Knowledge Brokering

Enabling and facilitating knowledge and information sharing processes

The international development sector is where the domains of research, policy and practice meet. The individuals and organisations involved in each domain produce and use different, sometimes overlapping but often competing, forms of knowledge and information. CDI believes that stakeholders need to be able to access, use and share knowledge and information in a constructive, open and integrated way, if development is to take a course of meaningful, equitable and sustainable change.

Intermediary role
CDI performs an intermediary role, linking, integrating, sharing and interpreting knowledge and information from research, policy and practice. Our staff are technical experts with extensive experience in facilitating learning processes. While CDI is a firmly practice-based organisation, we are located within an academic institution, Wageningen UR. We are therefore well positioned to perform knowledge brokering services for civil society organisations, governments, international organisations and academia.

Cutting edge technologies
Our knowledge brokering services make use of different media and tools, such as video to capture and facilitate learning, and web-based network and learning platforms. Web 2.0 tools assist us in interactive information sharing.

Services:

• We organise dialogues, seminars and debates on key development-related issues, connecting people and different forms of knowledge.
• We facilitate collaboration processes between actors from different knowledge domains, by maintaining different web-based portals.
• We organise and signpost information on key issues.
• We facilitate learning networks.
• We summarise bodies of research for policy makers.
• We write hands-on guides on methodologies and tools for practitioners.
• We participate in and facilitate action research.