Crisis Prevention & Recovery KM Toolkit

The Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has published an interesting Knowledge Management Toolkit for the Crisis Prevention and Recovery Practice Area. BCPR "is responsible for consolidating UNDP’s CPR-related knowledge and experience; providing a bridge between humanitarian response and the development work of UNDP; and acting as an advocate for crisis sensitivity in the context of development policy."

This Toolkit was created out of the BCPR's commitment to make UNDP a global leader in crisis prevention and recovery by ensuring that knowledge gained throughout its network is shared efficiently to make UNDP's response to crises more effective. The Toolkit features specific knowledge management techniques that BCPR recommends for use in preventing or responding to crises.

The Toolkit includes a discussion of the Golden Rules of Knowledge Management, which involve asking whether content about to enter the KM system complies with the following criteria in that it is:

- meeting demand
- strategic
- relevant
- practical
- replicable
- accessible
- personal
- critical
- followed up

Given the urgency of the work of UNDP and its focus on crisis and recovery, the benefits of mastering knowledge management techniques are great. For those of us who work in less urgent circumstances there also are benefits to be gained from effective KM and this Toolkit helps by providing learning that has been tested in extreme conditions.

[Thanks to the UK National Library for Health website for providing information on this Toolkit.]