Nerisa Kamar: Knowledge Sharing in Africa

Visitors to this site have often read about Nerisa Kamar, my great friend in Kenya. 

Now there's more.

The latest issue of Information Outlook, the publication of the Special Libraries Association (SLA), includes a profile of Nerisa Kamar, who is with UN-HABITAT, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. She works with UN-HABITAT's Knowledge Management Unit as Assistant Librarian for the Sergio Vieira de Mello United Nations Library at Nairobi.

In his introduction to the interview, author Stuart Hales writes:

"Books, journals, and other media are the lifeblood of libraries and information centers, and many librarians have their hands full organizing their collections of these resources and making them available to clients when and where they are needed. But for some librarians, simply procuring resources is a daunting task. These librarians may face a variety of obstacles - political restrictions, financial constraints, and institutional neglect, to name just a few.

"Librarians in much of Africa are familiar with these barriers, but SLA is helping raise their level of professionalism by connecting them with colleagues and providing them with leadership opportunities. One such librarian is Nerisa Kamar, who recently became president of SLA's Sub-Saharan Chapter. ... Information Outlook interviewed Nerisa late last year and asked her about the challenges that librarians in Africa face, how SLA can help them, and what she hopes to learn during the next few years to move her career forward."

Later in the interview, Hales asks Kamar about KM, and the KM concepts she applies in her work. Kamar responds:

"My personal interest in knowledge management is very strong, because it is my belief that KM and knowledge services make up the foundation and substance of modern librarianship. ... [They have been] useful for me in a number of ways. One is personal knowledge management, which occurs through information needs assessments and information alerts; another is knowledge sharing, by developing a rapport with information seekers to understand their actual information needs and meet them. Then there's knowledge services - creating an awareness of e-resources to which UN-HABITAT subscribes and sharing basic access skills to use with these resources. As an example of this activity, I developed a 15-minute presentation, 'E-Resource Awareness and Basic Search and Navigation Skills Training,' targeting all UN-HABITAT projects. Our presentations so far have been very successful, and satisfying to me as an information and knowledge professional."

Congratulations to Nerisa Kamar, Stuart Hales, and SLA for providing this fine example of how specialized librarianship, knowledge management, and knowledge sharing come together. It is a remarkable synergy.

World Habitat Day - Sharing Knowledge about Cities and How We Live in Them

In the public arena, knowledge development and knowledge sharing (KD/KS) is often experienced in official observances and celebrations. Most participants are usually not aware that they are engaged in an activity as significant in their lives as KD/KS, but that's fine, too. Knowledge development and knowledge sharing are such a universal human trait, it's not necessary to be always aware when it's happening.

Nevertheless, when there are such events, it's good to take notice of them, for they are an essential element in society. We are  better people (and better informed) when we take part in these activities.

A case in point is World Habitat Day, observed internationally on the first Monday in October is. This year - October 4 - the theme is Better City Better Life.

Designated by the United Nations to call attention to the right of all citizens to safe and secure urban housing, World Habitat Day is sponsored by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.

Started in 1978, UN-HABITAT is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities, with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. The programme is a fully fledged programme of the UN system, positioned squarely in the mainstream of the UN’s development agenda for poverty reduction. Through its work (known as the "Habitat Agenda"), UN-HABITAT contributes to the UN's overall objective to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development, with most of the programme budget coming in the form of contributions from multilateral and bilateral partners for technical cooperation (with about 5 per cent from the regular UN budget). Its partners range from governments and local authorities to a wide international cross-section of Non-Governmental Organisations and civil society groups.

Executive Director Designate Joan Clos, the former two-term Mayor of Barcelona and most recently Spain's Ambassador to the Republics of Turkey and Azerbaijan, takes office on October 18. Until then, Deputy Executive Director Inga Björk-Klevby is UN-HABITAT's Officer-in-Charge. In a recent statement, Mrs. Björk-Klevby discusses World Habitat Day:





In her comments, Mrs. Björk-Klevby identifies five steps for society to take if sustainable urbanization is to be realized:

1. Improve quality of life for people living in slums and other sub-standard housing
2. Invest in human capital
3. Foster sustained economic opportunities
4. Enhance political inclusion ("bringing government into the reach of ordinary people")
5. Promote cultural inclusion, noting that culture has in the past been conventionally left out of the international urbanization agenda

Probably one of the best examples of KM/knowledge services in action, World Habitat Day provides an excellent opportunity for strategic knowledge professionals to consider their role in society and, particularly, their role in addressing one of the major global issues of our time.

[Disclosure: UN-HABITAT is a current client, and I am presently working in Nairobi as a consultant in knowledge strategy development for UN-HABITAT.]

Rio de Janeiro - Quick Impressions

It is probably not very kind to describe one's impressions of Rio de Janeiro so soon after the awful disaster of the flooding of last week, especially if those impressions are not altogether positive.

But I'll forge ahead and hope my friends won't think me callous if I share a few thoughts based on what was probably too brief a time in this fabled city.

In connection with my current assignment with the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT), I was asked to attend the World Urban Forum, a huge event held every second year and one of the most important gatherings of people affiliated with the entire larger subject of sustainable urbanization. My task is to work with UN-HABITAT's KM team to devise a knowledge strategy for the organization, and coming to this meeting fit right into my work. What better opportunity to drill deep than at such a gathering of world leaders, academics, donors, NGOs, and many other thousands of people who would be coming together in Rio to network about this important issue?

And the work was superb, and since this is my personal blog, I won't go into detail about the excellence of the conference and the continuing high quality of the presentations, meetings, focus groups, knowledge networking opportunities, and all those other elements that lure us to professional conferences. It was a privilege to be amongst such dedicated and knowledgeable people - all willing to speak freely and frankly about the subject of sustainable urbanization - and the consultancy assignment was considerably enhanced by being able to meet with and interact with so many leaders in the field (a brief description is at the SMR blog and the official World Urban Forum site has much information about the conference). 

Rio de Janeiro? Well, as I say, it is a fabled city, and certainly Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire have a lot to answer for, since for many folks "Flying Down to Rio" is their early introduction to the city. And wasn't there some sort of Rita Hayworth connection back when we were going to the movies to indulge our fantasies about exotic places?

No matter.

Rio's not like that now. For Mr. Guy, it was an extremely unusual business trip. For one thing, I had not reckoned on the heat. How all those business executives (and security guards) manage in their black suits all day long is a mystery to me. I showed up the first day in my usual management consultant's suit-and-tie and found myself immediately drenched to the skin. 

After nearly fainting from the 40-degree heat (that's C - about 100 degrees F, I believe!) - and thank you Anonymous Security Guard for taking care of me and finding me some water) - I fortunately discovered that the UN-HABITAT stand was selling t-shirts and some of them fit me nicely, so I quickly became the agency's most enthusiastic t-shirt model....

The conference venue was on the other side of the city from the Copacabana, the beach area, and while the delegates were housed in lovely resort hotels across the wide boulevard from the beach (which is - by anybody's standards - simply spectacular in its beauty), it was an unwise visitor who walked about outdoors. The combination of warnings about not walking about alone (even in the daytime hours) and the heat simply made it practical to limit one's hotel egress to the open door of the waiting taxi (bless the hotel

staff for their excellent service in this regard).

The journey to the conference venue took about 25-35 minutes, and it was interesting to observe the streets as you rode along. The city is obviously in the grips of a financial depression, and the millions of citizens living in the slums are testament to the concept that if something isn't done about the world's cities, society is going to be in a terrible fix, sooner rather than later.

The signs are everywhere. Rio is not a clean city, and it is surprising after being in other large cities to see the extent of dirt, leftover construction materials, and falling-down construction sites and deserted structures just littering the place up. Graffiti is everywhere, simply everywhere, and to think about what's happening to the city as you ride along (admittedly in your air-conditioned taxi, safe from having to be part of the rough edges of city life) is to realize that if something is not done to reduce the inequality in urban society, it's just hard to tell what the future is going to be like.


The distant conference venue was (despite the bleakness of other parts of the city) an example of how a major city is trying to do what it can. All along the harbor are these huge warehouse, left over I suppose from the great days of commercial shipping and probably dating - one would guess - from in the early part of the last century. Deserted for a long time, the warehouses are now part of Rio de Janeiro's campaign to "re-birth" itself and to that end, a massive effort has been put into turning the six long warehouses - stretched out along the harborside - into a world-class convention center. It's not there yet, but the signs are there, and given a few more years, a collection of innovative

and enthusiastic architects and designers, and a few million (billion?) dollars, this could be one of the great conference venues of the world.

So despite the heat and the sad prospect of what could be seen in other neighborhoods, the beauty of the harbor is readily apparent (and the harbor was the subject of the only photographs I was able to take, beyond some taken at the conference itself - plenty of other images of Rio de Janeiro are available particularly here). 


The conference was hosted by the Brazilian government, and it was obvious the country's and the city's leaders were very pleased to be able to offer Brazilian hospitality to conference attendees, and we were all thankful to them - and to UN-HABITAT's conference planners - for doing such a fine job.