The Solution (Description of Action Taken)

WHAT

Building upon a successful pilot, the IW:LEARN project actively helps GEF IW projects improve TWM through information sharing and targeted learning. Thriving face-to-face international learning exchanges and accessible ICT infrastructure foster inter-project learning from community-level through transboundary basin and large marine ecosystem (LME) scales. Through IW:LEARN’s information sharing and structured learning activities, projects’ experiences -- good practices and lessons learned - are transferred horizontally across projects, and fed back from GEF’s M&E Unit to new projects in preparation as well as to projects already underway. Structured learning and information exchange builds enduring in situ capacity to sustain TWM benefits well beyond the GEF IW or IW:LEARN project cycles. Information products generated by GEF IW projects and through stakeholder exchanges can now be readily discovered, accessed and applied to improve TWM across the GEF IW portfolio and are freely available.

WHO

Stakeholders include the approximately seventy current GEF-approved International Waters projects, those in preparation and their partners. UNDP itself serves as lead implementing agency. In addition, implementation occurs through UNEP, the World Bank as well as the afore-mentioned partnership activity leads (from page one – partner roles). By partnering through IW:LEARN, the three GEF IAs are able to enhance their IW projects’ learning, replication efficiency, transparency, ownership and sustainability. IW:LEARN serves as a means to integrate active involvement by all three IAs – as well as the GEF Secretariat, M&E Unit, NGO Network and Scientific Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) – in exchanging practical experiences and learning across over the projects. Direct beneficiaries include and have included GEF IW project staff, their NGO implementers, associated government personnel, implementing agency staff. Essentially, beneficiaries include those within the ambit of any given GEF IW project.

WHERE

IW:LEARN helps GEF beneficiary countries through its assistance to their respective IW projects. IW:LEARN technically supports the national priorities and activities of over 120 nations in more than 70 International Waters (IW) projects that are now under implementation, as well as in water-related projects of other GEF focal areas, thereby addressing the needs of country-driven GEF IW projects and their staff. Country-drivenness is demonstrated through design of all IW:LEARN activities to meet the expressed capacity building and technical support demands of GEF IW projects, all of which have received country-driven, focal point endorsements. Active groups include people engaged in the implementation and execution of GEF IW projects.

WHEN

Mention the duration and time-related aspects

When was the project implemented?

What's the status/progress of the project/intervention?

Was the duration appropriate, too long, needed for such a project to evolve?

Does/did time-related factors have any specific influence/impact on the experience?

|}

The project is active, and will run from October 2004 to October 2008. The initial phase, which commenced in 2000, operated during most of the period 2000-2004. In general, IW:LEARN is beholden to the GEF project cycle, which is constraining, but a critical aspect of the current design involves seeking ways to sustain its benefits.

HOW

The project‘s five components and activities include:

The Analysis (Results and Lessons Learned)

Main Results

In line with GEF expectations, IW:LEARN now captures so-called catalytic outcomes. These are probably best described as the indirect outcomes of IW:LEARN activities, i.e. those not stated in the project document. Given the current operational phase has only been in operation for just under two years, here are some of the outcomes:

Lessons Learned & Replication

To-the-point analysis on WHY the results have (or have not) been achieved

1. Highlight key elements that were helpful / hindering in the process
2. Stress on facilitating factors as well as challenges/barriers that contributed to success/failure of parts of the intervention/project.

Why was this a success? Why have certain results not been achieved?

What specifically do you think has triggered certain developments?

Had changes been made to the original plans? Why?

What is the difference compared to other, similar experiences?

1. Try to identify patterns behind the process or outcome, or important lessons, that would be useful for others planning a similar intervention/project

Would you do everything the same way again? Why? What would you change?

What are key recommendations for similar endeavours? How would you go about to replicate thsi project/experience?

|}

Some examples from each of the primary IW:LEARN components may offer some useful lessons-learned from the perspective of knowledge management.

Under the information management component, the project struggles to address the balance between a top-down initiative and a bottom-up solution. The project website aims to be a repository on information relevant to GEF IW project management. At the moment it struggles to supply increasing amounts of more relevant content. In addition, another project aim is to broadly connect to other existing websites. While some problems are technological, others run the gamut to political issues. In many countries, data sharing is still not common practice. Furthermore, a culture of daily reliance, or even possibility vis-à-vis daily management, keeps demand sometimes low. One possible solution, at least in terms of ‘democratizing’ the site, might be to make use of new technologies, like Wiki, which makes such sites more open to the broader community. Users are able to place content on the site more readily and easily than reliance on a single management unit to find time to upload such content.

In IW:LEARN’s structured learning component, a principal challenge centers on convincing users to participate in online discussion forums. Users simply do not or cannot take the time to be actively engaged in such fora. IW:LEARN has learned in such situations that blended learning, or the combination of face-to-face events form a needed basis of such online communities. Users appreciate knowing with whom they are talking. Moreover, IW:LEARN has learned that it’s critical to keep sessions short and focused, and usually in combination with the afore-mentioned face-to-face events.

Participants generally consider the International Waters Conferences successful at providing a means for the entire GEF IW portfolio to convene and collectively share their knowledge. Of course, IW:LEARN attempts to adapt to new methodologies in the structure of such events. For example, devoting more time to the obvious, less plenaries and more on-the-side communication.

Under innovative approaches, the project has enjoyed a degree of success. For example, a partnership with Chulalongkorn University has resulted in the Southeast Asia Regional Learning Centre, a think-tank of sorts offering useful ICT solutions and other knowledge to a specific region. A second targeted activity, the Athens-Petersberg Process, of which GEF IW:LEARN contributes funding through GWP-Mediterranean to a process initiated by the German, Greek governments and the World Bank. This process is considered a success, at least by participants involved in its activities. The process, at least from the perspective of the IW:LEARN activity, involves a series of roundtable/workshops with international donors and country-level staff, a website with information resources, a series of targeted topical workshops and study tours, capacity building research documents (including an inventory of transboundary basins, an assessment of IWRM in the region). A lesson here centers on the overall strategy of establishing a sustainable community of practice in the region. Success means that cooperation on transboundary water resources will be enhanced and that the strategy outlined above will be validated. Challenges on this activity are of course political and financial, as they often tend to be.

The final component of IW:LEARN centers on partnerships. This component offers less relevant lessons in the sense that half of it is devoted to sustaining the benefits of the project. The other half offers a variety of smaller activities that deliver various benefits to the community, including event participation assistance, an exhibit on gender, communication of experiences via newsletters and Experience notes and a video on Large Marine Ecosystems.

As concerns sustainability, replication is intrinsic to this project’s design. The project fosters replication and adaptation of best practices, ICT tools, information products and expertise across GEF IW projects. Demonstrations of capacity-building will be regularly co-developed with, transferred among, and replicated by project partners, with funding from GEF and other donors, partners and market-based mechanisms. Whenever possible, capacity to further adapt and replicate will be strengthened or transferred to on-the-ground project proponents and partners, as a means to foster on-going replication of tested practical approaches at multiple scales within project regions.

The GEF Secretariat may also consider, as part of the mid-term and/or final project review, replicating or enlarging successes from the IW:LEARN approach to serve other GEF focal areas. IW:LEARN will work with each IA and EA to build their dedicated capacity to replicate across GEF focal areas demand-driven services initiated by IW:LEARN. Support for an operational “GEF Learning Exchange and Resource Network” staff lead within each IA may be explored as a means to expand provision of these services and benefits across focal areas. This could open opportunities to more fully leverage the comparative advantages of IAs and EAs across focal areas.

Outlook (Conclusions and Next Steps)

IW:LEARN’s project design includes a “sustaining benefits” component in order to ensure that strategic partnerships adopt and sustain IW:LEARN benefits beyond the conclusion of the project. Some activities explicitly relate to development and implementation of sustainability plans, while another provides for outreach activities that promote the participation of the GEF IW learning portfolio in wider transboundary waters-related peer and networking communities, events and venues for knowledge sharing.

The project’s institutional sustainability is grounded in its ability to integrate broad collaborative partnerships of, by and for GEF IW projects and their stakeholders. Wherever appropriate, IW:LEARN products and services may be progressively managed directly by international agencies or NGO partners, in order to ensure institutional ownership as momentum grows over the course of the project – thereby fostering longevity beyond the project’s end. Thus, by conclusion of the project in 2008, all services and benefits developed by IW:LEARN, and independently evaluated as successful and in continuing demand, will be either mainstreamed into the GEF’s IW projects and programs or else well-established with appropriate service providers.

Facilitating dialog and collaboration across the three IAs and major EAs over the course of the project will fully integrate IW:LEARN support mechanisms for TWM within these agencies. As the GEF IW community matures over the 4-year project period, a culture of inter-project information sharing, learning and exchange of practical experience is being established.

References, Sources, and Further Information

Interviewees and Key Contacts

Key contacts include the project staff mentioned in the contact section earlier.

IW:LEARN’s primary website is www.iwlearn.net, also known as the International Waters Information Management System. For more specific information on the project and its activities’ outputs, please visit www.iwlearn.net/abt_iwlearn. The site offers a variety of useful links, including multiple GEF IW project links, key contact information, knowledge products and links to events. Two of IW:LEARN’s partners and activity leads have relevant websites. The Southeast Asia Regional Learning Centre website is www.iwsea.org, and the GWP-Mediterranean’s website for the Athens-Petersberg Process community is www.watersee.net.

Source Documents, References, Cross-Links, and Further Readings

Water Knowledge Fair 2006