Kristin Kolshus and Julien Custot

16 April 2013

Dgroups at FAO

• Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN

• Achieving food security for all is at the heart of FAO's efforts - to make sure people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives

• FAO's mandate is to raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations and contribute to the growth of the world economy

• Knowledge networks and communities support this mandate. Dgroups fills a need in supporting our technical work

FAO and Dgroups

• Over 9,700 Dgroups members (up from 5,700 one year ago)

• Increasing interest in Dgroups • Used with internal and external audiences• Open, closed and invisible groups• Some with regional subgroups

• Used for: technical discussions, knowledge networks, workshop preparations and follow-up, steering groups, online consultations, closed discussions and much more.

Dgroups at FAO

• Potential new groups: Asked to fill in Network Design Aid Checklist

• Many tools and options for networks/communities: Dgroups can be right answer but not always: discussion needed.

• We work with groups to suggest structure and how to best facilitate the network/community intervention.

• Do not underestimate time/resources needed. Focus on interaction and facilitation, not technology.

Contacts: dgroups@fao.org and knowledge-sharing@fao.org

Making Dgroups Useful: The Process

A network associated with the “Food for the Cities” multi-disciplinary initiative

Outcome of the “Food, Agriculture and Cities” workshop (September 2009):

The participants “decided to put in place an email discussion list to foster further collaborative work” (page 16)

Starting food-for-cities@dgroups.org

To bring together people working on different aspects of urbanization challenges for food and nutrition security, agriculture and management of natural resources

Participants from the public sector (national and local governments, municipalities, and international organizations), private sector, academics, NGOs and civil society

Challenging to have interventions from the private sector

The main objective(s)

Active cooptation of members

Sending an invitation is often not efficient

Most often:

Informal discussion (meetings, mails …)

Adding the name on the list

Informing the people, and mentioning they can unsubscribe anytime

Too bad we cannot easily monitor the people who have left the list

Getting new members:

By invitation or addition?

The goal to develop a "global network”

List building on existing networks

From 100 people in 2009 to 1900 members today:

all domains/positions in the society

Lost track of the geographical repartition - participants do not indicate their country of origin

680 unlocated

Global network … but from where?

Dgroups is a simple tool: email received in the inbox (no password)

A neutral platform: really « not evil »!

Improved interface for administrator (but users do not see the back office)

However a bit slow sometimes: can be annoying and makes discussions difficult

A mailing list at the age of the social media!

1, 2… to 10 messages a day

Some messages sent from time to time on general matters

Back office work, especially for proposing people to contribute

Encourage short messages (1/2 page max, one ideas) with specific added value

Challenges of bringing information visible as many people don't think / don't want / are afraid of making information public

Informal « core group » of people (within and outside FAO)

Facilitating the discussion

Knowledge platform to provide common ground on “food systems approaches”

"food-for-cities" doesn't replace but tries to connect other networks/initiatives

Including the FCIT-list within FAO (about 200 members HQs + decentralized offices)

The network belong to the ones who participate

Some « spies »?

« Open knowledge » platform

« Food-for-Cities@dgroups.org » is used as just a discussion list

Most of the time, no summary of the discussion (human resources issue) – No use of the « archives »

Dgroups doesn’t allow a tight connection with collaborative tools (information technology issue)

Some members are asking for an evolution (Yammer, Facebook…)

Maybe too bad, but it also gives more freedom of discussion? A mix between formal and informal

A discussion list. Just discussing then?

One list fits all? No…but…

To moderate or not to moderate? That’s the question

Facilitating and managing the flow of information?

Full time job or just a new way of working? (Discussion list on top of usual business or a main communication channel)

Language(s)

Issues to consider

An effective global network

Information sharing about:Meetings

Preparation of visits, reportage…

Connection with other lists: e.g. FSN Forum discussions

Not so much for projects: funding related issues

« Food, agriculture and cities » discussion paper

Developing a « local food system approach »

Achievements

Idea of making a study to understand the dynamics of the list…

The « food-for-cities@dgroups.org » list has become a community

How will FAO address the urbanization challenges within the new strategic framework of FAO?

How will this community be considered?

From a list to a community

9 months to…

Get the list really active

Get someone to post an email on the list

Have a full discussion on a new topic

A Dgroup is a long-term investment!

Building trust …

9 months

Should we go more collaborative?

Benefits and challenges to increased collaboration

THANK YOU!

A question?

Kristin Kolshus

Julien Custot and Makiko Taguchi

16 April 2013

Dgroups at FAO