Knowledge Bank

The ADELANTE Programme has been structured around 8 Triangular Cooperation projects in various thematic areas, in several countries, with all types of actors (more than 50 organisations from 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, in addition to several European institutions), with diverse forms of collaboration between them and with different intervention strategies. These projects have contributed significantly to the Region´s sustainable development and have generated interesting and useful sectoral and cross-cutting learning.

This section makes available to all interested parties the main learning resulting from the ADELANTE Programme, identified and systematised thanks to an interesting knowledge management collaborative exercise, and organised in three sections: success stories (´ways of doing´ that have generated positive results and whose replication in other projects can certainly bring the same results), best practices (reports on achievements highlighting the key success factors that influenced to achieve them) and lessons learned (experiences about events occurred during the development of a project and that have left useful learning for its dissemination and reuse).

See the knowledge that has been generated thanks to the ADELANTE programme

Good Practices

AUTHOR:
COUNTRY WHERE THE ACTION THAT ORIGINATED THIS KNOWLEDGE TOOK PLACE:
Argentina
Brasil
Colombia
Cuba
Ecuador
México
PHASE OF THE OPERATION CYCLE FOR THIS KNOWLEDGE:
Implementation
ACTORS INVOLVED IN THE GENERATION OF THIS KNOWLEDGE:

Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Industrial (INTI) - Argentina

CONTRIBUTION TO THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Creation and implementation of a methodology for working with final beneficiaries from different countries

Description of the practice:

Defining and organising, within the framework of a methodology, a series of essential guidelines aimed at identifying the final beneficiaries and establishing the lines of work with them in the face of the challenge of working directly with small producers in different countries and very diverse environments.

The project, based on the experience of the National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI) and of the other partners, defined the following five guidelines that were applied in all the intervention countries:

  • Visits to the beneficiaries and meetings with their representatives, with the aim of getting to know their characteristics as well as the production needs for the development of the sericulture activity in a particular environment.
  • Identification and dialogue with the local/regional/national leaders of the sector, in order to align the solutions, to take advantage of the synergies and to anticipate the possible difficulties.
  • Definition of joint actions between beneficiaries and leaders (trainings, punctual events...), with the aim of sharing sectoral information, especially regarding production needs.
  • Carrying out regular meetings with all the leaders, in order to share sectoral information and look for common solutions to meet the production needs.
  • Creating a multidisciplinary working environment with all or some of the leaders, in order to take up new challenges.

In the case of the project, the successful application of these five methodological guidelines in the 'Sericulture Support Fund' is of particular note. This is a financial support fund, which was created and launched by the project itself, with the aim of promoting and encouraging the inclusion of best practices in sericulture production as a way to improve income, social inclusion and creation of true sources of employment.

Differentiating factors:

  • It allows to know and take into account the interests, needs and particularities of the final beneficiaries from the design phase of the different actions and during the whole cycle.
  • It allows to take advantage of the leaders' experience and knowledge from the design phase of the various actions and during the whole cycle.
  • It allows to permanently align the interests and needs of the final beneficiaries with the capacities of the leaders and of the project itself.

Impacts:

  • The application of the five methodological guidelines in all actions involving the direct beneficiaries introduces, in itself, a collaborative building approach with a strong impact on ownership by all actors involved and on the social, cultural, political, technological and environmental adequacy of the proposed solutions.
  • Ownership and adequacy are key elements in order to guarantee the quality of the actions as well as the sustainability of the actions and of the project as a whole.

The added value of Triangular Cooperation: (more information here)

1. Building ownership and trust.
2. Promoting complementarity and increasing coordination in development cooperation.
3. Sharing knowledge and learning jointly.

4. Co-creating solutions and flexibility.
5. Enhancing the volume, scope and sustainability of Triangular Cooperation
6. Achieving global and regional development goals through strengthened partnerships for sustainable development.

Keywords:

RELATED FILES

Author: Red Calle

Thanks to the project, a consolidated methodology has been developed and implemented for the joint creation of work agendas for peer-to-peer visits aimed at compiling best practices and issuing recommendations. Different visits have been successfully carried out using this methodology, showing a real appropriation of the tool by the recipient country and a high level of commitment, knowledge exchange and technical trust from all participants. One of the most prominent was the visit to Paraguay, during which the project raised the possibility of providing technical assistance to the Ministry of Childhood and Adolescents, focusing on the design of a census of homeless children and adolescents. This generated new lines of work beyond what had been planned with a clear triangular cooperation approach.

Author: EVALÚA

Sharing the project's products with peer entities in order to contrast and enrich them.

Author: Red Calle

At the beginning of the project, there was a theoretical framework for "Peer-to-Peer technical visits": one of the pillars of the project which consists of visits to each of the partner countries, including political and technical representatives from other countries involved, in order to collect best practices and make recommendations. This theoretical framework has, gradually and thanks to the lessons learned from each visit and the experience and global vision of the project team, become a consolidated methodology whose main characteristic is to bring  those involved into the limelight.

Thanks to the project, Thematic Meetings have been designed and carried out to address the subjects prioritised in the Political Dialogue meetings with the political representatives of each partner municipality, considered as a lesson learned that can be found in this Knowledge Bank of the ADELANTE Programme. Thanks to the correct identification of the subjects prioritised in the Political Dialogue Meetings by the project's coordination team, several Thematic Meetings were successfully organised, including two of great impact on SDG 5, especially aimed at women entrepreneurs.

Author: Proyecto SEDA

The National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI), which coordinated the project, had an extensive experience of good cooperation with the European Union (and other international donors) and had its own procedures in place. However, preparing to undertake a project under the Triangular Cooperation modality for the first time revealed the need to adapt these procedures and posed a challenge for the institution, which wanted to prepare itself in the best possible way by creating a methodology adapted to this modality, which was agreed upon with all project partners.

One of the main components of the Mirada Ciudadana project are the Political Dialogue Meetings, which consist of meetings between the authorities of the partner local governments to exchange ideas about the reality of their municipalities and their main challenges, promoting open dialogue and encouraging the joint creation of solutions. After the experience of the first meeting at the beginning of the project, the management team realized that, while it was important to promote exchanges between municipal authorities, it was also necessary to accompany them with thematic working-enabling environments to involve a greater number of stakeholders, including the final beneficiaries.