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Solution Exchange
(Dr. Maxine Olson is
the United Nations Resident Coordinator and the UNDP Resident Representative
in India. Courtesy: UNIC)
India is among the fastest growing economies in the world
making impressive strides in the spheres of information technology, space,
and biotechnology. India also has a vast knowledge base in the social
sectors. It has made significant gains in the past decades, improving
literacy levels and life expectancy as well as reducing the numbers of people
living below the poverty line. Grassroots democracy has firmly taken root
since the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution in 1992 making
elections to local government bodies mandatory. With one-third seats reserved
for women in all local bodies this has also contributed to promoting gender
equality. But we all know that much remains to be accomplished.
Development practitioners will
agree that while some of this knowledge has been codified, shared, and
replicated there is a large pool of knowledge that remains tacit — gained
through experience and in danger of being forgotten. One question we ask
ourselves when we propose a new idea or reach a bottleneck: Has this been
tried before or does someone else have the answer? More often than not we do
not know to whom to turn.
To harness this knowledge the
United Nations Country Team in India collectively agreed to support a
knowledge sharing platform for increasing the effectiveness of national
development efforts. This initiative was branded Solution Exchange and
launched at the beginning of 2005. The UN serves as a catalyst and plays a
facilitation role.
Solution Exchange provides an
impartial platform for exchange of knowledge and ideas among development
practitioners in key thematic areas under the framework of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) as they relate to national
goals and targets.
Communities of Practice
As the need for knowledge and
ideas has grown the number of web-based knowledge initiatives has mushroomed.
It is perhaps easier to explain what Solution Exchange is not — it is not a
database, it is not an IT network. and it is not web-based. Rather, Solution
Exchange connects development professionals in similar fields from diverse organisations ranging from Government, bilateral and
multilateral development partners, and non-governmental organisations
to academics, corporates, and the media. It is
building Communities of Practice through electronic mail groups and
face-to-face interactions. Instead of advocating any particular viewpoint, we
are working towards India's development goals by fostering trust between
development practitioners who share a passion for their work. Solution
Exchange seeks to empower practitioners by offering them "knowledge on
demand" based on solutions from their peers.
Today there are eight
Communities of Practice up and running for practitioners in maternal and
child health, primary education, work and employment, gender equality and
women's empowerment, decentralisation, HIV/AIDS,
water and sanitation, and food and nutrition security. Participation is free
and open to all interested professionals. Each Community is guided by a group
of eminent persons working in that sphere and is facilitated by the UN organisation(s) with a mandate in that area. Since the
first Community was launched in April this year, membership has grown
dramatically. There are now over 2000 Solution Exchange subscriptions from
across the country with Community membership ranging from over 750 for HIV to
around 200 for Gender.
Each Community of Practice is
moderated by a subject expert assisted by a researcher to circulate questions
posed by Community members. This team adds value to the replies received from
Community members by summarising the responses, by
providing comparative experiences from within and outside India, and by
suggesting additional resources such as subject area experts and recent
research or publications. For the Maternal and Child Health Community, the
questions have ranged from ways to promote breastfeeding to how to sustain
low-cost rural health services. A member of the Water and Sanitation
Community obtained a range of alternatives for providing safe drinking water;
another got tips for helping communities share village pond water resources.
The Decentralisation Community is grappling with
issues such as the role of Panchayati Raj Institutions and parallel local bodies.
Workshops are also being organised to bring Community practitioners together to
identify burning issues — gaps in programmatic areas that could mean the
difference between success and failure — and to build trust and recognition
among members.
It is early days still but the
signs are encouraging. With a fairly quick turn around time the solutions are
real-time and offer a range of options to development practitioners on the
day-to-day challenges they face. In the short term practitioners are
benefiting from being networked with peers they respect. We hope that in the
long term this will also help shape national policies and programmes.
For example, at the request of the National AIDS Control Organisation,
the AIDS Community held a very active nation-wide electronic consultation on
Solution Exchange to help formulate the upcoming third phase of the National
AIDS Control Policy (NACP III).
Consultancies and businesses
across the world have successfully harnessed knowledge to make themselves
more relevant and effective. Even in the development sector there is
recognition that knowledge services are the way forward. Solution Exchange is
a unique experiment by the United Nations at the country level. We do recognise that this is a learning experience for us all
and that there are several challenges such as deepening the reach of Solution
Exchange; overcoming barriers like vernacular languages and access to
internet; ensuring linkages with upcoming large government programmes such as the National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme and the National Rural Health Mission as well as dovetailing
with other initiatives such as Mission 2007, making every village a knowledge
hub. We hope to measure our success by the impact Solution Exchange will have
on providing front line workers with insights and innovative approaches for
effective delivery of services as well as for efficient management and
implementation of development programmes. With so
much riding on the success of the MDGs, no one
should have to reinvent the wheel.
To Find out more about Solution
Exchange
Log on to http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/
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