Session on Social Network Analysis

The session on using social network analysis was attended by 14 people. Ms. Shalini Kala, ENRAP Coordinator was the session lead and gave a brief presentation on the background of the social network and the analysis of the networks.

She mentioned that, while IFAD was successfully implementing projects in the field, in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, there was less interaction and knowledge exchange/ sharing between the different projects in the Asia –Pacific region and even within the countries.

As IFAD programmes have similar objectives and implementation modalities, it would be highly beneficial to share pertinent information and knowledge to the project implementers and stakeholders. This resulted in forming a network of people from IFAD assisted projects and partners through ENRAP, which facilitated interactions and knowledge sharing among projects, countries and regions to discuss and share experiences and lessons, contributing to enhanced project implementation.

The next point discussed was the Social Network Analysis Map. The SNA is an analysis of relationships between groups, people and organisations. This method is most often used in the fields of health, medicine and organisational development, and is relatively new to the development sector. These maps show people in the circles and the arrows indicate and reflect what interactions are taking place in the networks. Some of the networks that were discussed were on IFAD Asia Pacific Networking. The overall trend reflects an increased interaction among project staff in different countries.

The first regional network analysis was conducted in 2009 and in 2009- Country plan was done.The mapping exercise helps to
• understand how people are connecting with one another
• how PDs interaction across geographic and cultural boundaries
• Understand how people communicate and attitudes towards networking
• Provide insights for transition of knowledge network programme to IFAD

Participants of this exercise were IFAD country teams, CPMs, CPOs, IFAD HQ, Project Staff, IDRC, Networks. These maps generated based on surveys. This network is a response to the qst, I know this person and I have some interaction
The Country network maps were discussed and one observation was made that IFAD staff were at the centre of core, the reason for this was explained as they are the main connectors and information providers, so they were being contacted and connected the most often.

Among the thematic networks, the topics related to agriculture, KM and gender were very dense. This indicates that a major focus is on cross cutting issues such as the ones mentioned above.

Attitude towards sharing- we need more information and knowledge sharing to do my job
Major learning from network mapping are the following:
• CPMs are the centre of the national networks
• Strong common interests
• Good facilitation leads to good networks-
• Networks are growing and people find them useful
• Email and mobile most popular forms of communications
• Value given to experience sharing
• The overall density has increased over the years- ppl who interact every other week
• Interactions are mostly need based
• It is important to remember that to know the objectives before u get to network map and the way u structure the survey it will give u the core.

The participants then formed themselves into groups and did a similar mapping exercise.