SUCCESS: Sustainable Coastal Communities and Ecosystems 2005-2009

Establishing Regional Learning Networks

Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) programs and practitioners are often isolated from other efforts in their own country and unaware of programs elsewhere in their region. Information of practical usefulness to ICM practitioners is often hard to obtain. The result is that programs often reinvent the wheel, or worse, repeat mistakes that others have learned to avoid. This is inefficient and breeds frustration and cynicism.

Program success is higher when practitioners have ready access to the information they need and when they participate as members of regional associations of peers. The networks promoted by SUCCESS accelerate the rate of and improve the probability of program success. The networks’ knowledge management elements provide for documenting, archiving and making available the Program’s working and final documents in a variety of formats.

Documentation is supported by electronic services including internal and external web sites, CD-ROMs, and electronic collaborative workspaces for project teams. CRC uses open source servers and software and a database-driven system for its public and restricted-access web sites. This allows project teams to upload and manage their own content, permitting information services to focus on maintaining core systems, data bases and programming that meet the needs of different work groups. This approach is low cost, flexible and readily extensible.

The regional learning networks will:

  • Strengthen connections between management programs – allowing energies to be pooled for collective action and greater coordination of otherwise independent management efforts
  • Promote sharing of information, technical expertise, experience and ideas on priority Program topics
  • Improve South-South and North-South cooperation – as evidenced in work plans, evaluations and assessments, regional practitioner symposia and training
  • Encourage field practitioners and applied researchers to better integrate their work to meet the priority needs of stakeholders and improve the transfer of technology
  • Encourage continuity, permanence and coordination among coastal extension services
  • Facilitate long-term linkages between institutions in USAID countries and U.S. Sea Grant Programs