Wisma Putra cooperates with UMS on knowledge management

PUTRAJAYA: Wisma Putra has established cooperation with three public universities on knowledge management to widen the scope of information sharing in the fields of diplomacy and international relations.

The three universities are Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).

Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said this would strengthen cooperation in academic, research and cultural areas encompassing exchange of knowledge and information among staff members.

“It also involves the acceptance of students for the purpose of studies, joint organisation of knowledge discourse programmes, knowledge exchange relating to development of teaching and learning, and sharing of documents, theses, dissertations and articles related to diplomacy and international relations,” he said.

He was speaking after a ceremony on the exchange of memorandum of understanding between the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (IDFR) and the three universities on a knowledge management programme here yesterday.

Saifuddin said it was important to promote knowledge management to ensure an organisation does not lose the knowledge possessed by its officers and at the same time to gain knowledge from sources outside the organisation.

Knowledge management is a platform for harnessing the undocumented knowledge of former diplomats and officers for use in training and guiding serving young diplomats to handle problems with other countries, he added.

“According to management researchers, more than 50 per cent of knowledge in an organisation was not recorded. We will lose out and be unable to progress without having adequate knowledge or information,” he added.