Drs. Julie Ferguson, PhD candidate
Knowledge management in development organizations – a critical analysis
How do development professionals know how best to help people in an emergency situation, such as the 2001 tsunami? How does an organization prevent knowledge from being lost, where many people are suffering from hiv/aids? How does a West African cotton farmer gain access to European markets? These are the kinds of complex questions faced on a daily basis by professionals working in the sector of development cooperation (also known as ‘foreign aid’).
In order to respond to such questions and, ultimately, facilitate beneficiaries’ ability to participate more actively in socio-cultural and economic life, organizations working in the sector of international development need to have in-depth knowledge of the specific local challenges, needs and solutions of aid recipients. This means that the success of development interventions depends on the quality, availability and application of knowledge among both development practitioners and recipients. In other words, development can be described as a knowledge-intensive sector.
The range of stakeholders involved in development cooperation is vast and diverse – from Western governments advocating free trade, to African policymakers facing European import barriers; from NGOs in the North advocating sustainable agriculture, to rural farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa receiving subsidies for chemical fertilizers; from human rights activists fighting for human rights, to minorities in repressive regimes, and so forth. The diversity of views, contexts, and political challenges which each of these stakeholders face, means that development is a constant negotiation of interests; each situation must be judged and weighed in itself, and there are no ‘blue-print’ approaches which can be applied.
My research, conducted together with Marleen Huysman and Maura Soekijad, is a critical analysis of the ways in which knowledge management has contributed to development cooperation. The topic emerged from my 8 years of experience with information and knowledge management, among others in the development sector. In recognition of the centrality of knowledge to development endeavors, the sector reflected, since the late 90s, a booming interest in knowledge management and learning in an effort to improve the effectiveness of their interventions, and find innovative responses to complex global challenges. Despite this interest, there is a lack of theory drawing from empirical studies, and the conceptual foundation of ‘knowledge management for development’ (KMD) is weak. Because of this, there is a risk that knowledge management approaches, largely borrowed from the private sector are ineffective, or worse, counterproductive to development initiatives, by enlarging rather than counteracting inequalities.
Our study attempts to provide a conceptual basis for the theoretically new domain of ‘knowledge management for development’ (KMD), and seeks to unravel the power/knowledge dimensions of learning processes among development stakeholders. Why it is that particular issues are embraced by development stakeholders and are given prominence on development agendas, while others are ignored? Which negotiations mechanisms facilitate the legitimation of knowledge, and what how do these mechanisms contribute to learning within organizations and communities? What does this mean for development policy and practice?
The research is informed by a practice-based epistemology, which recognizes that knowledge is contextually-embedded, emerging from practice, contestable, and socially constructed. Overall, the research seeks to contribute to post-development theory, as well as to organization studies by unraveling the oft-recognized, but little analyzed implications of power on knowledge and learning processes.
