Building Social Capital in an Iranian NGO Community System

The Iranian Civil Society is developing very fast. Hundreds of Non- Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are engaged in a process of socio-organizational networking, which is mainly coordinated by two resource centres in Teheran. The paper presents experiences with a socio-technical support of this networking process. The concepts of "social capital" and "communities of practice" are applied in a framework of socio-technical interventions to foster social capital among NGOs. The introduction of an Iranian NGO Community System is described referring to a process model of Integrated Organization and Technology Development (OTD). Training measures and efforts of socio-organizational and technological developments are analyzed. Furthermore, mechanisms of participatory system design and of coordinating the networking e- community are presented. First results of the process are evaluated.

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