How to share knowledge we manage?

My name is Adeel A. Khan from Pakistan. I specialized in water & sanitation engineering. I have been working in WESNet (Water & Environmental Sanitation Network), a joined initiative of UNICEF and Local Government, for the last two years. WESNet is mandated to contribute to the realization of Water & Sanitation related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through knowledge management, improved sector coordination and advocacy. I have recently joined IRC Netherlands as a Junior Professional Officer (JPO) as a part of its Resource Center Development (RCD) Program.

Knowledge management and sharing are new paradigms especially for the developing countries.
Being a network, we have been working for knowledge sharing & dissemination through sector coordination meetings which is a good place for coordination between the sector stakeholders, to come and discuss the issues. I would like to give one example of the WES sector coordination meetings to discuss the issue of Quality control of regime of hand pumps in Pakistan, in which all the sector stakeholders were invited from Town Municipal Administrations, Government officials (Planning & Development, Pak Standard & Quality Control Authority, Local Government, EPA, Industries Department, and Decentralization Support Program), NGOs (DACAAR, IRC, SRSP, IRSP, The Network, and RWSS) and Hand Pumps manufacturers (Swabi Hand Pump Factory, Kausar Engineering etc). It was an issue which has never been raised before, was a good opportunity for the stakeholders with regards to acquaintance with quality control of low cost technologies like hand pumps and was helpful for the quality control authority in decision making to control the quality of hand pumps.

In future, we are planning to take the initiative of the establishment of learning alliance at district level and have started the process of identification of district champions of the idea as first step.
WESNet will facilitate them in theme identification, facilitation and to take up the minutes/important issues at the provincial level.

Besides this we are sharing knowledge through Newsletter (WESNews), websites (www.wesnet.org.pk), trainings, brochures, leaflets and workshops/seminars etc. But the important thing is that in all the cases we have to see the possibilities, target audience and budgets because it all contributes to the social development only.

KM in the legal sector:
I would also like to share here KM practices other than water sector i.e., legal sector. Legal knowledge/law is generated; at national/provincial assemblies through acts of parliament and at Supreme Court, high courts in their decisions. That knowledge is compiled and documented in the form of law reports (PLDs, PLJs, SCMRs and Digests etc). Lawyers/advocates get access to this knowledge by purchasing these books/reports for their libraries. They produce this knowledge/law before the judges, which facilitates them in making correct & quick decisions. The important thing here is that knowledge is being shared through books, PLDs (Pakistan Legal Document) etc, which is off course demand/need of the lawyers to point it out before the courts. But in water sector we have to explore the opportunities/demands to make knowledge sharing more effective and useful.

KM at Town/Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) level:
In the water and sanitation sector knowledge is regularly generated through ongoing research innovations. Besides, management practices adopted in some TMAs are worth replication at the wider scale in other TMAs. Due to the lack of proper understanding of KM as a specialized area, the good work done goes unnoticed. The knowledge is in the individual’s brains and the information is placed/scattered in different sections, cupboards and files. There is no culture of scientific collection, packaging and documentation of knowledge. The best practices and good initiatives are going waste. TMAs lack in the skill of data bank/Resource center (RC) development. Resource Centers can play an important role in disseminating good practices of the TMAs.