ESCAP is implementing Knowledge Management under the initiative of the Executive Secretary to share vast amount of available knowledge that was collected and/or created by staff members, but not utilized fully by other staff members and external stakeholders. The ultimate goal of ESCAP KM initiative is to create a knowledge sharing culture across all levels and to provide enabling processes and systems to facilitate this sharing that will help attaining ESCAP's three-pronged objective of managing globalization, reducing poverty and addressing emerging social issues.
 

• A proper governance structure is in place: a full time Knowledge Management Officer has been recruited under the Office of Executive Secretary and a Knowledge Management Task Force was formed under the ICT/KM Committee that reviews and approves proposals on ICT and KM related projects;
   
• A Knowledge Management Strategy is under development. It describes the mission, scope and role of Knowledge Management. It incorporates available methodologies throughout the Secretariat and proposes pilots specifically designed for ESCAP;
   
• A Regional Advisors mission report database (READ), knowledge base of regional advisor, has been developed and tested. Initially, it includes explicit knowledge generated by Regional Advisors to be shared by staff members;
   
• “UNESCAP today” is in test phase. It consolidates critical ESCAP internal events and distributes them to staff members;
   
• iSeek ESCAP is launched as the regional portal of iSeek, the UN Secretariat centralized Intranet;
   
• A preliminary exercise on building a Knowledge Map has been carried out;
   
• A pilot Community of Practice on MDGs in the Asian and Pacific region is under development; and
   
• Awareness creation events on Knowledge Management have been organized.

• Staff need to be involved to ensure bottom-up innovation and sense of ownership;
   
• Knowledge Management needs to be mainstreamed and integrated with workflow throughout the organization; and
   
• KM tools need to be provided.