Visit Swiss Cooperation Office websites.
Stories
are an easy way of addressing the emotions and analytical understanding at the same time, thus promoting awareness. The Guide is designed to create story-telling skills and confidence. First, it
contains instruments and model approaches for recalling and conjuring up mental images of experiences. Second, it suggests ways of structuring stories to make them interesting and intelligible. And
third, it provides ideas about development cooperation contexts in which stories can be an effective communication tool.
Knowledge: a weapon in the fight against poverty
The countries and SDC partners in the South and East require knowledge to ensure their independent development. The SDC's aim is to assist them by providing its knowledge and experience as a targeted contribution. Knowledge management and a culture of learning are thus understood as instruments to enhance the quality and effectiveness of international cooperation.
For the SDC, using knowledge as a weapon in the fight against poverty means providing disadvantaged groups in partner countries with access to information, enabling them to use this information to generate knowledge and to share it. Using knowledge as a weapon in the fight against poverty also means being able to communicate, to determine one’s own development path and in the sense of empowerment to participate in societal development.
Learning and knowledge management at the SDC
In this respect, the SDC fosters an exchange of learning and knowledge both among its staff and with its partners. Knowledge management creates an environment which permits people,
together with fellow workers and external partners to share knowledge and to learn.
Modern information and communications technologies support this exchange of knowledge. They help organize knowledge, make it accessible and thus improving the way it is used. However
knowledge cannot be seen as a separate entity detached from the people who have it.
The SDC as a learning organization
- recognizes that its staff and personnel are bearers of knowledge
- develops and secures organizational competencies related to its core tasks & roles
- valorizes practices of knowledge development and learning
- opens up access to knowledge and experience
- cultivates a learning culture
The goal – knowledge in the service of development
The vision of a global knowledge society embraces the democratization of
knowledge and of access to knowledge. New initiatives and networks across traditional public sector boundaries show the potentials: business people communicate via the Internet, farmers
exchange e-mails on market prices and suitable practices and local radio stations translate scientific information into local languages understood by the people concerned.
Information and knowledge are key resources for the global society. However access to knowledge is not a matter of course. The privatization of knowledge is a general trend. The
losers are frequently those whose knowledge has no market value or who cannot protect themselves from exploitation. Here, the challenge for the SDC, internally and externally, is to cross boundaries
which stand in the way of common learning.
Additional Information and Documents
Documents- Knowledge Management – on the Road to becoming a Learning Organization
Flyer (general alignment)
Download (PDF, 106 KB) : [de] [en] [fr] [it] [es] - Evaluation 2009/2: Knowledge Management and Institutional Learning in SDC
Download (PDF, 2068 KB) : [en] - Knowledge Management in Practice: The Five Principles
Flyer
Download (PDF, 121 KB) : [de] [en] [fr] [es] - Knowledge Society, Knowledge Management and ICT
Article by W. Fust, Director SDC - January 2003
Download (PDF, 56 KB) : [en] - Community of Practice (CoP) – from own to shared knowledge
Download (PDF, 350 KB) : [de] [en] [fr] [es] - Glossary Knowledge Management
Download (PDF, 73 KB) : [de] [en]
External Links
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Skat Foundation
an independent non-profit organisation and resource centrehttp://www.skat-foundation.org/ -
Bellanet - Supporting Collaboration in the Development Community
http://www.bellanet.org/ -
Sparknow - information and knowledge management
http://spark.spanner.org/ -
LBL - Swiss Center for Agricultural Extension
http://www.agridea-international.ch/index.php?id=4 -
SDC "Community of Practice" page
This SDC Internet platform provides employees, partners and interested experts with information and links to Communities of Practice, a special form of knowledge management.http://www.communityofpractice.ch -
SDC knowledge management page
This SDC Internet platform provides employees, partners and interested experts with information on various knowledge management methods.http://www.daretoshare.ch