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.
Where silver bullets don’t work, learning and adaptive capacity make all the difference
19 Nov 12
Knowing what works, what doesn’t, for whom and in which contexts is crucial to improve WASH implementation. In his article on ‘capability traps’ Lant Pritchett (2010) states that development projects often result in failure because they import standard responses to predetermined problems and assume the capability to implement. In fact such standard responses or so-called ‘silver [...]
SEI and SuSanA to lead new sanitation learning & sharing platform for Gates Foundation
10 Nov 12
Reblogged from Sanitation Updates: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has chosen the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) to lead a new sanitation learning and sharing platform. The Gates Foundation’s Sanitation Science and Technology Programme has over 80 projects. SEI and SuSanA have been tasked to share the results from these [...]
Getting research and learning on the agenda of Sanitation and Water for All
08 Nov 12
Research and learning are set to become important elements in national planning and monitoring of sanitation and water services. That is, at least, the aim of the Research and Learning (R&L) constituency of the Sanitation and Water for All global partnership (SWA). The R&L constituency will meet face-to-face for the first time at the SWA [...]
Reflecting on what learning and adaptive management mean
02 Nov 12
IRC’s roots are in knowledge management, capacity building and advocacy. Since our founding in 1968, our focus and ambition have evolved from generating knowledge and making it accessible to the sector, towards playing an active role in the facilitation of learning and systemic change in the countries where we work. One of the outcomes we [...]
Brain-WASH
31 Oct 12
The WASH sector is in consensus labelled as a complex system. Interventions need to cope with wicked problems and solutions strive for adaptive management as exit strategy. The bulk of the WASH projects deliver on the short-term. In three year Hygiene projects populations / schools / communities are supposed to learn where Westerns take 15 [...]
Making information flow
18 Oct 12
WA-WASH We are one year into a four year program now and I co-head the KM team to ‘Make information flow’. The last couple of weeks we have been grappling to ‘Make information’. The assumption information is ‘only’ to be made ‘flow’ turned out false! Information must be made and the KM acronym ‘PAL’ (Power, [...]
Commercialised water services can work for the poor, says SNV
21 Aug 12
The poor in small towns in Africa can and do benefit from commercialised water services, says SNV in a new practice brief [1]. As long as water companies are socially responsible and they are backed up by pro-poor policies. SNV say they have achieved positive results through their support of small town water companies in [...]
Reinventing the toilet?
14 Aug 12
Worldwide, about 2.6 billion people use unsafe toilets or defecate in the open. Millions of tons of excreta end up in our environment and cause diarrhoeal disease, killing 1.5 million children each year. Today, the Gates Foundation has invited the brightest innovators to ‘reinvent the toilet’ . They will present their proposals for solutions to the immense [...]
Change makers: Young Professional on the move
18 Jul 12
Our talk about ‘sector learning’ sometimes obscures the fact that it is people, individually or collectively, who learn and catalyse change. So, it’s been inspiring to check in with four young professionals from Bangladesh, Ghana, Guatemala, and Uganda who are visiting IRC for their final de-briefing workshop. Besides sharing the formal outputs of their work [...]
Documenting the bumpy road and the results of ZIMWASH
07 May 12
Once leading in both water and sanitation coverage in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe saw a drastic decrease in the gains made in the 1980s. The country’s water and sanitation coverage significantly declined in the last decade as a result of inadequate financial resources, socio-economic challenges, weakened institutions and deteriorating standards of essential services offered by local government. [...]
