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What & Why: History and Context

Context: Vision of the Knowledge Bank
Background: World Bank Knowledge Management Program and the Strategic Compact
History of Advisory Service Development at the Bank

Context: Vision of the Knowledge Bank

After James Wolfensohn became President of the World Bank in 1995, he began a wide review of the Bank and its ways of doing business. He came to the conclusion that its mandate to reduce poverty could not be achieved through lending alone. Then he began to elaborate the vision of a Knowledge Bank.

The Bank's Mission Statement:
The World Bank Group aims to fight poverty with passion and professionalism for lasting results - to help people help themselves and their environments by producing resources, sharing knowledge, building capacity, and forging partnerships in the publicand private sector

Creating, sharing and applying knowledge has always been an important part of the World Bank's programs to assist its member countries to promote growth and reduce poverty. It is only since the mid-90s, however, that the Bank has attempted to organize its knowledge activities in a systematic way to maximize their potential benefits. The Bank's knowledge strategy has three pillars:

  • First, making effective use of knowledge to support the quality of our operations:
    The Bank has established Thematic Groups(TGs), which are charged with capturing the information the Bank and other institutions have acquired in their areas of specialty, and processing this information into useful knowledge. Advisory Services (Ask Us) which are available to Bank staff as well as partners and clients, and provide quick responses to questions.
  • Second, sharing knowledge with our clients and partners:
    The Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) have put this new way of working on the map. Increasingly, the Bank is supplementing this with a range of new technology-based programs which greatly enhance our knowledge sharing capacity.
  • Third, helping clients enhance their capacity to generate, access and use knowledge from all sources:
    Ultimately, the success of national development efforts depends on the trained human resources and institutional arrangements available to carry them out. Supporting countries to enhance their development capacity is therefore central to the Bank's mission of poverty reduction.


Background: World Bank Knowledge Management Program and the Strategic Compact

There are many prongs of the Bank's Knowledge Management initiative.

A matrix organization, through which sectoral as well regional knowledge could be distilled.

Then the Networks and revamped Anchors were formed, along with the existing strong regional focus.

One of the first challenges of the Bank's KM initiative was to compile resources that would contribute to field operations and projects, and to convince Bank staff that sharing this knowledge would benefit both the Bank and clients. Some central technology and web platforms were created to allow the sectors and regions to mount their own web resources, but using a common platform and ideally a common vocabulary.

Several principles for the new KM system were identified:

  • Necessary/demand driven
  • Accessible
  • Authoritative
  • Inclusive

Importantly, a Strategic Compact for three years from 1997 provided almost 3% of the operating budget for Knowledge Management initiatives, along with visible support from hightest levels of management.

With these principles in mind, the Bank needed a way to create broadly participatory but focused structures for knowledge sharing. The key mechanisms for achieving this goal were the creation of a KM program and Director, a group of sectoral knowledge managers, thematic groups and Advisory Services, coordinated by Sector Boards.

The idea of strong knowledge coordination with some centralization and budget: at the VP level a KM Council; at the Sector level, Sector Boards (senior staff representing all the regions and working with the Sector Directors) and Sectoral Knowledge Managers.

Thematic groups or communities of practice further delineated the work of sectors, e.g., Education being further refined into girls' education, science and mathematics education, educational technology, early child development, etc.

And finally, the idea of a knowledge broker service called Advisory Services. These came to exist as small dedicated services helping to draw all resources and experts together, a one stop shop for info by sector.

Article on the development of the Bank's Knowledge Management program: How the World Bank launched a Knowledge Management Program, by Michel Pommier, Knowledgepoint

History of Advisory Service Development at the Bank

In November 1996, the Education Sector launched the Education Advisory Service (EAS) as the gateway to the Education sector knowledge management program. All Bank Education staff were invited to use this service as the first point of contact for inquiries. The EAS operated as a referral service for Education related information knowledge and expertise, and quickly realized the need to track requests. The EAS continues to be one of the strongest Advisory Services, and is recognized as the center of the Education Network. During the roll-out of the Knowledge Management initiative at the World Bank in 1997, a number of other Advisory Services were developed. Several of these services began to use the tracking tool developed by the EAS. In July 1998, the Bank implemented an advisory services tracking system that enabled more detailed tracking. It also provided the ability to refer to previously answered questions, and build upon these to respond to future queries, thus developing a significant knowledge base.

Since then Advisory Services have banded together with other information intermediation services at the Bank, coordinated by the Knowledge and Learning Advisory Service. By 2004, and through the efforts of this very active community, the organization has recognized the need for a Unified Case Management System (UCM). The UCM is a tracking/case management system designed to continue to improve the way these intermediators locate, record, manage, aggregate, share, and disseminate information.

By Decree or By Choice? A Case Study. Implementing Knowledge Management and Sharing at the Education Sector of the World Bank Group (Chapter 2, Section 2.1 The Education Advisory Service, pp 6-8)
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