Knowledge Management Networking for Improving Public Administration

Transcription

1 UN ONLINE NETWORK IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCE DIVISION FOR PUBLIC ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION/DESA Knowledge Management Networking for Improving Public Administration By Haiyan Qian Chief, Public Administration Networking Unit Division for Public Administration and Development Management United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Effective Knowledge Management is the key to a Good Society The knowledge society is a society where knowledge, to a higher degree, controls our actions, which is essential to the development of the good society, where public decision making and implementation is equitable and responsive to the demands of the people in a service-oriented fashion. It requires much more than technology or information. It can be partially expressed in e-government, but not entirely. One can say that public administration is primarily government decision making and implementation on behalf of the people and for their benefit. Effective e-government, as part of the modernization of public administration, expands the capacities for information, knowledge, decision making and service at acceptable social cost/ benefit ratios. The knowledge society relies on credible information fed into knowledge management systems. Therefore, once one understands what a knowledge society is and why, the next question to be asked and considered will be how to build a knowledge society. In more concrete terms, it would be how to effectively and creatively manage available information so as to transform it into intime, customized, useful, high-quality and value-added knowledge, which the decision makers and the people at large can count on for the right decisions and actions in their individual, organizational, or national development for a good society. Thus, effective knowledge management is the key to a good society. Knowledge is power! Ironically, as such, a climate of knowledge is power can create a major cultural blockage against knowledge management. But, on the positive side, knowledge sharing is power sharing. Knowledge sharing promotes transparency in society. Transparency is a key factor that improves governance, as it exposes corruption and incompetence in society and allows for checks and balances and stakeholders participation. And improved governance contributes to equity and fairness for the benefit of the people governed. But, the will to achieve a transparent society must be shared by all stakeholders concerned, especially the leadership. Major Concerns in Knowledge Management

2 One dilemma facing today's public administrators is that, on the one hand they seem to be suffering from too much information from too many sources. On other hand, they often complain about shortage of information needed to make vital decisions, especially at senior levels, or just to know where to find the right information. Yet, an urge for effective knowledge management which facilitates providing intime, high-quality and custom-made services does not seem to be strongly felt by many managers or decision-makers for their organizations. Some management and professional level people reduce knowledge management to information technology and do not fully comprehend the value of or engage in knowledge management in their respective organizations. Others tend to underutilize or unintentionally ignore the available ICT tools to manage their information needs; even if these tools have been specially built for their use. In addition to the knowledge is power barrier, it seems that a cultural barrier to information/knowledge management exists for many people in governmental and nongovernmental organizations. In order to change the mindset, and to let decision-makers and the public servants recognize the value that information and knowledge can have to their everyday work and to the core business of their organizations, ultimately, to provide better services to their clients, the following issues need be addressed: 1. At managerial level, a vision and a strategy for developing a knowledge-based organization is a must. It should addresses main issues such as high-level knowledge management policies and procedures, overall infrastructure, staff/policy alignment, budget allocation, content management, tools and technologies, and networks to support the development of the knowledge-based organizations. 2. The mindset needs to be changed from managing information in a traditional to a modern way which leads to effective knowledge management systems, namely, IT supported systems. 3. Effective knowledge management requires efficient information management. Although information facilitates knowledge and can exist by itself, knowledge cannot without information. Thus, it is pivotal to develop incentives and personal development opportunities for information management in an organization. Knowledge Management Networking Process In addition to the issues referred to above, another important one which needs to be highlighted is the knowledge management networking development because it can substantially amplify individual and institutional knowledge management capabilities, saving resources, encouraging dialogues, building partnerships and facilitating cooperation. Therefore, transitioning from e-government towards a knowledge society could also benefit from building knowledge-based network for public administration and linking governments together as partners to tackle common problems they are faced with, such as the issues we are discussing at this panel today. 2

3 However, for networking to fully blossom, especially for internet-based networking, one must recognize the varying barriers affecting the development process and different prospective participants. For instance, members may operate at different levels of understanding and motivation. Promote standardization and enforcement of the rules and regulations for knowledge management can be tedious. The nature of networking may lead to weak accountability and limited resource allocation by members. Limited rewards are usually offered for networking contributions as opposed to contributions made to their respective individual organizations. Members may not have a strong ownership feeling regarding the network to which they belong, and developing ICT support structure and tools which respond to different levels of capacities and needs of network participants can be also challenging; and so on and so forth. Having no intension to give all the answers to the above raised questions, I would like to share with you, just for your reference, our experience gained from developing an internet-based knowledge management network known as UNPAN - the United Nations Online Network in Public Administration. UNPAN is an online network initiated by the Division for Public Administration and Development Management of UNDESA in It has been developed and managed by the Davison for the last three and half years in close partnership with 20 international and regional institutions worldwide and 9 UN agencies (one of them is based in Shanghai and is also the co-organizer of the Forum). Thanks to the joint efforts of all UNPAN members and its partners, the knowledge and the knowledge-based services that the Network provides in the area of public administration have been highly appreciated by its users from allover the world. The feedback received from our direct clients as well as the general public has been extremely positive ever since the launching of the UNAPN web portal in The main reason for UNPAN to reach such good result is that tremendous efforts have been devoted to building UNPAN as a knowledge management network. This knowledge management network has been playing the following major roles: a) A platform for capacity-building and learning in knowledge management among the UNPAN members and for promoting South-South and North-South cooperation. In this area, the Network has focused on: Bridging the digital divide through technical assistance: UNPAN has provided technical, consulting and financial support to the UNPAN members, especially those from developing countries in building their needed ICT infrastructure and connectivity. Developing Overall Strategic Plan for the Network: UNPAN has developed a unique and clearly articulated vision of the meaning of the knowledge agenda and knowledge management, with a holistic perspective that embraces strategic, technological and organizational perspectives. Building common understanding among the network members through dialogues: UNPAN holds annual meeting with participation of all the heads of the Network members to exchange views, reach consensus on major 3

4 policy decisions, plan for annual activities and set up rules and standards for KM. KM training and experience-sharing and cooperation among the Network members: UNPAN conducts training workshops for the working-level staff of the member institutions on e-knowledge management in addition to the online training and help-desk services provided on a regular basis by the UNPAN-UN office. These workshops not only provide technical training, but also focus on raising awareness and appreciation of the value of knowledge management. In addition, experience-sharing and exploring cooperation possibilities among the members of the Network are always included as part of the agenda in these workshops as we realize that the mentality change on KM and developing the necessary skills are far more difficult, but important, than the technical skill training. b) An internet-based tool for knowledge management in order to provide timely and value-added products and services in public administration, and at the same, to build organizational memories to avoid reinventing the wheel and repeating mistakes. In this area, UNPAN has focused on: Designing and developing the UNPAN e-km system: UNPAN has developed a centralized internet-based IT support system which allows all members to have access to managing their part of the information at their respective locations. Establishing rules and regulations and providing manuals for the UNPAN KM: The Network has developed various guidelines for classification as well as validation, and the procedures for documents check-in and data entry, etc. In order to improve its navigation for information finding, UNPAN IT search-engine is upgraded almost on a yearly basis. Consolidating and organizing available information from all members into UNPAN DMS: Within the last 3.5 years, more than 20,000 documents have been organized and packaged by 10 different content types through the UNPAN DMS; 36 databases developed, more than 3,000 relevant web links established. UNPAN has internet-based tools to manage: documents, meetings and training workshops, directories, bibliographies, photos and video clippings, online training materials, intranet and extranet, discussion rooms, etc. Moving from knowledge management towards knowledge development: UNPAN has been from its outset working hard to consolidate all the available information in public administration from allover the world into one portal. Starting in 2003, it began to develop knowledge and services based on the requests of the users. The products include country profiles in public administration, online training materials on e-government and performance evaluation for civil servants, and a training CD-ROM on how to fight against corruption in public service in Africa, the best practices on 4

5 innovation in public service, just to name a few. UNPAN plans to focus more and more on custom-made products in the future. c) A facilitator for improving work-efficiency and service quality of the Network. In this area, UNPAN has focused on: Building a sense of ownership among all the members of the Network: In developing and managing UNPAN; we always keep the concept ownership for all in mind because it is the key for building real partnerships and making the Network in high-quality and sustainable. In practice, as a coordinator of the Network, UNPAN-UN office makes special effort in adhering to the following principles: a) never take any major decision without consulting and reaching consensus of the members of the Network; b) always listen and respect their views and respond to their concerns; c) take immediate action on the proposals agreed by all members in the planning and implementation of the activities; and d) keep close relationships with the members not only at managerial but also working levels. On line, we always make sure to give credits to the members for their information and knowledge contributions to the UNPAN website by adding their logos along with their documents. In return, we also let the members be responsible and accountable for the quality of their contributions and the related consequences, either positive or negative. Monitoring the Network s performance as an enterprise, not as a bureaucratic institution: In the development of UNPAN; we fully understand that the Network can survive and be successful only if it becomes highly competitive in producing its high-quality products and services. Therefore, it requires entrepreneurial management concept and proactive approach. To ensure competitive products and services for the market, the Network from its infant stage has established the Network Performance Monitoring system. A performance report is generated every month and distributed to all members of the Network for comparing notes and self-evaluation. The report is also used by more and more managers of the Network members as inputs for evaluating their own staff performance. In addition, UNPAN-UN as a coordinator also monitors on a daily basis the quality of the inputs checked-in to the UNPAN system by the members and communicates with the members concerned whenever necessary to ensure immediate corrections on the mistakes made. As a result, the visibilities of the member intuitions in the Network have been increased greatly. d) An online portal for information-exchange and experience-sharing at international, regional and national levels in the area of public policy and management. In this area, the Network has focused on: Providing client-centric services: UNPAN has taken extra efforts in building an Online Users Survey to monitor the needs expressed and the value assigned by its customers. In today s world, there are not many such networks which provide this type of service. In response to the outcome of 5

6 the survey, UNPAN is trying constantly to improve and upgrade its ICT facilities so as to provide user-friendly information services. The latest examples include: an alert system and auto-retrieval system by region, country and content types. Thanks to this effort, UNPAN has been making great progress in winning the trust from its clients as evidenced by the statistical data. Since the launching of the UNPAN website in March 2001, the number of users has dramatically expanded, and use frequency increased from 20,000 to over 5.4 million per month, document visits from 3,000 per month to over 2.5 million per month; and the UNPAN responded to over 5,000 requests from its clients allover the world. Focusing on responsive service delivery: As mentioned earlier, we established from the very beginning the interactive function through Contact Us in the Network to enable dialogues between the Network and its public users and to respond to their requests. What s more, Immediate Response (within 24 hours) to users requests is always the principle of the Network as we are fully aware that the interactive feature does not mean anything if the sense of the responsiveness from the Network is missing. No response or too-late responses are often experienced in our daily lives from either an individual or an organization when one searches for needed information. Thus, UNPAN pays special attention to this question. No matter if the request is big or small, and no matter where it comes from, UNPAN never ignores them. Because of that, we often receive the feedback from the our users thanking us for unexpected quick reply, or informing us that UNPAN was the only one out of the seven requested institutions which responded to their request, and so on. Providing one-stop knowledge portal in public administration: UNPAN web portal is the end-product of the Network and it s the only one existing in the world today. In addition to the information managed on the portal by the official members of the Network, UNPAN carefully collects the relevant information and knowledge from all the institutions and individuals throughout the world and then manages them properly on the portal. In light of the above, UNPAN still can not stop encountering difficulties and obstacles merging in its growing process. But UNPAN members always take them as challenging opportunities for improvement, as our goal is to build a world-class knowledge management network in public administration for providing its clients with "the right knowledge, in the right place, in the right format, at the right time. By doing so, UNPAN will be in a better position to make its meaningful contributions to the development of the knowledge society. 6