The focus of Development Gateway Foundation's dgCommunities (previous post) is providing web-based tools to make aid and development efforts more effective by increasing access to critical information, building local capacity and bringing partners together for positive change. Somewhat like computer geeks looking for some do-gooders to help. They are in the field, having just opened as opened a new office in Dakar, Senegal, but work more it seems on upgrading aid management systems or improving user interface.
The ICCO Alliance and its many partners or sponsors, including EUFORIC, seem to focus their efforts more towards on the ground efforts in aid relief than dgCommunities. They are also though seeking to extent their reach and effectiveness by using Web 2.0. tools, so do-gooders looking for help from the computer geeks. From the Web 2.0 perspective this would be the Integration of Collaborative Information Systems in Web 2.0 (pdf), but from the field operatives perspective looking to communicate and collaborate with other aid organizations it is ComPart.
Their system is impressive and should be a model for other collaborative progressive efforts on the Internet. While dgCommunities is out of Washington D.C., I have thought for a while that the Europeans were better at using the Internet for social action at the grassroots level than we are in the States. While we may have more people on Facebook signing up for the latest cause, Europe including Great Britain seem better at using Web 2.0 for socially beneficial impact.
The ICCO is now using these tools to create better connections with aid efforts going on in the southern hemisphere of our planet ComPart Learning Blog: ComPart South 2009 workshop
In 2007, ICCO started a project (with support from Euforic) working with Knowledge and Learning Networks. The project aims to contribute to ICCO Alliance capacity building, learning networks, and knowledge.
The basis for the ComPart system is ComPart Flowers. This 30 minute presentation found on blip.tv provides a more extensive look at what makes up the ComPart Flowers system:
Some of the tools used are blogs, social tagging and wikis. One outcome of these efforts is the web2share wiki.
This wiki introduces some 'building blocks' - tools and applications - for open information, knowledge sharing and communication in development. It builds on the efforts of ICCO, Euforic and their partners. It supports further investments in these tools and approaches.
The ICCO Alliance/ComPart folks are not having any trouble finding the computer geek types to help them including the founder of PBWiki, David Weekly.
David Weekly in the ComPart Learning Blog Post: Wiki, wiki, wiki, meet David Weekly.., explains his interest to listen to experiences of wiki users from Nepal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chile and Costa Rica during his participation in the ComPart support workshop in the Netherlands. He also explains how PBwiki continues to try to make wikis easier to use and how valuable it has been to meet some major daily users of the PBwiki platform.
Other tools include social-tagging on sites like Delicious of favorites like Everyone's bookmarks for "Happy Capacity Building".
How to promote a learning culture in an organization with huge workloads and pressure for the young staff? Start from scratch, from their needs and wishes, and help them crystallize their own ideas.
Most of what is featured here came from the ComPart toolbar, which I downloaded but can't now find a live link. I should disclose that I am not part of any of these organizations. I am just impressed and believe that even looking from the outside in that there is a great deal to learn.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
