Here’s a quick story

In May 2007, a PhD research scholar at the Nutrition Foundation of India was investigating the worrying decline in India’s production of pulses, a key source of nutrition in most Indian diets.   He posed his question to the 2,000 colleagues of the Food and Nutrition Security Community, one of twelve email-based consultation forums – called “Solution Exchange” – convened by seven of the United Nations Agencies in India between 2005 and 2010 connecting professionals from government, donors, NGOs, academia and the private sector. 

Over the next two weeks he received responses from fourteen Community members; most of them citing various statistics and investigations into possible causes.  Then Venkat Iyer, a farmer in Thane district of Maharasthra, explained that as some farmers switched to other crops and fewer sowed pulses, it became harder to keep out hungry cows.  So pulse production was declining in India because the cows were eating it! When the experts talk directly to the farmers, it seems, they can get unexpected answers. 

If you don’t have all the perspectives around the table, you’re going to get the answer wrong.  That is what a Community is for, and why it’s so important if you're a professional to be part of one. If you can interact with professional colleagues across the range of locations and organizations where they work, increase familiarity and build trust, you can become better informed, more networked, more effective as a professional, and more influential as a group.  You can solve bigger problems faster, with fewer “unintended consequences,” and leverage your Community to disseminate solutions, influence policies, and have a greater impact on making the world’s countries more resilient, more equitable, greener, healthier, safer or better run.  And these days, with the race against the clock to save the planet, Communities are more needed than ever.

This is where PeerConnect comes in.