| First
Annual Workshop and Conference
A Program of CIFAL Atlanta
Hosted by Emory Rollins School of Public Health
Atlanta, GA, June 19-23, 2005
• Workshop Home
Session 2: Knowledge Management Tools
Topic: Presentation of Knowledge Management Tool and Debate
Participants: All
1. Background on Knowledge and Management Tools / Cities Approach
A. Often look at how HIV/AIDS has affected different countries adversely
B. Also need to look at countries/programs that have been effective (Thailand/Uganda)
C. Lessons learned:
• Effective response to HIV/AIDS are people-driven, not commodity driven
- Community-based
• Service provision is required, but is no substitute for people driven responses
• Progress hinges on local partnerships – create positive environments
D. Country-wide AIDS competence - Acknowledgement of how HIV/AIDS is impacting people around us in the community, addressing it effectively
• Horizontal sharing of AIDS competence from community to community
- Decentralized sharing of knowledge – the people who developed interventions share with their peers
• Scaling up of locally available services and financial resources
- Always need health centers, medications, prevention interventions, VCTs, condom distribution
- Most programs deal with this aspect
• Facilitative, catalytic leadership
- In order to modify attitudes, must convince community and create environment that is conducive for changing attitudes
• First and third competencies require facilitation
- Horizontal transfer from community to community
- Authorities facilitate responses without trying to control them
E. Skills needed by facilitators (Challenge to the true leader)
• Able to identify strengths/weaknesses
• Able to understand what community is doing without judging
• Doesn’t try to control interactions and responses
• Has insight into the problem and the community (internal stakeholder vs. external expert)
• Values listening
• Make people aware of their capacities and strengths by asking questions vs. providing answers
• Choose learning over teaching
F. Creating a learning organization – requires a shift in attitude to create a positive environment
• Belief in own expertise vs. Belief in people’s strengths and capacities and building on these strengths*
• We control a disease vs. influencing/facilitating the response*
- Impossible to control HIV/AIDS
• Respond to need vs. revealing strength*
• You have a problem vs. WE have solutions
G. Facilitation teams: Requirements
• Common vision
• Common methods of work
• Build upon and respect each member’s capacity
• Functional entity vs. new structure
H. Facilitation teams: Goals
• Local ownership of both the problems and the solution
• Learn from local responses
• Promote knowledge creation and sharing
• Apply lessons learned
• Share knowledge
I. Mode of operation
• Participation is personal and voluntary – individuals who are motivated by a common vision
• Teams respond only when there is a demand for their services
• Team of peers
• Logistical support is provided by a host organization (suggested)
J. Getting started with a facilitation team
• Issue of quality; this is a new type of commitment
• Factors to consider:
- Who would best serve the team?
- Host organization
- Budgets/Logistics/Rules
• Community immersion for one week
- Mode of training for facilitators
- Ensures that facilitators accurately represent what is happening in community
K. Horizontal sharing of AIDS competence – requires facilitative leadership of local authorities; without this, process will be very difficult
• Assess community strengths and challenges (organizations within city)
• Facilitate exchanges between people/communities/cities
• Develop knowledge assets
2. Questions/Comments
A. Slides on statistics in African countries and Thailand; what is happening in Mexico and Latin America in terms of HIV/AIDS?
• There are successes in the Americas
B. Problem with slide 10 and the last 4 slides; controlling a disease/waiting for community to come to you. Feel that we need to rush and not wait; Problem with TB in Jamaica
• Risks of rushing – tend to provide the solution to people; force/rush a solution without considering people in the response; can use this approach and make it work more quickly
C. Facilitative leadership; Leaders have to lead; in countries where there have been successes in the response to HIV/AIDS, there has been leadership. When should leaders lead, and when should they wait? How do you integrate this approach to enhance the work that is already being done?
• This is a new approach; have to have a leader that will listen to people for this approach to work. Need accountability with your own population. Need leaders who listen to people and take their concerns into considerations. The leaders should not impose their perspective from the top. Therefore, you must involve political leaders in this process by helping them understand the perspectives of the community; CBOs should bring these issues forward since they are more connected to people within community
D. On page 2, 1st slide: Country wide AIDS competence. The scaling up of locally available services and resources is lacking in many cities (in U.S.). It’s a shame that mayors in these cities do not know what is happening to AIDS patients. We need to advise government officials about what is going on; we have to pressure these officials. We cannot continue to lose millions of peoples to AIDS. Need to encourage people and the press to respond and put fire to these officials.
3. Knowledge Management Tools
A. Knowledge Characteristics
• Can be used repeatedly and concurrently by many people without being depleted (non-rival in use)
B. Knowledge Management
• Keeping track of people who ‘know the recipe’; between capturing the lessons learned and connecting people who want to learn to people who want to learn
• Tacit knowledge over explicit knowledge
• Flow of knowledge over accumulation of knowledge
• Requires creation of a favorable environment for sharing
• Recognizing importance of experimentation, adaptability, knowledge transfer
- Not re-inventing the wheel
- First hand knowledge
• Knowledge = know how, what, when and why
C. KM tools to improve AIDS competence: Process
• Benchmark against key competencies using a common assessment tool
• Set targets, make offers and requests for experiences and practices
• Results are collated and analyzed; big picture created
• “Dating Agency” will put together groups to share strengths in order to learn in the most beneficial way
• Good practices, tools and requests will be highlighted during knowledge fair
D. Overview of learning outputs for each session
• Need to create a common tool in order to share
- Can include more competencies and levels, but must keep the 10 already on the matrix
4. Presentation of Global Results: The “Big Picture” to compare areas of strengths
A. Some cities were not able to send their top 3 priorities
B. The River Diagram became an Ocean
• Grouped by geographical regions
- E.g., Atlanta compared to continental U.S.
C. Stairs Diagrams for each competency
• Can always learn from groups who self-assess at a lower level
• Inclusion of gender perspective by San Pedro Sula, Mexico and Buenos Aires
- Share their 5 levels with rest of group
• Possible to use River/Stairs diagrams within a city by focusing on organizations/communities
• Importance of setting priorities
- Focus on 3 main priorities for next 12 months
5. Questions
Q. Is there an external validation for how cities conducted the self-assessment?
A. No, because it is a self-assessment. One major value of this is the discussion that (should) occur within city when conducting the assessment. Because you need consensus when self-assessing, you will have to have discussions about issues/competencies between several community players. Some awareness about how effective the city actually is will come during discussions with other cities. The purpose of the exercise is not the rating itself but the consensus and discussions that occur during the assessment.
Q. How can certain practices be considered “best practices” if they have not been evaluated? Should other cities then use them if they have not been evaluated?
A. Evaluation and assessment are probably one of the areas for knowledge sharing. Any U.S. city that receives Ryan White funding has to do some assessment, but it may not be uniform across cities. I appreciate the model, but are there other ways to ensure that the practices are good?
Different context, different cities and different priorities affect how well these practices work.
People may be defining the same issue in a variety of different ways, in particular with regards to money.
Q. Leads to the next question, there was a question about the statistics from Africa and Uganda. Where and how will we be discerning those practices that are transferable and those that are cultural or organic (based in the community) and not effective in other settings?
A. It seems that the whole point of this exercise is to start a dialogue. We might not have to get very far into it to realize that something doesn’t work. We will have ample time; we don’t often have the opportunity to have this type of dialogue.
It’s important to realize not only how you did something, but also the context (environment, resources etc.)
Q. Luc: When you have a problem in your city or are tackling an issue, what do you do usually?
A. Look outside to see if there are examples of dealing with the same problem. Often can look at documentation, but may not have opportunity to get specific information about context. This process allows you to ask questions about the context of the intervention. You will be able to exchange information that you are interested in. This process reduces the constraints on information, and allows you to share ideas.
Q. What I’m also interested in is how do we capture what we are interested in? The lessons learned from interventions that are not transferable are as important as the lessons learned from interventions that are transferable. How do we capture this information as well?
A. Issues that have been identified as being most important to participants:
1. Measuring change
2. Acknowledgement and recognition
3. Adapting our response
4. Inclusion
5. Linking Care and Prevention
6. Identifying and Address Vulnerability
7. Mobilizing Resources
One topic will be assigned to each table. Participants should identify the areas that they are most interested in. Delegates from the cities can go to different tables get knowledge in different areas.
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