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Chapter I - The Context
The changing world around us
Today’s world is characterized by a constant process of change in all areas of life. Those which most come to mind are seen in the world of business –the globalized economy– and technology –the revolution in information and communications technologies (ICTs), or world "connectivity".
It is not surprising to discover that these two phenomena are intimately linked. Market penetration to all corners of the world depends upon the efficiency of electronic transactions –transfers of funds, orders and contracts, but especially of data and information. Today’s most dynamic economies are characterized by their high information and knowledge content, used as tools and working capital.
To be competitive in today’s world, a nation must learn not only how to produce and sell better, but also –and urgently– how to manage its wealth of knowledge, how to generate new knowledge, how to translate knowledge into information[1] that is useful for development goals and business competitiveness, and how to capture external information and apply it locally to enhance progress towards goals. It is impossible to participate adequately in today’s global economy without proper information and knowledge management as a fundamental part of all productive and commercial activity. The comparative advantages of nations can no longer be sustained by the low cost of their labor and/or natural resources.
At the same time, the interconnected world has huge implications for developing nations in social, cultural, and political terms. In El Salvador, the introduction of television in the 1950s and 60s brought the industrialized world into our homes, and radically altered the social and political expectations of the middle and upper classes; the surge in emigration during the 1970s and 80s sent television and music from the North into the humblest of households.
Many even speak of the danger of "losing" our customs, values and languages to the unilateral "onslaught" of foreign cultures, and the consumer products which accompany them as import tariffs gradually fall. Will we merely consume foreign products, values, languages, and ideas, or will we take advantage of globalization and interconnectivity to participate, as equals, in a rapidly shrinking world?
The new forms of world interconnectedness offers two special opportunities for small and emerging nations: 1) connectivity is interactive, and traditional barriers to commercial and cultural entry are reduced, thereby facilitating local participation on the world stage; 2) thanks to rapid and constant technological evolution, the costs of which are principally borne by industrialized nations, the cost of entry and participation for less developed countries continues to fall.
There is also a threat, however, which presses us to act as quickly as possible: due to the rapidity of technological change, the cost of not participating is also rising daily, thereby widening the gap between the "connected" and the "disconnected" and increasing the difficulty of closing that gap as time goes on.
In sum, the challenge we face is not simply one of effectively capturing and absorbing foreign realities, but also of developing our own capacity to produce, share and disseminate our own reality. World connectivity challenges us to participate with our very best efforts, not only in the world economy, but also on the political and cultural scene. In the words of the Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez: "This is the most formidable cultural revolution in the history of humanity since the era of the invention of the printing press four centuries ago; to abstain from the potential of creative participation is tantamount to resigning oneself to merely accepting its consequences."[2]
How can we begin? Change always begins at home, and in this case, we must learn to change as a society, and thereby learn to confront and leverage the continuous changes generated by an interconnected world.
Learning societies throughout the world
The concept of a learning society[3] is predicated upon the increased recognition of the important role played by the acquisition, creation, assimilation, dissemination, and use of knowledge in development activities. While the importance of knowledge is not new as an idea, the acceleration of world connectivity forces us to address it in practice and with urgency. For example, the World Bank’s 1998 World Development Report echoes the increasing recognition 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.
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 is 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 share a pro-active attitude towards the creation, dissemination, sharing, use, and value of knowledge.
Due to its novelty, it might be difficult to understand how a learning society strategy differs from economic development strategies based on the accumulation of capital and labor. However, above and beyond the difficulty of measuring learning gains by traditional means, we must realize that knowledge is an economic input with unique qualities: it is non-rivalrous and partially non-excludable,[4] 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:
Some characteristics of learning societies
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 (see bibliography). These strategies have involved significant attempts at greater collaboration among governments, the private sector, and civil society.
These societies 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 favorable synergies to emerge across different segments of society. These societies seek to interconnect and give voice to all their sectors alike, thereby reducing inequalities and enhancing opportunities for all. Networking to improve living conditions, enrich local culture, participate in collective undertakings at a distance, and other similar efforts, imply a growing potential for exchanges among individuals and groups who seek common goals.
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.
Learning in the context of development, therefore, is an eminently social process, one that is characterized by work and exchanges through information and knowledge networks.
The current Salvadoran context
Since the end of its civil war in 1992, El Salvador has taken measures to modernize and streamline its government, consolidate its basic democratic institutions, become integrated into regional and world markets, and enhance competitiveness.
Success in these endeavors has been uneven, yet there are a number of key leverage points which directly impact knowledge-related development:
First steps toward building a learning society in El Salvador
In this context, with the sponsorship of the Government of El Salvador and support from the World Bank, a broad, participatory effort was launched in early 1998 to develop a vision and strategy for a learning society suited to El Salvador. Although the initial mandate of the exercise resembled a feasibility study more than an exercise in collective reflection, the group decided that the latter approach would achieve greater legitimacy and be more viable in the long run. As a result, Conectándonos al Futuro de El Salvador received a name and a structure. The basic objectives of the exercise are:
The results of this exercise are set forth in the following pages. They are the product of synergies generated by the use of a number of different and interrelated tactics:
In the following pages, we offer our readers the results of this first step towards making the changes necessary to build a learning society in El Salvador.
Notes:
1. We use the world "knowledge" to represent the internal wealth which a person or group possesses; this must usually be translated into "information" to ensure its efficient exchange among individuals or groups. In other words, information is a means for knowledge exchange, and does not always carry the same value for everyone. The same information could be useful for some, by enriching their knowledge base, and yet useless or less useful to others, if it bears no relevance to their knowledge base. [return] 2. Translated from Ramirez, S. "Nos vemos el siglo que viene", Revista de Cultura Búho, San Salvador, mayo 1999, http://www.tendencias.net/buho/01/doc4.html. [return]3. The concept of a learning society as a society characterized by collective learning and experimentation has 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 a 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; and learning society as a new form of governance where power is decentralized to enable citizens and other actors to utilize their local knowledge to fit solutions to their individual circumstances, but in which national 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. [return]
4. See World Development Report 1998-1999, ch. 1. http://www.worldbank.org/wdr/wdr98/index.htm [return]
5. "cooperation" + "competition". [return]
All rights reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce all or part of this publication as long as the complete source is cited: Conectándonos al Futuro de El Salvador, "Strategy for Building a Learning Society", San Salvador, 1999, http://www.conectando.org.sv/English/Strategy/
