Network approaches and alliance management
Press Release: MDF and PSO are looking back on successful expert meeting
Development organisations meet to discuss about North-South networks and alliances
Ede, 14 april 2011 - MDF Training & Consultancy (MDF) and PSO capacity building in developing countries organised, in close collaboration with network specialist Dr. Eelke Wielinga, an expert meeting about network approaches and alliance management on Wednesday April 13th. Aim of the meeting was to bring together network practitioners and feed the discussion about networks and alliances. The leading questions being: What are networks and can they be managed? And also: what are useful models to let a network move and be accountable?
The good turnout for the expert meeting once more illustrates the great interest in learning more about networking. About 60 professionals from a great number of development organisations were present. Networks appear in different ways and there is a need to understand how you can guide these successfully. The verdict by Rosemarie Wuite (NIZA) characterized accurately what a network is all about: "We have people, and that's all we have."
The participants underlined the importance of trust and ownership as central drivers for a healthy network, as a network functions according to the quality of relationships. The question remains: how can you manage this? It was one of the dilemmas that emerged during the discussion. One participant pronounced: “Networks cannot be managed, they should be facilitated, and that can be managed." Guestspeaker Hedwig Bruggeman (Agriprofocus) recommended not to waste energy trying keeping everyone on board. The central issue must be relevant to the person concerned and further success will depend on the facilitation of the network.
MDF and PSO are looking back on a successful event and are looking forward to meeting again and continueing the discussion. Herman Snelder (Director MDF) underlined the importance of deepening the debate around networks: “We need to evolve from intuitively facilitating networks to being consciously competent; this requires practise and exchanging ideas.”
Both MDF and PSO offer training courses to advance the facilitation skills of network practitioners. MDF offers a two week training course existing of four modules from 13 till 24 June 2011. PSO coordinates an action research with North-South networks, the findings will be presented in a seminar on 10 June 2011. PSO furthermore starts a renewed course in September this year.
Based on the contributions of the speakers and participants the organisers like to excerpt the following key notices feeding the ongoing debate:
- The quality of the relationships drives networks and is key to achieve results
- Results are important, but be careful with imposing structure and result driven planning
- How to balance progress and results?
- Donors should help enable the building of ownership in networks
- Good interpersonal skills are essential for network facilitators
- How do you combine secondary relations and hierarchical relations in the network?
About MDF/ Ger Roebeling
MDF is a world wide operating training and consultancy agency. Its mission is to enhance the management capacities of professionals and organizations in the development sector. MDF has over 25 years of experience in building bridges between policies and practices. The group is composed of the MDF head office in Ede, the Netherlands, and branch offices in Belgium, Colombia, DR Congo, Ghana, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Vietnam.
Ger Roebeling is the driving force behind the facilitation of the expert meeting. Ger is a senior trainer, consultant in Policy Influencing and Advocacy, Networking and Organisational & Institutional Development, Facilitation of international partnerships, networks and alliances, and multi-stakeholder dialogue like sustainable market value chains.
About PSO/ Koen Faber
PSO is an association that consists of sixty Dutch development organisations. The association focuses on capacity development at civil society organisations in developing countries. PSO works for Dutch civil society organisations. Its core issues are knowledge development and the funding of activities in the field of capacity building. Furthermore, PSO provides services in the field of staff cooperation. All PSO's activities focus on reinforcing the capacity of civil society organisations in developing countries.
Koen Faber is senior consultant for learning for change. He has 14 years experience with participatory management processes on NRM in Africa and Latin America. At PSO he is coordinating the thematic learning programma on networks and responsible for the learning trajectory “working with networks”.
About Dr Eelke Wielinga
Eelke Wielinga worked in development projects in Bénin and the Philippines. He studies the dynamics of networks since the nineties. His interest evolved from agricultural extension, knowledge systems and innovation processes. As government officer he witnessed the privatisation of the Dutch extension service in 1990. He evaluated the changes in the system and wrote a PhD study, in which he introduced “networks as living tissue” as a metaphor (2001). In the period 2002 – 2009 he was involved in research on networks in the Dutch agricultural sector for the Agricultural Economics Institute (part of Wageningen University and Research). He conducts trainings on network dynamics at Wageningen Business School and MDF. At present he leads the “Healthy Network Learning Programme”, an action research on North-South networks for PSO. View Eelke's presentation named 'Networks: what is so different' and and his presentation named 'FAN Toolbox'.
Guestspeakers
Rosemarie Wuite/ NIZA: "A network facilitator (which is a better alternative to using the word manager) should try to balance facilitating playing and gaming."
Click here to view the presentation that has been developed by network facilitator/practitioner Rosemarie Wuite. It gives some examples of how a network facilitator could foster network dynamics and identifies some puzzles to further brainstorm around.
Hedwig Bruggeman/ Agriprofocus: click here to view the presentation by Hedwig Bruggeman.
Participants
Network practitioners shared their opinions and ideas about the subject matter. Below are the posters and some of the pictures. Click here to go to the facebook photo album and view more pictures. Click here to view the participants list.
Eelke Wielinga highlights that the participants wonder if donors are sufficiently able to make distinction between ‘the blue and the red process’. Blue: structure, targets, criteria.. Red: energy, connection, inspiration, flow.. Other responses from the participants that Eelke likes to highlight:
"If you let relations suffer for getting results, you will not have results in the long run."
"Networks are not only the future but also the past. Our partners in the South are probably much more aware of this than we are."
"Are networks without obligations?" No, participants say. "You need commitment and legitimacy. Apart from formal there are also moral obligations. ‘Responsibilisation’ of members should be part of network management."
As puzzles to explore further, a few points participants mentioned:
"How to formulate results of a network?"
"How to make proper use of social media?"
"How to get donors along in this way of thinking?"
