I watched an interesting video recording of a "brown bag lunch" on client communities of practice at the World Bank. I was interested to hear some of the lessons learned and took some notes about lessons learned on my blog.

The main speaker is Monica Amorim from Brazil talked about the Rede NOS project for knowledge and learning network for poverty allevation, social exclusion, and local development in the north and north-east region of Brazil. I was interested in the comment that they had moved from collecting information to connecting people.

"The project addressed the lack of non-English resources in development materials, and organized seminars or discussions on different topics as a lead in to creating communities of practice for those topics."Amorim stressed the importance of social capital and interaction for these communities, which were structured as "clusters. She told the story of one Brazilian town that specialized in producing jeans, even though it lacks convenient water for dying them, by using recycling technology in cooperation with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Amorim also noted challenges that the project has faced, such as keeping participants interested in distance learning."