Open knowledge sharing supporting learning in agricultural and livestock research for development projects Peter Ballantyne Food Security and Nutrition Network East Africa Regional Knowledge Sharing Meeting, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 2012

What’s your main problem Feed I’ll go find some technology

What feed technologies have you got? Planted forage Urea treated straw Bypass protein OK, let’s try those

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got.” Mark Twain “Feed ‘promotion’ and intervention under business as usual not too promising” Alan Duncan

Topics ILRI and more effective development Why share and learn – starting points for knowledge management? Ways to share and learn – approaches we use at ILRI

Three ILRI roles in learning ILRI as a ‘knowledge’ partner – in development projects  Learning, M&E, impact assessment  Knowledge, expertise, facilitation, CD  Evidence, validation, … ILRI as R4D ‘solution-finder’ with partners  Participatory, multi-stakeholder …  Explicit learning/knowledge focus … ILRI ‘open’ research, knowledge and learning approach [local to global] We also do serious ‘upstream’ science!

Some starting points Together - researchers, communities, and development partners - know so much …  How do we create, document and share this knowledge?  How do we support learning, and share the results?  How do we enrich these processes of documenting, learning, and sharing?  Can we do R4D better? To increase the effectiveness of R4D!

Some ‘answers’ 1. Co-create and co-learn in multi- stakeholder platforms 2. Document and mobilize knowledge from the (un)usual people 3. Design, facilitate and document projects and events to capture and communicate knowledge and learning 4. Make research knowledge, processes and platforms ‘open’ 5. Engage, engage, engage …

1. Innovation platforms spaces for diverse actors to engage in dialogue, and to jointly identify, learn about and address issues Innovating with communities

2. Documenting (un)usual voices Community perspectives Funder voices Beyond reports Listen and learn

Participatory video

Documenting (un)usual voices

Most Significant Changes

Discussion support tools Rapid value chain assessment Participatory feed assessment with communities Technology prioritization with farmers

Discussion support tools Results: Promising feed interventions that might work Better understanding why usual suspects often don’t work Learning from communities Solutions suggested by farmers Crops at backyard, around fence, farm side Reducing the herd size Improving the utilization of straws of different food crops Providing farmers with continuous training

3. Document and share Facilitate workshop processes Design to involve, learn and interact Document with multi-media Publish and cherish

4. Open the knowledge Open research ‘Working out loud’

Open planning

‘Open’ events

Open project workspace

Open sharing – of lessons and gaps

Full text reports

Open presentations

Open photos

Open repository

Books on Google

Open for feedback

Working out loud! “bringing activities out of closed repositories and applications [and events and processes], and pulling them into the open increases the likelihood of learning information earlier.” - Stowe Boyd: out-loud-make-work-open-to-make-it-betterhttp://blog.podio.com/2011/08/01/working- out-loud-make-work-open-to-make-it-better WOL = Observable Work + Narrating Your Work  Narrating Your Work: journaling what you are doing in an open way for others to follow  Observable Work: creating / modifying / storing your work where others can see it, follow it and contribute to it, before it is final

5. Engage over time Partners, collaborators Relationships Feedback Open mindsets Social learning Social media

Challenges Process versus products Getting to open Finding ‘facilitation’ and process expertise Fear of new ‘tools’; fear of ‘overload’ Making time to learn and share

Contacts KM and ILRI: Peter Ballantyne Participatory video: Beth Cullen Innovation platforms: Alan Duncan

International Livestock Research Institute Better lives through livestock Animal agriculture to reduce poverty, hunger and environmental degradation in developing countries ILRI