Review of Knowledge and Learning from Direct SupervisionAsia and the Pacific Division

Guiding questions: how much and what is PI learning from

Direct Supervision? The KM Appendix: learning about rural

poverty reduction Learning about project-level KM Learning about the Direct Supervision (DS)

process

Learning about rural poverty reduction: the KM Appendix

50% of the reports contained a KM Appendix Five look at project management The rest focus on more technical issues:

Strengthening of social capital (esp. IP) Targeting Microfinance

Lessons learnt recorded in the text (FFS, gender, graduation of COs)

PI is learning from its projects but not as much as it could

Quality of lessons recorded in KM Appendix ‘Missed’ or ‘hidden’ lessons:

Grassroots institutions Role of NGOs Support to IP Gender Project management issues

Constraints towards learning

Lesson learning is not a priority for the SM Notion of learning/KM is not clear The audience of the lessons is not clear Not enough time/resources SM not the right “tool” for learning

Yet… the Supervision Report is also “an important tool in learning and knowledge management” (IFAD’s SV guidelines)

Learning about project-level KM

Reporting on this topic has not been a priority Many reports focus on giving

recommendations on how to improve KM systems

Overall weak KM systems, but improving: they will feed into future lesson learning…

Learning about the DS process

Only one report records lessons on the DS process

Friday meetings: they are generally considered very useful

They risk “staying on the shelf”: need to systematize lessons, share them and make decisions on priorities and follow-up.

Suggestions for improvement

Ensure that the learning role of the SM is clear

Give better guidance in the KM Appendix Reflect collectively- AARs… Give more time to SM preparation Organize learning events Streamline the standard template and IFAD’s

SM Guidelines