Knowledge management for development: finally in French?

For almost nine years, practitioners and academics from all countries, all types of organisations and all sectors of development (water, health, education, agriculture etc.) have been discussing issues, ideas, tools and approaches to make knowledge management work in the development sector. Their meeting point is: the community of practice (CoP) ‘Knowledge management for development’ (KM4DEV).

Considered by many as one of the most successful examples of communities of practice, KM4DEV has grown considerably to include over 800 professionals from all walks of life and all continents, but with one bias: the exclusive use of the English language. For many non English-speaking professionals this has been a main reason not to join the CoP in spite of the excellent reputation.

But on 5 October 2009, the Francophone development actors may have a chance to address this issue. Prior to the annual face to face event of KM4DEV, the IKM-Emergent programme (a research programme on knowledge management for development) is sponsoring two discussions which aim at a) presenting the IKM-Emergent programme to a Francophone public and engage it on the key themes of research and b) exploring the development of a Francophone KM4DEV CoP.

These discussions are not specifically focusing on the WASH sector and they are open to whoever is working on knowledge management, learning and cooperation across development sector institutions. The discussions are limited to a group of 30 participants, but they will be prepared online prior to the event.

More information about these two discussions is available (in English) on http://www.km4dev.org/wiki/index.php/Francophone_KM4DEV or by contacting Ewen Le Borgne (leborgne[at]irc.nl).