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• Online content creation - tips and tools

  Written by Stuart MacLeod, Digital Communications Manager, IMA International.   If you’re using online platforms, apps or software for communication and/or content creation, here are some tips and tools, that I have used, that may just help you too.  This past year IMA International has been working remotely, adapting our face-to-face training courses into online versions, and communicating virtually too, this has introduced us to a wide variety of Information Communication Technology (ICT). Finding the online tools was essential for us, to maintain our participatory training approach, despite not being in a room together.    This...

• Two stories about reserves

  Over recent months, whether international development organisations have had enough ‘reserves’ has been a key factor of whether they have been able to continue. Even those that have had reserves, have now largely used these up in order to survive. For many, things are still on the edge but, as soon...

• How can Monitoring Data become useful at the project level?

  I have been working with IMA international on development of a new online course, so what is it about?  Well, it is about a unique system and set of tools which has emerged from my 40 years of developing learning systems in large, complex projects many of which followed a learning process....

• Why being financially sustainable is important for organisations, especially in uncertain times?

  Sustainability is a buzzword, but what does it mean for organisations? Being sustainable, and especially financially sustainable means that the organisation has the ability to adapt to new circumstances and to develop resilience in uncertain times. Those organisations which fall into the category of “financially sustainable” have a greater potential to...

• How can M&E and policy work together effectively?

  Often, M&E Systems for large organisations, for example ministerial departments, can struggle to ‘touch the ground’ in terms of getting any meaningful information from the reality in the field. Results Based Management approaches and systems based on national policy have positives and negatives. The positives of national RBM systems is the...

• Why is Knowledge Management beneficial? Can it improve your organisation’s effectiveness?

  While among practitioners in Knowledge Management (KM) there is no commonly accepted framework to measure the beneficial impact of the practice,[1] KM is an important discipline which in the past decade has attracted more attention across organisations for a reason. “Knowledge is power”, it is the power within an organisation which...

• My Summer Internship at IMA

  ​After completing my BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences (Anthropology), I knew I wanted to pursue a career in international development, and the opportunity to intern at IMA was an ideal starting point. I worked at IMA for a month in July, starting the week commencing their summer courses in Brighton. During...

• Systems Thinking and Organisations

      It is understood that we face volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) times - where “wicked problems” abound – that’s to say problems whose solutions require a great number of people to change mind-sets and behaviour.   As individuals, we are all members of groups, teams, organisations, networks and even movements of some...

• Reflections on KMb Knowledge Mobilisation Forum 2019

  For the second year running, Ruth Jolly and Silvia Capezzuoli took part in the UK-based KMbForum, an annual event for those with a passion for ensuring that knowledge makes a positive difference to society. This year the theme was ‘Crafting our Knowledge Stories’ and the Forum took place in the amazing Seven...

• Evaluation of Training–making a difference through your change in behaviour

  In the last few years we have been having conversations with clients, participants and each other about how to evaluate training.  If you have attended an IMA International learning event it is likely you will have completed some monitoring on a daily basis, usually in small groups, as well as an...

• Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (EAFM) for REBYC-LA

  It is an amazing feeling to see the ripple effect of the training we ran in December 2017 on Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (EAFM) for REBYC-LAC II.   IMA has been supporting EAFM initiatives since 2013, initially in Asia and more recently in Latin America and the Caribbean, promoting the sustainable and...

• Word Power: How do we depict our organisations in language which can engender the types of mind-set and behaviour changes needed for them to flourish?

    I’ve increasingly been struck this year with the strength of the notion that the way the problem is understood and depicted determines what we do.  And the idea that language is generative is becoming more alive to me in all the recent work we’ve been up to.    Talking about organisations, for example,...

• Reflections on KMb Knowledge Mobilisation Forum

  The place we inhabit as knowledge brokers/ mobilisers can often be a lonely place, one of filling the gaps between ‘spaces’ so I was looking forward to my first KMb Forum. I was not sure what to expect, as most of the Forum participants were practitioners and academics from the UK...

• A pilot Study on Mindfulness delivered in the workplace

  As you read this, slowly move your toes. Feel your feet touching the inside of your shoes, and the sensation of your heels and the pads of your toes on the floor. Really think about what your feet feel like right now, their weight on the floor. If you’ve never heard of mindfulness...

• Deep conversations

  30 degrees on a lazy Sunday afternoon and we found ourselves having several deep conversations with a few of the participants on our M&E course in Brighton.  My son, studying for an A level Chemistry exam the next day, said he would say hi and then have to get back to...

• IMA's video vaults

  I was disappointed I didn’t get to meet Ian Macdonald, the founder of Ian Macdonald Associates which later became IMA International.  Overlooking the MacLeod/Macdonald ancient rivalry I think we had some notable common interests, mainly an appreciation of film. I started working for IMA by creating a promotional film this later progressed...