Learning Laboratories
Description of the PAR's work within the context of the Learning Laboratories. The Learning Laboratories focus on the development and application of instruments and practices that promote the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in urban areas and cross border regions. The work of the Learning Laboratories is oriented toward providing improvements and changes in the target communities by intensifying strategic binational relationships (in the case of the cross border work) and promoting stakeholder engagement processes through the promotion of shared local and regional agendas.
The Learning Laboratories promote the intensification and scalability of impacts in these learning processes, by strengthening innovative proposals designed by the Regional Learning Program (PAR) to regionalize interventions and opportunities for dialogue, exchange of experiences and capacity development.
The work within the Laboratories takes into consideration the importance of addressing the unique challenges related to:
- Border Regions: Suffer from a lack of governmental attention and public policies; foster tensions and conflicts; are characterized by a specific type of conflict; typically experience more extreme conditions of poverty; and are often faced with extreme environmental impacts.
- Urban Areas: Considering that the vast majority of Latin America’s population lives in urban areas, it is in these areas that extreme poverty is concentrated and the challenges to access basic services increase dramatically.
Overarching objectives of the Learning Laboratories:
- Validate innovative mechanisms, processes and instruments through application, in the chosen sites, and promote their re-applicability.
- The dissemination and use of the resultant lessons learned and knowledge by the cooperation agencies and organizations offering technical assistance.
- Use these experiences to foster strategic relationships between key stakeholders such as: local governments, Civil Society actors, International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and other regional institutions.