Conectandonos al Futuro - Concept Paper

This project seeks to support the more effective use of knowledge and learning as an important plank of El Salvador's overall development strategy. The concept entails a highly participatory approach to involving a variety of stakeholders in designing activities which will enhance the channels through which knowledge is created, assimilated and used in El Salvador for a range of social and economic purposes. Because of its innovative nature, this project will itself be designed as a learning experiment and will test new approaches to helping address some of the fundamental concerns of social and economic development in El Salvador.

The concept of a learning society is predicated on the increased recognition of the important role the acquisition, creation, assimilation, dissemination and use of knowledge play in development, as a result of worldwide trends related to exploding volumes of knowledge both created and disseminated, declining costs of transmission, and greater opportunities for access to global knowledge. In order to produce results, these new advantages require enhanced capacities by local actors to build knowledge-creation and knowledge-assimilation capacities; otherwise, new global opportunities will go untapped, and precious technology and other external resources will be underutilized.

El Salvador’s postwar evolution, its dynamic economy and current Bank-sponsored development programs in related areas provide a conducive environment to exploring learning society potential. The chief goal of the specific exercise is to enhance internal and international competitiveness and sustainable development in El Salvador through better capacity for knowledge management among stakeholders in key development areas. This entails engineering virtuous circles of knowledge management within El Salvador, which includes learning to evaluate, adapt and employ crucial outside inputs, as well as having the incentive to do so.

The fundamental building-block of this participatory exercise is the creation of learning circles in several key sectors –education, migration, local development, rural development, SMEs and learning organizations– which apply knowledge management analysis to traditional development challenges, in order to leverage development activities into more productive and innovative undertakings. Complementary tools include a Website, electronic forums, best practice forums, baseline studies, case studies and pilot projects. Examples of knowledge-related enhancements to development areas which have been discussed in the circles include: institutionalizing knowledge flows between emigrants and home country; horizontal learning among teachers; building accreditation standards for SMEs; early warning systems for rural areas; municipal Website creation to complement development strategies; and matching supply and demand for technological innovation among universities, businesses and local governments.

The principal outcome of the project, gathered and collated from the various activities listed above, will be an actionable strategy for a Learning Nation in El Salvador, which will include concrete project proposals which can be pursued further with the World Bank, the government, private sector, and other lenders and investors. A complementary and crucial second product of the project’s participatory methodology will be enhanced capacity among key local actors to leverage knowledge for development activities.

The purpose of this concept note, presented here as an early draft, is to set forth the overall context and specific content of a strategy ("the Strategy") which will help support the more effective use of knowledge and learning as an important plank of El Salvador's overall development effort. The Strategy envisions the creation, assimilation and use of knowledge as becoming a fundamental driver of economic and social progress in El Salvador. The concept entails a highly participatory approach to involving a variety of stakeholders in designing activities which will enhance the channels through which knowledge is created, assimilated and used in El Salvador for a range of social and economic purposes. Because of its innovative nature, the El Salvador Learning Society Technical Assistance Project ("the Project") is itself designed as a learning experiment and will test new approaches to helping address some of the fundamental concerns of social and economic development in El Salvador. The learning derived from this endeavor is expected to help decide whether and how to replicate and scale up new approaches to these issues and to adjust the knowledge-based development strategy which is at the heart of the proposed Learning Society.

The concept of a learning society[1] is predicated on the increased recognition of the important role the acquisition, creation, assimilation, dissemination and use of knowledge play in development. While the idea that knowledge is important is itself not new, its increasing role in thinking about development policy issues has become evident in recent years. The 1998 World Development Report echoes the increasing recognition among development agencies that knowledge is an important factor in economic development, alongside labor and capital. Even though knowledge cannot be easily quantified, its importance can be surmised from three related trends which are especially pertinent to the growth prospects of small and increasingly open developing economies like El Salvador:

Yet these trends alone do not seem to ensure that knowledge can contribute to enhancing and sustaining economic growth and welfare. In other words, just as access to world markets is a key but insufficient factor in stimulating long-term development for small, emerging economies, so is access to world knowledge a key but insufficient factor in stimulating long-term knowledge-based development in these economies and alleviating poverty. A more creative and sustainable approach is to focus on enabling and mobilizing local knowledge-creating and knowledge-application capacity, in all spheres of economic and social life. This approach is central to the concept of a learning society.

At an abstract level, the hallmark of a learning society often defined as its ability to ensure a continuous process of effectively channeling knowledge, skills and information to the widest possible range of population in that society. But that is not all. A learning society entails a culture, institutions and processes by which all of society’s components have a pro-active attitude towards the creation, dissemination, sharing, use and value of knowledge. At first glance, a learning society strategy does not appear to differ much from economic development strategies based on accumulation of capital and labor. A learning society strategy does, however, recognize the peculiar properties of knowledge as an economic input in that it is non-rivalrous and partially non-excludable[2], as distinct from labor and capital. The increasing importance of knowledge in economic development requires that a learning society strategy be developed which is in many respects complementary to previous economic strategies which relied on improvements in education, infrastructure, and technology:

A learning society does not simply seek to improve educational attainment through the traditional channels of formal primary, secondary and tertiary education as well as informal education. Although these traditional education priorities will probably remain important goals in a learning society, the broader concern will be to ensure that successful and continuous transfer of knowledge can take place across a variety of channels which reinforce each other, including within and across families, firms and communities. Education must evolve into lifelong, multi-purpose and free learning. The creation and connection of communities of learners –who engage in a collective process of acquisition, creation, assimilation and use of knowledge– in all spheres of production, exchange, and social intercourse is a cornerstone of a learning society.

A learning society does not seek to simply connect individuals through better infrastructure. Modern infrastructure, particularly based on broadcasting, computing and communications technologies (increasingly referred to as "information infrastructure") certainly enables significant advances in the dissemination of knowledge and information at declining cost. Yet information infrastructure alone does not ensure that knowledge becomes embodied in people who can then better make use of an increasing volume of information to improve their income-generating prospects and welfare. Within an effective learning society strategy however, information infrastructure can become a powerful enabler for helping develop and improve human capital.

Within the last ten years, an increasing number of national and sub-national jurisdictions worldwide have attempted to craft national or sub-national strategies to improve the way knowledge is acquired, created, assimilated and used. These strategies have involved significant attempts at greater collaboration across government, private sector and civil society. These attempts can be fundamentally characterized by their recognition of knowledge as an important public resource and learning as a collective process which needs to be systematically enhanced to enable for favorable synergies to emerge across different segments of society. At the same time, one increasingly observes networks of firms operating within and across national boundaries which link suppliers, producers, distributors and consumers who are linked together in a value chain through which flow not only raw materials and finance, but also knowledge and information which are increasingly developed and used as a common resource. Within these networks, learning is an important process which allows for adaptation to an increasingly challenging environment of dynamic markets characterized by short product and order cycles and increasing demands for quality and timely delivery as well as customization.

Since the end of its civil war seven years ago, El Salvador has taken important steps toward integration into regional and world markets, moving to modernize and streamline government, consolidate institutions which are fundamental for democracy, overhaul its social programs, and retool local industry and other economic sectors to build competitiveness. Success in these endeavors has been uneven, particular in rural areas; nonetheless, there are a number of key leverage points which directly impact knowledge-related development: the privatization of telecommunications, the World Bank-sponsored Competitiveness Program, and the ongoing educational reform are some of them. Our challenge is to analyze existing leverage points in order to open new opportunities, and also to discover and mobilize leverage points in new areas that will generate best practices and real progress in knowledge-based development.

With support from the World Bank, a highly participatory effort has been underway since early 1998 in El Salvador to craft a vision of a learning society. Achieving a "Learning Society" as a whole means enabling and mobilizing local knowledge-creating and knowledge-application capacity in all spheres of economic and social life. The key goals which have been identified are:

Building a learning society in El Salvador entails transformations in a number of different areas: information resources, technology, infrastructure, management, institution-building and others. The transformations required, however, are identified through a process of knowledge-based analysis of the critical issues identified in "traditional" social or economic development areas (see Diagram 1). The results provide new and innovative approaches and solutions to traditional development problems.

Box 1: Rural development: local and national environmental information systems. The rural development learning circle has defined environmental management as a critical area. Rural residents have no access whatsoever to permanent, cumulative, relevant sources of systematized knowledge on the issue; instead, they are periodically issued guidelines and directives that are perpetually superseded by new ones, with no real knowledge transfer effected, and thus no sustainability. Three converging leverage points could be identified: (1) local-level systematization and sharing of environmental knowledge & management experience involving local stakeholders (local knowledge creation and activation), in a pilot area, for example; (2) national-level collection and systematization of existing environmental knowledge, information & management experience, combined with a stock of international best practices and benchmarks, produced and stored in a central facility with electronic access to enable sharing; (3) a "knowledge barter" program in which local stakeholders have an incentive to contribute to national/ international stocks "in exchange" for new knowledge relevant to their local environmental management needs.

Within the overall vision of a Learning Society which is currently being developed in El Salvador, the Project is a specific exercise, currently underway among a variety of stakeholder groups, that will prepare a Strategy aimed at piloting initiatives which can themselves provide the learning from which stakeholders can broaden and sustain their efforts toward fostering a learning society. The scope of this particular exercise is to:

The participatory approach used in preparing the Strategy is based on learning circles. Representatives of private and public institutions engaged in key development activities come together in learning circles to focus on key leverage factors necessary to improve competitiveness in internal and external markets and sustainability and effectiveness of an array of development activities.

Members are introduced to general concepts of learning society and worldwide trends along these lines. They first articulate a guiding vision (e.g. what would knowledge-based rural development look like?), and define their mission as a circle and a nation, as well as the identity and relative roles of all stakeholders potentially involved. Then they identify key trends which impact on chances of attaining vision, opportunities and threats these trends offer in terms of vision, and finally the strengths and limitations which allow for leveraging opportunities and mitigating threats (SWOT analysis). Out of this diagnostic analysis emerge critical areas on which to focus efforts, and critical issues within those areas, which are prioritized in terms of both qualitative cost/benefit[3] and feasibility.

The careful, planned approach ensures constant learning and gradually increased commitment by learning circle members, transferring knowledge management tools to emerging local champions in the context of concrete development areas in which they are already involved. A final exercise in this phase involves reviewing process undertaken and lessons learned.

Box 2: Steps involved in building a strategy

Each priority critical issue is subjected to a summary knowledge flow analysis to determine relative weights of critical factors. Outside research and validation is often necessary, as well as more detailed analysis at times. Many aspects of critical areas and issues are combined with those of other circles for broader discussion.
The Strategy and its component parts are formulated on the basis of the entire exercise, evaluation variables are defined to ensure adequate before and after comparisons, and stakeholder commitment is secured.
There is constant cross-circle sharing of experiences, approaches and lessons learned through weekly meetings among group facilitators and during circle meetings by Project coordinators, who attend several circles each. At certain points all learning circle members meet to validate overall process and results, as part of building a broader strategy. The Project Website represents a feedback loop, where circle results are summarized and held up for scrutiny; external inputs are documented and linked where relevant to broaden scope of possibilities.

Box 3: SMEs: setting up accreditation processes. Groups that represent and assist SMEs conduct a preliminary cost-benefit analysis of several areas which represent serious obstacles to development in their sector (cost of not doing something vs. benefit of doing it), and agree that accreditation programs to enhance microenterprise competitiveness is one of the key issues. They initially frame the problem in terms of lack of willingness or resources on the part of official organisms; yet after deeper discussion conclude that systematizing and sharing the key stocks of knowledge that each has accumulated in its own work, in combination with outside information in the form of international standards and procedures, would represent a small investment but yield a high return and kick off a virtuous learning circle which official organisms could easily join and help validate, once some progress were made and shared.

Case studies and pilot-building are two related approaches which help analyze and test possible strategies. Because of the time involved in such a meticulous analysis, pilot projects are much slower in emerging from the learning circles themselves than initially expected. At the same time, numerous ongoing or incipient endeavors, in which learning circle members often play a key role, embody aspects of learning society to a greater or lesser degree, and an adequate study of these cases can provide valuable input to learning circles’ formulation of the Strategy and its components. Some examples of case studies proposed by Project and/or stakeholders themselves, grouped by learning circle:

The purpose of these studies is to access, systematize and share a broader body of ambient information that is crucial to the proper assessment of knowledge flows in order to improve effectiveness. Some of them include: baseline connectivity information, cost of digitizing public domain information, inventory of government publications, and a background bibliography. The results of these studies provide further inputs to complement learning circles and case studies.

The purpose of best practice forums is to help stakeholders apply lessons learned from other experiences to local opportunities. The key to the effectiveness of best practice forums lies in understanding the critical, unique factors which make the practice a success, and local correlation, before comparing or adapting. A decision was made to initiate the forums generally after stakeholders become more sophisticated in understanding their environment, critical areas and knowledge flows and gaps, to avoid unrealistic expectations and hopes, or confusion generated by conflicting, bewildering array of attractive choices without possessing sufficient tools and knowledge to analyze adaptability.

Owing to the specific economic properties of knowledge as a factor of input (non-rivalrousness and partial non-excludability), the market for knowledge and learning cannot be assessed in as straightforward a manner as for other inputs. Stakeholder groups in El Salvador have implicitly or explicitly analyzed both the demand and supply side of kowledge and learning through a process which is summarily depicted in Diagram 2 and described further below.

Demand is articulated by identifying dysfunctions in the knowledge stocks and flows among stakeholders (see Diagram 2) involved in critical development processes, and assessing the consequences of those dysfunctions for specific development goals. Thus, identification of demand cannot be undertaken without an adequate identification and characterization of the stakeholders and the relationships among them.

Demand is often identified in terms of specific information tools or products. A more careful analysis of knowledge flows among all key stakeholders provides a richer array of demand areas and issues, as well as their relative weights in a specific development process. A failure to conduct a thorough analysis of knowledge flows, beyond information products and services, leads to proposals and approaches based on "information push", and the effort fizzles out when other obstacles in the cycle arise.

Box 4: Steps involved in knowledge-flow analysis of critical issues defined in learning circles:

At each step in knowledge cycle, define which stakeholders and processes must necessarily contribute to enriching cycle and how; assess how well they are doing so
Determine which infrastructure, external information and other related resources are mission-critical; assess situation
Determine outside factors which have a critical impact; assess situation
Review issue in light of results and make adjustments
Build strategy and component proposals

Box 5: Emigrants: Institutionalizing knowledge flows. A multi-sectorial task force of the National Development Commission, "Society without Borders", concludes that a useful starting-point for maximizing trade and other productive relationships among Salvadorans worldwide is building dynamic knowledge about "each side". They conclude that the knowledge-building and information-collecting processes themselves are conducive to building cross-border trade, investment and knowledge transfer, if undertaken by a reliable and good-faith interlocutor with follow-up capacity. The group proposes the creation of a private, broad-based "Center for Emigrant Studies"; a startup government grant to match other stakeholders’ initial contributions would be appropriate. The Learning Society project’s circle on migration plans to analyze and develop this proposal further, in the context of its knowledge assessment of the entire theme area.

When demand is framed in terms of knowledge stocks and/or processes, instead of information products, a richer array of solutions emerges, and cost-benefit analyses can be performed on each to determine best return on investment. Thus, demand is often productively articulated in terms of processes involving the sharing or transfer of knowledge among stakeholders.

Box 6: Educational reform: horizontal learning among teachers. The ongoing educational reform in El Salvador seeks to shift the focus from teaching to learning; this requires, among many other factors, the re-training of 32,000 public school teachers, most of whom have had limited training and scarce support. Discussions with key stakeholders reveal that teachers have no opportunity to learn together, and their assimilation and application of new teaching philosophies is limited. Although critical gaps in the knowledge flow could be alleviated in part by more appropriate learning materials and support centers, the need for collective learning –networking among teachers– is an essential area of demand which is often overlooked in traditional analyses yet which could lead to productive innovation-sharing and peer support in a very difficult transitional period for teachers. Such a network could perhaps best be brokered outside government channels but with government recognition, by a reliable and proven organization, to encourage more openness among teachers.

Supply of information and knowledge available through global knowledge networks is a strong enabling factor, and at times even a stimulating and incentivizing factor, in the virtuous circle of knowledge-based development. Supply of knowledge and information generated by key local stakeholders is essential to success; moreover, as in the case of demand, supply is often a case of processes involving the sharing or transfer of knowledge among stakeholders.

Box 7: SMEs: building local knowledge on accreditation. In the SME example mentioned above, assessment and sharing of local knowledge stocks on accreditation-oriented experiences (systematization, storage, access, dissemination) provides the basis for evaluating international standards and benchmarks. If the official organism in charge of establishing local accreditation standards decides to adopt or adapt international norms without taking into account local stocks of knowledge on the issue, it risks failure, as do the other stakeholders who must devise programs to meet standards which may be entirely unrealistic. The consequences of such failures could be further distancing from official channels, fragmentation and apathy among stakeholders.

Box 8: Municipal development: Website creation as part of the development process. Suchitoto, a town known for its historical interest and cultural activity yet still slowly rebuilding from the devastation of the recent civil war, has for over four years enjoyed a successful practice of broad-based planning activity among local government, educators, businesses, police and farming communities. One of the critical areas it has defined for development is tourism, and has commissioned a firm to draw up a long-term plan. Meanwhile, with support from the Project, the planning commission has extended its activities to developing a Website, which has again involved all these sectors, even if –at first glance– not all appear to be central to tourism. Yet all are, in one way or another, stakeholders in developing tourism in Suchitoto, and their joint presence on a future Website projects a more positive, integral image of the town as a whole. The collective Website-building exercise leads stakeholders to examine and systematize their own stocks of knowledge, relate them to development goals and understand their role as suppliers of information critical to achieving development goals. On that basis, they also become more effective users of national and internationally-available knowledge. Their example has motivated other towns to initiate similar processes.

The role of "knowledge brokers" in collecting and disseminating relevant "best practices" can be of tremendous assistance, and brokers must invest significant effort in identifying and characterizing the unique and/or replicable success factors in each practice in order for it to be useful as a knowledge supply.

A nation’s ability to generate knowledge supplies is often measured by skills and specialties in science and technology areas. Learning society inquiries to date indicate that existing shortcomings in knowledge production, even in these apparently more complex areas, have as much to do with dysfunctions in the knowledge flow cycle (see diagram) which prevent building a virtuous circle of learning in these areas, as with the "creation" step of this cycle.

Box 9: Technological innovation: Matching supply and demand. Key stakeholders have identified critical gaps which undermine supply-demand matching for innovative technologies. They claim that technological innovation is constantly being generated –in agriculture, engineering and other areas, in both business and university settings– and then lost, due to a lack of adequate recording, storage, dissemination and/or systematization, all of which are necessary steps in a virtuous knowledge-building cycle. One possible pilot to address these dysfunctions would entail multidisciplinary "clustering" of academics and professionals (supply) to build links with government and private sector (demand) through a mechanism such as an electronic bulletin board, which would also include presentations and discussions of local best practices. A similar UNDP-sponsored effort has just begun to match municipal demand for appropriate development technology with research supply from a consortium of 20 universities.

The government has three fundamental roles to play in building a learning society:

Legislation: A simple obstacle to e-commerce. For example, electronic commerce in El Salvador is a blocked by a simple provision in the Commerce Code which requires paper billing on commercial transactions. Overcoming that obstacle through a legislative amendment will not guarantee successful electronic commerce, but will enable pilots to be tested among local stakeholders and practical lessons to be learned and shared. A critical mass of stakeholders is anxious to move ahead on this issue.

IPRs: How can they stimulate innovation? In developing countries, it is very difficult to institute protection for intellectual property rights when they are seen by local stakeholders as punitive allies of large overseas corporations. The government must take special care to ensure that adequate protection for IPRs is perceived as a measure used to stimulate innovation and creativity by local stakeholders.

The Bank-sponsored Learning Society Technical Assistance Project is building an informed consensus on a concrete Strategy for a Learning Nation. The Strategy will gather all the information collected from the various activities under the Project (learning circles, Internet conference, case studies, pilot projects, best practices forums, symposiums and study tours). The bulk of this work must be completed prior to the next election. At that time, the Project will present the Strategy at a workshop in San Salvador and discuss with the Government how to convert this into an actual project or projects.

Implementation of the Strategy will be spread among key actors: for example, the Government has already invested in the creation of a national telecenter infrastructure which will significantly enhance access and content generation. Private sector, NGOs and government are each already involved in endeavors related to Learning Society (see case studies, above) which can be strengthened by the work of the learning circles and other actions. The World Bank and other lenders and investors may become involved in areas of the strategy which best fit their goals.

The process utilized to design the Strategy will be rigorous and systematic, which will enable rapid design and implementation of one or more concrete, actionable projects.

[1] The Concept of Learning society as a society charcaterised by collective learning and experimentation have been analysed in a number of major studies. Three complementary perspectives on Learning society are particularly relevant from the policy perspective: Learning economy and society as knowledge-based economy, see Employment and growth in the Knowledge-based Economy, OECD, 1996. Learning society as a network society, see D. Foray and B-A Lundvall, "The Knowledge-based economy: From the economics of knowledge to the learning economy", in Employment and growth in the Knowledge-based Economy, OECD, 1996, and M.Castells, The Information Age. Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. 1: The Rise of the Network Society, Blackwell, 1997. Learning society as new form of governance where power is decentralised to enable citizens and other actors to utilise their local knowledge to fit solutions to their individual circumstances, but in which national bodies coordinating bodies require actors to share their knowledge with others facing similar problems, see, for instance, M. Dorf and C. Sabel, A Constitution of Democratic Experimentalism, Columbia Law Review, Vol. 98, No. 2 (March 1998); and forthcoming Harvard University Press.

[3] Costs and benefits are measured in primarily qualitative terms with relationship to specific development goals. Preliminary cost-benefit analyses are conducted in learning circles when determining which critical issues to focus on for strategy-building.

[4] Michel Menou, adapted from the information cycle model developed by Donald W. King on the basis of an earlier version by F.W. Lancaster.

This note has been prepared by Christina Courtright, Coordinator of the Learning Society Technical Assistance Grant team in El Salvador, with participation by Clemente San Sebastián (assistant coordinator) and Michel J. Menou (consultant). Key input in terms of structure, direction and examples was provided by Pierre-Olivier Colleye, Task Manager of the Grant for the World Bank, Govindan Nair, Sonia Plaza and Yevgeny Kuznetsov.