Report: The role of Intermediaries in Bridging Policy, Research and Practice

Tags: Worldwide , Knowledge Platform
Additional tags: Knowledge intermediation , Infomediarysocial media , Communication , Knowledge

Jon Gregson, Head of IDS Knowledge Services, opened the session by asking participants whether they worked for a knowledge intermediary organisation. Three quarters of the room raised their hands, which suggests in theory that the room was pretty knowledgeable about what an intermediary is.  It’s a term that’s very much open to different interpretations so I was interested to see where the session discussion would go. 

Ananya Raihan from the Development Research Network (D.Net) began the session by sharing his experience of Knowledge intermediation at the grassroots in Bangladesh.  D.Net use the following definition to describe an infomediary role:

“An infomediary is a person who combines a set of technological resources and coaching to meet users’ information needs and communication capabilities.”

Josine Stremmelaar then introduced the Hivos Knowledge Programme. Hivos see itself as an International Intermediary NGO who link academics and practitioners from different regions and create space for marginalised actors for their voices to be heard. What have Hivos learned from their knowledge programme? Josine outlined some of her key thoughts. Read more in the report below.

Dr Shamprasad Pujar from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) ended the session by talking about a paper that he and Catherine Fisher from IDS have been working on entitled Stimulating Demand for Research: Exploring Cultures of Information Use in South Asia.  You can view the presentation and the full paper at http://bit.ly/qanIgY

Read the full report here below:

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Jon Gregson, Head of IDS Knowledge Services, opened the session by asking participants whether they worked for a knowledge intermediary organisation. Three quarters of the room raised their hands, which suggests in theory that the room was pretty knowledgeable about what an intermediary is.  It’s a term that’s very much open to different interpretations so I was interested to see where the session discussion would go. 

Ananya Raihan from the Development Research Network (D.Net) began the session by sharing his experience of Knowledge intermediation at the grassroots in Bangladesh.  D.Net use the following definition to describe an infomediary role:

“An infomediary is a person who combines a set of technological resources and coaching to meet users’ information needs and communication capabilities.”

D.Net are trying to address a core problem they term as “triple illiteracy” in Bangladesh (ICT illiteracy, information illiteracy and inability to read and write Bangla). They aim to address this with various intermediary initiatives including developing public information access centres, providing advice to various members of the community e.g. farmers, women facing domestic violence and offering infomediation at the door step through “infoladies” on bicycles and mobile applications.

So what have D.Net learned from doing this type of infomediary work? Ananya thinks the key success factors for infomediaries are:

• A positive attitude
• A quick learning ability
• Good communication skills
• An entrepreneurship mindset (for example using      social media to connect people so they can solve their own problems)

D.Net has also developed a new way of measuring the benefit of knowledge intermediation which works out a community impact figure in relation to cost of set up and resources. This methodology is now starting to be used by other Bangladeshi institutions. There is a complicated looking mathematical formula so I won’t try to explain, but it sounds like a really interesting way of demonstrating impact. See Ananya’s presentation or contact D.Net for more information.

Josine Stremmelaar then introduced the Hivos Knowledge Programme. Hivos see itself as an International Intermediary NGO who link academics and practitioners from different regions and create space for marginalised actors for their voices to be heard. 

So what have Hivos learned from their knowledge programme? Josine outlined some of her key thoughts:

• Defining your role in the knowledge business is      key  - you need to be clear what you do, what      the issue is, what the demand is and who you are going to share knowledge      with
• Identify your niche - As      an intermediary NGO, you need to see what your relevance is and what your      strength is e.g. is it linking different development communities or      enabling access to information?
• Be creative - Hivos      recently gathered the opinions of youth on a social issue, but instead of      synthesising their findings for policymakers (a common intermediary      response), they annotated their stories. You can be creative with how you      share knowledge
• Let others know what they can expect from you – be explicit and transparent about your      knowledge intermediation processes
• Celebrate difference – with      more programmes linking researchers and practitioners working together you      need to draw value out of these relationships and celebrate differences.      Relationships don’t always have to be lovely!
• Intermediation is important - people are convinced of the importance of      knowledge brokering but this is only small group so far.

 Intermediaries aim to enable people to make their own decisions, but solutions really depend on what questions are being asked. Take market prices for example - a farmer might ask “what are the market prices for tomatoes? or “how do I deal with volatile markets?” So you need to be critical with information and decide what to share - you might need to go and find an answer, or find the right information for someone to shape an answer. One participant asked if there was a problem of incomplete information. You can give a farmer the market price of tomatoes but the farmer might not understand how the economic system works, and potentially make the wrong decision for productivity.  Information systems are not really geared to meet demands of farmers and other types of audiences in a holistic way.  So you need intermediaries with a different set of skills to help people define their problem.

Dr Shamprasad Pujar from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) ended the session by talking about a paper that he and Catherine Fisher from IDS have been working on entitled Stimulating Demand for Research: Exploring Cultures of Information Use in South Asia.  You can view the presentation and the full paper at http://bit.ly/qanIgY

There are different understandings of “demand” and in this process both Sham and Catherine viewed the term from meaning “asking for research” to the “value placed on research”.

Examples of action from South Asia in this area include:

• Dissemination of information e.g. web portals such as the India Environment      Portal and policy briefs such as Protifolon in Bangladesh
• Interaction between research and implementation      communities e.g. the Bangladesh      Institute of Development Studies bringing parliaments and budget staff      together
• Social influence methods e.g. PIDS host the Development Policy Research      Month (DPRM) in the Philippines every year
• Facilitation or the provision of technical,      financial, org and emotional support e.g.      capacity building for policymakers to help them understand info and      stimulate evidence based practice such as a legislators service in the      Philippines for parliamentary members to access bills and advice

So many interesting initiatives in South Asia were found, but little or no evaluation of their relative success or the changes they had brought in terms of future behaviours towards evidence. Multitudinal studies and outcome mapping could help to track changes but how do we move beyond linear evaluation models? One participant asked whether these initiatives were being designed to change attitudes and behaviours in this way and stimulate demand.  Perhaps this is the underlying problem.

To find out more about IDS’ DFID-funded Mobilising Knowledge for Development Programme (MK4D) which helped enable this session to take place please visit http://www.ids.ac.uk/go/knowledge-services/mk4d

Session report by Yaso Kunaratnam, Network and Partnerships Convenor at IDS Knowledge Services