To firm up its goal of integrating Knowledge Management practice into its existing workflow and strengthen its mainstreaming initiatives into the DA regular system, the Department of Agriculture – Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) held its 2nd National Knowledge Management (KM) 101 Training Workshop on October 10-13, 2023 in Olongapo City, Zambales.

The activity primarily aimed to capacitate DA-PRDP personnel and other participating DA-attached agencies in generating, identifying, sharing, and documenting learning, knowledge, and experiences amassed through the years of Project implementation.

As defined, Knowledge Management is a continuous process of documenting, storing, sharing, and using evidence-based and solution-oriented knowledge, designed to leverage learning, promote replication/mainstreaming of good practices, and improve decision-making.

To stimulate learning and knowledge-sharing among the participants, they underwent four workshops that elicited their understanding of their unit’s KM practice, shared lessons learned, captured good practices, and identified their unit’s Knowledge Products (KPs).

KPs are tangible outputs that capture and convey valuable knowledge, experiences, insights, and/or expertise to specific audiences for purposes such as learning, decision-making, knowledge-sharing, and capacity-building.

In capturing and documenting staff’s valuable experiences and learnings from project implementation, PRDP will be able to communicate good project achievements and strengthen project performance by learning from experience, support its mainstreaming efforts, and influence or improve DA’s evidence-based policy-making.

In her message, Deputy Project Director PSO North Luzon Elma S. Mananes said that we must capture all the good practices and innovative processes that are being employed in PRDP, so they can be shared and applied to the other DA regular programs.

“Since meron tayong KM Training na ito, we hope na halos lahat ng innovations and tools na gingagawa natin sa PRDP ay ma-package natin. Hindi lang para makapagmalaki tayo, kundi para mas makatulong tayo sa departamento kung paano mas mapagaganda ang implementasyon ng programs natin,” she added.

In order to operationalize the DA-PRDP KM, the NPCO MEL unit will serve as the lead facilitator, with support from their counterpart units as reviewers and validators of knowledge content, and other PRDP components and units to act as sources, documenters, and disseminators of knowledge. Partner farmer groups, beneficiaries and LGUs are considered the source as well as receiver of knowledge.

To achieve proper storage and easy retrieval of KPs, a KM portal is underway to serve as a dynamic online resource serving as a one-stop knowledge hub for the Project’s lessons learned, good practices, innovations, and technical expertise in various fields related to the Philippine agri-fishery sector.

With proper KM practices in place, PRDP’s valuable knowledge assets, offerings, and solutions accumulated through the years are stored, captured, and well-documented, which can serve as foundations for sustainable project implementation, especially now that the Project is gearing up to Scale-Up.

The KM 101 second batch participants were from the PRDP I-SUPPORT Component, namely Social and Environmental Safeguards, Geomapping and Governance, InfoACE, Economics, and MEL Units, and from the DA regular offices, such as the Special Projects Coordination Management Assistance Division (SPCMAD) and the Monitoring and Evaluation Division (MED).

Meanwhile, the first national KM training, which was held in October 2022, was composed of participants from DA-PRDP (I-PLAN, I-REAP, I-BUILD, InfoACE, M&E), BAFE, PMED, RAED, AMAD/S held in Tagaytay City. (Ericson M. Guiao, PSO North Luzon InfoACE)