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Knowledge SUCCESS Resources Gain Traction in Asia-Pacific


Over the last several years, Knowledge SUCCESS’s resources have gained traction in the Asia-Pacific region. USAID family planning priority countries have shown progress and commitment to improving family planning services. However, persistent challenges remain, potentially slowing the progress of the region’s family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) initiatives. These include:

  • Ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has disrupted service provision.
  • Armed conflict in Afghanistan.
  • Cultural and religious beliefs that perpetuate myths and misconceptions and resistance to family planning.
  • Donor-dependent funding.
  • Urban-rural service delivery gap.
  • A lack of collaboration among government and civil society organizations working in the family planning and reproductive health space.

It is in this environment that Knowledge SUCCESS, a USAID-funded global project seeking to infuse knowledge management culture and practice in key global and regional FP/RH networks, was launched to address the lack of collaboration and sharing of FP/RH knowledge among government bodies and civil society organizations. Led by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs in partnership with Amref Health Africa, Busara Center for Behavioral Economics, and FHI 360, Knowledge SUCCESS seeks to build a broad stakeholder base that diffuses knowledge management innovation to improve uptake of family planning and reproductive health knowledge and related health outcomes.

Nepali women and children | Credit: Senator Chris Coons
Nepali women and children. Credit: Senator Chris Coons.

Promoting Knowledge Management

“We are connecting organizations and people who can learn from and complement each other’s programs to improve family planning and reproductive health outcomes,” says Grace Gayoso-Pasion, Knowledge SUCCESS Asia Regional Technical Officer. She adds, “Based on the organizations’ needs and suggestions they present, developing the most suitable platform that would enable them to efficiently share knowledge and learn from each other is the best approach to support their family planning and reproductive health programs.”

“We are connecting organizations and people who can learn from and complement each other’s programs to improve family planning and reproductive health outcomes.”

Knowledge SUCCESS currently promotes knowledge management in Asia through conducting introductory meetings and project orientations with different FP/RH organizations, sharing relevant FP/RH resources, and building knowledge management capacity through an upcoming regional training in September 2021.

Milestones

Knowledge SUCCESS has supported programs and organizations in the Asia-Pacific region to improve family planning and reproductive health outcomes by co-creating relevant knowledge management products, like FP insight, an online knowledge hub the project curates.

“So far, the organizations we have reached out to appreciate knowledge management as a priority within their organizations and country. They understand its importance in improving their family planning and reproductive health programs and are open to getting technical support to realize this objective. Also, they are keen on sharing resources that they have that they think would benefit other organizations or countries,” elaborates Gayoso-Pasion.

Nepali women reaching out | Credit: Senator Chris Coons
Nepali women reaching out. Credit: Senator Chris Coons.

The project also recently funded two knowledge management innovations in the region through The Pitch, regional competitions to design and implement game-changing knowledge management innovations for FP/RH professionals.

Partnerships

In the Asia-Pacific region, Knowledge SUCCESS works with several organizations to document, synthesize, and publish relevant and timely information from FP/RH programs, making it easy to understand and user-friendly. Gayoso-Pasion’s priorities for the region are to build skills of family planning and reproductive health practitioners in applied knowledge management and provide opportunities for knowledge sharing and learning among countries. “As a knowledge management project, our focus is to consistently collect and curate timely, relevant, and useful family planning and reproductive health resources and tools and point our partners to these resources—also to connect the right people to each other and encourage them to share and uptake this knowledge. It is about getting the right knowledge to the right people at the right time and facilitating meaningful engagements with the family planning and reproductive health community,” shares Gayoso-Pasion.

“It is about getting the right knowledge to the right people at the right time and facilitating meaningful engagements…”

“Partnerships,” Gayoso-Pasion states, “help complement partner organization’s strengths and build capacity in areas important to them while maximizing synergy for meaningful and greater impact. And, like our colleagues in East Africa, we are recruiting and building capacity of knowledge management champions to support and boost the dissemination and uptake of knowledge management messages in Asia.”

Local girl writing on blackboard | Credit: Peace Corps.
Local girl writing on blackboard. Credit: Peace Corps.

Challenges

COVID-19 is still a major challenge since Asia is one of the hardest-hit regions. The pandemic has caused delays in project implementation since some staff within organizations are pulled to COVID-19 response activities, and/or are dealing with the personal effects of the pandemic including caring for the sick or the loss of family members due to the virus.

Gayoso-Pasion also points out that the Asia-Pacific region faces delays in the sharing of timely resources due to lengthy approval structures and processes within organizations or due to donors’ requirements regarding information dissemination. Knowledge SUCCESS, however, is working to establish knowledge management structures and mechanisms for Asia and two other regions (East and West Africa) where the project is implemented to share lessons and best practices and to ensure sustainability and continuity of activities.

Are you interested in engaging our Asia team on a KM initiative for your organization? You can find out more by contacting Gayoso-Pasion at gayoso.grace@knowledgesuccess.org, reading our Asia fact sheet, or submitting your interest through our Contact Us form.

Brian Mutebi, MSc

Contributing Writer

Brian Mutebi is an award-winning journalist, development communication specialist, and women’s rights campaigner with 17 years of solid writing and documentation experience on gender, women’s health and rights, and development for national and international media, civil society organizations, and UN agencies. The Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health named him one of its “120 Under 40: The New Generation of Family Planning Leaders” on the strength of his journalism and media advocacy on family planning and reproductive health. He is a 2017 recipient of the Gender Justice Youth Award in Africa. In 2018, Mutebi was included on Africa’s prestigious list of “100 Most Influential Young Africans.” Mutebi holds a master's degree in Gender Studies from Makerere University and an MSc in Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy and Programming from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.