Mamun Rashid

Managing Partner PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bangladesh

The concept of knowledge management is actually as old as the human civilization itself. There is no denying the fact that the generation, accumulation, sharing, and utilization of knowledge have been the fuel that powered the advancement of mankind.

Modern-day knowledge management (KM) refers to the structured process of creating, storing, protecting, using, and sharing the knowledge and information of an entity. It is a multidisciplinary approach to achieving goals at the organizational, national, and global levels. Moreover, the rise in the volume of information in the 21st century has made organizations and governments in every country refocus on the importance of knowledge management. Even, in a developing nation like Bangladesh, efforts are being undertaken to improve knowledge generation, storage, protection, and utilization processes in both the private and public sectors.

The United Nations puts emphasis on an appropriate knowledge management strategy for achieving its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) especially, in terms of localizing the SDGs, enhancing knowledge sharing and learning opportunities, and promoting understanding, goodwill and support. The enhanced knowledge sharing and promotion of goodwill can particularly work as a strong base for revitalizing the global partnership for sustainable development which is the goal 17 of the SDGs.

Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has further reinstated the need for global cooperation in terms of finding a cure or antidote for the virus that has put the world in a great pause. This again necessitates an appropriate knowledge management framework that systematically accumulates the findings at the global level and creates a collective intelligence to the benefit of the whole world.