Learning Story
GIZ STILE - Sustainability in the Textile and Leather Industry project Bangladesh
STILE (Sustainability in the Textile and Leather Industry) is a GIZ project to support Bangladesh in fulfilling its mandates and responsibilities to enhance social and environmental standards in the textile and leather industry. The project targets government and private sector actors in Bangladesh with five key intervention areas:
- Collaborating with the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments to enhance transparency through the Labor Inspection Management Application and supporting the Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
- Assisting the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change and the Department of Environment in creating legal frameworks and capacity-building for environmental standards compliance.
- Empowering private and civil society actors to implement social and environmental standards.
- Promoting sustainability in the workplace through worker awareness and social dialogue initiatives.
- Enabling production companies to implement pandemic prevention measures.
Knowledge management can play a crucial role for the successful implementation of projects. For GIZ to reach the predetermined goals, effective knowledge management is needed. For quality and continuous learning, allowing for the sharing and utilisation of experiences, building on previous projects and using a central knowledge management system to improve implementation efficiency and knowledge dissemination. Therefore, STILE and Strhive worked together on this project, and Strhive supported them in fulfilling their goals and responsibilities for compliance with social and environmental standards in the industry. Strhive was responsible for leading the change in the project to enhance the knowledge management process by assessing the needs of the organisation and developing the knowledge management system for STILE. During the implementation, Strhive collaborated closely with project members to create a customised knowledge management system that met their specific requirements.
The challenge faced by the STILE Project was the need to systematise knowledge management and prepare knowledge products that could be easily accessed, used, and learned from. Additionally, structures for institutionalising knowledge management and incorporating it into work and decision-making processes needed to be developed. As a part of the collaboration, Strhive was responsible for identifying the best way to extend knowledge management to clusters and partners while maintaining a smooth workflow that supports the team to successfully implement the project.
The main objective of this collaboration was to improve the knowledge management of the project, systematise the development of knowledge products by establishing a digital knowledge management system, making the existing knowledge easy to reach, and introducing structures that would integrate knowledge management in STILE’s work processes to enhance efficiency and the quality of project implementation.
STRHIVE's Approach
Strhive focuses on managing knowledge effectively and enhancing the impact of a project by facilitating knowledge sharing and continuous learning. While implementing the solution, Strhive pays attention to prioritising inclusivity, and collaboration and uses a participatory and context-oriented approach.
First, an assessment of the current state of knowledge management as well as needs for knowledge management was conducted through key stakeholder conversations. The needs assessment served as the basis upon which the knowledge management system was designed. This process took into account the technical requirements, the involvement of the team and the processes needed to support effective knowledge management.
Based on the findings, Strhive developed a roadmap that clarifies the implementation schedule, roles, and milestones. Strhive worked on the technical solution that makes knowledge products accessible and set up the required structure, content, and guidelines. Existing content was transferred, and training was provided to ensure the sustainable use of the solution.
Conclusion
Strhive’s approach to knowledge management for the STILE Project in Bangladesh exemplifies the importance of adaptability and collaboration. By implementing a dynamic process and engaging the project team throughout, Strhive was able to create a robust knowledge management system that will contribute to the project’s success and make knowledge available beyond the current project phase for other teams to build upon. This case serves as a valuable example of effective knowledge management implementation in the development sector.