The KDNLC and the power of impact networks

The purpose of this introductory blog series is to share the Knowing-Doing Network Leadership Coalition’s (KDNLC’s) approach to transforming education systems to better serve and equip children and youth to lead the world of today and tomorrow. In the first blog of this series, we shared the origin story of the KDNLC and its emerging purpose and vision to transform education systems in their local contexts toward a breadth of skills. We also described how the KDNLC organizations will serve not only as local changemakers, but global leaders, on transforming education systems, so all children can thrive and take action to live more peaceful and sustainable lives. In our second commentary, we discussed global data points and trends suggesting that systems are missing opportunities to serve the needs of children. It is clear that children and youth around the world are struggling, and there is both a need and an opportunity to transform systems and learning spaces—in the classroom and in the community—to support young people in learning the skills that will help them to thrive.

Why an impact network?

An impact network, as described in David Ehrlichman’s book “Impact Networks,” connects diverse people and leverages existing skills and relationships to address complex challenges that individuals and single organizations cannot solve on their own. By bringing together a diverse array of education ecosystem actors under a shared purpose, an impact network can see an entire system and leverage local knowledge, connections, and relationships to understand system levers and collaborate on system-wide change.

The KDNLC believes that education systems can and should do better and is exploring how civil society organizations, in their role as local conveners of networks and coalitions, are situated to expand the commitment, capacity, and cohesion of a broad array of system actors to catalyze transformation. Critical to the KDNLC’s work is activating local and global education communities to provide evidence from the Global South around the impact of a breadth of skills approach and its power to transform the learning experience of children, and most importantly, how to make this evidence useful and accessible.

For the KDNLC and the Center for Universal Education (CUE), impact networks (both local and global) helmed by civil society organizations working deeply in their local contexts to change systems are a solution. Many civil society organizations in Global South contexts have spent years cultivating relationships with education stakeholders, developing institutional positioning with local governing bodies, research-to-practice expertise, and an inclusive, connected approach in their education ecosystems. Trusted organizations are uniquely positioned as conveners of community members and drivers of community action.

On this journey of education systems transformation toward a breadth of skills, the KDNLC’s co-created research agenda (which we will discuss in our next blog in this series) will be the driver of learning and evidence-building in the members’ various local contexts. Impact networks working both locally and with global stakeholders can become a superhighway to move a growing body of evidence on systems transformation from Global South contexts to achieve maximum impact and sustained change.

For the KDNLC, this collective research will be a foundation for change in local jurisdictions and build on an international body of evidence on how to transform systems towards a breadth of skills with the expertise, learning, and voices of actors in the Global South. This expertise, learning, and voice is missing from the current dialogue and evidence base on a breadth of skills, of which Global North institutions have been the primary architects.

The needs of children living in this post-pandemic world are complex, as our last blog demonstrated, and education systems have yet to prove nimble enough to change with the evolving needs of young people, their families, and their communities. Transforming education systems that are under-resourced and bureaucratic to be child-centered is the kind of complex challenge that requires a new way of working. The KDNLC believes that the time is now to coalesce around an impact network approach to take on the challenging work of true systems transformation. It is time to move from short-term additive changes (offering additional money, resources, and teacher training, for example) to long-term transformation that shifts the whole system to pivot to the strengths and needs of every child and young person. The impact network approach has power to coordinate actions across stakeholder groups to create the sustained change that children deserve, and communities need.