Creating efficient collaboration for knowledge creation in area-based rural development

This paper describes how collaboration for knowledge creation in an area-based sufficiency rural development in Thailand works in coping with complex rural problems and needs. Based on extensive field observation in the implementation of the Royal Initiatives Discovery Institute's projects in two provinces over the past two years, the writer contends that the existing ideas of collaboration in community development based on a concept of top-down technology transfer is not helpful enough to appreciate the collaboration for the bottom-up knowledge creation in an area-based sufficiency development. New sets of local knowledge built up through development collaborative actions are described. Structural and organizational constraints on collaborative actions to facilitate new local knowledge building are discussed. The paper proposes a redesign of the collaborative process to increase information flow and enhance the capacity of development collaborators in their facilitation of bottom-up knowledge creation in an area-based sufficiency rural development. A social learning process should be used to improve collaboration through a contextual based “link and learn” collaborative process of knowledge creation. A training scheme to develop three management competencies of collaborative teams is suggested.