The Seed Institute
Learning Together: Towards an Enabling Socio-economic Environment
Strategic Plan 2012-2017
November 2011
Background
The promises and hopes that socio-technological advancement has sparked have been accompanied by heightened insecurity and threats to the livelihoods of many people who have had difficult in finding their place in the new world order.
Globalisation has certainly benefited many people. Easy money has been available for borrowing. International markets are also now more accessible. But, in the main, it is the already quite rich who have benefited.
There is evidence that the participation in and the resultant benefits to proceeds of economic activity are not distributed equitably in Africa. Clearly then, the economic growth of Africa is presently not linked to the improvement of living standards for the people of Africa.
While some people and groups became richer, others lost their lands and livelihood and became more insecure economically than they had been in the days when they had been isolated and led simpler, harder lives.’
The capacity to use data to inform sustainable human development interventions and improve the well being of society is increasingly becoming critical. There have been cases of expensive interventionsswelling thevulnerability of targetedpopulation segments. Consequently,development workers now realize the need to know clearly and understand intricately how their practices contribute to the targeted outcome; in other words the human rights value-added to the target by the intervention.
The Seed Institute is committed to enhancing the effectiveness of efforts to promote sustainable human development by constantly increasing access to knowledge and understanding of how to best achieve positive change in complex, changing, and unpredictable environments. Learning from our experience, and from the experiences of others, is key to improving the quality of development practice.
Strategic initiatives
Capturing and reusing lessons learned from project teams is an idea that organizations now find very attractive, but have found extremely difficult to make work. The idea is appealing because projects are costly and lessons learned from other projects could improve quality and save time and money. To promote achievement of that goal the Seed Institute will build user valuable knowledge infrastructures connected to social processes – the development of relationships, reflective conversations, probing questions and in-depth interactions – that are the backbone of knowledge sharing. Towards this end, our work will be guided bythree strategic initiatives.
1.0Anchor social programs on evidence informed practices: Results targeted links and on going knowledge exchange infrastructures shall be created through which development workers will share in strategies and ways of thinking that promote innovation and learning. The infrastructure will be designed to promote a continuous renewal of sustainable human development processes informed by two knowledge streams; first, evidence informed practice; a blend of experience and the best empirical research. The second stream is the interactive Action Research Processes applied to ones evolving practices. We shall
1.1.Tease out good and bad experiences and learn to share knowledge. Research is a cornerstone of the art of learning, creative thinking and transformation. Our strategy will be to,
1.1.1.Encourage documentation of good and bad practices
1.1.2.Develop a linkage between research centers especially institutions of higher learning and sustainable human development structures including the civil society
1.1.3.Initiate and or promote research work in strategic areas of knowledge and learning infrastructures
1.2.Create an interactive net work of learning and experiences exchange with and between social development workers.
1.3.Continuously improve our methods and effectiveness through evaluation. Evaluation will be an important tool for strengthening results-based programming. An interactive documentation and feedback mechanism will help
1.3.1.Examine the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of leaning infrastructures
1.3.2.Answer questions that users have and in doing so focus their decisions and actions
1.3.3.Improve and/or reorient policies and strategies
1.3.4.Contribute to learning beyond specific cases
2.0Strengthen the core of our services: We shall strengthen our ability to prepare and promote use of knowledge infrastructures in sustainable human development processes. To establish our position as a ‘cutting edge’ organization in the area of promoting sustainable human development through generation and application of knowledgewe shall pursue the following objectives
2.1.Put in place ‘top notch’ human and capital resources. Seed Institute programming will be conducted by a Team Leader working with Knowledge Exchange Facilitators in-charge of each of four core focus areasof Advocacy, Education, Governance and Research
2.2.Pulling together to build synergy: Seed Institute will build strategic alliances with priority partners for cooperation in specific common objectives and priorities areas such as staff development, research, fund raising and service provision.
2.2.1.Duplication will be avoiding by making use of available infrastructure from partner organizations and availing the Seed Institute’s infrastructures for others to use.
2.2.2.A programming partnership will be sought from the private and government corporations. These partners will assure targeted and planned cooperation and will bring benefits in funding and expertise.
3.0Leveraging learning into action through Advocacy and Participation: First, we shall align our approach and resources more with the external environment. This will ultimately assist in accessing significant additional untapped financial resources. Secondly, we shall enter into an advocacy partnership with like-minded organizations to leverage learning into action. Through partnership, The Seed Institute will become part of a global authority that will influence decision makers, and a variety of partners at the grassroots level to turn the most innovative ideas into reality. The Seed Institute will work with others to overcome the obstacles that poverty and inequalities, political ineptitude and environmental mismanagement place on the path to sustainable human well being. Education is the vehicle we shall use to advance the cause of humanity.We shall,
3.1.Contribute to the development of sustainable human development policies
3.1.1.Identify media and other relevant communication spaces in the social development community and determine a strategy for participation
3.1.2.Share policies with partners and develop joint policies on common objective areas
3.1.3.mass mobilization for policy demand