On the 27th January 2011 the KM Impact Challenge organized a webinar which was attended by 30 at the Society of International Development  Washington Chapter with a further 125 people from 27 countries listening online. The event featured 2 presentations; firstly Simon Hearn , Valerie Brown  and Ewen Le Borgne  of IKM Emergent  presented their research into the M&E of KM and explored the concept of multiple knowledges and how these interact with and influence project design, implementation and outcomes. This was followed by a presentation of preliminary findings  from the KM Impact Challenge case stories by Marie-Ange Binagwaho, Louise Clark and Norma Garza.
The IKM Emergent presentation  provided a preview of ongoing research into M&E of KM for development. It started by highlighting some of the challenges we face due to the ambiguous definitions around concepts such as monitoring, evaluation, knowledge and even development. While it is impossible to limit the way this terminology is used in the international development sector, the presentation made a strong case for the importance of clarifying what we mean. Any definition of M&E should be versatile enough to incorporate a number of key elements to M&E, such as the need to capture unexpected lessons across different worldviews and knowledge domains, recognizing that it should not be an isolated specialist field and should involve a variety of different people.
The presentation highlighted some of the inherent challenges of M&E of KM for development (KM4D) as summarized by the following points:
Multiple Perspectives of M&E
Despite these challenges, there are emerging signposts to help us find the right tools and use them in a way that add value to our understanding and improve how knowledge is used in development processes. The presentation highlighted Hulsebosch et al’s (2009) Ripple model  and Talisayon’s (2009) KM framework  as examples which help to explain the causal chain from knowledge assets or knowledge capital to behavior change and more effective decision making, towards the desired end of improved performance and tangible results. Building upon Talisayon’s work, the presentation highlighted the need to better understand intangibles such as human, structural and relationship capital and factors such as intangible assets and motivational and cognitive factors. The presentation also recommended a number of other models including the Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) influential work on the SECI (Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization) knowledge spiral , Graham et al’s (2006) Knowledge to Action cycle , the RAPID framework for Knowledge Strategies Ramalingam( 2005)  and Snowden’s (2002) Cynefin framework .
Using these frameworks as signposts helps us to approach the challenge of M&E of KM to ensure that we are constantly questioning M&E from a number of different perspectives:
Multiple partners of M&E
The presentation moved on to introduce the concept of multiple knowledges and explore how a whole community change is a combination of individual commitment, community interest, specialist advice, community commitment and holistic solutions. M&E needs to capture evidence from each of these perspectives, creating inherent contradictions as the different types of knowledge reject each other - individual knowledge is seen as biased, community knowledge as anecdotal, specialized knowledge as full of jargon, strategic knowledge as self serving and holistic knowledge as airy fairy. This focus on multiple knowledges highlights the need to work as a collaborative system that recognizes how nested knowledges support collective learning towards collaborative action.
The IKM emergent team stated that that they do not believe in silver bullets and their presentation highlighted the importance of placing more emphasis on asking questions to challenge our own thinking. This work on nested knowledges aims to support us to frame our M&E activities by identifying the ideals (what should be), the facts (what actually is) the ideas (what could be) and the actions (what can be). By asking ourselves these questions we will be better prepared to make the right decisions regarding what issues to address with M&E, who should be involved and the best tools and methods to use. The next step is to test the framework to see how the theory works in practice and how it can be also available in a lightweight version, recognizing the constraints that we all face in the field and the need to test these ideas in a progressive way.
We are extremely grateful to the IKM Emergent team for sharing these insights with us and we await the publication of the research papers with much interest. We also welcome their invitation to work together and ensure that findings from KM Impact Challenge complement and add value to this work. The webinar also presented a preliminary synthesis  of the case stories collected by the KM Impact Challenge to give a taster of some of the exciting stories we have collected. Case story submission is now closed and we will be sharing more of our findings with you as we advance with our sense making and analysis in the coming weeks.