Distilling “Lessons Learned”

Information on each governance-building topic will be developed in three phases—

• International case study teams identify issues and inventory knowledge on each topic.
• Expert Workshops comprised of the case study team members and knowledgeable international practitioners will create an information base of country experiences, "lessons learned" drawn from the extant literature, and identify practitioners on fragile states whose experience and insights should be recorded.
• Trained interviewers are sent to record oral histories with these selected practitioners in fragile states.
• The case study team uses the results of these interviews on to create institutional ethnographies. These will be "tested," working in tandem with in-country practitioners. Once screened and refined, the information will then be posted on the web site.
• Based on this information printed and audio-visual case histories, oral histories, reports, proceedings, and working papers will be available for educational and research purposes, as well as on the website.

“Intractable” Problems

When practitioners repeatedly point to an “intractable” problem no one has been able to resolve in any country experience, the Academy will convene an “innovation Team” comprised of Academy Fellows and international practitioners to try to identify potential solutions and strategies to cope with the challenge. Attempts to implement these proposals will be monitored closely in order to distill “lessons learned,” as well as their workability.