Indonesian chickens and eggs: more from the Phase II design workshop in Jakarta
Today, we largely tackled debates around collaboration. There were a few issues that I picked up on from the IWG country programs here in the Indonesia Design Workshop.
1) There was a query on what communities of practice were. The fact that this came up again validated that this is not a concept easily understood. Well, at the very least we have different understanding of what one is. From where I sit, I think ECB in its current form as well as its future form needs to consider language and the implications of using broad sweeping concepts that have an undefined nature amongst collaborators. Communities of Practice seem to be a good example. Another one is organizational change – this is one that has had many of us stumped since I came aboard the project more than a year ago. What is it that we are actually talking about and is a 2-3 year project really enough to institute it?
2) Another curious point was raised about the ECB3 meetings and the necessity of changing a mindset. This did not occur in Yogya where many PMT members were relocated to the emergency response but the thought never occurred to possibly collaborate on the emergency response itself, although the ECB 3 meetings continued in Yogya!
3) Finally, it was raised that the field needs to start the collaboration – it cannot come from above as in the first phase of ECB. It needs to make sense to the agencies on the ground. However, bearing that in mind, the current collaboration probably would not have happened without some outside force (HQs in this case). So the question here is where does it come from if we are going to collaborate through a bigger field focused initiative in Phase II? What would the role be for Country Programs? Which Country Programs? Who chooses the Country Programs? How do HQs fit in? If it is truly field-focused in the next phase then will the collaboration develop organically? Or will we have similar issues to the first round? Is it chicken or is it egg?
Other than this, I have not seen any great surprises thus far in the workshop. Organically grown field collaboration, good communication, ensuring pre-existing capacity, and potential common tools (assessments) are all issues that have been flagged as being important to some of the agencies here. I wonder if the same issues would have been raised by folks involved in ECB 3 in the other 2 pilot countries.
Tomorrow some of these ideas will be fleshed out in more detail with Phase II in mind. We’ll keep you posted on new developments….. after all the "how" is the tricky part.
Charlie Ehle,
Emergency Response Specialist,
Catholic Relief Services
1) There was a query on what communities of practice were. The fact that this came up again validated that this is not a concept easily understood. Well, at the very least we have different understanding of what one is. From where I sit, I think ECB in its current form as well as its future form needs to consider language and the implications of using broad sweeping concepts that have an undefined nature amongst collaborators. Communities of Practice seem to be a good example. Another one is organizational change – this is one that has had many of us stumped since I came aboard the project more than a year ago. What is it that we are actually talking about and is a 2-3 year project really enough to institute it?
2) Another curious point was raised about the ECB3 meetings and the necessity of changing a mindset. This did not occur in Yogya where many PMT members were relocated to the emergency response but the thought never occurred to possibly collaborate on the emergency response itself, although the ECB 3 meetings continued in Yogya!
3) Finally, it was raised that the field needs to start the collaboration – it cannot come from above as in the first phase of ECB. It needs to make sense to the agencies on the ground. However, bearing that in mind, the current collaboration probably would not have happened without some outside force (HQs in this case). So the question here is where does it come from if we are going to collaborate through a bigger field focused initiative in Phase II? What would the role be for Country Programs? Which Country Programs? Who chooses the Country Programs? How do HQs fit in? If it is truly field-focused in the next phase then will the collaboration develop organically? Or will we have similar issues to the first round? Is it chicken or is it egg?
Other than this, I have not seen any great surprises thus far in the workshop. Organically grown field collaboration, good communication, ensuring pre-existing capacity, and potential common tools (assessments) are all issues that have been flagged as being important to some of the agencies here. I wonder if the same issues would have been raised by folks involved in ECB 3 in the other 2 pilot countries.
Tomorrow some of these ideas will be fleshed out in more detail with Phase II in mind. We’ll keep you posted on new developments….. after all the "how" is the tricky part.
Charlie Ehle,
Emergency Response Specialist,
Catholic Relief Services
posted by Emergency Capacity Building Project Team Blog at 10:51 AM
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