A learning alliance is a diverse network of individuals committed to improving knowledge on a specific research topic. [1] Learning alliances are often made up of small networks of public, private and/or civil society actors seeking to further social or political change.
Learning alliances consist of a series of facilitated meetings or informal exchanges between stakeholders with a common advocacy interest. [2] Individual actors or groups share knowledge on a topic in order to improve the validity, accuracy and dissemination of their analysis. [3]
Learning Alliances in the humanitarian sector often place importance on improving the capacity of disadvantaged social groups to solve problems on their own behalf. [4] [5] The learning alliance concept has ties to the field of Participatory Action Research, or PAR, an approach to social research that emphasizes participation and action by community members. [6]
In humanitarian, development and social research fields, the term Learning Alliance has been used by international aid groups to describe cross-boundary stakeholder networks focused on improving local civil society capacity. [7]
The Learning Alliance approach was first discussed in literature in 1994 investigating what Michael Gibbons called mode two knowledge production. [8] Mode two knowledge production involves multidisciplinary teams that work together on specific problems in the real world, in contrast to mode one knowledge production, “which is motivated by scientific knowledge alone... and which is not bothered by the applicability of its findings”.[ citation needed ] Gibbons noted that this type of research “promotes the interaction of multiple actors with multi-layered sources of knowledge to cope with the complexity of fostering continuous technological, social and institutional innovations to respond to rapidly changing contexts and demands”. [3]
In 2012 the United Nations Barrier Monitoring Unit (BMU) launched a formal Learning Alliance called the Academic Cooperation Palestine Project (ACPP) to enhance the educational and technical capacity of Palestinian researchers. [9] ACPP hosted local and international research partnerships around sensitive issues related to the Israeli Separation Wall, including land degradation, water rights and land title controls. [10] ACPP is now called the WALL Learning Alliance. [11]
In the United States, the Digital Learning Alliance group formed to “improve economic growth in underserved areas of the U.S. by advocating for personalized education through the use of digital learning technologies”. [12]
The Learning Alliance, started in 2009 in the United States, was organized to further literacy among school children. [13] In Indian River County, Florida, the Alliance worked with parents, community leaders, educators, and concerned citizens to achieve 90 percent literacy by third grade by 2018. [14] In 2017, through professional development opportunities, book drives, and after school and summer programs, literacy had increased to 56 percent. [14] Following a learning alliance structure, the group meets monthly.
LearningAlliance.ch was subsequently established as an NGO in Geneva by Stefan G. Ziegler in 2014 and five more learning alliances were subsequently established by the NGO. [15]
LAILY is a unique educational initiative that stands as the sole learning alliance dedicated to international law for youth applying documentary film. Established by Stefan Ziegler, LAILY strives to share knowledge on international law within the context of conflict situations to secondary school students globally. The initiative employs a dynamic bottom-up approach, actively involving local actors and interest groups in participative learning cycles and the exchange of knowledge among peers. [16] LAILY fosters synergies among diverse stakeholders, including civic organizations, teachers, international law societies, academics, and donors. At the heart of LAILY’s mission is the groundbreaking educational documentary film "Broken-for-the-Curious," produced by AdvocacyProductions Sàrl. [17] Tailored for young individuals aged 14 and above, the film aims to stimulate curiosity and critical thinking about the causes of armed conflict, the perceived shortcomings of International Law, and the transformative journey from law to justice.
Development communication refers to the use of communication to facilitate social development. Development communication engages stakeholders and policy makers, establishes conducive environments, assesses risks and opportunities and promotes information exchange to create positive social change via sustainable development. Development communication techniques include information dissemination and education, behavior change, social marketing, social mobilization, media advocacy, communication for social change, and community participation.
CGIAR is a global partnership that unites international organizations engaged in research about food security. CGIAR research aims to reduce rural poverty, increase food security, improve human health and nutrition, and sustainable management of natural resources.
The International Center for Tropical Agriculture is an international research and development organization dedicated to reducing poverty and hunger while protecting natural resources in developing countries. It is based in Palmira, Colombia, where it employs over 300 scientists.
The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) is a non-profit scientific research organization that conducts research on the use and management of forests with a focus on tropical forests in developing countries. CIFOR, which merged with World Agroforestry on Jan. 1, 2019, is the forestry and agroforestry research center of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a network of 15 research centers around the world that focus on agricultural research for sustainable development, working closely with governments and other partners to help develop evidence-based solutions to problems related to sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.
Adaptive management, also known as adaptive resource management or adaptive environmental assessment and management, is a structured, iterative process of robust decision making in the face of uncertainty, with an aim to reducing uncertainty over time via system monitoring. In this way, decision making simultaneously meets one or more resource management objectives and, either passively or actively, accrues information needed to improve future management. Adaptive management is a tool which should be used not only to change a system, but also to learn about the system. Because adaptive management is based on a learning process, it improves long-run management outcomes. The challenge in using the adaptive management approach lies in finding the correct balance between gaining knowledge to improve management in the future and achieving the best short-term outcome based on current knowledge. This approach has more recently been employed in implementing international development programs.
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, often simply shortened to GIZ, is the main German development agency. It is headquartered in Bonn and Eschborn and provides services in the field of international development cooperation and international education work. The organization's self-declared goal is to deliver effective solutions that offer people better prospects and sustainably improve their living conditions.
Digital literacy is an individual's ability to find, evaluate, and communicate information using typing or digital media platforms. It is a combination of both technical and cognitive abilities in using information and communication technologies to create, evaluate, and share information.
The Collaborative Crop Research Program (CCRP) funds participatory, collaborative research on agroecological intensification (AEI). Funded projects typically link international, national, and local organizations with communities of smallholder farmers, researchers, development professionals, and other parties. Projects work together as part of a Community of Practice to generate technical and social innovations to improve nutrition, livelihoods, and productivity for farming communities in Africa and South America. Large-scale impact is realized when new ideas, technologies, or processes are adapted, when insights from research catalyze change in policy and practice, and when innovation inspires further success. The program is under the direction of Rebecca J. Nelson of Cornell University and Jane Maland Cady of the McKnight Foundation.
Sustainable sanitation is a sanitation system designed to meet certain criteria and to work well over the long-term. Sustainable sanitation systems consider the entire "sanitation value chain", from the experience of the user, excreta and wastewater collection methods, transportation or conveyance of waste, treatment, and reuse or disposal. The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) includes five features in its definition of "sustainable sanitation": Systems need to be economically and socially acceptable, technically and institutionally appropriate and protect the environment and natural resources.
Participatory impact pathways analysis (PIPA) is a project management approach in which the participants in a project, including project staff, key stakeholders, and the ultimate beneficiaries, together co-construct their program theory.
Bioversity International is a global research-for-development organization that delivers scientific evidence, management practices and policy options to use and safeguard agricultural biodiversity to attain global food- and nutrition security, working with partners in low-income countries in different regions where agricultural biodiversity can contribute to improved nutrition, resilience, productivity and climate change adaptation.
The net-map toolbox is a social network analysis tool that uses interviews and mapping to help people understand, visualize, discuss, and improve situations in which many different actors influence outcomes. Social network analysis is a research approach used by scholars such as S.D. Berkowitz, Stephen Borgatti, Ronald Burt, Linton Freeman, Mark Granovetter, Nicholas Mullins, Anatol Rapoport, Stanley Wasserman, Barry Wellman, and Harrison White to better understand the implications of the position of individual actors in a social structure.
The Sulphur Institute, or TSI, is an international non-profit organization which acts as a global advocate for sulfur and sulfur producers.
The technological innovation system is a concept developed within the scientific field of innovation studies which serves to explain the nature and rate of technological change. A Technological Innovation System can be defined as ‘a dynamic network of agents interacting in a specific economic/industrial area under a particular institutional infrastructure and involved in the generation, diffusion, and utilization of technology’.
Theory of Change (ToC) is a methodology or a criterion for planning, participation, adaptive management, and evaluation that is used in companies, philanthropy, not-for-profit, international development, research, and government sectors to promote social change. A Theory of Change of a social program defines its long-term goals and then maps backward to identify necessary preconditions.
The Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) is a global consortium of development institutions that work collaboratively to advance sustainability learning with systematic and science-based measurement. COSA applies a pragmatic and collective approach for using scientific methods to develop indicators, tools, and technologies to measure the distinct social, environmental, and economic impacts and are applied in performance monitoring, evaluation, return on investment (ROI) calculation, and impact assessment. COSA has a public mission to open its scientific methods and metrics up to widespread use.
Participatory evaluation is an approach to program evaluation. It provides for the active involvement of stakeholder in the program: providers, partners, beneficiaries, and any other interested parties. All involved decide how to frame the questions used to evaluate the program, and all decide how to measure outcomes and impact. It is often used in international development.
Raymond L. Ison is an Australian-British cybernetician, systems scholar/scientist, and Professor of Systems at the Open University in the UK. He is currently President of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR). He was also Professor Systems for Sustainability at Monash University, and fellow at the Centre for Policy Development, and President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences in the year 2014-15. He is known for his work on systems praxeology within rural development, sustainable management, systemic governance and the design and enactment of learning systems.
Metaliteracy is the ability to evaluate information for its bias, reliability, and credibility and apply them in the context of production and sharing of knowledge. It is especially useful in the context of the internet and social media. A formal concept of it was developed as an expanded information literacy framework by State University of New York academics Thomas P. Mackey and Trudi E. Jacobson. It has been used to prepare people to be informed consumers and responsible producers of information in a variety of social communities.
Digital agriculture, sometimes known as smart farming or e-agriculture, is tools that digitally collect, store, analyze, and share electronic data and/or information in agriculture. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has described the digitalization process of agriculture as the digital agricultural revolution. Other definitions, such as those from the United Nations Project Breakthrough, Cornell University, and Purdue University, also emphasize the role of digital technology in the optimization of food systems.
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