On April 3-4, Margot Brown, World Bank’s Director of the Global Operations Knowledge Management Unit (GOKMU), and Maria Gonzalez Asis, Manager Strategy and Operations GOKMU and Head of the Global Delivery Initiative, participated in the Knowledge for Development. Global Partnership Conference 2017.

The Global Knowledge for Development (K4D) Conference reviews and advances knowledge management practices in the field of sustainable development and presents a new agenda to strengthen knowledge societies and economies for development. Knowledge is an essential, overarching element for the achievement of Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

In a session on multistakeholder perspectives to Knowledge Management, Margot Brown presented the World Bank’s approach to knowledge management. She underlined that in an organization the size of the Bank, one of the main challenges is to prioritize as well as to identify and connect the pockets of excellence found in various areas. In her experience, capturing tacit knowledge is straightforward, but capturing qualitative knowledge such as discussions and opinions is much more difficult but extremely important. She informed that the World Bank is developing an action plan on knowledge management, with the objective of improving knowledge management for better development impact at country level. Brown shared the example of the World Bank-led project in Philippines to improve transportation through open data, as well as the World Bank’s Open Learning Campus, which has over 250.000 users and 150 Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs).

In a session on good practices in knowledge management, Maria Gonzalez de Asis presented the experience of the Global Delivery Initiative, a collaborative effort to create a collective and cumulative evidence base of delivery know-how to inform development practice and improve implementation. The GDI helps practitioners prepare for and address delivery challenges and unexpected problems throughout implementation. It aims to achieve this by 1) bringing together the existing, but fragmented, knowledge of what works in international development, 2) connecting perspectives, people, and organizations across sectors and regions, and 3) providing a platform for practitioners offering tailored services and products.

During the event, the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) launched its 2016 Report on “Knowledge Management in the United Nations system”, which highlights best practices, ways and means to implement the report’s recommendations. The “Agenda Knowledge for Development” was also presented. Initiated by KMA and supported by a global community of thought leaders, this agenda includes the first set of Knowledge Development Goals and brings a new and integrated view on the challenges and opportunities related to knowledge.

The Conference was co-organized by the Joint Inspection Unit of the United Nations System and Knowledge Management Austria, hosted at the United Nations Office at Geneva in cooperation with Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev), The New Club of Paris, Knowledge for Development without Borders and the Swiss Knowledge Management Forum.

For more information please visit:

 KM4DEV Open space

• Twitter (storify / tagboard)
• Videos
• Photos
• Blog (available tomorrow at km4dev.org)

 K4D Global Partnership Conference

• Twitter (storify/ tagboard)
• Videos
• Photos
• Presentations
• Blog (km4dev.org)