Building a Global Health Knowledge Collaborative Affiliate in East Africa
This article has been cross-posted from the K4Health blog.
At a recent knowledge share fair in Arusha, I was tasked with introducing participants to the idea of starting an East Africa Global Health Knowledge Collaborative (EA GHKC). The intention was to generate some enthusiasm for an affiliate group of the current Global Health Knowledge Collaborative (GHKC), which is a community of knowledge management (KM) global health professionals in the States have been benefitting from mutual collaboration for several years. People listened politely and a few nodded in agreement, but why would or should this East African audience actually be interested in a regional EA GHKC? Three reasons: context; knowledge equity; and impact.
Context
Context is everything; geography, environment, experiences, personal histories. Why things are done and how things are done reflect that context. Those working in East Africa who could benefit from KM understand their context best. There are myriad KM tools and resources available to support the processes and practices for systematic creation, capture, synthesis, curation, sharing, and (most importantly) application of knowledge and learning. Hence, people can pick and choose the KM processes and practices that best suit their needs and context. However, they have to know what those processes and practices are and how to carry them out before gaining any KM traction. That’s where the EA GHKC can play a role. Having a network for professionals in similar country contexts who can discuss, adapt, and evaluate relevant KM processes and practices for their own purposes could be a catalyst to fostering a culture of knowledge exchange for better health outcomes throughout this region.
Knowledge equity
Knowledge equity is about fair access and opportunities to develop, identify, and share information that supports learning and elevates social capital. There are inherent inequalities in global health knowledge products and knowledge exchange (reports, articles, case studies, frameworks, strategies, platforms, etc.) due to historic inequities and limited accountability. In other words, high-income countries are still producing and disseminating the vast majority of global health development information because it can and always has up to now, and this secondary—though fluent—knowledge drives global health strategies and funding. Meanwhile, all this documentation is going straight to donors and not always to host country governments. Low- and middle-income countries have yet to systematically tell their own global health and development story. Progress is not being consistently documented in a way that can be widely shared and adapted for broader benefits either. All health program objectives require implementers to capture and share details of how things were done (the process, content, and lessons learned). These objectives cannot be met if staff members don’t have access or opportunities to qualify and quantify what they’ve learned. Along with knowledge equity comes the responsibility for good information flows, including appropriate use and dissemination of program details so there is ultimately more accountability and greater access to more and better health information and practices worldwide. An EA GHKC could strengthen the regional capacity for knowledge creation, adaptation, and application, ultimately advancing knowledge equity and social capital.
Impact
Knowledge is widely recognized as a key driver for development and impact. Facilitating information and knowledge exchange as well as learning helps produce results, which lead to positive impacts for development. Impact can be also be improved through collaboration, coordination, and cooperation, which many global initiatives now emphasize or even mandate. At the project and program level, as well as at the organizational level, measuring and documenting impact is paramount for good management and leadership. The model for the proposed regional EA GHKC is based on sharing ideas and KM research findings, documenting experiences with KM in global health, and advocating for the importance of KM in organizations and projects to support long term outcomes and impact. Greater impact drives greater demand and interest in the work that’s being done. That, in turn, helps drive sustainable funding streams.
So why highlight the opportunity for an EA GHKC? Because it may just be what provides the necessary enabling environment for East African health professionals to readily share and act on the knowledge and information they have and need to advance country-level family planning and development goals, as well as collaborate on regional aspirations that could drive important results even further. It could provide the time and space hard working practitioners, implementers, and even policy-makers, need to deepen and share their remarkable understanding of health development as they see it and as they live it.
For more information or interest in joining the East Africa Global Health Knowledge Collaborative Affiliate, contact Willow Gerber.
To read the original post, visit K4Health.