This document is the final report from a consultancy assignment focusing on Knowledge Management in the Building Demand for Sanitation (BDS) portfolio of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) program.

The assignment entailed:
- Surveying the participants of the 2014 annual Grantee Convening
- Facilitating a consultative and ideation process during the convening on how improved KM could contribute to program and Grantee goals
- Meeting with BMGF staff in Seattle to share the KM requirements and issues that had emerged from the convening
- Developing options for a BDS KM program of activities that aligns with other current KM activities within the Foundation.

In the document we describe our approach to KM, the background and context for the consultancy assignment, the output from the Grantee survey, the activities and outputs from the convening, the post-workshop debriefing meetings in Seattle, and the KM options that have been developed through synthesis of these various inputs.

The BDS portfolio has a relatively small number of grantees (around 24) but its focus spans a wide range of development challenges including community behavior change, government policy and advocacy, technology and product development, affordable financing, and product marketing. The BDS portfolio has mainly relied upon face-to-face workshops (“grantee convenings”) during which information and progress updates are shared, as well as email; however, there is no formal system for managing information that BDS grantees generate.

KM had surfaced as an issue before and during the 2013 BDS convening. A small amount of time was allocated to discussions in the 2013 meeting and there was consensus that the issue should be explored further.3 It was agreed that the BMGF WSH team would develop a Terms of Reference (ToR) for a KM project within the BDS portfolio, with input from grantees. The draft ToR was available for the 2014 Nairobi convening.

The two objectives described in the ToR set the framework for reviewing KM in BDS:
1) Enhance WSH grantee knowledge sharing for the BDS portfolio. Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Building Demand for Sanitation initiative’s knowledge sharing mechanisms and platforms, and strengthen uptake of effective approaches among its grantees.4
2) Improve knowledge and information management of, and access to Foundation WSH information. Plan and design a system to organize and annotate WSH resources and to make these resources readily available to grantees as well as to the public.

Bibliographic information

Cranston, P. (2014). Knowledge Management and Building Demand for Sanitation Final report from a consultancy assignment for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) program, Euforic Services, Oxford, UK

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Capacity development (WG1)Fundamental research and engineeringEnglish

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