Planning and Facilitation of the “Futures of GDLN Workshop”

Project Context

The Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) is an existing global partnership of learning centers in over 60 developing countries. Facilitating knowledge exchange and capacity building in developing countries, GDLN Affiliates offer the use of distance learning tools such as interactive videoconferencing for peer-to-peer learning and dialogue among change agents, usually against a fee for services and facility use. Affiliates arrange, on behalf of their clients, meetings, workshops and courses that typically involve participants in several countries.

Initiated in 2000, the GDLN partnership has expanded rapidly, from 11 to over 120 Affiliates in seven years, evolving towards a consortium-based network. The Network’s governance structure is evolving, reflecting the growth and increasing diversity of the partnership.

Over the past three years, in parallel with a rapid increase in the GDLN membership (both in terms of individual Affiliates and, increasingly, large in-country networks), Affiliates in Africa, the Americas, East Asia and Eurasia have begun creating regional associations with localized missions and structures for decision-making, oversight, and direct member participation in decisions and responsibilities that will help scale up the services and products they offer and also ensure Affiliates’ financial sustainability. For the global network to scale up its value added, it will be essential for its members to define and agree on a common vision, based on a sound understanding of the current products and services offered under the GDLN brand worldwide. 

Project Objectives

In this context, the GDLN Secretariat (currently based at the World Bank Institute) asked the Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin to design and facilitate a workshop in Berlin during 26 - 27 November 2007. The workshop brought together the Bank’s GDLN management team (regional GDLN coordinators and the WBI GDLN Secretariat) and one to two representatives of GDLN Affiliates in each region. The broad objectives of the workshop were to:

• Define the GDLN business till date through a map of products and services offered under the GDLN brand worldwide;
• Arrive at a global vision for GDLN that reflected where the different stakeholders want to take the network at large, and the products and services offered under the GDLN brand, in the next 5-10 years.