Bridging silos and local to global information to address local challenges.
The Program
2009 – Present
Funder: The Rockefeller Foundation
Overview
The Shared Learning Dialogue (SLD) is a stakeholder engagement process born from strong roots in participatory action research. The SLD is not simply a series of meetings but rather a semi-structured, dynamic, and strategically facilitated succession of interactions. The structure and composition of an SLD process can be highly adaptable to meet the needs of the organizers as well as the social context, and the facilitator may choose to use any number of tools and techniques to generate discussion and interaction. Depending on the ways in which they are designed, SLDs can at times challenge conventional power dynamics, confound existing and seemingly well-established doctrine and understanding, and induce interaction between institutions and actors that are new and sometimes go beyond cultural expectations.
What we deliver
The SLD was developed by ISET, in collaboration with local and regional partners, in 2009 as a means to overcome sectoral siloing and bridge local to global information to address local challenges. ISET has and continues to successfully apply the SLD process to facilitate learning and generate options for responding to current and future climate conditions.
Key outcomes/results
- SLDs can assist decision-makers in public and private sectors, civil society, communities and households to identify possible interventions, target potential constraints, and set priorities.
- SLDs can successfully bring together diverse stakeholders, develop among them a common understanding of a complex and multifaceted issue, build local capacity, and bridge divides between “global” science and local knowledge.
- SLDs have resulted in new partnerships, highly enhanced capacities among small groups and greater awareness among larger groups, and supported the institutionalizing of climate change in city governments.
