“Learning partners”: overcoming the collective action dilemma of inter-organisational knowledge generation and sharing?

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, development initiatives are delivered through consortia, which in some cases include a formal “learning partner” role. Who are learning partners and what is their role? What is their potential comparative advantage in different knowledge and learning processes? Drawing on traditions of knowledge management and organisational learning, and documents on 11 learning partner roles, this article suggests that they may contribute more to heterogenous groups, at a programme-wide rather than project level, and in addressing inter-organisational barriers to knowledge sharing and use. The article offers a systematic approach and questions to guide future inquiry into their roles and effectiveness in practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Aid – Monitoring and Evaluation, Aid effectiveness, Accountability, Capacity development, Development policies
• Civil society – Partnership
• Methods

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank their colleagues who are involved in learning partner and knowledge management initiatives, and John Young and Łukasz Marć for their useful comments on an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Anne Buffardi is a Senior Research Fellow in the Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) programme at ODI. Her research examines how different stakeholders engage in phases of the policy process, including their use of different types of evidence to inform decision-making.

Blane Harvey is an Assistant Professor at the McGill University Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE) and a Research Associate at ODI. Working across the social and natural sciences on the themes of learning, environmental change and sustainable development, his recent research has studied how climate change knowledge is produced, validated and communicated, and how facilitated learning and knowledge sharing can support action on climate change.

Tiina Pasanen is a Research Fellow in the Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) programme at ODI. Her work focuses on the use and usefulness of monitoring and evaluation data and systems, and how evidence and data can be integrated into organisational learning and decision-making.

Notes

1 These examples exhibit a range of learning partner configurations, settings and roles. Given the different terminologies used to describe this role and the lack of a centralised repository, it is difficult to determine the full set of programmes with a learning partner. Additional variation may exist and we encourage further documentation and discussion to better understand the full range.

2 Two additional terms of reference sought to fund a learning partner for a shorter period of time (∼1 year) after the initiative was already underway. Although there are some other similarities in the rationale and expected tasks, given the more limited time frame of their engagement, they are not included in the descriptive analysis here.

3 M&E activities in the context of development programming have typically been cast in one of two lights: as processes for accountability, or for learning. While some argue that there are inherent tensions between these two orientations (particularly when accountability is aimed upward toward funders), others like Guijt counter that there is no inherent contradiction since “being accountable requires active learning activities and that engaging in learning includes processes to discover whether one has delivered as promised” (2010, 289).

4 For example, facilitating internal knowledge sharing across the programme has the potential not only to transfer knowledge but also create new knowledge through insights triggered by interactions with others. Capacity building and technical assistance relates predominantly to knowledge generation and to a lesser extent knowledge organisation, but could also include skill development in communicating (sharing) and/or using knowledge. It is important to note that these tasks reflect what was originally intended to be the role of a learning partner at the outset of the programme.