Providing Knowledge Services in a Challenging Environment: Experiences of Practical Answers Sri Lanka

Abstract

Financial sustainability is a key challenge which any donor funded knowledge sharing service as “Practical Answers Sri Lanka” has to face inevitably. Most institutions running with donor funds tend to discontinue the affiliated knowledge services or reduce the funding allocations considering them as cost entities. Hence it is very important to investigate innovative strategies, ownership models and unique management systems to ensure financial sustainability, while continuing to maximize the expected social impact through sharing knowledge.Financial sustainability is a challenge which Practical Answers Sri Lanka is striving to address in the long term. Practical Answers Sri Lanka adopted a new strategy to expand its vital services while moving the organizations towards self-sufficiency. In this paper the author presents the experiences of Practical Answers Sri Lanka in the process of transformation towards a sustainable knowledge sharing service.