In 2003, our engagement commenced with USAID’s Microenterprise Development office (MD) in the context of the Accelerated Microenterprise Advancement Project (AMAP) indefinite quantity contract. The MD office, functioning as an internal technical consulting unit, provided guidance to field Missions on integrating microfinance and value chain aspects into their country strategies and portfolios. This enduring partnership continues to flourish.
Empowering the Viral Spread of KM
At the inception of our KM initiative with the MD office, Knowledge Management (KM) was a nascent and untested concept at USAID, lacking widespread support across the agency. The Microenterprise Development office, later renamed Microenterprise and Private Enterprise Promotion (MPEP), acted as an early adopter and progressively evolved into a KM frontrunner. Following our triumph in securing the five-year $33.6 million Knowledge-Driven Microenterprise Development (KDMD) contract in 2008, interest in KM proliferated contagiously to other Offices, Bureaus, and Missions. These entities witnessed the MD office’s ascendancy in microfinance and value chain expertise through a combination of online tools and physical events. Inspired by this achievement, they aspired to attain comparable influence and scope in their respective domains. Recognizing how KM had elevated the MD office to a thought leadership role within USAID, they leveraged the insights of implementing partners to formulate value chain strategies that widened access to finance and enhanced the livelihoods of entrepreneurs and farmers. As a result, they sought KDMD to propel their own initiatives, leading to the gradual integration of KM into the USAID mainstream.
Utilizing KM to Infuse Novel Policies
Beyond augmenting USAID’s technical leadership through KM advocacy, our role extended to embedding new policies throughout the entire agency using robust KM systems.
Pioneering in the realm of nurturing understanding and proficiency in KM among USAID personnel, we have collaborated with the Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning (PPL) to champion Collaborating, Learning & Adapting (CLA) approaches across the Program Cycle, including program design and evaluation. Our rich history in shaping CLA, in partnership with PPL and the USAID/Uganda Mission, has been instrumental since 2011. This engagement spans our prime role on KDMD and our subcontracting on the subsequent program, the Feed the Future Knowledge-Driven Agricultural Development (KDAD), where we serve as a subcontractor to the small business prime.
As PPL forged ahead in formulating the Program Cycle Learning Guide, we provided valuable insights and promoted its dissemination through the USAID Learning Lab. Our proactive involvement also extended to orchestrating an early online Learning Lab Session on CLA in 2013, titled “A CLA Dialogue: Missions and Partners Share Experiences and Best Practices.” We compiled and shared CLA-related presentations developed by USAID and implementing partner staff to familiarize them with CLA concepts. Our efforts further encompassed the creation of case studies on learning and the development of webcasts for seven “Thought Leaders in Learning” events, encompassing subjects such as participatory impact pathways, appreciative inquiry, and scaling knowledge. Additionally, we aided in launching the Learning Networks Resource Center. In 2016, our endeavors culminated in delivering the first combined M&E and CLA training to USAID and implementing partner staff in Uganda.
Nurturing eLearning and Online Training
Our commitment to cultivating professionals’ technical expertise extends to designing and delivering training courses that foster peer-to-peer interaction and experiential learning. We achieve this by infusing “adult learning” principles into the curriculum design, identifying participant needs, and cultivating trainee cohorts through interactive milestones before and after the event.
Within the realm of KDMD, our Adult Learning and Training (ALT) team embraced a blended learning approach, seamlessly combining in-person and online instruction to foster peer-to-peer learning among practitioners. Beyond the confines of the classroom, blended learning encompasses participatory and self-paced modules, interactive courses, videos, webinars, and other distance learning techniques. These methodologies facilitate a continuous learning experience, occurring before, during, and after a training course, encouraging participants to exchange insights and learn from their peers.
Incorporating e-learning into our comprehensive suite of KM tools, we have collaborated closely with instructional designers, adult learning experts, programmers, and subject-matter specialists to develop blended learning courses. Notably, we established USAID’s Economic Growth Learning Center, an online learning platform that preceded the launch of the USAID learning management system (LMS), USAID University. Among our accomplishments, the ALT team crafted the online course “Managing a Value Chain Project” and orchestrated six in-person courses/trainings, such as:
- Economic Growth in Post-Conflict Countries Course;
- Economic Growth Overview Course;
- Agriculture Core Course;
- Agriculture Project Design Course;
- Agriculture Overview Course; and
- Emerging Payment Systems Workshop.
In illustrating the comprehensive augmentation of USAID’s knowledge base in agriculture and food security, a selection of techniques we employed include:
- Coordination of public seminars accompanied by webinar broadcasts;
- Publication of event screencasts, audio files, and transcripts within the Agrilinks library;
- Creation of video interviews with implementers, spotlighting project insights;
- Compilation of video interviews from pertinent conferences and events;
- Facilitation of #AskAg Twitter chats, enabling users to pose questions to experts; and
- Refinement and testing of the “Life in the Village” simulation activity.
Collectively, our contribution has been pivotal in not only establishing but also expanding KM across the USAID mainstream. Through innovative approaches and insightful methodologies, we have propelled specific offices and staff to attain thought leadership status within the agency, fostering essential knowledge and advancing collective learning.
The USAID-funded Knowledge-Driven Microenterprise Development (KDMD) project (May 14th, 2008 -October 30th, 2013), managed and implemented by QED, has revolutionized the way development practitioners connect with each other, significantly influencing how knowledge management is understood across USAID, as well as within the larger global development community.
KDMD was originally created as a knowledge management project under the former USAID Microenterprise Development office with the purpose of helping international development practitioners learn, coordinate, and distribute foreign assistance more effectively. The QED team began with just eight full-time staff assisting USAID in the management of seminars and creation of learning products. However, as the project gained recognition for the quality and importance of this work, 12 additional USAID buy-ins signed onto our project and our staff grew three-fold, while procuring funding of over $33.2 million over the 5-year performance period. To read more about the Impact of the Project, please visit the KDMD Final Report.
Along the way, KDMD increased its skill set to encompass innovative learning techniques such as facilitating online seminar participation, using social media to share best practices, and creating online learning communities. This “blended learning approach” to training combines in-person and online interaction to drive the highest learning impact. Blended learning approaches move beyond the traditional classroom setting to include participatory and self-paced modules, interactive and stand-alone courses, videos, webinars, and other distance learning techniques. As the field of knowledge management has evolved, the project team stayed informed of leading trends and opportunities to engage international development stakeholders in new and creative ways that foster learning and maximize the impact of development efforts.
Over the years, KDMD played a major role in promoting knowledge management and learning at USAID and in the broader international development community. Our knowledge products have attracted thousands of participants, users, and viewers. As knowledge management practitioners, the team made it a priority to continuously adapt to USAID’s needs in order to ensure better development outcomes, which was critical to the project’s success.
This project has demonstrated that “knowledge management” is a technical field unto itself. Now more than ever, programs are being designed with a KM component to maximize learning and ultimately, to achieve better development outcomes.
To read more about how KDMD incorporated Adaptive Management visit the USAID Learning Lab L2: Learning about Learning series here.