Capacity Development

About ILN-Africa

The Information and Learning Network (ILN) is an initiative of UNDP's Capacity Development Group. Its primary goal is to enable local communities across sub-Saharan Africa to engage with a broad range of development actors and partners to share knowledge and to work jointly towards realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

ILN-Africa aims to create an information, learning and knowledge management support platform that ensures that communities will be able to develop locally-inspired strategies and plans drawing on a world of experience, and mobilise resources for their implementation. To this end three focus areas are addressed:

• Development of a knowledge management infrastructure to facilitate access to information, knowledge, and experience relevant to the attainment of the MDGs;
• Development of decision-making tools and capacity to enable communities to make effective use of information and knowledge to improve the local economy and facilitate the provision of basic services;
• Creation and management of shared spaces for interaction, sharing information, ideas and expertise, and fostering partnerships and synergy, and within which local development interventions involving communities themselves are engendered.

About the ILN-Africa Portal
ILN-Africa is a communities-driven knowledge network involving various people and organisations sharing the common aspiration and goal of local-level development. Members of this community foster peer learning through the sharing of information and experiences, interaction with each other, constructing new realities and creating value and opportunities towards local-level development, building on a diversity of information and knowledge sources, insights and experiences.

Communities that collaborate in this space include the following:

• People living in specific physical communities, i.e., localities, villages, townships or sections of towns or cities;
• Virtual communities or groups with common development needs or issues, i.e., a national association of women producing and marketing beads;
• Experts and institutions that contribute information and knowledge resources (Communities of Practice) relevant to local development;
• Development partners, including NGOs and donors, who engage directly with local communities to provide support in the implementation of various development projects.

This portal provides an internet interface, and is designed as a collaborative site to support the activities of the Network. It is structured as a multi-level, multi-layered, integrated and shared 'space' within which 'communities' interact, exchange ideas and experience on local-level development, and learn. Each 'community' has their own 'space'. Thus, within a 'country space' different 'communities' may be represented, from the national to the local level, either as physical locations or as interest groups.

The platform also provides space for local communities to engage with, and participate in a global knowledge community from which they can learn and derive value from the experiences of others. Communities can tell their own stories, share their development aspirations, and showcase their achievements.

Separate 'spaces' are available for various Communities of Practice as well as development partners to showcase what they are doing in or for the respective communities, where applicable. The objective is to facilitate engagement and dialogue between local communities, as stakeholders in development, and development practitioners, experts, and decision makers within the same space, for the purpose of enhancing local development.

The ILN-Africa platform is premised on the need to support local communities to explore and recognise opportunities for development that may be available to them, and to chart appropriate courses of action to improve their livelihoods. It uses the Internet as a backbone, and incorporates various other channels, mechanisms and approaches for communicating, including the use of local (community) radio.

The portal is a work-in-progress, and the Network is open to all who share in the vision of community-led development. In its present form, it is a pilot activity to test concepts and learn from its usage -- what works well, how various 'communities' interact with their respective space, as well as the site as a whole. The web portal is accessible at: www.iln-africa.net.