=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2120/paper7
|storemode=property
|title=Knowledge Management Practices for Development – Lessons from Post-Earthquake Nepal
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2120/paper7.pdf
|volume=Vol-2120
|authors=Aske Robenhagen,Marije Visscher,Victor de Boer,Julie Ferguson
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/websci/RobenhagenVBF18
}}
==Knowledge Management Practices for Development – Lessons from Post-Earthquake Nepal==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2120/paper7.pdf
Knowledge Management Practices for Development -
Lessons from Post-Earthquake Nepal.
A case-study on using technology to facilitate inclusive data gathering
Aske Robenhagen Marije Visscher Dr Victor de Boer
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Department of Artificial Department of Organization Department of Computer
Intelligence Sciences Science
Faculty of Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty of Sciences
Dr Julie E. Ferguson
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Department of Organization
Sciences
Faculty of Social Sciences
ABSTRACT favoured, even if organizational goals include inclusive devel-
Responding effectively and appropriately to large scale nat- opment. Development is a complex, multi-aspect endeavor
ural disaster requires information-driven coordinated action and having an organizational focus is important, however it
between many different stakeholders. Evidence from one can lead to priority-biases. In this paper, the CitizenHelper
NGO engaged in reconstruction work after the 2015 Nepal data gathering tool is presented as a solution to highlight
earthquake sets out some of the knowledge management these organizational priorities as part of the data gather-
practice issues faced by an organization performing this work ing process, whilst simultaneously aiding their information
in a challenging geographical environment with low-connectivity. gathering processes.
Key issues are identified and a data gathering tool that
encourages data-driven bottom-up development practices is 2. CASE STUDY - ACCOUNTABILITY LAB
presented. At 11:56 Nepal Standard time 2015, a 7.8Mw earthquake
struck Nepal with its epicenter in the Gorkha district ap-
Keywords proximately 80km from Kathmandu. The earthquake left
ICT4D, Knowledge Representation, Emergency Response, nearly 9000 people dead, injuring 22000, and caused wide-
Inclusive Development spread destruction of buildings and infrastructure[2]. Nepal
is poor landlocked mountainous country ranking 144th on
1. INTRODUCTION the UN Human Development Index1 and responding effec-
tively to a disaster of this magnitude is a challenge for any
Responding to widespread destruction wrought by natural country. In the aftermath of the shock and subsequent after-
disasters requires the coordinated long-term efforts between shocks, many local organizations and self-organizing groups
many different actors spanning from the local community started to organize to deliver aid and coordinate response
level to large international NGOs and state actors [10]. Re- efforts affected areas outside of Kathmandu not yet reached
sponding effectively requires precise and continuous input of by government and NGO workers. One of these organiza-
information which can be turned into appropriate action. In tions is the Citizen Helpdesk project2 , at the time known as
recent years technology has increasingly been used to facil- the Quake Helpdesk. This organization established a net-
itate development data gathering processes[1]. Given the work of volunteers to visit remote rural villages either not
changing complex environments and resource limitations, connected in the first place or disconnected from the mo-
different development efforts have to prioritized based on bile phone networks due to quake damage, in order to asses
the collected data. Within the domain of inclusive devel- the damage and needs of affected citizens. This information
opment and empowerment of peoples, affected citizens have could then be brought to NGOs to help ensure a more accu-
a legitimate part in choosing these priorities[3]. Based on rate picture of the needs across Nepal and help to organize
a field-study within a Nepalse NGO, the particular knowl- the response effort accordingly. As the emergency response
edge management issues facing an organization engaged in efforts progressed from immediate needs for medical treat-
reconstruction and development work after the 2015 Nepal ment, shelter, and food towards the long-term development
earthquake were identified. One of the key findings was that goal of reconstruction - the nature of the work changed. The
the information gathering processes and technological tools
used, can lead to affected citizens having a reduced say in 1
http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/NPL# Ac-
the relative prioritization and choice of development goals. cessed 03/03/2018
2
Instead objectives set by donors and higher management are http://citizenhelpdesk.org Accessed 02/04/2018
needs of affected citizen, some of them among the most vul- distances caused by the topography of Nepal. The infor-
nerable in the world, remains significant. More than two mation Requirements at the different levels of the orga-
years after the earthquake more than 600000 families were nization varied and were sometimes in conflict. Three main
still living in temporary shelters and less than 10% of homes levels of information requirements were identified, one for
had been rebuilt with many more suffering from damaged the CFAs who favoured personal stories and localized infor-
property, farmland, and irrigation systems. Money has been mation to bring local organizations and stakeholders to help
earmarked for reconstruction effort, but many of the most with issues in their communities and administrative wards.
vulnerable people are still suffering the consequences of the The staff in the main office on the other hand primarily dealt
quake. Helping these people requires an understanding of with larger organizations at the governmental and UN level,
their needs and data gathering to find out where the is- where the need for stricter data formats and standardized
sues of accessing and utilizing the earmarked resources fail. practices were demanded. Finally the donor organizations
Citizen Helpdesk does this through a team of Community were interested in statistics and impact assessments in the
Frontline Associates (CFAs) who each cover a geographic form of reports. Organizational focus was found to be
area and their communities, conducting surveys, interviews, primarily driven by the donor organizations. During the
and organizing community meetings in response to the spe- course of the 6 weeks field study, a new donor organization
cific needs of their communities. The organization does not began to fund the project and with that the project changed
provide aid itself, but seeks to use data to break down bar- focus from reconstruction to issues surrounding labour mi-
riers and bring the information to relevant stakeholders who gration. The issues of reconstruction, development, and mi-
can take action and be held accountable. In many the cases gration are deeply interlinked and all are important aspects
access to local government is geographically hard to reach, of the overall development efforts. Labour migration is the
otherwise inaccessible3 or unknown to citizens in the com- largest export of Nepal and it has large consequences, good
munities. and bad, for those leaving and for those staying behind (See
[13], [8], [7], and [6] for an overview of some of the effects of
2.1 Knowledge Management Practices large-scale migration). However, one issue that appeared in
For this case study, a living labs[11] field study was con- many communities and community meetings was water is-
ducted during 6 weeks in April and May 2017. The study sues including drought and water uncertainty. Little of this
was conducted through a mixture of participant observa- extra information made it to the higher levels of the orga-
tion, semi-structured interviews, and subsequently an agile nization because the data gathering tools rigidly imposed a
development process whereby technology was used to ame- particular format for reports. This is important as Nepal,
liorate some of the identified knowledge management issues despite its large water resources in some parts, lacks sig-
identified. The identified issues were: nificant planning in water management with many of those
most adversely affected living in remote mountain areas.
1. Communication issues between main office staff and
CFAs.
3. THE CITIZENHELPER TOOL
2. Existing data collection tools not suited to the Citizen
Help Desk work practices.
3. Limited knowledge sharing between CFAs.
4. Differing information requirements at the different lev-
els of the organization not being met by existing tools.
5. Evidence of organizational focus biases not visible to
stakeholders.
Communication issues between the staff in the head-
quarter in Kathmandu and the community front line work-
ers caused by many different modalities of communication
(some used CFAs primarily used Facebook messenger, oth-
ers email, text, or phone calls). This paired with the dif-
ferences in access to internet and phone connectivity mean
that organizing and disseminating information in both direc- Figure 1: CitizenHelper App Overview
tions suffered. The organization had gone through a num-
ber of different data gathering practices, but reported that The CitizenHelper tool was developed in Nepal with the
the existing tools all were too rigid and schematic for the office staff of the Citizen Helpdesk and their community
open forum format used by the CFAs for their community front line workers during focus groups and testing in Kath-
meetings where the citizens often were the driver behind mandu and in the field. The CitizenHelper tool combines
the choice of topics. Knowledge sharing between CFAs an app built around four modules, which together aims to
was limited due to the different ways of communicating and solve the problems identified in the previous section of this
infrequent in-person meetings due to long travel costs and paper. Together the intention is to create a synergy that
3
Nepal suffered through a long and protracted civil war[12] amplifies the reach and effectiveness of the Citizen Helpdesk
which mean that local elections where not held for more than project’s work. The app combines a simple low-data use
a decade. During the field study the first local elections since chat module which stores messages locally and sends and
the new 2015 constitution where held. receive them when the phone is connected for easy field com-
munication between CFAs and office staff. The apps re- reactions to the intervention with the other themes requir-
porting module is built around a Kobo Toolbox[5] back- ing progressively larger spheres of consideration to evaluate
end, but uses Enketo webforms to display freeform reports (community level, long-term sustainability of the livelihoods
which allows flexibility in the reporting instead of the strict using the technology, amongst others). Providing mobile
progression enforced by other data collection tools. Kobo phones with free calls might have the outcome that people
was selected in accordance with the criteria set out in [1] for make more phone calls, which could have an impact on em-
mobile data gathering tools, but with the extra criteria of powerment if that leads to citizens using phones to organize
easy maintenance, higher emphasis on low-cost, and the ex- and putting pressure on elected officials. The evaluation of
tra criteria of external acceptance and data integration (The the current project is an ongoing process that evolves with
open-source Kobo Toolbox is supported by the United Na- the project and in the present focuses on the observed effect,
tions with free hosting and allows sharing and queries across with the long-term impacts being evaluated in upcoming
different data sources). An Announcement Module al- work. During focus groups with the Community Frontline
lows dissemination of guides and training to CFAs from the workers the immediate outcomes were a great desire to use
main office, whilst a Wiki Module allows CFAs to share the technology in their day to day work, the unexpected out-
their knowledge and experiences. Finally the application come that they expected to save money on paper by relying
auto-generates additional meta-questions about the struc- on the phone for their documentation, and appreciation that
ture of each report with the aim of providing a mechanism they felt that having a tool made for them was a sign of the
where extra information in meetings can be gathered and organization investing in them.
priority mismatch can be identified. This final feature means
that, in conjunction with organizational practices that en- 5. FUTURE WORK
courages it, the opportunity for inspection and adaptation
The informational needs and knowledge practice issues
of the work increases.
identified in the particular organizational setting discussed
in this paper have a universality that could make the Citi-
zen Helper applicable to situations where organizations are
geographically dispersed in a low-connectivity context and
engaged in information-driven development work. However,
to ascertain its usefulness in other context more research
is needed. Technology does not exist alone and consistent
practices and long-term uptake determine their success, so
long term evaluation of the impact is needed as well.
6. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has argued that effective disaster response
requires long-term coordination between diverse stakehold-
ers and that providing an effective response requires high-
quality data gathering over time to monitor interventions.
This data gathering can be facilitated by technology. It has
been argued that organizational biases in choosing develop-
Figure 2: Smartphone Use during Community ment priorities can be exacerbated by the use of data gath-
Meeting[14] ering technology without the flexibility and possibility for
affected citizens to have an input into the prioritization pro-
cess. To help alleviate this issue, the CitizenHelper data
gathering tool was presented which auto-generates meta-
4. EVALUATION surveys on deployed report formats to help show if there is
a discontinuity in prioritization between the providers and
The CitizenHelper system, like all technological interven-
recipients of development interventions.
tions, is a tool intended to facilitate the process of develop-
ment and not an end in and of itself[4]. A tool has to be eval-
uated to answer the question of what, if any, change it has 7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
effected in the community where the tool was deployed. Ex- The author would like to thank Dr. Victor de Boer for
tensive evaluation over time should be considered an integral setting out the path for this research project and the VU
part of the development process and for ICT4D interventions Network institute4 for supporting and funding the present
should draw on multiple fields of research [9]. The present research.
research employs the evaluation framework of Mthoko et
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