microLINKS Speaker's Corner: Becoming More Effective Learning Organizations

 

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About the discussion: Microenterprise and other development organizations work in a complex and changing environment in which they hope to make positive changes. Knowledge of this environment and how local people perceive it, designing an appropriate intervention strategy, and adapting to new developments all require continuous and effective learning. In reality, however, most microfinance organizations or microenterprise development programs allocate hardly any time or resources to knowledge management and learning. As a result, organizations tend to repeat the same mistakes or remain in the dark as to why their actual performance is different from their stated mission and goals.

About the dialogue: This three-day online discussion, held March 4-6 2008, hosted by Jan Maes and facilitated by guest moderators Sara Naab, Luis (Lucho) Osorio, and Sybil Chidiac, focused on the experiences of four microenterprise development organizations (CARE-USA, Practical Action, Freedom From Hunger, and WOCCU) that embarked on a path to Become more Effective Learning Organizations (BELO). With the support of a small grant provided by USAID’s Microenterprise Development office, these organizations spent the last 20 months improving knowledge sharing and learning at a programmatic or organization-wide level. Building on the experiences of these four organizations, this online discussion created a stimulating dialogue about the ways organizations can improve knowledge sharing and learning. In addition to the four moderators, Guest Speaker Ben Ramalingam, participated in this dialogue and will help to prepare an analytical summary forthcoming.

PovertyFrontiers and the Development Gateway Foundation have recently become partners to enable more sharing among the poverty reduction community. The Development Gateway's dgCommunity on Poverty is an online community and open space where people can visit to share the experiences and knowledge on some of the key issues related to the problem of poverty in the developing world. dgPoverty aims to serve as a resource of information, dialogue, problem solving and community building for those interested in this topic, providing users with information about poverty reduction strategies applied in different countries and about evaluations of the impact of poverty policies and programs. The page also offers discussion forums, latest news, upcoming events, project information, statistics, useful web links and other knowledge resources. To view the announcement of the partnership, please click here.

Living on the Margins Conference

This international conference, featuring Vulnerability, Social Exclusion and the State in the Informal Economy took place in Cape Town, South Africa from March 26-28, 2007. The conference was hosted by Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, Chronic Poverty Research Centre and Isandla Institute with support from USAID.  For more information, please click here.          

Spatial Poverty Traps Workshop Resources Available

USAID’s Office of Poverty Reduction (PR), the Households in Conflict Network (HiCN) and the German Institute for Economic Research(DIW Berlin) co-hosted a two-day international conference November 8-9, 2006 on "Poverty Reduction in Conflict and Fragile States: Perspectives from the Household Level."  The purpose of the conference was to advance understanding of the special challenge of poverty reduction in conflict and fragile states. In addition to broad sessions led by guest speakers, the conference included a number of parallel break-out sessions that focused on sub-themes.

To learn more, please click . 

   
  The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Poverty publication is now available!

Most economists argue that increasing international trade contributes to economic growth and therefore to the alleviation of poverty. Beyond basic questions and theoretical costs and benefits, however, the relationship between trade and poverty becomes considerably more complicated. Even in the most successful cases, the impact of increased trade depends heavily on the condition of existing institutions, public investments in education and infrastructure, the presence of safety nets, and the impact of the world economy.

This publication summarizes the proceedings of a conference, “The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Poverty,” conference hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars with support from the USAID Poverty Assessment and Social Safety Nets team and the 3M Company on April 15, 2005. The daylong conference brought together national and international stakeholders, including economists, policy analysts, policymakers, and business leaders from different parts of the developing world to examine how trade liberalization affects poverty. Sessions were dedicated to understanding the linkages among trade, growth, and poverty; how the poor respond to trade-related opportunities and challenges; the types of institutions and complementary policies needed to ensure that trade liberalization benefits the poor; and the challenges faced by policymakers in the context of the Doha round of WTO negotiations.

For more on the conference, click , and to view the conference broadcast, click .    

To download the conference proceedings,here.  To order a hard copy of the proceedings,    

Livelihoods and Conflict: A Toolkit for Programming

The Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation in DCHA launched its Livelihoods & Conflict Toolkit, the fourth in the toolkit series developed by CMM to explore how development assistance can address key risk factors associated with conflict, instability, and extremism. The toolkit was developed with extensive participation from the Poverty Analysis and Social Safety Net team.

The toolkit provides USAID mission staff and their partners with: 1) an examination of the relationship between conflict and people’s livelihoods; 2) lessons in developing livelihoods programs--including an introduction to livelihood analysis; 3) a range of program options designed to reduce livelihood vulnerability, strengthen resiliency, and help people manage conflict-related shocks; and 4) listings of relevant USAID mechanisms, implementing partners, and contact information.

For a hardcopy of the toolkit, please email Juliet Hunt at jhunt@usaid.gov.