A paper on knowledge management,presented in a coordination work shop between rural development projects in north kordofan state.

1. SUDAN
NORTH KORDOFAN STATE
KM systems at village level
BY
Ibrahim Ali Makawi Ahmed
E.Mail:magazi2o2@yahoo.com
Agriculture engineer
Consultant – at free lance
Mobile: 00249912431285

2. KM systems at village level
Introduction:-
Nowadays Knowledge Management (KM) has become a very
important issue that is raised at all levels of management such as
Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and Sustainable Development
Goals (SDG). The interest in KM is due to its vital and essential role
in the development and change process towards a better future. On
the other hand, rural communities have a huge fortune of knowledge
and experience that forms the bases of development. This base of
knowledge is the primary concern of all those involved in
development.
For knowledge to have a tangible impact on development there
should be an effective knowledge management system at all levels of
any project or organization. And that can't be done unless we
discover the existing experience and skills (of those who have a role
in KM) and develop it by training and creating awareness about KM.

3. Types of KM systems at village
levelRural communities are diverse in culture, traditions and
experience. From this diversity comes the huge fortune of
knowledge. Despite of this diversity, we find that almost all of
these communities have the same KM system in general. The
differences may be in the methods of running these systems.
Below is a model of the most common KM system that we can find
at village level in Sudan:-

4. Knowledge creation and capture: -
This happens through adoption and application of individual personal
and community experiences in different fields of activities in daily life.
For example, farmers from their practice in agriculture or from learning
techniques from outside, eg from a development project come up with
new techniques in farming system or a new method for controlling
pests, or a new coping strategy against environmental hazards.
Knowledge sharing: -knowledge documentation(tacit to explicit):-
Most rural communities depend on verbal passage and memorization
(head keeping) for documentation of their information and knowledge.
For instance in every village we find that there is one or two persons
(always the eldest in the village) who e keep in their minds the history
of the village, they act as the resource center for the village. Few of
these communities have a better educational level, here we find
another type documentation of their knowledge, on papers, pictures or
cassettes.

5. Knowledge codifying and repackaging(explicit to explicit):-
Rural communities have different ways and styles for codifying and
repackaging
knowledge to become more valuable, useful, accessible and
applicable by different users. For example:-
• Poems.
• Folklore songs and dances.
• Fantasy stories (Ahaji or folk stories for children).

6. Knowledge sharing
Sharing tools:-
There are many traditional tools that rural communities use for
sharing knowledge:-
1. Fantasy stories:-
Usually used by grandmothers to transfer knowledge to
the next generation (children) and it is the most interesting tool for
children. That is why these stories live forever in their individual
minds and in the community.
2. Social occasions and events:-
Like wedding days or funerals where people gather and chat
together.
3. Exchange visits:-
Between individuals and villages mostly for social events where they
exchange their experiences and knowledge.

7. 4. Seasonal migration:-
When villagers migrate in the summer to towns in search for work. They
take
with them their rural knowledge and bring back with them some of the
urban areas knowledge also.
5. Poems:-
Which carry inside its words the values, good manners and Ethics of the
community.
6. Folklore songs and dances:-
Which also expresses the precious values of the community. They are
performed in
different ways and have different names according to the area of the
community:-
a) Coffee songs and dances.
b) Mardoum.
c) Jarrary.
Where in (b) and (c) men and women stand in two rows facing each other
dancing and the men
say an instant (adlib) song directed to the women and the women reply
back with a Which matching song.

8. Applying knowledge:-
Rural communities are very careful and aware of what knowledge fits
them and what doesn’t. So they carefully choose and apply the best
knowledge that doesn't conflict with their religion, culture and traditions.
The knowledge base is reviewed periodically to abandon the aspects that
don't match the community criteria at a certain time. Though a friend of
mine did a lot of work on indigenous knowledge of crop pests found out
that many people didn’t know about insect life cycles (for example) —
that the grubs that were destroying their sweet potatoes came from the
harmless beetles that crawled about on the leaves. It’s an important
point that people choose the knowledge that doesn’t conflict with their
values, but there is another point which — as my friend put is— is that
‘what they don’t know can’t help them’.
If we look at the above mentioned systems we find that, in most of its
stages, it is not planed and happens automatically or by nature without
awareness about KM and its importance. That is why a lot of the
knowledge of the rural communities is not documented and some of it is
lost.

9. Challenges:-
 The biggest challenge is to create awareness about KM among
rural communities.
 Establishing and improving KM systems at village level.
 Make knowledge resources accessible and useable for rural
communities.
If this is achieved we can guarantee a smooth flow of knowledge
between all levels and narrowing the KM gaps. This creates
consistency in KM systems at all levels, which in turn, reduces the
burden in the organizations and institutions that deal with and care
about KM and that at the end will lead to the desired KM
sustainability.

10. Conclusion:-
To achieve this goal we need great effort, coordination, collaboration
and common consensus between all those concerned about KM
and development, especially governments, donors, NGOs,
community organizations and research institutes, that at the
beginning of a development project each organization should spend
time finding out how knowledge is shared in each community. Work
could also be done to find out what they do know about an issue,
and then time should be spend thinking about whether there are
crucial pieces of information that would help them understand the
world even better (eg. insect life cycles).That way they can
incorporate new pieces of knowledge into their existing ways of
knowledge sharing..