Knowledge Management Strategy on Democratic Economic Governance

• Initiative Summary
• Results

The Democratic and Economic Governance (DEG) thematic window aimed to improve governance in the water and sanitation sectors. The overarching goal was to accelerate progress worldwide towards achieving the MDG7 target to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. It is internationally recognised that the problems of the water and sanitation sectors are more often rooted in poor governance than in scarcity of water.

JPs in the DEG thematic area aligned well with the global challenge by focussing on the strengthening of government capacity to manage water provision and water quality; support to regulatory reforms, decentralisation and capacity development for improved services; involvement of civil society representatives and enhancing the role of women in planning and policies regarding water; and establishment of mechanisms to increase investments into the water sector.

While there are huge disparities between and within countries, the world is generally on track to reach the MDG drinking water target, but off track for the sanitation target. The disparities in the access and use of safe water and sanitation relate to economic, geographic and socio-cultural factors. Many JPs directed their activities towards marginalised populations, often in remote areas. Several of the JPs actively pursued novel ways of communicating across socio-cultural borders. Both water and sanitation require additional priority and funding on a world-wide scale, yet sanitation in particular receives insufficient attention, resources and corresponding policies. Some JPs also focused on enhancing the mutual understanding of rights and obligations in the relationship between providers and users of water and sanitation services. This is a promising way of working towards a rights-based perspective in water supply and sanitation service provision.

The purpose of the DEG KM plan was to ensure that generated knowledge and innovations from the Fund’s DEG thematic window were properly documented, analyzed and widely disseminated for uptake and replication. The key elements of the plan therefore consisted of: knowledge capture and development, as a means of collecting lessons learned (or ‘useful experiences’) to serve as a basis for further investigation, analysis and documentation; knowledge sharing and dissemination, including the sharing of these lessons with programme stakeholders and wider audiences; and JP sustainability, aimed at ensuring that the experiences and lessons of the MDG-F are carried over to future development initiatives in the DEG thematic area.

Experiences exchange initiatives:  

• Teamworks: A KM space was established where all documents produced by the JPs and the KM strategy were uploaded.
• Wiki: A wiki was established with a compilation of the lessons learned from the JPs.
  
  http://wiki.mdgfund.net/Democratic_Economic_Governance

• Workshops: Two workshops were organized in Manta (2011) and Stockholm (2012), bringing together all JPs in the thematic window to discuss challenges and opportunities experienced in the implementation of DEG JPs. Information and materials on the JPs and other relevant research were shared via a DEG-MDG-F website and Teamworks.

Capacity building

• Field missions: Missions were undertaken to Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama to assist each JP in developing KM strategies and undertaking related research.
• Technical support to the JP teams to develop ‘road maps’ for sustainability of each programme at country level.

Lessons learned:

• JP Synthesis report:  A review of achievements, lessons learned and contributions towards the MDG Targets.
• Lessons learned were collected from all JPs. These were presented by JP teams at global workshops as well as disseminated through a dedicated DEG website and the Teamworks platform.

Knowledge Products:

• Video products: Two videos were completed looking at local water management through JP case studies:  the first documents the process and reasoning behind catchment management by local water committees in Honduras for protection of water sources, while the second explores the process of joint management of a common aqueduct in Panama, constructed with funds of the JP, by three local water committees.
  
  Panama
  http://vimeo.com/52606029 (English);
  http://vimeo.com/52611313 (Spanish)
  
  Honduras
  http://vimeo.com/53660183 (English);
  http://vimeo.com/53577714 (Spanish)

• Publication  ¨Review of how knowledge and lessons learned from water and sanitation development projects are shared on the internet¨: This report summarises a review of how, where and to some extent what kind of so-called “best” practices and lessons learned from the water and sanitation community can be found online. It aims primarily to enhance the understanding of “what is out there” in order to align communications and dissemination strategies accordingly, but can also help programme developers and implementers to find useful information on water supply and sanitation

• Publication ¨Incorporation of the gender perspective in the Joint Programme of Water and Sanitation¨. The DEG KM plan also produced some important outputs with regard to gender, such as a paper based on documentary studies and interviews with six of the DEG JPs, and followed up with a survey to generate an overview of the gender activities carried out within the framework of the respective programmes.

• Publication ¨Strengthening women's leadership in Panama¨: This case study details the experience of how women and men of these communities were fundamental pieces in the achievement of the JP objectives.  Very valuable and important results were reached both personally and structurally.