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1) Take a principled approach to development research.
Eight principles for fair and inclusive partnerships:

Put poverty first

Critically engage with context(s)

Redress evidence hierarchies

Adapt and respond

Respect diversity of knowledge and skills

Commit to transparency

Invest in relationships

Keep learning

2) Invest in capacity development for fair and equitable research
Self-learning modules hosted by Christian Aid's Centre for Excellence in Research, Evidence and Learning

Find out more:
You can read the full report here, or look up the Rethinking Research Collaborative.

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The Rethinking Research Collaborative (RRC) is an informal international network of academics, civil society organisations and social movements, international NGOs, and research support providers who are committed to working together to explore the politics of evidence and participation in knowledge for international development.

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We need to bring the latest evidence to bear on the most pressing and intractable problems if we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. But, important knowledge and important voices are missing. Our new strategy focuses on what we can do to promote what we call equitable knowledge ecosystems, where diverse voices are recognized and those who commission, produce, communicate and use research and knowledge have the capacity to work effectively together.

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Equitable Research and Knowledge Systems

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The COVID crisis is likely to have a long term impact on travel between the north and south and it is likely that collaboration will require greater use of online approaches. INASP has been developing online alternatives to previously face-to-face teaching, collaborating and information exchange for over 20 years. Here's a roundup of our experience.

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As the world looks to online alternatives to previously face-to-face teaching, collaborating and information exchange, we share a roundup of learning and advice from our digital learning specialists Joanna Wild, Andy Nobes, Veronika Schaeffler and Ravi Murugesan.
Over recent weeks a huge number of face-to-face conferences, workshops and training events have been cancelled or postponed. This has massive implications for the important efforts to support and strengthen research for development, which are vital in tackling the current world crisis and responding better with research and evidence in the future. Many event organisers are exploring digital alternatives and schools and universities worldwide are thinking about how to deliver curricula in other ways.

Sharing our learning

INASP has been delivering and facilitating online courses, communities of practice, mentoring and other online approaches to support teaching and learning and capacity development for researchers, students and professionals across the research and knowledge system for over 10 years. Last year we shared how these approaches align with the Principles for Digital Development. Over this time, we have been reflecting on and learning from our experiences and the experiences of the learners.

We wanted to re-share some of what we have learnt to help research and knowledge organisations across the globe as they think about transforming their normal face-to-face activities to an online environment:
Consider audience and context

As Joanna Wild outlined in Online learning: five ingredients of success, it is important to know the audience, their level of knowledge and language skills and what spaces they prefer to be in online. It is also important to understand the possible limitations of bandwidth and IT capabilities, as well as digital literacy, of users. Users will be less willing or able to engage if the interface is too confusing or unfamiliar or if they don't have a good enough internet connection to watch large videos.
Design for online

It is also important to not just put face-to-face materials on the internet but design and adapt for the online environment so that we can use the benefits of online learning and communication. With online, learners can learn at their own pace and re-visit recorded discussions. Materials can be made accessible to learners with special needs and people from different regions can connect. It can also benefit people who may feel sidelined in face-to-face interactions; shy people and people who need more time for thinking things through may get more chance to contribute.

There are many aspects to consider when designing for an online environment. We have developed a scoping and design decision tool that helps us ask the right questions to understand the audience and their needs and expectations better, and to make the right design decisions.

Online communication differs from face-to-face communication. Non-verbal communication like facial expressions, gestures and tone of voice is often difficult to transfer, although video and good audio can help, as can emoticons. And in face-to-face communication, a teacher would give further information to the students about how to use learning material; this needs to be replaced by explicit instructions provided with the material.

Both synchronous and asynchronous communication approaches are useful in online engagement. It is important to decide what is most appropriate for the purpose and the audience. Whilst synchronous learning via video/webinar can be a popular and important component of online learning, it can be biased against some international participants, different time zones, people with family commitments, and those who do not speak English as a first language, and so it's important to balance this with asynchronous activities and engagement. 'Facilitator presence' and social interaction can be also be done through thoughtfully designed asynchronous activities.

Build community Maintain engagement

People engage and learn online in different ways from in-person, with more breaks and competition for attention. Effective online engagement includes regular engagement and regular opportunities to test understanding, for example with short quizzes in online courses or regular activities in an online journal club. It is important to have clear communication of learning goals and expected outcomes and provide certificates to recognise participants who complete courses, as well as to recognise the role of the facilitators. And there are some fun ways to support engagement. In our AuthorAID research writing courses, for example, we always see good engagement in an optional Capture your Research photo competition.
Be inclusive

Online learning offers an important opportunity to increase inclusivity of harder to reach demographics and locations. Our AuthorAID courses are accessed by people in countries and regions affected by countries and regions affected by conflict or unrest - for example Yemen and the Somali regions - and by displaced people. This has helped us think about how best to serve learners in less accessible situations. Considerations such as those discussed above around working with low bandwidth and options for asynchronous learning can help meet learners in more challenging situations.

We have seen that online courses tend to have a better gender balance than face-to-face training. It can be easier for people with caring responsibilities to attend courses that they don't have to travel to and that are more flexible around childcare. Online courses tend to remove some of the biases of academic hierarchy compared with face-to-face activities.

It is also important to think about users who are differently abled, for example, through choice of images, colours and fonts, using screen reading technology, adding subtitles and using alt text on images.

Monitor well

A final component to get in place in setting up online teaching is monitoring and evaluation. Monitoring, evaluation and learning underpins all INASP's work and is enshrined in our digital strategy. We can't know if approaches are successful without gathering data and understanding how things are used. Who is completing? Who is dropping out? Which tasks do they seem to find hard?

Moving forwards

Building on these core building blocks and the monitoring of how online teaching and learning approaches are being used allows approaches to evolve and become more sustainable.
Adapt to change

While there is a short-term imperative to identify online alternatives to face-to-face events, it's important not to forget the vital issues of sustainability and local ownership that are the bedrocks of international development. The option for enabling local customisation and ownership is a key ingredient in sustainability (see Online learning: five ingredients of success).

The mode of delivery can be adapted to the available capacity and context. Similarly, content can be adapted for different audiences. An example of adapting our approach to online learning in response to a particular context came in 2014 with the outbreak of Ebola in Sierra Leone and widespread closure of universities. We had just started working with partners in the country to support face-to-face training for researchers in using electronic resources. During the epidemic, we supported partners to provide online training instead. This led to our first offline implementation of Moodle in recognition of internet issues faced by some users who were not based in Freetown. This feature, which enables users to download lessons and quizzes for using offline, has since been a useful feature for many researchers who want to continue courses while away doing field work.

Recognising that, in many LMIC countries, mobile access is the most prevalent route to the internet and that smartphone use spans the generations, we also ensure that our online courses and other online learning opportunities are mobile optimised. See Creating a successful MOOC for academics in low-resource settings.

Be flexible

In 2018 we introduced 'learning pathways' to our AuthorAID MOOCs. This approach recognised that there are some core components that everyone on a course needs to do but that there will be other topics that may be more relevant to specific people or at specific times. See Increasing the flexibility of AuthorAID MOOCs with learning pathways. We took this approach further with our online courses for journal editors where all participants can pick whichever modules they need to address their own skills gaps, and gain completion certificates for those modules.
Customise for sustainability

Building on this flexibility, over the past year we have developed a customisation option to our AuthorAID MOOCs. This provides organisations with the opportunity to have a dedicated space to engage and focus on their research groups, society members or network. This MOOC sponsorship model also provides an opportunity to support the wider training of disadvantaged researchers and to keep it free and open at the point of use. We have seen groups use these dedicated spaces in a range of ways to provide extra modules, more subject-specific teaching and additional learning materials. As the world's educational and research institutions think how to respond to the current crisis, we are having some interesting conversations about other ways that this could be used.

Moving from face-to-face teaching to online is not simple or quick to do well but, if done right, it can be very effective. For example, the AuthorAID research writing online courses have to date trained over 11,000 researchers, with a course completion rate of around 50%. And participants share positive feedback and evidence of putting their learning into practice.
If you would like more information about any of these areas or want to chat with INASP's digital learning and capacity development experts, please get in touch: jwild@inasp.info

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Going digital - What we have learnt about online learning approaches

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As the world looks to online alternatives to previously face-to-face teaching, collaborating and information exchange, we share a roundup of learning and advice from our digital learning specialists Joanna Wild, Andy Nobes, Veronika Schaeffler and Ravi Murugesan. Over recent weeks a huge number of face-to-face conferences, workshops and training events have been cancelled or postponed.

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Rachel joined INTRAC in 2011. She worked for five years in the world of European policy-making and cooperation programmes, followed by ten years in academia specialising in international development with a geographic focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Rachel has a PhD and MSc in African studies from the University of Edinburgh and a post-graduate degree in development studies from the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium. Joining INTRAC has enabled Rachel to bring together her passion for strengthening civil society with robust applied research and a healthy dose of critical reflection.

Rachel is a member of INTRAC's senior management team and oversees INTRAC's research, convening, communications and publications portfolio. She advises INTRAC's consultants and trainers on research methods and trends affecting the sector. She has worked with numerous NGOs and donors, and is actively involved in several academic associations and development networks, including the Development Studies Association and the International Society for Third Sector Research.

She speaks French and German, and has a working knowledge of Spanish.

Specialist areas:

Civil society sustainability

Aid and development trends and politics

Governance in fragile and post-conflict contexts

Participatory research and learning methods

Knowledge and evidence in international development

Related Projects

Related Posts

Related Resources

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Rachel joined INTRAC in 2011. She worked for five years in the world of European policy-making and cooperation programmes, followed by ten years in academia specialising in international development with a geographic focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

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Prior to joining INASP, she was attached to the Educational Enhancement Team at the University of Oxford where she worked on a number of technology-enhanced learning projects with the focus on learner experience research and evaluation, learning design, and open education.

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Evidence Aid champions evidence-based decision-making in disasters and emergencies. We collate and summarise the best-available evidence from research and make this available to decision-makers working to prevent loss of lives and livelihoods in disaster-affected settings around the world. Our thematic areas cover topics such as prevention and treatment of malnutrition, control of infectious diseases such as Ebola, Zika and COVID-19, treatment of PTSD, etc. We aim to provide a bridge between practitioners and researchers, ensuring the relevance of research to practice, and the responsiveness of practice to research.

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INASP works to ensure that research and knowledge are at the heart of development. We support individuals and institutions in Africa, Asia and Latin America to produce, share and use research and knowledge, which can transform lives. We collaborate with national and international partners to build equitable knowledge ecosystems to inform development policy and practice.

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INTRAC is a values-driven, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to strengthening the effectiveness of civil society around the world to challenge poverty and inequality. We provide consultancy and research support on trends, policies and practices affecting civil society. We promote collaborative and action-oriented research, working with academics and practitioners to design and deliver research that can contribute to change.

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International Public Health researcher with 5-years working experience in the both the non-profit and academic and private sector. Passionate about Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights (SRHR), gender equality and youth empowerment. Experienced in project management, policy analyses, feasibility studies and intervention evaluations applying both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Working experience in the Netherlands, Ghana, South Africa, New Zealand and the UK.

Currently working at INTRAC to help strengthen the effectiveness of civil society to challenge poverty and inequality, empowering people to gain greater control over their own future.

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Willemijn de Bruin - Research and Programme Coordinator - INTRAC | LinkedIn

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International Public Health researcher with 5-years working experience in the both the non-profit and academic and private sector. Passionate about Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights (SRHR), gender equality and youth empowerment. Experienced in project management, policy analyses, feasibility studies and intervention evaluations applying both quantitative and qualitative research methods.

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Mokoro is a not-for-profit international development consultancy providing technical, research and evaluation expertise in sustainable economic and social development for bilateral and multilateral aid agencies, national governments, and non-governmental organisations. We work across a wide range of sectors including education, nutrition, child protection, and climate change.

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Doing rigorous development research which also builds capacity and contributes to positive change in the south is not easy, but is essential for sustainable development. We outline some of the key challenges we have observed below. What are yours? 

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Doing rigorous development research which also builds capacity and contributes to positive change in the south is not easy, but is essential for sustainable development. We outline some of the key challenges we have observed below. What are yours? 

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Oxford University has decades of experience and expertise in conducting research in lower- and middle-income countries across all our divisions. The European and International Team provides support on a range of issues from compliance with funder requirements to the ethics of research in LMICs. Internal funds allow researchers to conduct innovate research for development with partners from academic institutions, governments, NGOs and civil society.

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SciDev.Net journalists in over 80 developing countries write about science that impacts on their own communities, seeking comment from locally based researchers. Our articles are frequently syndicated by national media and in 2019 we reached over 200 million people. We build networks between scientists and the media through training and networking events.

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Supporting international development

Projects Assistant

Liam Bluer joined Mokoro as Projects Assistant in October 2018. His responsibilities include support to business development and proposal preparation, logistics for overseas missions, desk-based research support to various assignments, and general administrative assistance in support of Mokoro's project portfolio and company operations. Liam has more than five years' experience in the international nonprofit sector, having worked on educational initiatives in Thailand and Nepal, and as a campaigner in support of North Korean refugees in South Korea and the US. More recently he spent three years working at an NGO in rural Guatemala, where he coordinated programmes providing indigenous communities with early education, microfinance, and vocational training. He is fluent in Spanish.

MA (Distinction) Social Anthropology (Culture, Ethnography and Development), University of Manchester, UK (2012)

svsporngames.com wish4book.com

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Liam Bluer joined Mokoro as Projects Assistant in October 2018. His responsibilities include support to business development and proposal preparation, logistics for overseas missions, desk-based research support to various assignments, and general administrative assistance in support of Mokoro's project portfolio and company operations. Liam has more than five years' experience in the international nonprofit sector,...

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Charity professional with 20 years experience in the humanitarian and international development sector.

- Experienced leader of both people and programmes, including in challenging fragile and conflict-affected settings;

- Strong competency in fundraising, with a track record of success in both voluntary and institutional spheres. In-depth knowledge of donor policies, particularly the UK government and European Union;

- Excellent representational/advocacy skills, with experience of high level engagement with stakeholders as a humanitarian aid worker, fundraiser and advocacy specialist;

- Strategy development, thinking and analysis. Working with senior stakeholders to test and develop effective and deliverable organisation, department and programme-level strategies;

- Team-focused manager, with a strong commitment to individual staff development, mentoring and capacity building;

- Strong training and mentoring skills, with experience of training with NGO colleagues, government officials and Southern civil society;

- Monitoring, evaluation & learning. Development of monitoring frameworks at project, programme & organisational level. Evaluation experience as both commissioning manager and as an evaluator.

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Benjamin Heaven Taylor - Chief Executive Officer - Evidence Aid | LinkedIn

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Charity professional with 20 years experience in the humanitarian and international development sector. - Experienced leader of both people and programmes, including in challenging fragile and conflict-affected settings; - Strong competency in fundraising, with a track record of success in both voluntary and institutional spheres.

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I'm part of a new initiative at Oxford, aimed at facilitating further engagement between researchers and local, regional, national and international policymakers. Drawing on the growing network of engaged researchers and academics across the university, as well as on my recent experience as a consultant in governance reform and on experience working in and with the UK Parliament, I help researchers and policymakers identify and develop new opportunities for policy impact.

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Verity joined INASP in January 2017. She has more than 18 years' experience of strategic marketing and communication in the field of research communications. She is responsible for directing and implementing INASP's marketing and communication strategy, including developing brand and messaging; overseeing communication strategies for INASP's programmes and projects; and working with business development colleagues to drive stakeholder engagement.

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Transforming Employability for Social Change in East Africa (TESCEA) project, and previously led INASP's Strengthening Research and Knowledge Systems (SRKS) programme.

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Ben Deighton is the Managing Editor of SciDev.Net.He is responsible for ensuring our editorial independence and the quality of our articles and multimedia products.Ben joined SciDev.Net in July 2017 after four years as editor of Horizon magazine.Ben has worked as a journalist since 2001 and was previously a reporter for the Reuters news agency in London and Brussels.He has a degree in French and a postgraduate diploma in journalism.

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INTRAC: Practitioner-academic collaboration in research to tackle global development challenges

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INTRAC: Practitioner-academic collaboration in research to tackle global development challenges

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Collaboration between academics and NGOs on research projects provides opportunities to advance policy and programming agendas to tackle global development challenges.

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Collaboration between academics and NGOs on research projects provides opportunities to advance policy and programming agendas to tackle global development challenges.

INTRAC has long promoted effective practitioner-academic collaboration. We focus on:

Shaping research approaches and agendas that involve or affect civil society organisations

Conducting research and contributing to debates on what makes for effective partnership

Putting learning into practice through direct involvement in collaborative research projects with academics, to which we bring knowledge from practice around the world on key development topics. We apply our methods expertise and experience in dissemination and outreach to ensure outputs are relevant to practitioners and policy-makers

Promoting collaboration

From February to October 2018, INTRAC worked with the Rethinking Research Collaborative, an informal international network of individuals and organisations committed to working together to encourage more inclusive, responsive collaborations to produce useful and accessible development research. With funding from UK Research and Innovation the Collaborative investigated perspectives on research collaboration from multiple actors and produced a set of resources to support fair and equitable partnerships and a research report.

In November 2016, we facilitated a two-day conference hosted by the Leeds Social Sciences Institute and Centre for Global Development to explore the role of interdisciplinary research in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals.

In 2012, INTRAC, World Vision and the University of Bradford received a grant from the Development Studies Association. The four-month 'Cracking Collaboration' project explored research collaboration, looking at: how partnerships are negotiated and navigated; the impetus behind partnerships; how collaboration affects research results; and the highs and lows of collaboration.

Collaborative research projects

We put learning into practice on what makes for effective collaboration through our involvement in long-term research projects with academics in the North and South, including the University of Mzumbe (Tanzania); and the Universities of Reading and Portsmouth (UK).

Contribution to debates

We are active participants in professional academic and practitioner networks/associations, including the Development Studies Association, the International Society for Third Sector Research, and the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes.

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Practitioner-academic collaboration in research to tackle global development challenges - INTRAC

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Collaboration between academics and NGOs on research projects provides opportunities to advance policy and programming agendas to tackle global development challenges. INTRAC has long promoted effective practitioner-academic collaboration.

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SciDev.Net: COVID to end north/south paradigm

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SciDev.Net: COVID to end north/south paradigm

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China and South Korea used to be aid recipients until not so long ago. Now they are helping the World Health Organization, Italy, and other European countries to cope with the crisis, Jean Van Wetter, the head of Enabel in Belgium, told Devex.

In the same article, Viwanou Gnassounou is assistant secretary-general for sustainable economic development and trade at the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, said COVID would help push countries towards self-determination.

He said the outbreak will add to the factors which are bringing developing countries closer and closer to the self-determination of their development track and the choice of the most suitable policies and partners to accompany them. It will not be a drastic, but rather an evolving, change, he said.

The full article is here:

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A city health worker prepares to disinfect a bus during a nationwide lockdown to limit the spread of COVID-19 in Harare, Zimbabwe. Photo by: REUTERS / Philimon Bulawayo

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS - The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented disruption for the global health and development community. Organizations fighting infectious disease, supporting health workers, delivering social services, and protecting livelihoods have moved to the very center of the world's attention. But they find their work complicated by challenges of access, safety, supply chain logistics, and financial stress like never before.

The short-term implications of this global challenge are evident everywhere, but the long-term consequences of the pandemic - how it will reshape health and development institutions, occupations, and priorities - are still difficult to imagine.
COVID-19 - a timeline of the coronavirus outbreak
Follow the latest developments on the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

To gain a better understanding of the big-picture implications, we asked 21 global health and development thinkers and leaders to share - in their own words - their insights and their predictions.

Here is what they wrote back, lightly edited for length and clarity.
Massive costs spark billions in i n vestment
- Viwanou Gnassounou, assistant secretary-general for sustainable economic development and trade, Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States A new excuse for isolationism
Madhukar Pai The end of the 'North-South paradigm'
Jean Van Wetter is director general at Enabel A humanitarian access problem
Janez Lenarčič is European commissioner for crisis management. COVID-19 - a timeline of the coronavirus outbreak , the Belgian development agency. is director at McGill Global Health Programs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is chair of the board at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and Nigeria's former minister of finance.
It is clear that the outcry in virtually every country about the lack of equipment and supplies to test for and protect against COVID-19 will lead countries to reexamine their supply chains for critical health and livelihood related products. This will lead to a surge of nationalism with respect to the need to produce pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and equipment domestically. Even countries that traditionally had no capability in these areas will seek to develop the same.

The realization that the economic costs of a pandemic can be huge, far surpassing investments in research and prevention, will lead to billions more dollars of investment in research, vaccines, therapeutics, and non-medical methods of prevention. This will mean that trillions of dollars in economic losses, loss of life, and loss of livelihoods for millions of poor people all over the world will be averted.

"Each country has discovered further its fragility, reflected in the dependence on the rest of the world to satisfy the maintenance of the way of living, and at the same time, the isolation and loneliness when attempting to respond to a major exogenous shock."

I am anxious that rich countries, having suffered huge economic losses, will use COVID-19 as the excuse to cut development assistance for health and reframe global health as a limited "national security" exercise. The pandemic could become the new excuse for nationalism, isolationism, anti-immigration policies, and institutionalized racism. We are already starting to see some of this. All of this could increase inequities that already plague global health, and further concentrate power among the elite in the global north.
Public development banks step up, together
is chief executive officer at the Agence Française de Développement and chair of the International Development Finance Club.
With this crisis, the North-South paradigm is definitely over. The monopoly that traditional "development actors" have had in the last 40 years will quickly erode.

China and South Korea used to be aid recipients until not so long ago. Now they are helping the World Health Organization, Italy, and other European countries to cope with the crisis.
Accelerating technology uptake
Amie Batson is executive director at WomenLift Health and Stanford Global Health.
Chinese charities are distributing masks to European governments, as Europe and the United States have been doing in developing countries for years.

Some of the largest hospitals in Europe are now calling for donations from the public. Doctors without Borders - MSF - known for its international operations in conflict and poor areas, is now deploying medical camps in the centre of Brussels!
- Polly Dunford, president and CEO, Intrahealth
The crisis, if not managed by a substantial and coordinated global response, will highlight and deepen the divide between North and South, challenging the multilateral system and global solidarity on an unprecedented scale.

Humanitarian action, too, is starting to be affected in numerous ways: Movement restrictions and the suspension of commercial air transport routes risk having a severe impact on a basic prerequisite for any form of humanitarian action - access to affected people. If the pandemic starts affecting the functioning of global food markets, the impact will be most acutely felt by the most vulnerable.

The pandemic also risks having more indirect but no less dangerous impacts on the conflict dynamics in the many protracted conflict environments in which humanitarians operate: Only extremists will benefit.
A shared experience of suffering
Susi Dennison is director of the European Power program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. COVID-19 - a timeline of the coronavirus outbreak
Follow the latest developments on the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Like many other crises, the current health crisis will leave a trace on how we interact with our environment and with each other. But observing the initial reactions in different quarters, it seems that the COVID-19 and the ensuing economic temporary derailment are unlikely to bring substantial change to the conception and management of development cooperation policies, even in the health sector, from the development partners' perspective.

It will, however, undoubtedly add to the factors which are bringing developing countries closer and closer to the self-determination of their development track and the choice of the most suitable policies and partners to accompany them. It will not be a drastic, but rather an evolving, change.

Now, each country has discovered further its fragility, reflected in the dependence on the rest of the world to satisfy the maintenance of the way of living, and at the same time, the isolation and loneliness when attempting to respond to a major exogenous shock. And it is just a beginning.

The COVID-19 crisis has the potential to radically change development for the better.

First, it shows how interconnected and interdependent our world has become: There is no way of tackling the COVID-19 crisis at national levels only; "helping you is helping me," "solidarity is in my self-interest;" international cooperation and multilateralism are back!

Second, COVID-19 illustrates our common vulnerability, across borders, beyond North-South, East-West, public-private divides, and the limits of our segmented approach to development; a more holistic, comprehensive, and coordinated approach is back!
- Christine Stegling, executive director, Frontline AIDS
Third, strategic interventions by the state become central again, to address the health, social, economic, food impacts of COVID-19: with a major economic contraction, public budgets will have to become more strategic, more focused, more counter-cyclical and leverage more (private) finance for development; social policy matters, private sector is key, the state is back!

Fourth, COVID-19 stimulus and recovery packages are needed, and provide a golden opportunity to engage in ambitious sustainable transformation initiatives by all, including developing countries, based on systemic changes toward more sustainability, inclusivity, and equity; active transformative sustainable approaches and a "green deal" agenda are back!

Our world is fragile - let's work together to preserve, enrich, and enlighten it.

To achieve the broader SDG3 goal of health and well-being for all, we must step up our support to countries in building resilient and inclusive systems. We must invest in - and not set aside - the global south, and in African countries - with which we share a "destiny in common" - as a priority.

Public development banks are well equipped not only to finance social infrastructures, but also to make them sustainable and address the collateral social and economic effects of the health crisis as we combat the spread of the coronavirus by limiting the movement of people and shuttering nonessential businesses.
More health spending, both domestic and international
Patrick Develtere is principal adviser for European social policy at the European Political Strategy Centre.
The 400 PDBs from all regions of the world are more and more collaborating together to provide an immediate response to the short-term health challenges, as well as beginning to prepare for a post-COVID world probably riddled with deeper social and economic fractures.

At this forefront, the members of the International Development Finance Club have mobilized a large range of financial tools, including in partnership with the European Union. And next November, the first ever global Summit of Public Development Banks will provide a unique opportunity to foster our unique contribution with the aim of redirecting financial flows toward sustainable development investments that can protect the people as well as the planet.

The COVID-19 pandemic will transform the global health community's acceptance and use of digital health technologies. As health systems around the world are overwhelmed responding to COVID-19 while continuing to provide health care services, leaders are adopting technologies that only three months ago were on the sidelines of most health care systems.

As doctors, patients and home care providers turn to telemedicine to reduce exposure to COVID-19, they are discovering these virtual consultations are effective for triaging care, sharing critical guidance, and providing emotional support.

Dashboards for logistic management systems are improving the efficient deployment of essential resources - from hospital beds to PPE to, ultimately, vaccines. More advanced technologies including AI are being employed to provide insights into complex questions of how individual behaviors impact transmission and identifying which policies are effective for specific groups.

As the saying goes, "you can't put the genie back in the bottle." Once deployed, the use of these technologies will only expand as we revert back to solving the challenges problems that preoccupied us prior to COVID-19 - too few health personnel, inadequate budgets, and weak health systems. Maybe these technologies will be what helps us get closer to our shared goal of universal health coverage.

" COVID-19 could be what makes us finally deliver on the promises of remote learning and support, impacts that will serve health workers - particularly in rural areas - long after this pandemic ends."

Sometimes it takes a crisis to force us to adapt and adopt changes. For example, I have met very few of my new colleagues face to face, but we're all more connected than ever.

We're working out the kinks that have plagued teleconferencing and videoconferencing systems. We're learning them and making them work seamlessly, because we have to. We've used digital learning and telemedicine to expand the reach of global health but haven't seen ubiquitous uptake.

COVID-19 could be what makes us finally deliver on the promises of remote learning and support, impacts that will serve health workers - particularly in rural areas - long after this pandemic ends.

We are already seeing during this period an increasing willingness to do meetings and discussions digitally or over the telephone that previously had to be done face-to-face. But that implies an increasing confidence in the security of those communication tools. I think there will be an increased evaluation of the worth of being able to do some face-to-face diplomacy as well. Maybe that will be used more sparingly, but it will have more power when the face-to-face does happen.
- Jirair Ratevosian, doctoral student, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
The other thing I've been wondering about is the extent to which the common experience of COVID-19 will change our ideas about how near or far away different settings are. One of the challenges of the narrative on development is how different the environments where aid is going feel to European citizens.

We saw around the refugee crisis a certain inuring of the European public to suffering because, if you take the Syrian conflict, I think people just felt that that was just so far away after a certain period of time there was just nothing they could do. You saw a sort of wearing down of people's sympathy on that front. I wonder if this common experience of coronavirus, with some of the epicentres in highly developed economies, will start to redress that lack of impact and the common experience will start to mean something.

Follow the latest developments on the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

As the world fights coronavirus, people are understandably concentrating on the health response. Now is the time to save lives. But even as that vital work is done, we must also focus on saving the futures of millions of children.

Around the world, more than 1.5 billion children are impacted by school closures. Hundreds of millions of them are in low- and lower-middle-income countries. From experience in epidemics like Ebola, we know there is a risk that the poorest and most marginalized girls will never return to school. Early marriage, teen pregnancy and child labor rates will rise; hard-won development gains will be lost. In addition, teachers left unpaid during the closures may be lost to the profession and schools in poor and rural areas, closed during the pandemic or repurposed as health facilities, may not reopen.

These outcomes are not predetermined. We can choose another path by being smart about how learning can continue now and making the best possible new start when schools reopen. Achieving that requires mobilizing international assistance, including through GPE's COVID-19 emergency fund, while advocating the maintenance of national government expenditure on schools even as domestic budgets and economies are hit. Even in these difficult days, let's not forget that the future we want starts with education.

The COVID-19 pandemic demands rapid responses. We will be forced to learn quickly about what works. Some responses to the COVID-19 pandemic will be more effective than others. I'm hopeful we will learn which parts of our bureaucracy respond most effectively so we can lean on them in the future. We can also learn how to better use data, evidence, and technology to improve our ability to react to crises. In moving fast and learning fast, we'll strengthen the muscles we as a community need to respond to the uncertain environments that are an inevitable part of our work going forward.

Even before the pandemic, the global health and development community has had to stretch its resources to meet global challenges and life-saving commodities have been underfunded. Now, resources are likely to be more constrained than ever. Inefficient and wasteful spending will be even more noticeable during this crisis. This pandemic will force us to articulate what matters most and to prioritize investments.

"As we watch even well-resourced health systems struggle to cope, governments will increasingly turn to communities to support the social, economic, and health needs of those most affected."

As governments come to terms with their national responses, global health, finance, and human rights institutions will need resources and political space to build a response that is truly global. And institutions, donor agencies, and national governments must reconnect to the truth that any public health crisis will only be mastered with communities at the centre.

As we watch even well-resourced health systems struggle to cope, governments will increasingly turn to communities to support the social, economic, and health needs of those most affected.

This pandemic will force a reexamination of global health architecture to promote an approach to sustainability that significantly increases investment in emergency preparedness with an eye to how that investment supports, but does not supplant, "regular order" service delivery. COVID-19 has put greater value on data, research, and epidemiological surveillance - things regularly used in public health - now supercharged to inform a pandemic response.

Additionally, COVID-19 has revealed the need to manufacture health commodities and strengthen supply chains closer to where materials are needed domestically and globally.

Finally, the COVID-19 response would benefit from stronger intergovernmental platforms like Africa CDC in regions where the nature of a pandemic makes bilateral action unwieldy and disruptive to rapid, coordinated action.

It has to be seen if the crisis will have any promising effects on the spending patterns of affected countries in the global south. Most of them do not spend enough on health care. Will this change in the future? Will they invest more in prevention? Will they pay higher salaries to their medical staff so that they do not migrate to richer countries? Will they develop systems of health insurance?

There is reason for concern about the commitment of the richer countries to safeguard good health - and thus prevent pandemics - worldwide. It goes without saying that $5 of aid in health per African citizen is not enough to guarantee even basic health services. The Americas are devoting 6% of their official development assistance to health; Europe a meagre 2.3%. This will have to increase significantly if dramas are to be avoided.

I believe development assistance will undergo a process of reexamination and reprioritization in the aftermath of the pandemic and the global recession. Traditional development assistance will still be needed to combat poverty and respond to health emergencies, strengthen national health systems, train medical staff, provide vaccines, and combat malnutrition.

However, the crisis could provide opportunities to transform traditional approaches to development, for instance, by involving the private sector, academia, and local partners to promote sustainable investments in community-level preparedness and public sector service delivery to build the resilience needed to respond to and prevent future crises.

I believe we should reconsider the traditional approach of huge, centrally managed, multilateral agency programs, and aim to attract private sector investments - for example, by engaging with development banks using guarantees - to support a quick and sustainable economic recovery.

Global health will become a key component of national security from now on - not an afterthought or a charity project, but a pressing, macrocritical concern that all governments and economies will take seriously.

Governments and intergovernmental organizations like WHO will be central in this effort, but their structural shortcomings will generate large-scale private efforts to independently track risks and preparedness more accurately, in the same way that multiple private entities do their own estimations of economic growth and risks in high-income countries.

More familiar disease control priorities - HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, polio - that have been part of the global health effort to date may suffer a decline in attention as attention shifts to the infectious disease threats that affect high-income countries. This will have to be a concerted focus for advocates and funders concerned with ways to use money to save the most lives.

Economies worldwide will be substantially weakened, so the evolution of low-income to middle-income country status will slow down or reverse, and - even while more is needed - broader development assistance will be at risk.

Finally, China will take its place at the global policymaking table for good, and the U.S. and Europe will need to make space and learn how to make policies where there are common interests even when a relationship is adversarial in other ways.

Often, when I've proposed rallying supporters across global health and development issues, I was cautioned that might prevent campaigns from having focus and be confusing to advocates or decision-makers. I think that's been a challenge in mobilizing everyone around the U.N. 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals.

But what does that look like today, now that people have seen in real time the precarious linkages between public health and national GDP - or, at an individual level, access to health and financial security? Perhaps this is finally the time to make a holistic case for health and development, particularly for U.S. policymakers.

The COVID-19 pandemic reminds world leaders that under-investment in public health of one country is a threat to global health security everywhere. For decades, we built much needed and successful vertical programs with robust global governance centered around key attributes of the HIV/AIDS response.

"If we get governance right, we will be successful in the global response to COVID-19 and achieving global health security for the future."

But as the United Nations embraced broader development goals, most global health intuitions continued to operate business as usual. Now, international organizations are moving rapidly to announce new flexibilities and expanded mandates to match the needs of a pandemic. Yet doing so requires a paradigm shift in global health governance and multilateral cooperation.

The global health community must unite behind new governance principles and programming priorities that build on current responses to strengthen primary care and realize broader health outcomes for all. We can hold countries accountable for protecting rights, ensuring adequate health financing, and driving results. If we get governance right, we will be successful in the global response to COVID-19 and achieving global health security for the future.

The adoption of a universal and transformative global agenda for sustainable development in 2015 has to date not fundamentally redirected official development policies, which instead were repositioned to respond to changing human mobility and the rise of more investment-oriented approaches. The present global COVID-19 crisis will hopefully generate many innovations in medication, pandemic response, and economic recovery, drawing on developing countries' expertise in responding to infectious diseases.

This will hopefully drive gradual change toward a horizontal development cooperation agenda. Yet based on the history of development cooperation, I do not expect a revolution in this regard.

This will accelerate some policy changes that have been evolving for several years in global health. This includes things like task-shifting to allow more basic services by community health workers and distribution of some prescription drugs over the counter; multimonth distribution of antiretroviral therapies; self-administration of some family planning methods through things like Sayana Press.

I also think this is an opportunity for the emergence/growth of small- and medium-size businesses in many countries.

With the World Bank and other donors creating new credit facilities, there is an opportunity to build on the momentum to support "social enterprises." I expect there will be real interest, both by donors and by private funders, in how social enterprises can be supported to be part of the recovery both in terms of local jobs and service/product development.

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After the pandemic: How will COVID-19 transform global health and development?

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WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS - The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented disruption for the global health and development community. Organizations fighting infectious disease, supporting health workers, delivering social services, and protecting livelihoods have moved to the very center of the world's attention. But they find their work complicated by challenges of access, safety, supply chain logistics, and financial stress like never before.

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INTRAC: How timely organisational support could help civil society in the South survive COVID-19

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INTRAC: How timely organisational support could help civil society in the South survive COVID-19

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Southern Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are vital in providing services to communities and advocating for change with influential decision makers. As a primary means to reach local people, it is essential that CSOs are not overlooked in the understandable rush to address pressing health and economic issues closer to home.

Many are facing existential threats right now. If they do not adjust and receive the support necessary to maintain themselves as organisations, they could well collapse. What can be done to address this? Rod MacLeod (an organisational development consultant at INTRAC) shared his initial agenda for action:

1.      Guaranteeing the necessary financial support

2.      Help leaders of CSOs to make the right decisions

3.      Support creative programming that is safe but effective

The link below will take you to his full blog:

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By Rod MacLeod

The world is facing an unprecedented challenge. What started as a health problem is now affecting education, work, businesses and the wider economy. It touches us as individuals, families, communities and wider society - right across the globe. While urgent and decisive action is required, the ramifications of this crisis are likely to be felt for many years to come.

Given the almost overwhelming competing demands, it is possible that some sectors may get left behind. INTRAC's concern is for civil society - particularly in the Global South. At this time, it is needed more than ever, as states struggle to support the most vulnerable through this crisis. Civil society organisations (CSOs) need to keep monitoring and championing human rights so that they are protected as much as possible and marginalised groups are not ignored. As a primary means to reach local people, it is essential then that funders and supporters of CSOs in the Global North act promptly and decisively at this critical moment.

Southern Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are vital in providing services to communities and advocating for change with influential decision makers.

As a primary means to reach local people, it is essential that CSOs are not overlooked in the understandable rush to address pressing health and economic issues closer to home.

Many are facing existential threats right now. If they do not adjust and receive the support necessary to maintain themselves as organisations, they could well collapse. What can be done to address this? From my experience as an organisational development consultant, here is an initial agenda for action.

Guaranteeing the necessary financial support

What a Southern partner would most want to hear is that funding is guaranteed for the next year, which will cover operational and staff costs, even if they are unable to carry out previously planned programme activities. There are different ways to do this (changing deadlines, accepting re-allocations to operational costs), but this needs to be done urgently to reassure and head off panic measures, like laying off staff. This may mean INGOs negotiating with their upstream donors for more flexibility at this unprecedented time.

At the same time, no one wants to be seen to be throwing money around recklessly. If donors can give provide such a guarantee, a condition could be that partners have a reasonable, but shortish amount of time (e.g. a month) to come up with a realistic plan as to how they can use the next year productively. This might be a mix of revised programme activities and capacity development through online training and workshops. Such a plan can contain could contain two or three different scenarios, for when the situation improves to underline the need for flexible thinking.

Help leaders of CSOs to make the right decisions

Even if some donors are able to show such flexibility, others will not. It will therefore be a real challenge for many local organisations to keep their heads above water financially. While fixed costs like salaries and rent continue month on month, if income dries up, Southern CSOs can rapidly find themselves in difficulties.

There are no easy answers in such situations, but organisations are likely to look at cutting unnecessary costs, freezing salary increases and asking for actual reductions in some cases. If this is necessary, then the pain should be borne across the board, creating a sense of being 'in this together'. Ultimately staff will want to keep their jobs, rather than lose them completely and it is in everyone's interests that capacity is retained to be able to scale up rapidly in the future. Landlords can be asked for rent holidays - and will probably have few other options for tenants at the moment.

Staff and communities will understandably be frightened and concerned for their futures. Reassurance and contact are vital in these circumstances, even while maintaining physical distance. This can be more important than more tangible forms of assistance. This is a time when real leadership skills are needed to maintain morale and make the right decisions. Hard choices may be necessary, but it is vital that they are taken to further the mission of the organisation in the longer run, rather than being the most expedient option. The 'heart of the onion' - the mission, vision and culture at the heart of any organisation - remains as important as ever, however challenging the times.

International support institutions can also play a role in leadership coaching and mentoring, facilitating and sharing ideas and learning so that leaders can access support to tackle thorny questions in a fair and responsible manner.

Support creative programming that is safe but effective

In the first place, this is a health problem, so the first concern is how to protect staff and communities. INTRAC is not a health organisation, so would defer to others such as the World Health Organisation and the relevant authorities in each country.

Such guidance is aimed at steps to avoid becoming infected. But many CSOs are on the frontline with communities. In South Sudan or North East Nigeria, local organisations have continued to work in war zones through the most difficult times. So, Southern CSOs may well feel that they want to continue to work with their communities, even at risk to themselves and their staff and volunteers. Such work cannot always be done from the safety of self-isolation. Clear guidelines are therefore required to be able to work directly with people, while minimising risks.

But beyond this, thought needs to be given as to what types of programme work are most appropriate in this context. Ideally, hospital intensive care provision can be scaled up, but this is not realistic in many contexts. It may be that volunteer home care support (as developed during the HIV and AIDS crisis in countries like Zambia and Uganda) should be revitalised.

There are likely to be rapidly developing socio-economic needs emerging as borders close, businesses shut down and supply chains are interrupted. Existing means such as cash transfer might need to be upscaled. But if markets become overstretched, there may be a need for more direct provision of aid.

This new scenario can lead to exacerbated protection issues that need to be addressed. Creative programming ideas should be rapidly developed to deliver support, while minimising risk to all involved.

Conclusion

The impact on Southern CSOs might not be the first thought on people's minds as they hear the latest figures on COVID-19 in their country. But in dealing with the consequences - both in the short and the longer term - the continued good health of CSOs is also vital. This needs both a solid commitment from international supporters (at a time of many competing demands), but also creative thinking. With this, Southern CSOs will not only survive, but also play a vital role in meeting immediate needs and accompanying communities on the long road to recovery.

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How timely organisational support could help civil society in the South survive COVID-19 - INTRAC

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By Rod MacLeod The world is facing an unprecedented challenge. What started as a health problem is now affecting education, work, businesses and the wider economy. It touches us as individuals, families, communities and wider society - right across the globe.

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SciDev.Net: COVID and SDG 5 Gender equality

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SciDev.Net: COVID and SDG 5 Gender equality

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Women are on the coronavirus frontlines as healthcare workers and primary caregivers, but policy responses often fail to consider how gender and epidemics interact. What impact will this have on the push for gener equality (SDG 5), and what does it mean for development research?

SciDev.Net will examine this issue in an online debate scheduled for Wednesday Apri 22, join live or listen back via this link.

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INTRAC: Key challenges for development research…. and overcoming them

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INTRAC: Key challenges for development research…. and overcoming them

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Rachel Hayman on Key Challenges for Development Research

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INASP: Important voices are missing from the debate.

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INASP: Important voices are missing from the debate.

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Important knowledge and important voices are missing from development research in many countries. Funding tends to go to a few elite organisations, women find it difficult to pursue research careers, and research-based knowledge is favoured over experiential and indigenous knowledge.

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INASP: Doing capacity development well. 

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INASP: Doing capacity development well. 

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In this Newton Fund blog post, Jon Harle - INASP's Director of Programmes - outlines 6 principles for effective capacity development.

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1. Home

2. News

3. Blog

4. How do you do capacity development well?

Lately there have been several opportunities for reflection on capacity development in our sector - what good capacity development looks like and what might be less good. The UK's Independent Commission for Aid (ICAI)'s report on some of the UK's development research funding schemes highlighted concerns related to both effectiveness and equity, and these issues were considered in two conferences that I participated in earlier this year - a panel discussion we-convened at the Development Studies Association conference on rethinking collaboration (under the Rethinking Research Collaborative), and a conference in Oxford on ethics.

With these discussions fresh in my mind, it seemed a good opportunity to offer six suggestions for how we can approach capacity development more equitably, and more effectively.

1. Capacity always already exists - we need to start there, not with what we bring.
This first point is all too often overlooked. There is always existing capacity in a system or institution, and if we want to contribute meaningfully we should be thinking about how we augment and add value to what is already there.

We should always be designing work together. Of course, it takes time - but there's little point embarking on a process of capacity development if it doesn't involve partners, and the results will always be better where there is shared ownership, and mutual investment in the success of a project.

2. Understand the context - the limits of technical skills development
We tend to describe capacity and its development in technical terms - skills to be built, capacities needed, knowledge gaps, resource constraints etc. But developing capacity is about a process of change. That means it's political - it's about the ways things are done, the incentives and interests that underpin that, those who hold power and those who don't.

3. Capacity development can't just be a 'bolt on' to a research project
A lot of efforts achieve little in the way of lasting change or capacity, because they are poorly designed, insufficiently resourced, they don't make use of the right expertise, and there's no clear attention to the pathway for learning and change. Instead the focus is often on one-off training workshops. To do capacity development well it can't just be an afterthought, a bolt on to a research project to satisfy the conditions of a funding call.

Researchers from Tanzania, Somalia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka involved in an evaluation exercise of capacity development in research communication in their institutions. Image © INASP, December 2017, taken during a AuthorAID project meeting in Sri Lanka.

Doing capacity development well

4. Don't just focus on individuals - think about the levels of change
Many initiatives focus entirely on individuals - for example, training a group of researchers in scientific methods or writing. Done well, this can certainly be valuable and can really help individual researchers and scholars. But if you train a group of researchers, what happens next year? How do the next cohort of PhDs or early-career staff get trained? How will a person with skills thrive in a department where they can't use them? We need to think about organizational and system levels of capacity.

At the organizational level, we should think about developing in-house programmes that continue, every year - so working with universities and research institutes to develop these, and to develop their own teams of facilitators.

Working at the systems level is probably hardest of all. But it may be possible to have an impact at a system level by working with multiple institutions to develop a wider programme of support, or by convening different types of organizations to identify strategies for change. And in all cases, we should be cognisant of the system level incentives and policies which frame, support, or in some cases create obstacles - and design with those in mind.

5. Design for learning. What's the purpose? What do you want to achieve?
We should be thinking hard about what we are trying to achieve, and what support our learners need - because if we're strengthening capacity, we're implicitly engaged in a learning process. Do we want to engage a group of learners around an issue, which may be new to them? Do we want to develop foundational knowledge, or do we want to strengthen skills? Do we want to give space to master competencies - ie to put skills into practice?

If we can identify what we're trying to achieve more clearly, then we can think about the best way to support that learning and achieve those goals.

6. Get beyond the one-off training workshop
Whatever we're trying to achieve, we need to avoid the tendency to think automatically about a face to face training workshop. Peer learning networks or discussion spaces, or mentoring over a longer period, may be more appropriate. Or it may be about a facilitated problem-solving or design session. It should probably be a combination of several modes of support.

Blended learning - combining a mix of face-to-face sessions with online sessions, or bringing digital tools into a physical workshop - can transform what is possible. As connectivity improves and more people have access to digital technologies, there is huge potential.

Online learning can enable you to go where a workshop can't. It can also help you to get to scale - to reach more people, including in places where it would be much harder to bring people together for a workshop. We are experimenting with a series of journal clubs - online discussions using a mix of WhatsApp, and Zoom and other tools to bring people together for shorter sessions to discuss a range of topics, facilitated by partners from our AuthorAID network. It also means you can also deliver learning is at the point of need. There's no need for a week away, when you can fit it in around work and family life, and you can study when it suits you and apply what you learn as you go.

If a face-to-face workshop is needed, then digital platforms can help to prepare participants and support them afterwards. What starting knowledge do they need to make it valuable, useful? What will happen after the workshop? How do we ensure continuity of learning, and provide on-going support to ensure that skills and knowledge can be mastered, put into practice?
Doing capacity development with limited resources?
Good capacity development can't be done on the cheap. It needs expertise, and that means it requires time. One the other hand, bad capacity development is expensive - scarce resources are wasted, including time of the participants, and at its worst it can undermine capacity and confidence and have a limited lasting impact.
Those operating on smaller budgets can avoid reinventing the wheel by working with those who already do it, leveraging and building on existing resources and expertise.

So to re-cap:

1. Capacity already exists -start there, not with what you bring

2. Understand the context - the limits of technical skills development

3. It can't just be a 'bolt on' to a research project

4. Don't just focus on individuals - think about the levels of change

5. Design for learning. What do you want to achieve?

6. Get beyond the training workshop. Digitally enhanced and blended learning. Peer learning, coaching, mentoring.

Jon Harle is Director of Programmes at INASP where he is responsible for developing INASP's programme strategy and for the overall delivery of INASP's projects, working across the research and knowledge system in 20+ countries. Jon has worked at the intersections of research capacity, higher education and international development for the last 14 years. He is currently project director of the DFID-funded Transforming Employability for Social Change in East Africa (TESCEA) project, and previously led INASP's Strengthening Research and Knowledge Systems (SRKS) programme. Before joining INASP, Jon spent six years with the Association of Commonwealth Universities, developing and managing research capacity initiatives. He has written and consulted on research capacity and higher education issues for a number of bilateral donors and research agencies.
A version of this blog was originally published on the INASP website. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author.

Find out more about Newton Fund and GCRF capacity development.

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How do you do capacity development well?

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Home News Blog How do you do capacity development well? Lately there have been several opportunities for reflection on capacity development in our sector - what good capacity development looks like and what might be less good.

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Verity joined INASP in January 2017. She has more than 18 years' experience of strategic marketing and communication in the field of research communications. She is responsible for directing and implementing INASP's marketing and communication strategy, including developing brand and messaging; overseeing communication strategies for INASP's programmes and projects; and working with business development colleagues to drive stakeholder engagement.

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INASP: Building sustainable communities of practice.

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INASP: Building sustainable communities of practice.

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CoPs are a powerful way of bringing people with shared interests, vision and needs together, but are not always successful and rarely sustainable. In this AuthorAID blog Joanna Wild - INASP's Head of Technology-enhanced Learning -  discusses why vibrant, sustainable communities of practice are not straightforward – and what we can do about it.

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Joanna Wild discusses why vibrant, sustainable communities of practice are not straightforward - and what we can do about it
According to Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner's 2015 definition:

"Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor [...] a band of artists seeking new forms of expression, groups of engineers working on similar problems [...] a gathering of first-time managers helping each other to cope."

In the development sector, communities of practice (CoPs) have become popular as tools for promoting learning and knowledge sharing. But there are many myths about CoPs, not least the idea that the technology will solve everything.

In this post, I discuss the potential of CoPs but also the challenges - and how INASP is navigating these challenges so that CoPs can form an important part of our toolkit for engaging with our networks.
What makes a Community of Practice?
Wenger-Trayner argue that CoPs are made up of three intersecting components: domain, community and practice. The domain aspect recognizes that CoP members share concerns​, interests, problem space, competence​, commitment​ and vision​.

But concerns and interests in the same domain are not enough in themselves; the second aspect (community) is about members engaging in joint activities and discussions meaningful to them. This includes helping each other​, seeking and giving advice, ​and doing things together.

Building from this shared domain and joint activities comes the practice element of the CoP. This is about members co-producing knowledge and gradually developing a shared repository of outputs that can include new ways of doing things, new meanings, concepts, stories, methods, etc. There is a big role here for stewards to collate and curate representations of knowledge created by the community members for the benefit of the entire community.
Types of communities
Communities can be small or big, virtual, face-to-face or blended, long-term or short-term. They can be named differently, for example, international networks, thematic groups, virtual teams etc. Wenger-Trayner argue that CoPs have a natural lifecycle; some will 'die' sooner while others will last longer.

For me, the most helpful distinction is the one that focuses on the source of learning:

In a learning community, the community is driven by a specific topical focus and over time its members develop a joint history of learning, which might include things like stories or case studies. One example is the Outcome mapping learning community, a "global, informal, open membership network for sharing information and facilitating learning on using Outcome Mapping for planning, monitoring and evaluating complex interventions". Another example is Knowledge Management for Development, which focuses on approaches to knowledge management and issues around knowledge management​ and has resources dating back to 2000.

In a network, the learning lies in connectivity itself. Within networks, the critical mass of network members allows for quick-fix Q&A types of interaction and reflective discussion around issues relevant to the network members. An example of this is the HIFA DGroup, which "provides a neutral discussion space for all those with an interest in the creation, exchange and use of relevant, practical healthcare information for citizens and health workers in low- and middle-income countries".

Finally, there are communities with a short-term purpose, which are usually formed as part of a project and can but don't have to outlive it. An example was the recently ended K4Health Toolkit, which provided practical collections of trusted public health resources, chosen by experts and arranged for easy use. The community included information professionals from North and South, ​coming together for practice-based objectives. ​

I find this distinction helpful as it makes the primary purpose of the community explicit and helps community designers and stewards formulate realistic expectations of the community's rhythm, lifecycle and the type of activities it is likely to engage in. For example, in a network, expertise should be distributed over a large number of members so that no particular group of people have to take all the load. As such, if you are building a network, efforts will be focused on ensuring that the number of members is rapidly growing towards a point of critical mass where any question can be quickly answered because there is always someone 'online' with relevant expertise.
CoPs at INASP
CoPs are one of INASP's key capacity development approaches. The development of CoPs is built into our project design and implementation from the point of project initiation to ensure that there is enough time and resource to design, prototype and launch each community. For example, within the TESCEA partnership (working on higher education pedagogical reform in four universities in East Africa) we have been developing a community of academic lecturers who want to change their practice from teacher-centred to learner-centred pedagogy. Our approach is theory-informed, systematic, design-based, and most importantly it's co-designed with and stewarded by its members.

We began looking at CoPs in our work during our SRKS programme between 2013 and 2018 to connect, for example, members of national library consortia or journal editors to facilitate knowledge and information exchange. One of our largest CoPs is the AuthorAID platform, which has developed from a project into a community of 20,000 researchers and practitioners around research publication skills. We have provided tools for connecting mentees with mentors, trained community members to become guest facilitators on our online courses and supported enthusiastic community members to steward journal clubs.
Why isn't it straightforward and what to do about this​?
CoPs are potentially powerful for bringing people together with shared interests, vision and needs. However, they come with many challenges and are not always successful. We have seen some of these challenges in our own experiences.

Common pitfalls of CoPs can stem from:

Underestimating the effort needed for co-design with the members

Issues with time and commitment of the core group of community stewards

Overreliance on the 'right' technology as a silver bullet

Issues around ownership and power relations within a CoP - in development the traditional North to South, Funder to Recipient, and local hierarchies dynamics play a role and need to be addressed.

Finally, knowledge sharing with a CoP can be limited by many personal factors including:

Time ​and competing priorities

Confidence - is it good enough?

Lack of recognition - what's in it for me?

Cultural aspects such as preference for in-person rather than online interaction.

Maintaining the right level of interaction
As mentioned earlier, a thriving community requires a critical mass of members. Our experience at INASP suggests that this critical number of active members needs to be maintained when platforms change. Within a previous funded programme, we established an AuthorAID Dgroup, which was a network and had a critical mass of members to answer each other's queries. When the funding finished, we no longer had the finances to pay for Dgroups and so migrated the members into collaboration forums within the main AuthorAID platform. This disrupted and changed the nature of interaction and so we are now looking into the ways to re-establish the network component of the AuthorAID community with open technology.

In the formation of AuthorAID journal clubs we also learned that some technology platforms work better than others for the kind of interaction that people want to have.
Communicating the benefits of involvement
To answer the "what's in it for me?" question, when a new member joins a CoP, they should be immediately able to see the possible benefits and relevance to them of being part of the community. They must be able to take, before they will be asked to give i.e. contribute. Therefore, the community spaces need to be designed, prepopulated with relevant resources and have a rhythm to their activities so that a member knows exactly what to expect and when to expect it.
Building a sense of presence
Another important aspect is building a sense of presence through face-to-face, web and online events. Especially if the members of a CoPs don't know each other, there is a need to create activities that will help this presence to emerge through online socialization. Such approaches can improve trust, confidence​ and recognition of shared competence.

AuthorAID includes several activities and services and connects with researchers in different ways, including regular massive open online courses in research writing. To increase numbers of members of the AuthorAID DGroup network, we regularly invited new members from MOOC participants to join the network. This improved the membership numbers, which resulted in a faster flow of queries and answers. It also helped increase individual member confidence in posting their questions.

At INASP we are building on the successes of our current work - and learning from the things that went less well - to build a more collaborative and community-driven platform where Southern researchers feel empowered to shape it and contribute to the shared resource hub.
For more information:
Wenger E., Trayner, B., (2015), Communities of Practice. A brief introduction

Cambridge D., Suter V., (2005), Community of Practice Design Guide ​

Cummings, S., (2014), Knowledge sharing in communities of practice in international development

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Joanna Wild discusses why vibrant, sustainable communities of practice are not straightforward - and what we can do about it According to Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner's 2015 definition: "Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor [...]

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University of Oxford: Policy Engagement team

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University of Oxford: Policy Engagement team

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In 2019, the University of Oxford established a public policy engagement support function, to provide guidance and resources for university researchers to engage effectively with policy actors. The ultimate goal is to foster and support evidence-informed policymaking.

Given the breadth of international research at the university, the Policy Engagement team is keen to better understand how evidence uptake works in a number of different country contexts. This informs how researchers can engage with public policy internationally in an effective and responsible way.

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I am part of the International Social Research team at Ipsos MORI. I specialise random probability sampling for multi-country surveys as well as quasi-experimental impact evaluation design for international development clients.

Although Ipsos MORI is based in London, I am based in central Oxford, where I work remotely for most of the week.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaemackin/

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Since the start of the Congo Wars in 1996, different narratives have tried to make sense of the roots, nature and complexities of violence and conflict. Public and academic debate first concentrated on the military involvement of neighbouring countries. After the beginning of the second Congo War in 1998, control over natural resources (mostly minerals) was increasingly considered the crucial driver of violence. As was argued, warring factions' ambitions and strategies were guided by economic incentives, with 'conflict minerals' as the key incentive to keep their war machines going. The focus on resources has gradually also been accompanied by international coverage of high levels of sexual violence, leading to the image of the Democratic Republic of Congo as the 'rape capital of the world'.

However simplistic or reductionist such narratives on conflict minerals or sexual violence might be, they have had a major influence on international public opinion and international policy responses to Congo's crisis. This is despite the existence of growing and rich academic literature that shows the multi-layeredness of the causes and consequences of the Congo Wars; the connections between regional, national and local levels and actors; the effects of unresolved conflicts around (access to) resources (including land), citizenship, local authority and identity; the militarised power games between different elite-networks; the effects of existing peacebuilding policies, and so on.

Yet, however little these narratives might have contributed to a better understanding of the scope and protracted character of this conflict, the fact that most of these readings come from outside observers is far more problematic. Whether they are the result of sensationalist journalists or smartly developed campaigns by international NGOs, they hardly ever give a voice to Congolese perspectives or readings. Even more, they limit the space of thinking of Congolese observers, who are forced to reproduce existing narratives if they want to be heard.

But isn't this also the case for academically produced knowledge? Isn't the bulk of analysis also being written outside of the Congo and isn't this literature imposing its own ways of thinking and framing on those involved in the process of data collection and analysis? To what extent can collaborative research projects build new perspectives and avoid the simple reproduction of dominant epistemologies and repertoires?

Having been involved for more than a decade now in such collaborative projects, I have to acknowledge that, in most cases, different layers of collaboration exist that implicitly confirm underlying logics of knowledge production. Despite the genuine efforts being made today to start from more participatory approaches, research agendas and guiding conceptual frameworks are still usually developed by a core group of researchers (in most cases based in the global North) and taken as a given by the rest of the research team (in most cases yet not exclusively based in the global South). This is not per se because there is no space for discussion or debate, but because one's own positionality often refrains them from doing so.

As a consequence, these agendas and frameworks often are simply taken from granted. But the backgrounds, ways of thinking, registers and dominant epistemologies leading to them are also constantly being reproduced and guided by existing dynamics of power defining academia. It explains why, even in collaborative projects, those being part of the core research team continue to decide what should be on the research agenda and why researchers and research assistants based in the South tend to position themselves as mere facilitators and data collectors, and to reduce their own space of navigation in the field of knowledge production. This often leads to frustration from both sides. For those in the core group, it can be challenging to deal with what is conceived as a lack of activism and taking of ownership of the research process from those researchers and assistants based in the South. For those based in the South, implicit or experienced power relations, lack of financial autonomy and implicit dominant positioning of those in the North can be equally disturbing. (These issues are further discussed in our Bukavu Series.)

These issues have gained increased visibility in the debates on the politics of research exploitation and the decolonisation of knowledge production. What is receiving limited attention in these otherwise rich discussions is how these issues contribute to a specific framing of what we study.

What is considered being 'the field' in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is largely based on perspectives, approaches, paradigms, concepts and theories externally being produced and imposed. At the same time it is the result of a specific way of 'doing research', of specific epistemologies, research values and practices. These explain why local views hardly ever find their way into larger discussions and debates. How researchers in the South look at their own world is largely defined by dominant perspectives produced elsewhere. These perspectives are either strategically, opportunistically or because of existing power relations often just accepted as such, even if they do not correspond with their own views. As a consequence, in some cases there is an implicit distancing from the research activities they are a part of. These dynamics, in the end, engender narrowing effects on how we look at realities in places we are trying to understand. Existing research collaborations often equally prevent us from making real progress in the understanding of, and the redefinition of views on, existing realities.

Making more visible all those who contribute to the research cycle, providing them with decent remuneration and implementing solid security policies, however important these are, will not suffice to reverse the dominance of external frameworks of thinking. To come to a real co-production of knowledge, more is needed than tackling power dynamics guiding research and giving voice to those silenced today. Changing existing logics force us to rethink our own position as scholars. To what extent are researchers in the global North ready to allow for collaborators in the global South to challenge their frameworks and views? And besides creating space for obvious self-critique, how should we foster more pro-active roles and claims of ownership, also by those researchers based in the South?

Real collaboration is not only about doing things together at each stage, including the project design and proposal writing; it implies questioning reference frameworks and practices of thinking we rely on. Indeed, turning the production of knowledge into a genuinely shared enterprise can only be successful when bringing in new people (or the same people in new ways), adding new ideas and perspectives and building a true dialogue between equitably approached perspectives. It is about creating and claiming space for and by these new voices.
Photo: OÔcha, North Kivu region, Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: World Bank / Vincent Tremeau. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

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Can collaborative research projects reverse external narratives of violence and conflict? | Africa at LSE

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Since the start of the Congo Wars in 1996, different narratives have tried to make sense of the roots, nature and complexities of violence and conflict. Public and academic debate first concentrated on the military involvement of neighbouring countries.