Capitalising on Local Knowledge - Community knowledge exchange
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The exchange visit will stimulate new and unpredictable developmental initiatives in the community. Some of these will need to be actively supported by the agencies that have been involved in the exchange process, and follow-up meetings of the facilitation team, involving other partners, may be necessary.
It will also be important to link the process into any existing development forum in the area, and to inform senior decision-makers in government agencies of developments. If no forum for the co-ordination of development initiatives exists, it will be important to establish one with the key role players. This might have implications in terms of demands on time of agency staff, as well as other budgetary implications. Not only should provision be made in existing budgets, but additional sources of funds should be identified and efforts made to secure these resources. The outcomes of the exchange visit will probably provide an excellent set of arguments for dedicating additional resources to the area, or the specific emerging projects.
The exchange visit process is likely to make community members more demanding of service providers: “If the people will lead, the leaders will follow”. Be prepared to listen and respond appropriately to emerging issues, and to support people’s own initiatives. “Smothering” emerging initiatives with funds might undermine the initiative of the people: ensure that support is appropriate to the situation.
In all likelihood, emerging local organisations will need to be able to manage funds and processes that are beyond anything they have previous experience of: resources to help them develop their own capacities will be invaluable.
To support the on-going learning and change process, it can be very valuable to nurture and support local learning groups such as practitioners’ study circles, or farmer study groups. In this way the excitement and energy of the learning process that was stimulated by the exchange visit can be maintained.
Mainstreaming community exchanges
Exchange visits are one of the most useful tools in a “learning for change” approach to development. Agencies embracing this approach will need to consider many associated processes, and plan their medium- and long-term programs and strategies accordingly.
Creating the capacity and providing the necessary resources for community knowledge exchange as part of a larger programme is an ideal way of building up a momentum, and embedding this approach in organisational practice. If an organisation has the resources for knowledge exchanges, the staff of the collaborating organisations can be invited to participate in the exchanges as part of a facilitation team.
One of the best ways to convince senior decision makers to support knowledge exchanges is to create opportunities for them to listen and speak to community members who have participated in exchanges, and subsequently benefited from the experience. This can be done in a number of ways, such as interactive workshops, or “knowledge fairs” at international meetings and conferences.
Community knowledge exchange is not new: people have been sharing their knowledge since humanity began. By mainstreaming it into our developmental approach we tap an ancient stream of wisdom and power.
Regional workshop to review these toolkits (Johannesburg, South Africa)
