Knowledge is Like Light – Information is Like Water

Abstract

Paper presented at the 9th General Conference of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) Paris, France, 22–25 September 1999, in a session of the EADI Information Management Working Group. Discusses the relationship between knowledge, information and decision-making in the context of a research programme on The Impact of Information on Decision-Making, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and carried out by the International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID). Describes the aims and achievements of the programme and identifies a need for a more comprehensive future research agenda, due to be discussed at a meeting in London in December 1999. Compares the problems of managing and using information and water. Concludes by emphasizing the importance of information in personal development.

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References

1. The World Bank’s World Development Report 1998/99: Knowledge for Development, published for the World Bank by Oxford University Press, 1998, opens with the following: ‘Knowledge is like light. Weightless and intangible, it can easily travel the world, enlightening the lives of people everywhere. Yet billions of people still live in the darkness of poverty – unnecessarily.... Poor countries – and poor people – differ from rich ones not only because they have less capital but because they have less knowledge.’ (Overview, p. 1)

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