Although “knowledge management” entered popular usage in the late 1980s, it has been around for many decades. Knowledge management (KM) is essentially about getting the right knowledge to the right person at the right time. Knowledge sharing is one of key components of KM, which means the process by which knowledge is transferred from one person to another, from individuals to groups, or from one group to another within or outside the organization.
In today’s development perspective, knowledge management and sharing are among key ingredients of organizational performance, creditability and sustainability. Knowledge is the key resource that must be managed for organizations to succeed and remain competitive. For a long time, the relationship between knowledge management and performance has interested many researchers. So far, there is evidence that knowledge sharing is positively associated with innovation, creativity, efficiency, program quality and organizational performance.
Today, more and more organizations are coming to understand that in ignoring the importance of intangible assets (including knowledge) they run a mortal risk. However, the culture of knowledge sharing and learning is still limited among Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Rwanda. They, however, put more focus on managing tangible assets including materials, equipment, financials, etc. rather than embracing an organizational management approach that equally values the intangible assets. Knowledge sharing can be internal or external. On one hand, internal knowledge sharing promotes communication among employees, quick and informed decisions and increases productivity. External knowledge sharing on the other hand, promotes collaboration between organizations, amplifies organizational learning and helps organizations to avoid duplication.
As of December 2018, the Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) counted 1,335 national NGOS and 173 International NGOs. These CSOs have produced and are still producing knowledge such as program evaluations, research, case studies, assessments, audio-visual materials, etc, but when looking at how these materials are shared within organization (internally) or between organizations (externally), there is a huge gap. For example, in many cases, the findings from research, evaluation and insights from program implementation are only shared with donors for transparency and accountability. These findings are not shared with CSOs’ employees to inform quality delivery and future programming, and they are particularly not shared with other CSOs for learning and avoiding duplications. Furthermore, some learning materials are not posted on CSOs websites; they remain however, in their shelves and laptops.
Experience shows that majority of CSOs in Rwanda do not have technical capacities and skills to extract insights and knowledge from program implementation and evaluation. The other mistake done by nearly all CSOs in Rwanda is the inability to capture the tacit knowledge of the employee leaving an organization.
Some CSOs have been trying to create spaces for knowledge sharing such as communities of practices, networking meetings, learning visits, etc. However, these efforts are still limited, fragmented, and project-based rather institutionalized.
Again, many CSOs in Rwanda are yet to establish strong Monitoring and Evaluation systems that encompass the knowledge management and sharing plan. The knowledge sharing requires going beyond traditional M&E systems that produce reports and store information. For example, the Mapping of Healing Actors and Approaches conducted by Never Again Rwanda and Interpeace (2015) revealed that many actors still lack M&E procedures to inform organizations’ decision making. In addition, many actors including CSOs reported lack of experience and resources to conduct proper M&E activities. Furthermore, the same study reported lack of awareness among CSOs that M&E plans should be integrated into project design. To be well positioned, CSOs must have the capacity to extract and use knowledge from their information generated either from evaluations, research or lessons learnt from program implementation.
A number of factors may explain this problem. Firstly, knowledge sharing requires an organizational culture that values promotion, production, coding, and sharing of knowledge, something that is still missing. In addition, CSOs in Rwanda have limited capacity in terms of qualified staff, infrastructures and financial resources to establish and operationalize the knowledge management systems. According to the Civil Society Organizations Sustainability Index (CSOSI) (2019), CSOs’ organizational capacity is still weak in regards to human and financial resources. CSOs continue to exhibit significant gaps in capacity for project design and evaluation, leadership and management, strategic planning, and knowledge management. Secondly, CSOs do not necessarily have the knowledge sharing motivation plan either in form of money or other means to encourage internal the knowledge sharing.
Thirdly, CSOs in Rwanda still view each other as competitors in terms of funding mobilization and programming rather than seeing each other as strategic or operational allies. Therefore, some CSOs view their knowledge as a competitive edge to conquer funding opportunities and visibility. This has resulted in poor programming, poor performance, duplication, limited innovation and creativity across interventions of CSOs. Fourthly, there is limited coordination of knowledge and good practice sharing efforts among them.
Finally, existing efforts to foster knowledge sharing among CSOs in Rwanda are donor-based rather than part of organizational culture, mission and values. While some CSOs started to organize different events to share knowledge with others in the same sector of intervention, something that has been appreciated by many CSOs representatives; however these events are still ad hoc and activity based.
Similarly, due to lack of coordination, the recommendations taken from these events are not implemented or followed up. For example in 2016 and 2017, Never Again Rwanda organized networking meetings with CSOs working in Peacebuilding as side events at the International day of peace. CSO representatives appreciated the efforts and recommended each CSO to organize similar events in the future, however, there was no similar event organized by these CSOs.
Also, on 30th March 2017, Never Again Rwanda held a reflection workshop with CSOs working in gender and governance to reflect on the theme entitled “Women’s Participation in Local Governance: challenges and mitigation strategies”. In this reflection meeting, Never Again Rwanda shared the findings from the research conducted in 2016 “Governing for and with Citizens”. The meeting was highly appreciated by participants and they recommended similar events in future.
Among the key resolutions of the meeting was to do a joint policy brief to be presented to the Ministry of Gender and Family (MIGEPROF), Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC) and Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) ahead of 2017/2018 national planning and budgeting. However, this paper was not produced and no follow up was done by the established joint committee. This demonstrates lack of ownership, collaboration and coordination of knowledge sharing efforts among Rwandan CSOs.
To bridge the gap, CSOs in Rwanda are recommended to build an organizational knowledge culture that encourages and nurtures creative thinking, knowledge creation and sharing. In addition, CSOs are urged to establish knowledge management and sharing strategy beyond their traditional Monitoring and Evaluation systems. This means putting in place adequate resources and infrastructures to design and implement the strategy.
Furthermore, CSOs must map out and create a database of all organizations working in the same field to foster knowledge sharing, synergy and collaboration. While each CSO must institutionalize the values of knowledge sharing, there is a need for CSOs working in the same field to have a coordinated committee that can facilitate inter-CSOs consultations and knowledge sharing.
Likewise, there is a need to have an online portal that might help CSOs to share, retrieve and use knowledge generated by them from evaluation, research and field experience. Also, the mandate of Rwanda Governance Board should be not limited to registering International and National NGOs; it should go beyond and put in place guidelines for inter-CSO collaboration and learning. Without effective knowledge management and learning systems that foster the culture of knowledge sharing, Rwandan CSOs are far from being evidence-based decision makers and policy influencers. Finally, CSOs in Rwanda must learn from the government of Rwanda, which adopted the knowledge based economy both in Vision 2020 and 2050.
Making a mistake is not a crime, but repeating the same mistake because you did not learn from it is.
By Celestin Nsengiyumva
Expert in M&E and program management