Learning has over the past few years taken centre stage in the Ugandan WASH sector. Different actors are working in partnership to establish learning platforms or learning alliances to assess challenges, find solutions, share lessons and scale up good practices.
Published on: 14/06/2012
Learning events at national and district level now feature prominently on the WASH calendar. But the actors also contend that sometimes it is necessary to reflect and learn about the learning approach. In this interview, Solomon Kyeyune, a renowned learning facilitator in the Ugandan WASH sector shares his thoughts on the learning approach.
Solomon Kyeyune, is a renowned learning facilitator in the Uganda WASH sector. Recently, he has been making efforts to “demystify” learning to create better understanding and appreciation of the approach. In an interview with Lydia Mirembe, Kyeyune shared his thoughts on the learning approach. Below are excerpts from the interview.
Each individual whether in the formal or informal sector has experienced learning in one way or another. But here we are looking at learning from what we are doing so that we provide better service to our target people. We are talking about reflecting on what we do and then trying to improve our performance or change how we approach issues. We are thinking of how to do things differently so as to get results. Someone may know of an approach that can solve a problem. That approach, if shared could be used to solve a bigger problem. Rather than keep that approach as a domain of one individual or one organisation, it is better to share it widely. That is where learning plays a role.
The value of learning can be seen at different levels. There is value to the organisation involved in learning. There is value to the area where the learning happens and there is value to the entire sector. Learning leads to the introduction of new ideas which leads to changes in the status quo. At a higher level, learning can help to harmonise strategies and approaches. Learning makes the sector start to be adaptive to the rapid changes in the operational context. So instead of having policies that are cast in stone you have an opportunity to review and change. But all changes should be informed by facts and evidence. It is through sharing experiences and learning that these facts and evidence can be collected.
There are a number of players trying to change the abstract concept of learning into something tangible. These ones are involved in multi stakeholder learning and sharing which bring together various actors. One of the commonest approaches is the monitoring and evaluation which organisations often conduct. There are some organisations doing action research within local contexts. I have also seen process documentation where there is a deliberate tracking of the progress of a project from start to end. The other interesting approach has been the learning journeys which facilitate the process of going where the situation is happening and then you engage with those who are involved, the beneficiaries.
We have to realise that learning impacts on individuals not on organisations. It is the people within the organisation that actually learn. Individual learning then impacts on the organisation, which in turn impacts on the networks that the organisation is involved in and ultimately on the sector as a whole. But then again the person or the sector will go through a process. At the start you build new insights or new knowledge. While people may not use the new insights and knowledge, it does not mean that they didn’t learn. The fact that they were exposed to some new insights is learning in itself. The second level of learning is about change of practice or behaviour whereby the individual, the organisation or the sector starts to do things differently, and this is really a much more observable difference. But learning can go to a higher level meaning that you do not only change the way you do things but also change your overall systems and structures of how you do things – policies can be changed. But if you consider that process, you realise that you cannot have a change of policy without having new insights. So when we bring people together we facilitate exposure to new insights. But we also try to make people move from merely getting new insights to changing the way they do things. We often give them an opportunity to plan to change behaviour and practice and then they develop action plans. If they implement these action plans, then we have more evidence to impact the wider sector.
In all these processes of learning you need a facilitator or a facilitating institution that would do the follow up. Again, implementation or lack thereof still means something. There is a reason for each course - why and why not. And in any case, you do not expect all the participants in the platform to implement the plan of action – some will, others will not. But it is always important to review the processes so that you establish the reasons for each course of action.
We have been doing these national level platforms focusing on different aspects. And whenever we document and share experiences, the information flows and ends up at the decision makers’ desks. For example, recently all districts are now forming hand pump mechanics associations. But this started as a small case study in Kibaale where a hand pump mechanics association proved that hand pump mechanics could work and do much more than just repairing pumps. This was presented in a national learning platform and the lessons have now spread throughout the country. However good an initiative might be, for as long as the information does not flow then there won’t be any impact. The biggest opportunity we are providing for learning is that we give people a platform to share information so that the experience can find its way to different corners of the sector. When we did the YY (Yahura Yahoze) strategy in Rwenzori region it was a case of one district in Kamwenge, but today many people want to know more about it.
One of the biggest challenges in managing leaning processes is that no organisation has all the capacity required to do everything. When we talk about learning we are talking about partnerships. Learning has a dialogue aspect to it. You need a free actor to connect things together and this is one of the most difficult things to achieve. How do you establish this free actor within a complex sector like ours? Topics and interests are diverse and the engagement is between people who can cause or inhibit change. But when you use this free actor approach then you can create dialogue among the various actors and this has been one of the most difficult things to achieve. There is also a challenge with the way we view learning. Sometimes we look at it as a meeting. That means that you will get funding to organise an event where people will come and sit together. But learning is not about the meeting only. There is a process which involves finding the information that will feed the meeting. This means that you need to do a bit of documentation. You need to get cases of what works and what does not work. After you have learnt together you need to produce information materials to facilitate further information flow. That means you need more resources. So people need to give support for the complete loop of learning.
The other challenge is that many of our organisations are into implementing interventions so they don’t take time to actually document these experiences. Yet such information of organisational experiences is what we need to foster learning. Then there is a challenge of partnership building. We have been able to identify that learning involves issues of knowledge and we have been trying to build partnerships around agencies that are knowledge-led so that they can work together to steer learning as a process. But this has not been as easy as it was anticipated. For example we do not have the universities and other academic institutions on board. It has not been easy to bring them on board.
Most of the things we talk about originate from the household level – behaviours, practices and the like. There should be mechanisms of how learning cascades from regional through to district, sub-county, parish and household levels. This is not yet feasible in the sector. There should be a way that communities receive or appreciate the service and they should be able to communicate this information. The next level should then analyse this information and decide how best to deal with the issues raised by the communities. So we need to address the issue of information flow right from the household to the national level. For now we still concentrate on the national and district level simply because that is where the structure seems to end. But it must be noted that some of our approaches tap into the community level. Action research and learning journeys are actually done at household level. In such approaches you are able to tell them what they are doing well and where they need to improve.
Firstly there is need to understand the interests of the sector so that learning has a direct impact on these interests. We also need to identify the actors with the capacity to address those issues. It is also important to do thorough documentation because this is the first step towards learning. Then there should be a willingness to share the documented experiences. This can happen in any of the existing platforms like District Water and Sanitation Coordination Committees, Sector Working Groups, Joint Sector Review and many more. For as long as there is documentation and willingness to share, we have sufficient facilities in the sector to support the processes of making people reflect on the key issues.
I think the most important thing is that we need to learn about learning. There should be some form of alliances. If we start to see learning alliances form in those regions then we shall see learning trickle there. Already, some Technical Support Units are beginning to spearhead this process which indicates government commitment to the issue. But I think the biggest challenge to replicating learning in the sector is that we, the practitioners, have not deconstructed this approach to make it comprehensible. We have been thinking of coming up with a learning ladder so that people can identify where they are and decide on where they want to go. But we have to realise that learning is driven around a vision or an agenda. So if a region identifies where their problem lies and they want to jointly solve that problem then they will learn. They will be able to find out what other regions have been doing about similar problems. They will identify examples and apply them to their own situation and see how to take that forward. Regions should therefore be proactive in identifying their problems and working towards solving them.
Learning is not about the name we call it. It is more about how we are doing it. There is no silver bullet to learning. It is important to understand that you need to go through a process that moves you from doing something right to doing something relevant. Learning is not about “I heard this works”. Rather it involves identifying what works and how to apply that to your own context. The only way we can bring about change is by contextualising experiences.
Lydia Mirembe
7 June 2012
