What if no good idea from PADRIR got lost along the way?
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the IFAD-funded Programme for Inclusive and Resilient Rural Development (PADRIR) has partnered with PROCASUR to take on a clear but ambitious challenge: turn field experiences into knowledge that is useful, shareable and lasting.
This is how a full PADRIR knowledge management journey started – built with the project team, not just for them.
A programme rich in experience that deserves to be better told
Every day, PADRIR works with small-scale producers, local organisations and rural authorities. In villages across the country, new solutions are tested, innovations emerge and mistakes become lessons learned.
The risk? That these experiences stay in the memory of a few people or buried in reports.
The goal of the PADRIR knowledge management process, with PROCASUR’s support, is to:
bring successful practices to the surface;
analyse them together with staff and local actors;
present them in clear, engaging and reusable formats.
A hands-on workshop, not “just another training”
At the centre of the partnership is a 3–4 day workshop that brings together PADRIR staff. The idea is not to add one more theoretical course, but to create a concrete working space around their own experiences.
During the workshop:
participants discover, in simple language, what knowledge management and capitalisation of experiences mean;
they work on real PADRIR cases, selected by the team;
they start drafting a first action plan to integrate knowledge management into the daily life of the programme.
Participants are not “students”. They are co-authors of the PADRIR strategy: they discuss, prioritise and build it together.
From the field to good practices: capitalisation in action
PROCASUR’s support does not stop in the workshop room. A key step is to go back to the field and document several PADRIR good practices step by step:
selecting experiences that have proven results;
organising visits, interviews and group discussions with communities;
identifying local champions who drive these innovations every day;
producing concrete outputs such as experience stories, good-practice sheets and key messages.
The result is a set of stories and data that show what is really changing in villages – material that can inspire other projects in DR Congo and beyond.
A clear strategy and a tailored action plan
Based on these exchanges and exercises, the PADRIR team and PROCASUR co-create a knowledge management strategy adapted to the programme’s reality.
It answers very practical questions:
On which themes does PADRIR want to be seen as a reference?
Which tools will be used to share knowledge (workshops, videos, briefs, online platforms, etc.)?
Who does what in the team, and how often?
This strategy is translated into an operational action plan with activities, responsibilities and a realistic timeline. PADRIR knowledge management becomes a planned area of work, not a “nice-to-have” for when there is time.
Twelve months to anchor new habits
To make sure the dynamic lasts, PROCASUR offers 12 months of remote coaching. Each month, the PADRIR team takes stock:
How is the action plan progressing?
What is working well?
What needs to be adjusted?
This gradual follow-up helps PADRIR become a truly learning programme – one that tests, documents, shares and continuously improves its practices.
Why this matters for PADRIR – and beyond
Strengthening PADRIR knowledge management is not only about producing more documents. It is about:
giving visibility to the everyday efforts of teams and partners;
offering decision-makers concrete evidence to guide rural policies;
allowing other projects to learn from what really works in DR Congo.
With PROCASUR’s support, PADRIR takes a step forward towards what makes development programmes sustainable: the capacity to learn from their own experience and to share it.
