being to ensure that ILRI’s information and knowledge travel as much as they could while also linking up with other global knowledge bases on livestock science.

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Grace Kamau of the ILRI Infocentre in Nairobi explains some of the changes in her role in recent years. She emphasizes the ‘one ILRI InfoCentre’ approach from two locations – in Nairobi and Addis Ababa as well as enhanced cooperation among CGIAR libraries across the world. She sees the main challenge of the future as being the demands on different CGIAR libraries to ‘operate as one.’

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More on information management at ILRI.

Communicating livestock research at ILRI

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is one of a relatively small number of organizations making its communications strategy available online.

Particularly interesting is the 'strategic approach'that combines internal and external communications, library services, web services, public awareness, and knowledge management. The strategy also sets out 4 higher level outcomes and the various products and services used to achieve them.

The four outcomes are:

• Greater utility - Staff and partners are provided with state-of-the-art communication products, vehicles and services; classical library services are transformed ...; information is packaged in multiple formats ...
  
• Greater influence - ILRI’s sphere of influence is enlarged beyond the CGIAR; journalists and their editors are persuaded of the value of publishing livestock-oriented stories; public understanding is advanced ...; new constituencies, networks and momentum are built ...
  
• Greater engagement - Public awareness of, and participation in, livestock research for development is raised; more of our partners speak on our behalf ...; opinion makers, leaders and research end users are increasingly engaged in livestock discussions and feedback ...
  
• Greater impacts - Governments, donor organizations, think tanks, universities, international institutions, non-governmental- and civil society organizations, private industries and others are helped to make informed pro-poor decisions in livestock research and development.

The strategy gives a wealth of insight and food for thought, including a short piece on how ILRI disseminates its research findings giving concrete examples of a strategy to get information out through a wide range of channels.

Knowledge management at ILRI

In a 2006 article, Ezra Ondari-Okemwa examines knowledge management initiatives at the International Livestock Research Institute.

The study looks at how knowledge is generated in ILRI, how it is shared, how it is transferred and how it is integrated into the day-to-day operations of the Institute. Some of the challenges that the ILRI faces in managing knowledge are identified, and solutions which cannot always rely on information technology are discussed.

She concludes: "The International Livestock Research Institute knowledge management programme stands outas a good example of the best practices that may be emulated in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions where it has operations."

"The environment that ILRI has created encourages creation and sharing and transfer of knowledge. Group training encourages socialization, which is a prerequisite for exchanging tacit knowledge."