Whats community got to do with it Collaborative learning for innovation in microenterprise developme

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Whats community got to do with it?Collaborative
learning for innovation in microenterprise
development
Stacey Young, PhD Senior Knowledge Management
Advisor Microenterprise Development Office US
Agency for International Development Population
Council, Washington, DC, August 22, 2007
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USAID US Governments primary foreign assistance
agency
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USAID Global leader in Microenterprise
Development (MED)

• The resources we have
• Globally recognized technical leadership in MED
• 200 million annual MED funding
• MED programs in 60 countries with 350
  implementing partners
• What were trying to achieve
• Promote scalable innovation in microenterprise
  development
• Multiply the impact of these innovations by
  influencing practice well beyond the projects we
  fund directly

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Means collaborative learning

• Support collaborative learning in all aspects of
  achieving scalable microenterprise innovation
• Identification, research and development
• Dissemination
• Adaptation and application
• Refinement
• Contrasts with one-way approach that splits K
  generation from dissemination from application
• Broad definition of knowledge management
  addresses the entire knowledge process

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Why is scale so important?

• Half the world ( 3 billion people) lives on
  
• USAIDs annual MED funding 200 million/yr

How can 200 million help the 3 billion?
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Scaled approach to knowledge

• Objective Multiply the impact of our resources
  by influencing whole industries/sectors
• Approach emphasizing collaborative learning at
  all levels
• Support group collaboration to generate
  innovations more effective development of new
  ideas, immediate group learning, galvanizing
  lasting peer-to-peer K sharing networks
• Facilitate industry-wide interactive sharing of
  innovations generated through our projects and
  through others to get the broadest input and the
  fastest evolution, adaptation and uptake of
  innovations
• And thereby extend that learning and adoption
  beyond those activities we directly fund

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Communities and collaboration

• Communities of Practice (COPs) exist to
  facilitate collaboration
• COPs should be defined and structured according
  to the type of collaboration you want to achieve
• Common COP purposes
• Thematic share knowledge on topical issues
• Task-oriented collaborate to accomplish a
  defined task
• Experiential share insights and conduct peer
  assists with co-participants in a training
  course, a grant round, etc.

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Communities and collaboration

• Structure
• One-time, short-term or ongoing
• Closed or open membership
• In-person, virtual or a combination
• Rhythmic/cyclical or not
• Tied to an event/activity or not
• Voluntary or mandated participation

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Some USAID microenterprise examples

• Contracts that mandate COPs
• Award contracts to a group of consulting firms to
  conduct action research
• Require them to collaborate in implementation of
  the research agenda
• Facilitate cross learning convene meetings,
  create opportunities to showcase work (seminars,
  website features)
• Draw on learning generated elsewhere inject it
  into knowledge sharing process
• Stimulate competitive knowledge sharing

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Some USAID microenterprise examples

• Grants with learning network component
• Award grants to 3-7 institutions implementing
  similar projects (strategic alliances among
  growers, buyers, financial institutions Kenya,
  Peru, Paraguay, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan)
  (consumer finance for alternative energy
  Tanzania, India, Zimbabwe)
• Convene grantees as a learning network
• Facilitate collaboration and learning through
  annual meetings and interim conference calls,
  virtual peer assists, site visits
• Analyze learning at project level and group level
• Develop learning for broader industry (documents
  tools e-conferences in-person seminars with
  virtual access online conferences etc.), during
  after implementation

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Grant support to implement a project
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also to participate in learning network

• Collaborative learning is central, and is
  achieved through
• Launch and annual in-person workshops
• Peer exchanges
• Collaborative case studies
• Virtual peer assists
• Web work space that hosts program descriptions,
  learning agenda, discussion space, resources,
  events

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Learning networks combine in-person and virtual
collaboration

• Financial Services Implementation Grant Program
  Learning Network
• Enterprise Development Implementation Grant
  Program Learning Network
• Global Value Chain Learning Network
• Learning Network on Building Effective Learning
  Organizations grantees

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Some USAID microenterprise examples

• Training workshops
• Traditional approach training is a finite event
  trainees learn from experts in relatively one-way
  process
• Scaled approach engage participants before,
  during after the live training through virtual
  activities use training as a catalyst to
  establish a lasting network for peer assistance
  and learning
• Interactive workshops rather than trainings where
  it makes sense (Value Chain regional workshop
  series Mali rural finance seminar)
• Participants learn from each other, present their
  work in peer assist format to get help from
  colleagues (ex fishers and savings banks, Lake
  Victoria, Kenya)
• Other knowledge we generate, and that generated
  elsewhere, informs the content and process of
  these trainings/workshops

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Seminars, Learning Conference

• Business Development Services Breakfast Seminar
• Financial Services After Hours Seminar
• Microenterprise in a Globalizing World conference
  (June 2006)
• Virtual components of each
• Recognizing that in-person learning is best, but
  also most expensive and/or least scalable, we
  combine live seminars with web-based access

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Monthly seminar series
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combine in-person sharing
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with virtual participation

• Post speakers presentation online and enable
  real-time call-in so participants elsewhere can
  listen and ask questions via phone and follow the
  presentation online
• Record seminars, post voice-over-powerpoint on
  microLINKS
• This becomes permanent resource

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Learning conference (June 06)an event
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and also a permanent online resource
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microLINKS high and low bandwidth options
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microLINKS Communities
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microLINKS Communities
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The e-newsletter showcases new work and drives
users to the website

• e-newsletter has 5800 subscribers in 90 countries
• Website has 2300 registered users with logins and
  passwords
• Many more unregistered users

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where they find collaboration opportunities
Speakers Corner
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which is a monthly e-conference
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Good practices

• COP should be a means to an end, not an end in
  itself
• Some COPs run on automatic pilot most dont
• Active encouragement is usually necessary to get
  a wide range of views
• COP should draw on outside resources and link COP
  members to those resources
• Deeper engagement (e.g., peer assist) usually
  requires more limited access/membership
• Platform/technologies should start simple and
  draw on what people already use
• As far as possible, approximate the in-person
  experience

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Challenges

• Changing work habits tunnel vision, stovepiping
• Changing work culture competition
• Resources for moderator function (time, funding)
• Language
• Technology and access
• Measuring results

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Result were aiming for

• We increase our impact (direct indirect) by
  leveraging our funding through spreading learning
  much more broadly than we can spread actual
  dollars

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Thank you!

• Feel free to contact me for further information
• Stacey Young, Ph.D.
• Senior Knowledge Management Advisor
• Microenterprise Development Office
• US Agency for International Development
• styoung_at_usaid.gov
• 202-712-1182
• www.microlinks.org