Meshworking For Millenium Development Goal 5

A great example for Meshworking from Peter Merrys Blog. You can get the whole report from his homepage. I took the Abstract and one more explanation what meshworks are and how they are guided for a specific purpose. Differentiating them from mere networks and coherence flows.

Lots to chew and to digest.

Rewards are exponentially:):)

http://www.petermerry.org/

Developing a Roadmap and Meshwork for Millenium Development Goal 5

Check out UNDP Info:

What are the Development Goals?

Abstract
The experience from "Parliamentarians Take Action on Maternal and Newborn Health"
sponsored and convened by the World Health Organization (WHO), Inter Parliamentary
Union (IPU) and the House of Representatives of Dutch Parliament is relevant to people
and organizations committed to achieving large-scale change, particularly in complex,
multi-stakeholder challenges. It is often stated optimistically that we have all of the
solutions and resources needed to meet the most demanding challenges of our time. It
is clear from WHO data that this is true for Millennium Development Goals 4&5,
Maternal and Newborn Health. This document outlines a process which builds on work
of the WHO, IPU and the vision and advocacy of Chantal Gill'ard, Member of Dutch
Parliament and her initiative "Meshwork for Mother Care" brining together and aligning
people, organizations, resources and solutions to achieve MDGs 4&5.
The process supported by WHO Department of Making Pregnancy Safer, combines
leadership and convening by WHO and IPU, facilitation (by Center for Human
Emergence Netherlands (CHE)), online collaboration and monitoring (supported by
Gaiasoft) in preparation for large-scale implementation. This case study puts the
Parliamentarians Take Action conference in the context as beginning Step 1 of a 3-step
process to achieve large-scale change. Step 1: Develop a country MDG 4&5 roadmap and
template; Step 2: Test and refine that template. Step 3: Scale implementation.
This case study reflects a longer term collaboration process for achieving MDGs 4&5
using "meshworking" - a highly effective collaboration of people and organizations,
introduced by Dr. Don Beck, CHE Global, to achieve a shared purpose. This event
"Parliamentarians Take Action!" used a rigorous process to develop pillars, conditions
and success stories as a roadmap for in-country achievement of MDG5.

The roadmap
draws on experience of Chile in achieving MDG1 on poverty reduction and on the EU
funded MIDIR project global best practice research findings. This roadmap provides the
framework for collaboration within and between countries and the basis for in country
monitoring and evaluation of progress and inter-country benchmarking and peer
learning by finding what works, systematizing and replicating solutions. This case study
introduces CHE's term meshwork, provides a summary of the facilitation and knowledge
capture process used, introduces Gaiasoft's technology support for meshworking and
large-scale change, and provides candid insights from facilitators on what worked and
how to improve on it. In conclusion, continuing this process will significantly improve
the synergy, speed and cost effectiveness of achieving MDGs 4&5.
...

Meshworking
The term Meshworking was introduced by Dr. Don E. Beck of CHE Global to describe a process for highly effective collaboration. Meshworking creates radically more effective partnerships able to develop systemic solutions for complex multi-stakeholder challenges for example, Millennium Development Goals, National Transformation and Climate Adaptation and Mitigation. CHE Netherlands brought meshworking to MDGs 4&5 in facilitating the development of the Meshwork for
Mothercare. CHE was privileged to be given the opportunity to assist in conference design and to facilitate group work.

The definition of a meshwork offered to participants is: " a structured collaboration community. A meshwork aligns people around a shared purpose within a common framework. A meshwork connects people who have interests in particular locations and particular topics. A meshwork connects people across role, sector and organizational boundaries. A meshwork enables knowledge-accidents -
helping people to find and ‘bump-into' the people and resources they need to play their part in achieving the shared purpose1."An effective meshwork is distinguished from a network or group in that interests, beliefs, behaviors
and functions are aligned to and serving a common purpose. Many smaller parts act together as alarger functional whole. At one level, a meshwork is an alignment of hearts and minds around acommon purpose. At another level, a meshwork is an alignment of forms, functions and resources toeffectively achieve a larger functional purpose. In this conference, the goal was to continue
development of a global human and online meshwork which will go forward to implement a solution
of MDG5 in countries. This case study shows how an intentional facilitation process can be used to rapidly develop a roadmap for large-scale change. In this case, the roadmap developed is a roadmap for in-country achievement of MDG5. The diversity of the group increases the depth, breadth and wisdom of the resulting roadmap. The approach emerges or reveals collective wisdom, the ‘wisdomof the crowd' and develops a coherent vision and roadmap for achieving it. Configuring Gaiasoft's
software meshworking and knowledge sharing platform was an essential and integral part of preparing for and facilitating the conference.
..."

Additional Links connected to the text:

Gaiasoft

CHE Netherlands

Inter-Parliamentary Union