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UNITED CITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS OF AFRICA
(UCLGA)
Capacity Building (CB) and Development
Ref: CB3 – Knowledge Management
Problem Statement
Promote the exchange of knowledge among local governments,
especially national associations of local governments, in order
to share good practices with the aim to cascade learning to
individual local governments throughout Africa.
That is why the UCLGA has seen the need to establish a
Knowledge Management Facility for Local Governments (KMF) which
will be a centre of knowledge and intelligence, a continental
information and reference centre in the area of documentation
and administrative/ technical memory on local government,
decentralization, local development, urban and municipal
management in Africa.
Purpose and Description
Under the KMF the UCLGA seeks to promote the exchange of
experience and learning between local governments as well as
with partner organizations with an interest in local
government. It seeks to promote greater understanding and
awareness of developments in local government, share innovations
and good practice, develop policy and research to support local
government in developing better local policy and delivering
services more effectively.
The aim of the KMF is three-fold:
- To improve performance across the full range of the
UCLGA’s and local government activities in the continent.
This improvement will be achieved by making better use of
the knowledge that the UCLGA and its network possess.
- To entrench knowledge management as a core discipline of
the UCLGA. This will include the use of technology to link
up with members, the sharing and pooling of data to avoid
duplication of effort in the various local government
interventions, improving access to information, building on
existing local government research and knowledge through
information collection, collation, analysis, storage,
packaging and dissemination.
- To position the UCLGA to earn credibility and
recognition as an authority and one-stop-centre, able to
talk knowledgeably, on local government matters of the
continent and beyond.
Overall, the aim of this project is about the creation and
management of an environment that moves away from the dominant
culture of 'knowledge is power' to one in which 'knowledge
sharing is power'. This means encouraging knowledge to be
created, shared, learned, enhanced and organised for the benefit
of the UCLGA network, i.e. the organization, its members and its
stakeholders.
The objectives of the KMF include:
- To establish a strong knowledge and information
management system and centre in the UCLGA which would
support and empower the organisation through access to
reliable information and data to support the strategic and
operational planning capacity of the organisation and its
network, as well as its monitoring functions.
- To promote knowledge sharing and experiential learning
across Local Governments in Africa through the
identification and capturing of best practices in Local
Government in Africa for dissemination via a local
government portal and via the holding of thematic Learning
Platforms.
- To assist development partners by providing them with
accurate information on the needs of local governments in
Africa so that the support provided and interventions made
may be targeted and effective.
- To undertake policy and action research and
dissemination on key local government areas of interest in
partnership with research institutions, universities and
technical support agencies.
- To establish and manage multi-usage data bases (local
government experts, local government Acts, decentralization
laws), and any pertinent databases related to local
government which will provide accurate, and up-to-date data.
- To champion the UCLGA Portal Programme.
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