KDID Lab

KDID Lab is a space on KDID to share experience, exchange information and learn from other knowledge management practitioners working in International Development.

KM Impact Challenge

Many of us are trying to find ways to effectively measure and demonstrate the results of our investments in knowledge and learning. The Knowledge Management Impact Challenge aims to accelerate this discovery process by gathering and exchanging stories of what works and what doesn't.

Learning Lab Library

Our collective experience teaches us that development efforts yield more positive change more quickly if they are coordinated and collaborative, test promising new approaches in a continuous search for improvement, and build on what works and eliminate what doesn't. The Program Cycle Learning Lab provides methods, models and tools for USAID staff, partners and others to jointly shape how Program Cycle processes are operationalized in the field, and how to make development assistance more effective by systematically coordinating our efforts, collaborating for synergy and cross-sectoral learning, sharing knowledge and experience, and adapting more quickly to the dynamic development contexts in which we operate.

Learning Lab Re-Design:
Learning Lab is currently being upgraded to build in interactive functionality integrated with the existing content library. The upgraded Learning Lab site, ready in early 2013, will have two main purposes. It will facilitate USAID staff and partners in jointly discussing and shaping how Program Cycle processes are operationalized in the field (for example, how implementing partners within a single project will coordinate, how Mission staff will manage that coordination, what Agency-level supports — such as mutually referential funding agreements — are needed, etc.). It will facilitate USAID staff and partners in integrating models and methods for collaboration, continuous learning and adaptive implementation and management throughout the Program Cycle for more effective programs.

Therefore, we anticipate using Learning Lab in several ways:

• To collect and share practical resources to help USAID staff, partners and others enhance the ways they already collaborate, learn and adapt.
• To provide a forum where Learning Lab users can share their experiences and support each other's efforts to operationalize a more dynamic/adaptive approach to development interventions.
• To promote testing, refinement and scaling of innovative approaches that substitute traditional direct implementation and service delivery with a strong emphasis on facilitating learning among local development actors in order to build their capacity for analyzing the systems in which they function, articulating a contextually specific response, mobilizing local resources, and generally defining and driving their own development agenda.
• To generate collective learning that will contribute to the broader international development arena, inform other actors' decisions, and generally improve the field of international development.

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