The Concept of Best Practices Transfer

Best Practices transfer is a process of interchange of knowledge and experience between communities that are facing similar problems and/or organizations that share similar responsibilities.

It is an expression of decentralized cooperation, generally South-South, that allows relationships to be established n the form of consultancy from experts, specialized technical services, staff formation and exchange, study visits and trips, workshops and seminars and the provision of information.

It is a structured and systematized learning process that is possible when a community or an organization recognizes that another has managed to find correct and appropriate solutions for a problem, expresses their willingness to share the results on the basis of “lessons learned” and requests their collaboration and advice.

It thus enables different actors to have recourse to applied knowledge and tested experience to be used in a new context, where it is hoped to have an equally positive impact on the quality of life of the population, with a prospect of sustainability.

It therefore implies that the different actors:

• Identify the problem and its possible solutions.

• Seek access to the information, knowledge and/or experiences already acquired and validated.

• Confront supply and demand.

• Organize to take on the running of the process from its beginnings, up to decision making, finding resources and implementation, and making permanent evaluations.

• Make themselves responsible for adapting a good practice to different socio-cultural, economic, environmental and politico-institutional conditions.

•  Be willing, in order to achieve their goals, to promote changes in policies, administration processes, technologies and even in their behavior.

Based on bilateral agreements of trust, where peer participation predominates, a networking is thus implemented that is presented not only as establishing “useful contacts”, but as a tool for building new competencies, thanks to the possibility of interchanging information, experiences and knowledge at a conceptual methodological level, through technologies of communication.

In this way, the transfer of good practices is indissolubly linked with a the design of a communications strategy mediated through processes of information, research, education and participation.