Capitalising on Local Knowledge - Community Knowledge Exchange - Toolkit I

This electronically available document from the World Bank is a toolkit for the preparation, implementation, and evaluation of community-to-community knowledge and learning exchanges.

From the introduction:

"This volume is designed to give decision-makers in government and donor agencies an overview of the concept of community-to-community knowledge exchanges, as well as practical approaches to their use in developmental processes and programmes. Also contained in this volume are case studies to illustrate the successes achieved with the approach, and the pitfalls that have been encountered in practice.

This material is intended to enable decision-makers to assess proposals for exchanges, and to support processes that include community exchanges in an appropriate manner.

A partner volume, “Guidelines for Implementation," is designed as a practical guide for the practitioner wishing to initiate and manage a community exchange process." [See link below for access to a summary of this document.]

The toolkit covers the following: (Click on the titles to access the sections online)

Introduction

• Community Processes
• Looking for new alternatives
• Learning for change
• Understanding people's needs
• What is a community?
• Participation, ownership and outcomes
• Indigenous knowledge and local resources

Methodology

• Approach
• Process Design
• Strengths and limitations of the methodology

Community to community Case studies

• Overview Case studies
• Case study A: Capacity building and information sharing among rural communities in natural resource management
• Case study B: Rooibos Tea and community based tourism knowledge exchange
• Case C: Communities of practice of traditional healers, care givers and people living with HIV/ AIDS in Tanzania
• Case study D: Mbongolwane knowledge exchange with Lake Chilwa communities, Malawi

Selecting and appraising C2C projects

• Monitoring and evaluation as a learning process
• Monitoring for self-correction
• Monitoring the impacts
• Identifying indicators
• Evaluating the process
• Evaluating the impacts

Following up: the long road

Mainstreaming community exchanges

Click here for the complete resource online.