Reflections on the enduring appeal of knowledge management for the development sector

This evening I was re-reading this paper, written by Giulio Quaggiotto and published in the third issue of the Knowledge Management for Development Journal in December 2005. In this short paper, Giulio argues that whilst the knowledge management fad seems to have passed its peak in the private sector, within international development organisations, the appeal of the discipline seems to endure. He asks:

What are the reasons behind this? Are there cultural factors that can explain the difference between the reception of the knowledge management paradigm in the private sector and development organisations?

Giulio argues that the private sector and international development organisations face many similar dilemmas when it comes to implementing knowledge management strategies, such as:

• how to encourage information flow between headquarters and regional offices;
• how to develop metrics to evaluate the impact of knowledge management activities; and
• how to engage with time-stripped experts on the ground to persuade them to share their tacit knowledge with their colleagues.

Despite these similarities, there are challenges in the area of knowledge management that are probably quite specific to the domain of non-for-profit organisations. In conclusion, Giulio asks us:

How can we persuasively answer the challenge that the knowledge management bubble has not exploded yet in the development world just because we are not sufficiently focused on tangible financial results?

I think that Giulio raises some interesting issues here. However, I would even go a step further and say that the development sector has such an affinity with knowledge management-like approaches that it even developed its own forms of knowledge management avant la lettre. Here I'm thinking of RAAKS and similar approaches...