|
Getting the most out of Annual Meetings
Annual meetings can be very predictable affairs, with their large plenary sessions and rigid agendas. But in September 2005, CIFOR decided to do things differently. ‘We’re going to give you space and opportunity to talk about the things that really concern you, that worry you, that excite you,’ explained Director General David Kaimowitz in his welcoming speech at CIFOR’s HQ in Bogor.
The objectives of the five-day meeting –Working Together to Make a Difference– were to improve understanding about CIFOR’s future, provide a range of forums for discussion and interaction, and increase understanding of CIFOR’s global programmes and regional strategies. This was achieved by adopting a radical new knowledge-sharing approach, already piloted at several other centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR) with help from the CGIAR Knowledge Sharing Project.
The meeting began with a ‘Knowledge Fair’ featuring workshops, presentations, poster displays and videos related to research conducted by CIFOR and its partners. Most of the next two days was devoted to Open Space, during which the rhetoric of institutional democracy was made a reality. There were six different Open Space sessions, with the topics for debate being chosen by participants. The third innovative approach was Peer Assist, which enabled small groups to come together to share experiences and solve problems. The week concluded with ‘Fiesta Friday’, a dinner-dance with a Latin-American theme.
‘The meeting exceeded all my expec-tations in terms of creating a renewed sense of excitement about CIFOR and the work we do,’ says Michael Hailu, Director of CIFOR’s Information Services Group. His enthusiasm was reflected in a survey conducted at the end of the week. The vast majority of participants welcomed the new approach, which they considered more enjoyable and inclusive than the standard annual meeting. The main conclusion was: Let’s have more of the same in future, please.
|
Knowledge Fair
Knowledge Fair set the scene for the week by giving participants a wide range of choice. They could look at presentations, videos and poster displays, or attend workshops covering a variety of topics, all proposed and presented by CIFOR staff. ‘It was very important for me to find out about research carried out by other scientists,’ explained Mathurin Zida, who had recently joined CIFOR’s Dry Forest Programme in Burkina Faso. ‘I learned a lot during the Knowledge Fair and gained a better global vision about what CIFOR is doing.’
Open Space
Open Space allows individuals to choose a topic and invite anybody interested to join a discussion and debate. During a period of just 10 minutes on the second morning, 27 people came up with 29 separate topics, ranging from the managerial to the scientific, from the broad and philosophical to the very specific. ‘I liked the way people could put things on the table and discuss them in a very open way,’ said Marieke Sandker, a young Dutch scientist who had just joined CIFOR. Eighty-five per cent of participants said they would like to use the Open Space approach again.
Peer Assist
Peer Assist is a process which brings together a small group to help one person solve a particular problem with which he or she is grappling. This was a novel approach for most CIFOR scientists, and many said they would use it in the future. For example, Daniel Tiveau from CIFOR’s Burkina office – his question was, ‘How do you live up to the expectation of national partners?’ – said that although his group didn’t come up with much he hadn’t already considered, he liked the exercise. ‘I would like to try this process with a scientific problem next time,’ he said. |
Getting the message out
During 2005 CIFOR was mentioned in at least 560 known media stories – equivalent to two stories each working day. We say ‘at least’ because there were probably many more which the Communications Unit was unable to track. Getting research results into the press and on to the airwaves is one way of reaching policy-makers and opinion-formers. To give just one example, an article about illegal logging and money laundering, written by David Kaimowitz and Bambang Setiono and published in the South China Morning Post, was forwarded by a senior Indonesian forestry official to his Minister.
Stories about CIFOR and its research appeared in a wide range of publications, from internationally renowned heavyweights like Time, the Economist, the Washington Post, El Pais and Le Figaro to local papers in remote parts of Borneo and the Congo Basin. The media took a particular interest in research related to forests and floods, forests and violent conflict, illegal logging and money laundering, Cameroon’s Model Forest programme and CIFOR’s Malinau Research Forest.
|