Learning for Change blog
This blog was set up by the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and is maintained by its staff, mainly Carmen DaSilva Wells. It is dedicated to learning for change. And it is focused on development cooperation, with special emphasis on the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector.
The following concepts and initiatives are covered: Sector learning; Learning alliances; Resource centre networks;Sector-wide approaches and harmonisation; and Change management applied to complex sets of institutions.
Flux d’info AEPHA
02 May 13
Make data and information flow The last two weeks of April 2013 I went working closely with IRC colleagues on the ground. Also I worked with ‘les rapporteur groupes thématique’ from the water ministries. The overarching theme was ‘flux d’info AEPHA’. I went to Burkina Faso, Francophone West Africa. Deliberately the visit encompassed two weeks, [...]
Learning alliances provide lessons for International Year of Water Cooperation
22 Mar 13
When you turned on your tap today, were you surprised that water came out? Today is World Water Day which is celebrated globally as a way to focus attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. This year the theme is water cooperation. Cooperation is one of the key [...]
Using evidence to ignite, accelerate and amplify positive change
08 Mar 13
With the rapid rise of mobile phones and mobile phone-based monitoring, collecting data is easier and faster than ever. Still, collecting sound evidence isn’t cheap. And how will the ocean of data help improve water and sanitation services? There is a global movement around “evidence-based approaches” and pressures from taxpayers and financiers to ensure ‘value for money’ [...]
Learning from sustainability monitoring
04 Feb 13
Last week we had another hectic, information-dense, but also inspiring IRCnergy week. The overarching theme was communication. I spoke to Andrès Gil, who is IRC’s day-to-day presence in Honduras. When I first met Andrès, he was one of the young professionals taking part in the Southern Youth Zone Programme. A Guatemalan, who quickly adapted to his [...]
Fail, learn and adapt
17 Jan 13
It’s much more fun to talk about successes than disappointments. But, from personal experience, I know that the things that don’t work out as planned are often the most powerful catalysts of new insights and new behaviour. Failure from which we learn, holds the essence of future breakthroughs: “A man of genius makes no mistakes; his [...]
Vida's story
08 Jan 13
Reblogged from water services that last: In this clip, Vida Duti tells her personal story and shares the reasons why she decided to work in development. As the end of 2012 approaches, I would like to share this video with you. Vida Duti, team leader of the 'Triple S' project in Ghana, tells her story about [...]
Creating a ‘learning and adaptive’ sector
08 Jan 13
At present, systematic documentation and learning in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sectors often depends on external/ project related funding. Two challenges are: how to institutionalize learning as an integrated component of WASH sector management and how to link sector monitoring to reflection and adaptive management. There are two broad learning processes which can contribute to [...]
Process Documentation resources and opportunities to learn
08 Jan 13
The challenge is that too often Process Documentation is limited to simple documentation (in all ways) of events. Process Documentation as a method has the potential to achieve much more than that. Indeed Process Documentation offers the potential to identify (in a social or participatory way) the factors that influence change over time; understand what [...]
Learning to learn
08 Jan 13
Learning is critical to development, so development practitioners need to reflect on how to nurture learning processes. These processes should bring together a wide range of people to identify and share lessons, but also encourage critical analysis and strengthen the adaptive capacities of those involved. This means we need to understand how the sector works [...]
ICT for WASH and public service delivery
22 Nov 12
Reblogged from Wait... What?: This is a guest post from David Schaub-Jones who works with SeeSaw, a social venture that focuses on how technology can strengthen sanitation and water providers in developing countries. Follow SeeSaw on Twitter: @ontheseesaw. In June, two organisations focussed on using ICT (Information and Communications Technology) in the water and sanitation sector joined [...]
