About ADB

Communities of Practice

Communities of practice (CoPs) are groups of like-minded, interacting people who filter, amplify, invest and provide, convene, build, and learn and facilitate to ensure more effective creation and sharing of knowledge in their domain. The six essentials of a CoP are:

• There is a community.
• There is a domain.
• There is a practice.
• There is motivation.
• There is a mandate.
• There is a "horizontal" or "diagonal" structure.

ADB hosts two forms of CoPs:

1. Internal CoPs with members consisting of ADB staff. They are further grouped into two: formal CoPs known as sector and thematic committees; and informal CoPs or networks.
2. External CoPs with members coming from ADB's partner countries and institutions.

Comprising 5-10 ADB staff members who are recognized technical leaders in their field, the formal CoPs advise on:

• General strategic directions of the priority sectors and themes;
• ADB-wide sector/thematic work, including inputs to sector and thematic reports;
• ADB-wide Knowledge products and services (KPS), including good practices, technical and flagship practices; and
• Staffing issues including skills mix and staff participation in external learning events.

The formal CoPs are:

• Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food Security
• Education
• Energy
• Environment
• Finance Sector Development
• Gender and Social Development
• Governance
• Health
• Regional Cooperation and Integration
• Transport
• Urban
• Water

Providing venues for staff members to exchange ideas, best practices, and technical approaches, there are informal networks in the following areas:

• Education
• Energy
• Environment
• External Relations
• Financial Management
• Governance
• Health
• Information and Communication Technology
• NGO and Civil Society
• Poverty
• Resettlement
• Transport
• Urban Development
• Water

Promoting learning and knowledge exchange among public managers, organizations, executing agencies and practitioners, ADB's external CoPs are

• CoP on Managing for Development Results (CoP-MfDR)
• Evaluation Cooperation Group Network (ECG-Net)

See also:

• Cultivating the Communities of Practice Hosted by ADB [ PDF: 810kb | 18 pages ]