South South Learning and Exchange Kick-off Meeting: Delhi, June 13

Introduction

This video can be viewed in its entirety or via short video clips sorted along themes (blue underlined) which emerged during the debriefing. This debriefing was organized by the Knowledge and Learning Group as part of AFTQK's knowledge sharing and learning services. the kick-off meeting was conducted on June 11, 2004.

Click here to view full video Part I (1:59 min). Click here to view full video Part II (52:41 min).

Introduction by Suleiman Namara (3:26 min).

My role will be to describe who we are, what we are here for, and what we aim to achieve. Attendees at this meeting include institutions that the Bank has strategically selected, and hold the potential for lessons that each country can learn from each other.

1. Representatives of the South Asian Clients and Partners: Women's Self Employment Association (SEWA) and Honeybee Network 2. East African Partners - Tanzania TASAF, Malawi MASAF, WDIP,

Critical Objectives of the Tour : (2:01 min).

1. Help communities to prioritize, plan, and develop their own development processES within their local context and environment, using the indigenous knowledge at work within the communities. All participants have one thing in common: they are all working on community development and trying to empower communities.

2. Bank Staff are here to learn from the practitioners, and to facilitate the exchange. They are here to learn about the impact of IK systems on the development process, and to exchange their knowledge of development in the African region. The focus of the tour is on the conversion of social capital to economic capital and lessons learned on this area will be incorporated into their operational work in Africa and South Asia.

Tour Schedule  (1:00 min).  

Keynote Address by India Country Director Michael Carter (1:44 min). Sharing of experience should be a two-way street. The exchange provides an opportunity both for you to learn and to give input towards the development process. The Government of India very much supports this idea and appreciative of the Bank for arranging this type of exchange

Maintain a Focus on Sustainability. (9:08 min). You will see many examples of very impressive initiatives at the grassroots level, but the real issue is sustainability. There has been success in organizing the groups of poor and socially oppressed people into groups that give them a sense of power and confidence. The first issue is empowerment, which is crucial to any success in poverty reduction and the second is  sustainability. and the third issue is scaling up. The goal of these efforts are how to have an impact at the national level

Address by AFTKL Director Nicolas Gorjestani.  (10:26 min). There are three messages to keep in mind. 1. The importance of local knowledge and indigenous practices in development 2. South-South knowledge exchange is a useful learning tool to help the stakeholders enhance their local capacity in support of the Millennium Development Goals. Finally, key role of the Bank is to help broker such exchanges and build knowledge networks for results

Role of the Bank in the Development Process. (4:40 min). This is a two-way street. The knowledge is centered in many communities across the world. The Bank uses its resources to connect stakeholders to eachother wherever they are located and to learn from them what works in the local context. This has helped to build a network of local IK Practitioners. The power of the network is something that we try to promote. It is a network that leverages the global and the local

Documentation and Resources on Indigenous Knowledge. (1:58 min).  This experience has been documented in the book IK For Development. It will be disseminated in English, Frencha and Swahili   

Challenge of Scale-up.(2:25 min). Themes that have emerged in application of IK point to the potential for major scale up. During the exchange, the idea is to think is terms of taking what has been learned home and scaling it up by stimulating the network in my own country.

Follow-up Actions. (8:27 min).    In Kenya, Uganda, India, Sri Lanka a number of follow-up actions have come about as a result of the first South-South exchange." Think of what needs to be adapted in order for it to become adapted to the local context. Overall goal is to Develop an action plan of how you will take some of what you have learned and transfer it into an actual program with these three points I mind: how to do it, how to adapt it, (therefore scale-up)".  

Create the Space for Local Practitioners to Learn by Doing. Its more about creating space for local practitioners to learn by doing, and use all the knowledge including your own, to solve problems rather than fill that space with solutions brought from the outside. Space is the space to learn by doing. (1:33 min)

Creating the Best Local Fit. (1:47 min). Its more about Global versus Local. Its more about creating the best local fit versus the best global practice. How does the practice fit into my context institutional - social, cultural, economic etc? However, For every problem, there will be a combination of local and global.

Wrap-up Remarks. (1:58 min).

Concluding Statement by Suleiman Namara. (1:10 min)

Kick-off Meeting, Part Two

Facilitator Address   (1:05 min)

Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA):  (1:15 min).

Main Goals of SEWA (2:23 min). The two main goals are full employment, and self-reliance. SEWA is trying to organize workers towards full employment; work security, income security, food security, and social security. The four categories include  1. Home-based workers, 2. Vendors 3. Service providers, including agricultural workers, and women who sell their labor, and finally 4. Producers. SEWA is trying to build the capacity of women for them to become the owners and managers of their own organizations

Integrated Approach  (1:58 min). The strategy is one of struggle and development. This leads to constructive development which is undertaken through the use of unions and cooperatives, and through an integrated approach to work and income security. Ghandian thinking is a guiding force for SEWA

Women-Owned Activities (1:05 min). Women become the managers of our organizations - all activities are run by the women themselves. SEWA runs activities that are both need and demand based. The focus is on promoting groups at the village level