Capacity Development , Knowledge Management & Research

1. Capacity Development, Knowledge Management & Research

2. Case ReviewCapacity building • Capacity development is leaving people with competence, confidence & commitment. • Two-way flow: building capacity of researchers; stand back, be a facilitator. • Long-term steady & patient commitment needed– 20 years time frame. Donors need to know this. • Scaling up requires institutionalization of approaches in national policy/processes. • Science and policy work independently; whose job is it to cross-over? What is the process to fix this?

3. Capacity building contd . . . • Different levels of capacity development: Communities; Decision makers at various levels; Generators of knowledge (researchers) on how knowledge can be moved. • Researchers defining & engaging end user groups and working jointly towards useful information products to support priority decisions. Need to strengthen capacity in use of information. • Information/capacity priorities should be developed within a broad development framework e.g. soil fertility improvement may depend on roads. • Short-term economic gains often determine land user priorities. Research has to recognize that. E.g. farmers dump agroforestry spp and only keep Eucalypts.

4. Capacity development contd . . • Indigenous knowledge alone not sufficient. Needs to be scientifically verified. • Progress often comes from cross-fertilization of knowledge (indigenous*science; across scientific fields). • Build on what’s there; participatory local level engagement; long-term commitment; cross-fertilization of ideas.

5. How to get these principles embedded into district/national policy & practice? • Aim capacity strengthening at district and national planners. • Targeted exposure training/experience exchange; field visits. Decision makers cannot take up what they do not know. • Institutional capacity strengthening more than individuals. • [Missing cadre of extension providers who are from land user communities]. • Working with parliamentarians has been successful.

6. How to embed contd . . • Have to expose people to knowledge & ideas • Role of NARS? Joint implementation with CG centres successful. But NARS need to be much better resourced to get wider impacts. • Communication strategies for tackling higher level decision makers could help. Both NARS and CG. Need specialized communication units to develop actionable messages. Could NARS & CG partner on this? • Same applies to strengthening capacity in education system to get next generation on board new concepts. • Ministry-led Government remains a block; lack of whole system thinking/coordination.

7. Knowledge management • Converting information to knowledge products a bottleneck; companies spending 60% of resources on knowledge management. • Not putting existing information to good use. • Limits to using existing knowledge is lack of standardized approaches to data collection, use of study designs, reporting; standards and guidelines on data collection &reporting to allow meta-analysis across studies.

8. Climate change • Climate change may help to drive us to do the things we should have been doing anyway. • Build resilient landscapes = adaptive capacity. • Scaling up good practice can bring mitigation benefits given the large areas involved.

9. Summing up • No single part of the picture will be sufficient in itself. • Sustained long-term commitment. • Strategic interventions: • Knowledge products – information synthesis • Standards, guidelines for gathering data on intervention impacts & meta-analysis • Communication strategies: • Exposure training/experience exchange/cross-fertilization • Actionable messages targeted to specific audiences; esp high level decision makers. Also educational institutes. • Media needs to be sustained – work through big agencies (UN, WWF).