Study report: How can humanitarian and development organisations learn, grow, and evolve in fast-changing and complex environments?

Humanitarian and development organisations operate in rapidly changing and complex environments where the ability of humanitarian and development organisations to learn, grow, and evolve is critical. Acknowledging these challenges, the authors of this paper analyse the role of knowledge and learning, grounded in the concerns noted by Yanguas (2021) to the “learning hypothesis”, which states that in development agencies, increased knowledge should lead to increased impact. In this context, knowledge management gains significance as it serves as the conduit for utilising both internal and external knowledge to augment organisational performance. At its core, knowledge management can be defined as the process of identifying, organising, storing, and disseminating information within an organisation to improve operational performance and facilitate better decision-making. The findings reveal that improving resource allocation, diversifying learning options, and integrating knowledge management into the organisational culture are critical for addressing institutional barriers and enhancing adaptive capacity in development and humanitarian and development organisations.