Learning to make policy: development cooperation agencies and knowledge management

This paper is the first in a series of working papers from the ESRC funded "Learning to make policy" project. This paper examines the broad conceptaul framework under which the project will develop. It argues that development cooperation is apparently engaged in a new phase, although it cautions against taking the extent of this change for granted. It suggests that two central elements of the new approach are emphases on knowledge and partnership.

The paper asks four questions that it believes lie at the heart of the relationship between knowledge and policy:

• What strategies and structures are used by agencies to manage their knowledge?
• What is the relationship between new development co-operation processes (partnership, sector-wide approaches, coordination) and new agency learning strategies?
• How do agencies learn from each other?
• What rationales govern their dissemination and development awareness activities?

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