Musing on Knowledge Management as one of the next set of the United Nations’ development goals.
The First President of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), Barrister Mukhtari Shehu Shagari, has expressed consideration for the introduction of knowledge management in the next set the United Nations’ development goals after 2030.
All over the world, knowledge management usually called KM means different things to different organisations. However, for general understanding, KM refers to the process of creating, capturing, sharing, and using an organisation’s information and knowledge assets and the many-sided systems engaged in the tasks to improve decisions, value addition and more.
On 18 November 2020, the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) — a Specialised Technical Committee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment in the African Union launched a web-based Knowledge Management System. During the launching, the First President of AMCOW (who was Nigeria’s Minister for Water Resources at the time of forming AMCOW) called on Africans especially in the water sector to prepare for the introduction of knowledge management by the United Nations in the next set of global development goals.
Barrister Mukhtar Shehu Shagari who opened the launching was among the 41 African Ministers in charge of Water and Sanitation who gathered together in Abuja, Nigeria, to start AMCOW in 2002. They established AMCOW as an intergovernmental organisation to promote cooperation, security, social and economic development and poverty eradication among member states through the effective management of the continent’s water resources and provision of water supply services.
One hundred and nine (109) development professionals attended the launching of AMCOW’s KM system including representatives of the member states, the African Union (AU), UNESCO, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Water and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SUSANA), African Development Bank (AfDB), African Union Development Agency (AUDA) Water Centres of Excellence (WCoE), Universities and more. These attendees engaged adequately during the launch in questions and comments to the rate of about 80 per cent — showing the keen interest that Africans have in enhancing access to information, knowledge exchange and learning.
Responding to development commitments
For AMCOW, the idea of building a knowledge management system was to respond to the commitment made by the African Union’s Heads of States and Governments when they assembled in Sharm el-Sheikh in 2008. These leaders committed to building institutional and human resources capacity, enhancing information and knowledge management, and strengthening monitoring and evaluation for a sustainable and integrated water resource management in Africa.
AMCOW started in 2019 to create a KM system comprising a physical library at its Secretariat and a virtual knowledge hub. AMCOW named this resource centre after its First President as Mukhtari Shehu Shagari Resource Centre (MSSRC). The knowledge hub is a web-based open-access platform. AMCOW and its partners describe it as the knowledge hub of hubs because it can link and converge other similar portals into a one-stop centre where people can access homegrown information and knowledge about Africa’s water and sanitation development.
Sida provided major support to AMCOW’s effort to build this KM system, and the WSSCC also provided some seed money to help AMCOW acquire useful equipment for the physical library and to improve the hub’s functionality.
Accelerating learning for development
During the launching, AMCOW’s Executive Secretary, Dr Canisius Kanangire, told the participants that “the knowledge hub of hubs forms part of AMCOW’s services to the member states. And considering the new working conditions caused by the COVID 19 pandemic, the availability of the knowledge hub is timely. We also believe that such a virtual hub is an excellent way to facilitate collaboration and accelerate learning. The system provides tools to help users enter through one door and have access to many other rooms to find information and knowledge. Users can also gain access through direct hyperlinks to other hubs or online resource centres”.
While the hub presents a rich opportunity to harness and raise the profile of the sector’s relevant homegrown knowledge, it also provides students, researchers, policymakers, and development partners the access they need to reliable data, information, and learning. These resources will help to improve decisions by providing the necessary wisdom to achieve related development goals, the African Water Vision 2025, and the Agenda 2063 — the Africa we want.
From now on and into the year 2021, AMCOW would be receiving relevant resources from its member states and partners to fill up the knowledge hub of hubs for its constituent and stakeholders who would be visiting and using the platform.