Insights in Learning Communities - Share Fair

This week the Share Fair is taking place in Rome. Many interesting presentations and discussions are taking place about a great number of issues of interest for ICCO’s work: Public-Private partnerships, access to markets, use of social media in development and many others.

On the first day Etienne Wenger gave a very interesting key-note speech about Communities of Practice (CoP’s). This was a really interesting presentation/discussion and I suppose that all those within the ICCO Alliance who are somehow involved in the Communities of Learning (which in fact also are CoP’s) would like to know what Etienne said. His main messages were that it is just impossible to start CoP’s from top-down because partnership (partners in learning from practice) among the members of the community is essential and. Furthermore CoP’s need ‘social artists’ who are able to establish and nourish these partnerships and also ‘transversal people’ who manage to relate well with all (management) layers within an organisation. 

But as good summaries about Etienne Wengers’ talk are available on other blogs I will not repeat it all here, please have a look at the blogpost from Simone Staiger and the video interview of Pier Andrea Pirani. 

And by the way on the Share Fair blog there are many other interesting posts to read!

Networks here & there…. networks everywhere!

A few more years and NGO’s working on individual development projects might have become obsolete.

Just take a quick look in any NGO’s strategic plan and you will notice that ‘Networks’ and ‘Strategic Alliances’ and ‘Linking and Learning’ are presented as today’s development answers. Although it would be interesting to scrutinize this assumption, also I have come to accept that networks are an appropriate way to tackle societal issues in a rapidly changing world.

Currently I am supporting the NGO where I work in setting up a network on land rights and in our most recent round of discussion I asked my Junior Expert colleagues around the globe for some tips and tricks. Considering that most of us in the discussion deals in one way or another with networks, confirmed it is in fact a current development fashion. But as one of us rightly pointed out:

"In general I think the word 'network' in the context of development projects is a container concept that is easily used and often not understood…. there is a limitless amount of varieties in the range of formal - informal, size, type of members, goals’. 

Even in our small group the diversity in the forms and objectives of the networks we deal with was large, varying from group of 'community journalists' to a global network of actors dedicated to the Christian mission of ‘doing good’. But despite differences from our discussion it is possible to pinpoint several factors that any kind of network requires for effective and sustainable functioning.

Now please let me present, in the name of ‘sharing and learning’, my impressions of the virtual discussions I had with my colleague 'development advisors'.

Core elements and conditions to start a network
First remarkable thing in the discussion was that the main question itself created counter questions. As some of us suggested it is better ‘not to talk about setting up a network’ as networks should ideally evolve naturally when several people feel the urge to link up and cooperate around an issue. It is therefore preferable to take existing relations as a starting point and to expand slowly to other stakeholders and different levels.

But what if these relations do not yet exists while you see the added value of exchange and cooperation? In such situation people could be brought together through events and joint actions to examine the potential to evolve as a network. When doing so the facilitator plays a key role to link and ’to create opportunities for a joint discovery path’ before getting people on board. This implies that she or he must study the people, their institutions, their interests and power relations, to plan and prepare the joint events carefully and to give follow up to the outcomes of these events.

Once people are on board it is time to define focused objectives, to discuss different contributions and to align expectations. At this initial stage it is crucial that the facilitator ensures there is time and space to answer questions such as: what kind of network do we want to become; formal or informal? To what extent do we want to cooperate? Do we consider for instance exchange of knowledge as sufficient or should we take a step further by joining forces in research, lobby and advocacy? If so, which topics and through which activities? What institutional rules and regulations are needed for proper functioning? How do we fund network activities and what financial mechanisms?

While coordinating the dialogue on these questions, the facilitator should ensure progress and prevent that members end up in endless discussions. Especially the importance of starting to undertake actions, both at the initial phase as afterwards, can not be overstated because ‘for every network’s sustainability it is crucial to combine learning with action to have continuous results and the added value….People are only willing to invest time and resources if they see visible results.

It has been concluded many times before, hence it is not surprising that also in our experience proper coordination and leadership proves to be indispensable. Everyone will be interested, but nothing happens if no one takes the lead. Leadership could be either in the form of an institutionalized secretary, a project unit, steering committee, working group or simply an assigned person….. to take initiative, coordinate and to connect to existing larger initiatives and potential funds.

Above all, we all clearly agreed that at the core of any successful network lie passion, chemistry and openness . In general what I notice here is that a network (and any kind of cooperation) really functions around personal relationships, instead of institutional common interest. Beyond the curtain of organizations and institutional interests lie the people, who can make it or break it. In a way you could say that the passion people share to fight for a common cause is the heart, and cordial relations the heartbeat of a network.

Without a heart and heartbeat your network will not sustain life.

Leyla Ozay - l.ozay@hotmail.com

IWC09: Lessons learnt supporting the process

The ICCO-Alliance International Working Conference has come to an end last Friday. This conference was a success, many things have been thouroughly discussed and on essential issues agreements have been reached. So the ICCO-Alliance partners have a good basis to (quickly) build on the plans for the future.

In supporting this conference with over 120 people with sessions running in parallel, attempting to capture information for the group and allow access to a further 200 interested colleagues with passworded access, as "wiki-moderators" we are bound to have learnt a few lessons. Many of the approaches we have used here have been tried and tested elsewhere, but a few are new.

Social reporting
In a passworded context - discussing the business plan 2011-2015 for the ICCO-Alliance obviously is not public - means working in a more restricted space than we have been used to in previous work. Using Twitter in combination with blog posts, Slideshare and Blip.tv proved very powerful as a way of recording discussions at the EADI Information Management Working Group for example. There we could have an initial session to raise awareness of the new tools and then agree on some simple rules to tag all the materials and feature them through one site, while people published throughout the web. Last week we had to define what to share where and whith whom so things got a little bit more complicated.

Walled Web2
Instead in this situation we find ourselves relying on one 'walled garden' (the wiki) to record the internal deliberations, and report on the work in progress. Some products can be released to a broader audience to provide an idea of the process, and give some idea of the content (e.g. the post on this blog). However participation can still be social within this garden, but the barriers to contributing are higher and the motivations quite different. In comparison with some other meetings, this time many more traditional reporting tools were used; with summaries and presentations on flipcharts, and digital written content being rare. The wiki was not really embedded in the process of facilitation, (group reports could and/or should have been directly written and documented on the wiki) also because most delegates did not know how to contribute directly to the wiki.
Connectivity and contributions
The venue for the meeting (Kontakt der Kontinenten, Soesterberg) has superb connectivity, but with pressures of time, this is used in the breaks for catching up on emails and other work. As always during this type of meetings there was not much opportunity to review the contents of the wiki. However the documenting work was also meant to be used by those unable to attend (colleagues in the offices in Utrecht and overseas and members of Regional Councils and partners organisations). Of course it can also already be seen to be a future resource for continuing discussions and developing ideas after the meeting.

Multiple channels
What has struck us all about the meeting is the multiple channels being used to communicate the activities during this week. Screens in the common areas ran the 10 minute daily news bulletin which featured activities from that day. Short videos (blips) were used to capture content from the sessions which could be shared with a broader public such as work on the gender policy and regional analysis. These blips were also used to illustrate the process log showing the work of the facilitators and the cartoonist. Presentations were shared on Slideshare and photos through Flickr, this meant they could be available to others.

Multiple approaches
A number of approaches have been used by the facilitators of the meeting. We have changed the way we cover the outcomes of these activities. As the approach to presenting and capturing information is primarily paper based and verbal in the way the process has been organised we have had to rely on photos of flipcharts and audio to quickly capture materials.

Methodologies such as the timeline have been proven to bring identity and understanding to a community, and this way of introducing the discussion on values worked well. By using tools such as the online timeline we were quickly able to showcase the discussions and feature on the wiki and the blog.

PBworks
Again the PBworks platform has proved itself with the speed with which templates for pages can be created, files uploaded (directly transformed in wiki pages) and linked and large volumes of information managed. The spellchecker proved itself as high speed note taking affected the accuracy of data entry. A production line where photos of flipcharts could be uploaded into tables and transcribed later made the wiki a significant reference resource.

What would we change
To start with, we think that working with the wiki needs to be more embedded in the facilitation of the meeting. In developing ideas where virtual discussion will have to continue after the meeting, materials need to be captured as early as possible. Whilst not every group could have worked easily around a screen to report their thoughts, some could have and this would improve capturing the details of the meeting. We need to see when the notes made in word by group members appear on the wiki later.

Further, we needed more preparation in promoting the wiki, improving ease of access for participants, and considering distribution of printouts (this was limited by environmental concerns). It is also important when working like this to integrate communication and facilitation support, something that proved its value as the conference progressed.

Overall feeling
This was a demanding assignment but very worthwhile for the value it brought to some of the participants and management. It proved to be an opportunity to be innovative in some areas. It was an opportunity to see and combine new approaches and to build a communication vehicle for ongoing discussions and a channel for feedback in the conference.

The ComPart admin team (Pier, Chris and Maarten)

See more from the IWC 2009 and subscribe to the IWC09 newsfeed or email alert.

Embedding the Rights Based Approach in the daily work of development practicioners

Incorporating the Rights Based Approach (RBA) into development practice is easier said than done. Today, the second day of a workshop on the Rights Based Approach was held at the ICCO head office in Utrecht.

Today's agenda involved an identification of the characteristics of the RBA. Emphasis was put on linking the conceptual framework of the RBA - discussed in the first day of the workshop - to the practical realities and difficulties participants from the Access to Basic Service department face.

Cornelieke Keizer and Lucy Royal-Dowson from Equalinrights facilitated the workshop. During the lunch break we sat with them and discussed their work, the importance of the RBA and how this should be incorporated into ICCO activities.

Cornelieke Keizer tells that Equalinrights started to collaborate with the Access to Basic Service department of ICCO to define RBA strategies and draw lessons for newly created the regional working offices.

Lucy Royal-Dawson explains that these workshops with ICCO staff aim to pull out the characteristics of the Rights Based Approach. The final outcome of this process should be a position paper by the Access to Basic Services department that defines how RBA strategies will be intergrated into ICCO's work.

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Cornelieke Keizer highlights also "the importance of improving the implementation of the RBA" while Lucy Royal-Dowson encourages ICCO to adopt the RBA, since it is in line with its moralistic and ethical approach. They also advise to invest in capacity building and trainings to make sure the Rights Based Approach is incorporated in all levels of the ICCO Alliance.

Wilma Rozenga, one of the participants in the workshop, reflects on the workshop and the way forward.

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She explains that the first day of the workshop focused more on the conceptualisation of the 'Rights Based Approach'. She much valued this second day of the workshop, because it related to the implementation of the RBA in her daily work. Wilma Rozenga sees challenges in how partner organisations can best implement the RBA in their daily work to reach the target population. Additionally, she sheds light on the future of the Rights Based Approach. The participants of the workshop will develop a position paper to ensure that partners will be helped to implement, communicate and monitor the Rights Based Approach.

By Stephanie Zwier

You will soon be able to read the full report of the workshop on the ICCO Alliance RBA wiki

Wiki, wiki, wiki, meet David Weekly..

Wiki is a Hawaian word meaning quick ... Well for those who are really quick, you might still run very wiki wiki wiki, to be able to meet David weekly. This afternoon a public meeting discussed the use of wiki's in development organisations at the ICCO office in Utrecht from two o'clock onwards.  

This public meeting closed the ComPart South workshop. Some closing words on the workshop by Maarten Boers were the following 'my expectations have been exceeded in the sense that I feel that we have things in hand with which we can convince others involved. Your intense work and commitment gives me much confidence for the coming years.'

David Weekly in the blip below, explains his interest to listen to experiences of wiki users from Nepal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chile and Costa Rica during his participation in the ComPart support workshop in the Netherlands. He also explains how PBwiki continues to try to make wikis easier to use and how valuable it has been to meet some major daily users of the PBwiki platform.

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David Weekly on the ComPart South workshop

Tips to grow your garden from the ComPart South workshop

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?”

No disrespect to Mary Queen of Scots or her English counterpart (as the historical explanations for the popular nursery rhyme goes), but if you really want your web 2.0 garden to grow, according to participants at the ComPart South workshop currently underway in Utrecht, here are two tips to help you do this:

Tip 1: Work from where the garden is; and not where you think it should be (consider the context, particular concerns and respond to these. The appropriateness of the tools is important) . 

A lesson from Compart South partners relates to the different contexts in which organisations operate – limited connectivity, varying skills and resource levels, different interests and needs etc. One thing though that we shared about our experiences is that often organisations buy into new tools and approaches when they see the relevance for their local context. So, rather than introducing new tools in isolation or emphasising tools that have little relevance or for practical reasons can't be adopted, it is useful to start from what organisations express as a need, ‘what can we help you do better?’

This gardening tip is also known as: Why you shouldn’t try to grow a water lily in the desert.

During our walk this morning, Margarita Salas, from Sula Batsu in Costa Rica shared her experiences working with poor connectivity:

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Christophe Hien, from Burkina Faso also shared his work introducing web2.0 with teachers in West Africa.

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Tip 2: Encourage cross pollination (sharing what you are doing and reshaping existing resources helps build rather than replicate and can lead to innovation and creative problem solving). 

Another lesson shared today was that while we may imagine that the challenges we experience are unique to our organisations or programmes, when we meet with others, we see many commonalities. We also share solutions – building on what others have done and in that way, deepen our knowledge and find innovative ways to solve problems. Using wiki’s and some of the other ComPart tools are useful in this process.

This gardening tip is also known as: why birds and bees that have the most fun, and help in creating new species of exotic flowers, are those who stray out of their regular gardens.

“Mary Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells ... and wiki’s, blogs and photos
(not so) neatly all in a row”

Jan Moolman
SANGONeT, South Africa

The constant gardener, ComPart gardener?

Today, Tuesday February 10, 2009, participants in the ComPart 'south' workshop focussed on deepening their understanding of ComPart thinking. Various ComPart tools, prospective web2.0 tools and ComPart gardening were introduced, shared and discussed throughout the day.

The day started with a nature walk. Participants explored some trails in the woods and paused at various stops to reflect on their feelings and expectations required to grow a blooming ComPart garden.

This was followed by a marathon session, facilitated by Chris Addison, on various flowers in the ComPart garden by Pier Andrea Pirani and Maarten Boers. They gave a brief overview about the various ComPart flowers - the toolbar, wikis, blogs, igoogle and delicious. Later, participants divided into various teams to integrate, discuss and develop a real scenario from their day to day experiences, where ComPart tools could effectively fulfil the needs of ICCO colleagues and partners.

SangoNet's Janine Moolman reflects on the day:

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There are so many Web2.0 that could be integrated into ComPart. We all contributed ideas for new additions to the garden, so many that we were almost dazzled by the various possibilities.

Chris Addison, one of Compart's original gardeners, sums up his day:

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Yvette Petit reflects on Euforic's use of web 2.0 tools within the team.

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Some first steps at the ComPart South Workshop - 9 February 2009

Today, Monday 9 February 2009, participants from the ComPart south workshop took some initial steps in sharing knowledge and learning. Expectations were shared, a snapshot of latest developments in the ICCO alliance and the current status of ComPart were presented by Maarten Boers. Some latest developments on 'the wiki garden', which shows the 53 wiki's and their content were presented. Gerrit Visser from ICCO presented the latest developments in synthesising knowledge and information structuring.

Various sessions were led by "Southern participants" who shared their experiences with ComPart. Rosemalia Andrade from RIMISP explained how they developed an internal learning and knowledge sharing platform to practice what it preaches. Second, she explained how to stimulate the use of tools for partner organisations. She explained that responsibility needed to be shared, that we should just get started and that everything implemented should be simple.

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Rosemalia Andrade reflects on the day.


Hempal Shrestha from SAP International reflected on his experiences with ComPart in Nepal. Yorsaon Christophe Hien showed the blip they used to reflect on an education workshop held in Burkina Faso in late 2008.

Finally, participants discussed in three groups (1, 2 and 3) required improvements in program development in general and how ComPart could meet those needs. You are invited to leave a comment on the notes on this blog.

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Reflections by Bengaly Oudou on the day in French

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Reflections by Hempal in the day

ComPart South 2009 workshop

In 2007, ICCO started a project (with support from Euforic) working with Knowledge and Learning Networks. The project aims to contribute to ICCO Alliance capacity building, learning networks, and knowledge.

The main focus of component 1 is to support the information, knowledge and communication capacities of partner organisations of the ICCO Alliance in the ‘south.’ The proposal states that this component is developed with a group of partner organizations and allies, in the South, that will share knowledge and learning through thematic information exchange networks. A first meeting of this so-called ‘ComPart South’ component was held in June 2008.

Since then, a series of ‘South’ activities have been undertaken, notably in Angola, Chile, Brazil, and Burkina Faso (these are reported on the ComPart blog). Steps have also been taken to develop memoranda of understanding with several enabling organisations to provide a framework for further collaboration among the parties.

In February 2009, a second ComPart South workshop will examine and agree concrete ways that the various partners can combine to extend ComPart to Southern partners of the ICCO Alliance.

Who's attending? Some of the participants introduce themselves:

Hempal Shrestha, associated with Bellanet Alliance of Social Entrepreneurs – BASE in Asia, hosted at South Asia Partnership International (SAP I), Kathmandu, Nepal.

BENGALY OUDOU of Mali, Economist data processing specialist I am the manager of cyberkene technical information of the communication (health education agriculture trades) since 2006.

Christophe HIEN, french teacher in Burkina Faso. I teach since 1997. First I was in Po and since 2007 I work to capital Ouagadougou. I begun with IT in 2003 with Global Teenager Project supported by IICD through TICE BURKINA. I am a product of IICD in IT. I provide in my school educational use of IT by training teacher and pupils.

Danny Aerts, I work for ATOL, a Belgian NGO. So if you look at it from a Dutch point of view, I'm actually from the South ;-). At ATOL, I'm head of information services. In Congo, ATOL accompanies three networks of documentation centres, in which I'm also involved.

On 13 February, we will hold a public 'working with wikis' workshop with David Weekly. Join us!

Follow ComPart on Twitter

Hand to hand, heart to heart and mind to mind: NCDO debates aid effectiveness

NCDO's call for a debate on aid effectiveness mobilised at least two hundred people to come to Amsterdam on February 4. Talking about effectivenesssoon triggered a gentle, searching whisper for improved cooperation. Joan Ferrier, NCDO's vice chair, opened the debate. Towards the end of the debate, friction and tension filled the air. More questions were raised than answered. How should we better cooperate? With what objective? Effectiveness? How to reach the poor? The debate will go on, assured Jos van Gennip, NCDO’s chair.

Herman Specker from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs introduced the meaning of effectiveness. He spoke of different levels of result measurement and emphasised that: “we should steer programs on results, not on intentions”.

Mathieu Barends, showed a video of his flower company in Ethiopia. “I advise anyone to have a look abroad; my eyes were opened, opportunities are abundant”. Despite some start up difficulties, such as Ethiopian bureaucracy and rough climate, he runs a thriving business.

Frits van der Wal from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs talked about the role played by several organisations in Ethiopia. He described the ‘productive safety net program’ that builds on the assets that are locally present, to improve increase people’s security.

After the presentations, a debate!

A panel discussed an initial statement: “Business is more effective in fighting poverty than the government”. Han Koch (journalist Trouw), Bob van der Bijl (director Netherlands African Business Council) and Herman Specker (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) triggered the debate.

Lau Schulpen, argued against this position rejecting the narrow economic definition of poverty. A supporter of the statement showed how mobile phone networks have contributed massively to poverty reduction. Two speakers arguing against the stance agreed on the facilitating role the government should play in regulating the boundaries within which business life should manoeuvre. Han Koch called for reflection by the government and business life and re-emphasised an expressed call from the audience to cooperate more closely. Bob van der Bijl joined the last two speakers by stating that the government should create conditions by helping governments in setting rules and regulations.

A second round of presentatioons:

Frans van Slagmaat, chair of Bike 4 All, the winner of an award for small private initiative demonstrated his project. A short movie demonstrated his project and an Ethiopian biker expressed the sense for cooperation ‘hand to hand, heart to heart and mind to mind’. The project was successful because of the solid bikers cooperation: a bottom-up/top-down strategy, the bridging function of DIR (a Dutch migrant organisation) and help from Intercultural Emotional Intelligence. He emphasised the importance for a group to be culturally sensitive, creative, and determined. This will result in fruitful cooperation.

Susan Muis, working for ICCO on Democracy and Peacebuilding in the Sudan showed a video from her program. She emphasised that in measuring effectiveness the invisible should not be overlooked. It is easy and common to measure the number of schools built. What should be included when talking about effectiveness are invisible tensions and conflicts. Cooperation should involve NGO’s and the government.

The second discussion statement posed was: “Aid effectiveness benefits from mergers between NGO’s and private initiatives”.

Annie Manders, asked to oppose this statement, argued that “The interest of the privately owned initiative will be insufficiently defended when merging with NGO’s." She expressed a sense of dissatisfaction that the real debate that should be held was avoided by a call for cooperation. Everybody embraces this objective, since we have shared motives. But, how can we reach more aid effectiveness. And if through improved cooperation, how should it improve? The fight, the battle against poverty, does it exclude setbacks? Why did we only listen to success stories today? We might better listen to failed projects and learn from them.

Jos van Gennip closed the debate, concluding that we should change our tone in relation to ‘the South’, not seeing it as part of the problem, but as part of the solution. The debate should be continued.

ICCO's Susan Muis reflects on the debate:

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By Stephanie Zwier

Gender Equality and Crisis

Margreet Mook, policy officer for gender issues at ICCO organized on Monday January 19 a lunchmeeting with professor Diane Elson of the University of Essex.

Diane Elson started her presentation on gender equality and the economic crisis and explained how this could lead to big changes in the economic system. Professor Elson explained the likely impact of the economic crisis on the economies in the South and in particular what this means for the jobs of working women.

In a discussion with the ICCO attendants Elson anticipated on the question what Development Organizations should do to deal with this crisis effectively.

Innovations in financing for development: STRO conference calls for 'without a box' thinking

“You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it” - Albert Einstein.

Last week's conference at STRO in the Netherlands dealt with the need for a different consciousness to overcome the current financial crisis and determine future trends in development cooperation. This consciousness involves, amongst others, open mindedness, flexibility, trust and respect.

In a general introduction, Henk Molenaar of Wotro described three trends in development. They include a broadened development agenda, a movement from a linear model towards a trial and error process of innovation, and the need for a demand driven approach to obtain sustainable results. Molenaar proposed a demand driven endogenous innovation process that is embedded in local cultures.

In two panel debates three business representatives debated first with development practitioners and then with Henk van Arkel. All participants in the debate work on innovation in their respective sectors. The business representatives were modest in their best practices and explained that development organisations could learn more from their failures than from their successes. Failures mentioned were an inability to set up a successful framework that generates innovation and to provides space for failures. Rob Veldhuizen took these suggestions a bit further" “integrity and respect should return into the system”. Finally, the blind trust in the free market that dominates our current system was attacked by all speakers.

Henk van Erkel, Director of STRO, introduced STRO’s vision on the financial crisis. He argued that trading balances should become more balanced. Gert van Maanen suggested that “most people living in poor countries are living in a structural depression, they are not on any agenda that rightfully safeguards their interests”.

STRO also illustrated a complementary financial system that safeguards the interests of such poor people. It is called ‘UDIS (Unidad De Intercambio Solidario)’, which is a new means of payment that complements national economic systems.

STRO has implemented UDIS in various Latin American countries. The advantage of UDIS is that it provides for cheap working capital, explained Cristina Santos. A cooperative that uses UDIS as means of payment is Coopevictoria. It started in 1943 and is now thriving, thanks to it’s good reputation, innovative approach and demand driven activities. These activities include coffee and sugarcane production and processing.

The debate provided new insights in the paths set in current development thinking. Positioning the debate in relation to the current financial crisis increased participants’ involvement in the debate. Innovation requires a different consciousness, that might best be described by Wichert van Engelen: “We should move towards radical innovation, from out-of-the-box to without-a-box thinking”.





By Stephanie Zwier

Implementing the ProCoDe process - a process review

The process review of ProCoDe was presented to members of the ICCO Alliance in Utrecht on October 24, 2008. The interest in this review was reflected by the high turn up of approximately fifty people and the seemingly inexhaustible questions raised by the end of the presentation.

The R&D department opened by emphasising their continuing interest in monitoring the ProCode process, under the leadership of Irene Guijt. The evaluation team is comprised of Irene Guijt, Kate Hamilton, Celine D'Cruz (Asia pilot), Natalia Ortiz (Latin America pilot) and Moussiliou Alidou (Africa pilot).

From Irene's presentation, it became clear that the earlier used term of 'evaluation' insufficiently addresses the process that will characterise the work her team will do. Her team therefore swiftly suggested to label the work a 'process review'. Characteristic to this review is openness to change and flexibility in the approach. The audience questioned the boundaries and limitations of this flexibility.

Irene shared some ideas she currently has on ProCoDe. It comprises three components: the programmatic approach, co-responsibility, and decentralisation. The pinnacle idea of these three seems to be co-responsibility. This expresses the central vision, while the programmatic approach and decentralisation, she suggested, serves this more pinnacle vision of co-responsibility.

ProCoDe is based on several assumptions and the team will do their best to make these assumptions explicit. It furthermore has high-level ambitions, the team will listen to what extent these ambitions become reality. The emerging context specific realities will also be reflected upon.


Irene Guijt briefly presents some aspects of ProCoDe and its value

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See more about the ProCoDe in the Programmatic Approach wiki

by Stephanie Zwier

Rising food prices: An opportunity for change?

The Brussels Development Briefings is a bimonthly series of meetings on key issues and challenges for rural development held in Brussels at the European Commission.

Yesterday’s briefing held at the World Food day on 16 October 2008 addressed the challenge of dealing with rising food prices. In two panel discussions, twelve knowledgeable speakers addressed the rising food prices and best policy options to ensure long term food security, especially for vulnerable households.

Key findings, background documents, blips and blogs are available online. This posting reflects on the contributions made by Stineke Oenema (ICCO) on behalf of the European Food Security Group (EFSG) of CONCORD.

Dr. Lluis Riera Figueras from the European Commission's DG Development introduced the question of rising food prices and the slow response of farmers to increase the supply of food. Solutions for high food prices and the higher food demand vary. Among them, are a need for: funds to be made available that are well monitored to ensure they reach the farmer, technological developments, resilience to be built by countries through increased stocks of grains,and the active involvement of farmer organizations. The different speakers emphasized the need to act now, especially in the Sub-Sahara African region.

A time of crisis allows people to stop and rethink what they are doing. It can therefore also be an opportunity for change. Stineke Oenema, the only female speaker, diplomatically emphasized the need for a new food system in which the right to food is central.

Unlike most of the other speakers, her message explicitly propagated a need to protect smallholder farmers. Their production processes need to be strengthened before they can equally compete in the free market. She described the case of a school feeding programme in Bolivia where small scale farmers provide food to the schools. Their preferred position gives them a secure demand with stable prices. With relatively small financial inputs, the complete chain from producer to consumer is strengthened.

However through regional free trade negotiations, this preferential position of small farmers risks being liberalized. When this happens, farmers will loose their preferred situation and will have to compete in the world market. Then they would no longer benefit from this programme.

Luca Alinovi, senior economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization, concludes that it is urgent to set our objectives straight and that we should start by bridging the dichotomy between protectionism and free market thinking. The reality is that most successful measures to tackle the food crises can be achieved by workable and correct policy mixes. These policy mixes should include support for smallfarmer production and market regulation and it should remain focused on the most vulnerable rural households.

On Saturday 18 October (22:45), Stineke Oenema joined a thematic evening on the Food Crisis on national Dutch television. View the video.

ComPart South Workshop 16 and 17 June 2008, Lisbon (3)

In June 2008, ICCO held a workshop in Lisbon to think through next steps and plans for the ICCO ComPart 'South' initiative. The workshop was held in Lisbon to coincide with the annual KM4Dev workshop, to enable ICCO sponsored participants to contribute to and learn from this community.

The report of the workshop outlines the origins of that workshop, its activities and findings and agreed next steps.

See related stories with the label 'compartsupport'

Plus ca change...or...how far have we come?

On the one hand I feel really positive about the two day workshop. The participants brought together an enormous amount of experience and creativity, from across the globe, and people worked very hard ("it was really intense" was one feedback I feel guiltily pleased about, as a facilitator.) As Maarten said, the output is forward looking and imaginative yet also practical and focused.

But, the issue of how to engage and encourage people in organisations to share learning and ideas with each other inside and across organisations South and North is as old as the development business. Olivier Sagne encouraged us to recognise that both horizontal and vertical sharing are important but we know it is the horizontal sharing which is the most difficult.



My own experience starts with the Arid Lands Information Network-Eastern Africa (ALIN-EA) which promotes exchange of ideas and experiences among Community Development Workers (CDWs) in the Arid and Semi-arid Lands (ASALs) of Eastern Africa. www.alin.or.ke.

"The origins of Arid Lands Information Network-Eastern Africa (ALIN-EA), formerly Reseau d'Information des Terres Arides - Arid Lands Information Network (RITA-ALIN), date back to 1987 when Oxfam GB held a partners conference in Cotonou, Benin. As a follow-up of workshop resolutions the Arid Lands Unit (ALU) was established within Oxfam GB in the United Kingdom. In 1991, RITA-ALIN programme moved from UK to Senegal as a unit of Oxfam, and was later launched in 1995 as an independent British charity. In 1999, RITA-ALIN closed the offices in Dakar, Senegal, leaving the eastern Africa wing of the network operating as ALIN Eastern Africa with concentration in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia."

ALIN stands out because it has evolved its methods with technology. It still produces a paper quarterly, Baobab, but it also uses WorldSpace satellite services to reach remote locations with its information; has CD archives; increasingly uses Video and links with Community Radio. So on the one hand this is a story of a tenacious NGO maintaining its core business through intelligent evolution. On the other, much of the work that they are doing - workshops with grass-roots community development workers, training in communications (writing) with workers and community leaders - is exactly the same as some of the techniques and ideas we were discussing.

Does that matter? Isn't it simply that the old techniques still have their place? But there is still a strong demand for services of intermediaries like ALIN in the same areas they have always worked. So perhaps the most relevant question for ComPart is what will be the impact of the new technologies that we are introducing? The reaction from the participants at the workshop is positive - they see a need and believe the approach and tools will make an impact. Our challenge, I think, is to explore how to improve communications long-term with these approaches.

..as the kids always chant at the back of the car, "are we there yet"?


Pete Cranston, Lisbon, 19/6/08