Creating a Buzz about Donor Collaboration
Today, June 8, 2022, as members of the Multi-Donor Learning Partnership (MDLP), we are excited to announce the release of our first collaborative publication, “Return on Knowledge: how international development agencies collaborate to deliver impact through knowledge, learning, research and evidence.”
Effective collaboration around knowledge management and organizational learning is a key contributor to improving the impact of international development work for the world’s most vulnerable people. But how can it be proven? And what does it look like in practice?
To answer these questions and more and galvanize collective action as we inch closer to the target date for the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs), the Multi-Donor Learning Partnership (MDLP), – a network of Knowledge Management (KM) and Organizational Learning (OL) leads from nine of the world’s most influential development agencies set out to showcase the connection between the use of evidence, knowledge and learning and a better quality of human life. This book – a synthesis of stories, examples and insights that demonstrate where and how these practices have made a positive impact on development programming is the result of a collective effort to record the ways that each of these organizations have leveraged intentional, systematic, and resourced approaches to knowledge management and organizational learning in their work.
Among other practical examples, the publication shares how . . .
UNICEF rewards and celebrates learning
USAID makes peer networks work
IFAD developed their KM strategy
GIZ leverages nontraditional knowledge networks
The World Bank uses MOOCs
IDB uses machine learning
Sida focuses on building adaptive staff skills
FCDO values and leverages local knowledge
The Wellcome Trust learned from COVID-19
“UNICEF is proud to sponsor this important collaboration project across the 9 Multi Donor Learning Partnership (MDLP) members,” said Kerry Albright, acting Deputy Director of UNICEF Innocenti, and Chief, Research Facilitation & Knowledge Management. “A labor of love, it collates members’ collective lesson-learning and reflections from various knowledge management, organizational learning and evidence investments which took place before and during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With the MDLP deliberately self-styled as a community-of-purpose, rather than a community-of-practice, the book-ably co-edited by our two MDLP facilitators, Piers Bocock and Chris Collison- also reflects on the future of KM and OL and what the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us”.
With only 10 years from the target date for the Sustainable Development Goals, nine of the world’s most influential agencies set out to showcase the connection between the use of evidence, knowledge and learning and a better quality of human life. This book – a synthesis of stories, examples and insights that demonstrate where and how these practices have made a positive impact on development programming – is the result of the Multi-Donor Learning Partnership (MDLP), a collective effort to record the ways each of these organizations have leveraged intentional, systematic, and resourced approaches to knowledge management and organizational learning in their work.
This publication, funded by UNICEF, co-produced by the MDLP member organizations, and curated by Piers Bocock and Chris Collison through Acute Incite, is the MDLP’s first collective product and the result of what effective collaboration looks like. What started with a shared theory of change in support of the progress envisioned by the SDGs, then led to examples from member organizations on the work they were doing related to KM and OL. Harnessing the power of the collective, the result is a compelling mosaic towards a shared goal.
Embodying the true spirit of collaborative learning and knowledge exchange, “Return on Knowledge,” is a public good and available free of charge for download and redistribution. MDLP members will be participating in several webinars in upcoming months, including Acute Incite’s “Incite Forum,” on June 22, and in a KM4Dev event in July.
Learn more….
Check out UNICEF’s dedicated webpage about the book
Click here to register for the Incite Forum on June 22
Check out the MDLP website for more information about the collective and their process in how this publication came together!