My name is Meshack Kawinzi. I am an experienced academic leader and curriculum expert with over 15 years of progressive experience in Education leadership, teacher mentorship, and program coordination. I presently work with an NGO called National Organization of Peer Educators, founded 2 decades ago. I have a strong record in University-level teaching, training program design, gender mainstreaming, health informatics and proven success in implementing student wellness programs and cross-sector partnerships. Passionate about delivering inclusive, high-quality Education and building pathways to academic and career opportunities for marginalized learners.
Dr. Rahul Mathew Nimmagadda
Head of Resource Development and Communications, World Vision Bangladesh
Rahul brings over 15 years of leadership in the international development sector across Asia. At World Vision Bangladesh, he leads strategy and partnerships to drive transformational impact for vulnerable communities, with a strong focus on resource mobilization, brand positioning, and systems change. Passionate about sustainability, innovation, and youth engagement, Rahul is committed to building bridges between sectors to tackle complex development challenges.
Hi everyone, I’m Veronica Stratford-Tuke, Head of Peace Economies at International Alert. I have worked on conflict and governance issues for over ten years, and currently oversee Alert’s work on business, investment and peace. Looking forward to continuing the discussion!
My name is Richa Paliwal, and I’m the Associate Director - Insights and Strategic Communications at CottonConnect. CottonConnect is a pioneering social enterprise dedicated to reimagining the future of supply chains. With teams across the globe, we work to improve the sustainability of global textile supply chains, helping producers and farmers operate more responsibly and secure better livelihoods. This, in turn, allows brands to access more sustainable cotton and other natural fibers, creating a more transparent and resilient supply chain for the future. With over a decade of experience in sustainability, my current role involves developing and executing strategic communication plans and conducting insightful research to showcase the critical impact of our work and advocate for more sustainable practices across the industry.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/richa-paliwal-94137528/
Hello, I’m a brand and marketing strategist helping organisations stop drifting, find focus and grow. I work in sustainable finance because I believe this kind of investing should move from the margins to the mainstream. From fuzzy feelings to focused plans, I help teams sharpen their marketing and stretch their impact.
I have overall 29 years experience including 16 years in development sector i.e. 13 years in World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Pakistan) and 4 years in CottonConnect Ltd.
I have progressive experience in Programme Management, strategic planning and leadership, develop and maintain collaboration with partners and stakeholders, management of financial and human resources, etc. My strength is to develop and maintain collaboration with donors and partners. I have been involved in Mentoring for Practices Programme as Mentee as well as Mentor organized by WWF-International.
I have served in World Wide Fund for Nature- Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan) and CottonConnect Ltd. Moreover, I have served as Member, Advisory Group, Crops Working Group, Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform, Brussels, Belgium.
I have experience in following skills:
- Effective and efficient implementation of projects
- Strong interpersonal, negotiation and networking skills
Effective leadership and human resource management
- Design and manage interventions
- Development of project concept papers and proposals
- Financial management
- Excellent communication and presentation skills
- Regenerative Agriculture and its practices
- Develop Regenerative Cotton strategy for supply chain
- To ensure stakeholders management and traceability in cotton supply chain
- Compliance to social components in supply chain actors
(5) Lall Khan Babar | LinkedIn
Hi, I’m Peter, director at Forster Communications, a social change PR agency working globally but based in the UK
Hi, I’m Natalie Deacon, a leader in social impact and sustainability, specialising in corporate purpose and gender issues Natalie Deacon - Avon | LinkedIn
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Hi everyone! I am Ariana Karamallis from Build Change-- a global leader in systems change for resilient housing. We work to provide resilient housing in some of the most disaster and climate-impacted regions of the world. My LinkedIn profile is here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianakaramallis/ Look forward to meeting you!
Our First Question: 1. What are the risks of not including grassroots or frontline voices in strategy?
Hi , I’m Siobhan and work with organisations to create business value from social value- I firmly believe that business needs to understand, ‘see’ the business value that can measurably be evidenced, by taking a proactive approach to social and environmental challenges. there are some meaningful 'win’s to be created, where all stakeholders benefit
-Not including grassroots or frontline voices in strategy means your solutions are likely to be imperfect relative to the actual needs of a community or location you are serving. Solutions that are efficient and highly effective need to respond to real-world situations and the lived experience of beneficiaries. Achieving a high level of needs-based design relies on a solution being formulated in cooperation and consultation with those it serves, rather than from a purely external perspective, even if that perspective is very well informed and strategically adroit.
-For example, at BCI we have been able to provide communities with uniquely effective solar energy solutions that leverage clean energy into long-term educational and economic development precisely because we work directly with those communities.
-It is worth noting that failing to incorporate grassroots voices into solutions to poverty also compounds existing structures of inequality; solutions that are going to be self-perpetuating and effective over the long term in achieving developmental health for communities need to ensure that beneficiaries have agency and control over the skills and resources that improve their lives.
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A1: Community listening and engagement is crucial for the success of any programme. Without it, there is a high risk of misalignment between what programmes deliver and what communities need. This can lead to:
Strategies that overlook or avoid addressing the real issues on the ground
Ineffective programme delivery
Weakly designed programmes that fail to generate concrete impact
Engaging directly with farmers and other stakeholders also brings forward traditional knowledge, innovative practices, and lived experiences that can enrich and evolve programme design. Missing out on these insights means missed opportunities for innovation and more effective, locally grounded solutions.
There is a proverb “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.” Whilst folly and shame are a tough sentence, this is a good reminder that to really understand a problem and develop solutions, you need to listen to and understand those impacted by and immersed in it. It’s not enough to be armed with good intentions, strong purpose and a few facts; well-intended solutions won’t match the needs of the grassroots communities they are trying to support if they don’t start by listening to those organisations and individuals.
Leading Avon’s purpose work has been rooted in listening to our communities and tackling the issues that matter most to them. Avon’s core purpose is to create a better world for women, which is a better world for all. To help create a better world for women in our worldwide network it’s crucial that we listen to their needs – through research, focus groups, feedback – and structure our programmes accordingly. This starts with developing our business model to support women’s needs, to make sure that our self-employed sales reps are getting value, positive experience and financial rewards from their micro-entrepreneurship with Avon.
It’s also about listening to their broader needs. To that end, 15 years ago Avon launched its ‘speak out against gender-based violence’ programme. The programme was rooted in local insights around the scale of gender-based violence (impacting 1 in 3 women) and collaboration and co-creation with local NGOs to understand the nuances and complexities of this difficult issue. Through a network of charity partners across the world we’ve been able to garner insights to help us direct funding and campaigning, and evolve the programme in line with changing needs in the sector. A good example is through the COVID pandemic, where we saw a spike in domestic violence through lockdown. Thanks to close relationships with NGO partners we were able to understand the issue and mobilise within weeks, creating a specific initiative ‘Isolated, Not Alone.’
We’ve also evolved programming aligned to changing needs – for example through cyber abuse and online coercion as that has come to the fore in recent years. It’s about listening to people on the ground and prioritising accordingly to ensure relevance.
Between about 2005 and 2020, Nestlé invested heavily in somatic embryogenesis, a technical solution to improving yield on cocoa farms in West Africa and Latin America that can increase yields from the West African average of 400kg/ha by 2-4 fold. While scientifically proven, it is a top down technological solution and as such grass roots farmer uptake could be slow; also a lengthy and often problematic approval process by national agricultural authorities increases delays in seeing results.
Beginning in the late 2010s in Côte d’Ivoire, a greater focus on farmer engagement rather than technology was implemented. It was quickly apparent that a low tech solution - pruning of cocoa trees - could improve yields by up to a third without deploying complex technological solutions - an independent report in 2024 showed cocoa-farming families achieved a 32% increase in their yields after implementing improved practices like pruning, and their net income rose by 38% with more families now reaching a living income. The programme also increased school enrollment for children by 10 percentage points.
Key to the success has been intensive direct engagement with the farmers and their families to overcome ingrained prejudices, eg that pruning reduces the area of the tree able to bear fruit, when as mentioned it actually increases yield. Acceptance and trust has been achieved through comparisons carried out on adjacent plots so that farmers can see the results from themselves. It has also resulted in increased community trust and acceptance of newer initiatives such as agroforestry (intercropping of forest trees in cocoa orchards) and other regenerative agriculture techniques.
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You miss out on all the expertise, experience and ingenuity that comes with platforming the voices of communities
A1: Excluding grassroots voices from strategy design carries serious risks. Top-down approaches often miss critical social, cultural, and environmental nuances—resulting in interventions that are poorly understood, or unsustainable. When people don’t see themselves in the solution, they disengage. This can lead to low adoption, community pushback, or even project failure—wasting resources and eroding trust.
For smallholder farmers, especially women and youth, exclusion reinforces existing power imbalances and denies them the agency to shape their own futures. These communities are not passive beneficiaries—they are innovators. Their lived experiences and indigenous knowledge are essential for crafting effective, locally adapted solutions.
At GAERS, we’ve seen how digital tools and stakeholder-led dialogues can unlock powerful insights. But even then, implementing next steps can stall without government buy-in or aligned priorities. Inclusion must go beyond consultation—it requires shared ownership, continuous feedback, and real accountability.
Ultimately, inclusion isn’t a “nice to have”—it’s the foundation of lasting impact. When people are part of the process, they are more likely to protect and sustain it. When they’re excluded, even the most well-intentioned solutions risk falling flat.
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The risks are many: at best, not achieving the positive, lasting social and environmental impact you desire for the people and landscapes you are targeting; at worst, having a negative impact on those people/landscapes and on your own business because you do not have a complete understanding of the local context and realities. It is also important to ask, whose voices? It is often the ones who speak most softly, or are not heard at all, whom we should listen to most carefully.
In designing our radio programmes in partnership with businesses we have made and learned from a number of mistakes. For example, assuming that because Swahili was the common language across a large tea-producing area in Kenya, this would be the most appropriate language in which to broadcast a radio programme for tea farmers. (We learned that the local vernacular languages, Kalenjin and Ekegusii had a much stronger connection for the people we were aiming to reach.)
Or in the cocoa sector in Ghana, seeking input on radio programme content only from those farmers who were landowners (and therefore cooperative members) rather than also from the sharecroppers and labourers who do most of the work and therefore are most in need of knowledge and information about sustainable practices.
We have learned to seek out those who are most excluded and to put them at the heart of our radio programmes, so that their voices and perspectives not only drive the content of the programmes but can also be heard by decision-makers and leaders across a wide area.
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A1 > Frontline stakeholders’ voices have had immense impact on the implementation of corporate strategies and programmes in Kenya - particularly in the sectors of agriculture and manufacturing. Inclusion of frontline voices, in the initiatives by Fairtrade Africa, Kenya Flower Council and BSR (HERproject) – presently re-branded RISE, has demonstrated how important the participation of communities in the programmes that benefit them can attain far reaching social impacts. The just completed Work and Opportunities for Women (WOW) cemented this fact: co-creating programmes with the target beneficiaries, from designing to evaluation, culminates to near religious ownership, relevance and long-term impacts. This was accentuated by the collaboration of the stakeholders from inception – thanks to Twinings, Lorna Young Foundation, Ethical Tea Partnership and the County government officials.
For the past year, my organization, NOPE has implemented employees’ wellness programme at Dummen Orange flower farm – Fides Kenya with a lot of success. The co-creation of the programme, with the peer health Educators, supervisors and line managers has continuously improved the welfare of workers while contextualizing the content and mode of delivery to the community’s convenience. This is a precursor of the sustainability.
The front voices understand their situation better and how they can navigate through that space. Failure to actively involve them is a fertile ground for breeding resistance even when the beauty of the mitigations are obvious. Top-down approach models of CSR have had catastrophic failure. Workers can bounce back from the worst of uncertainties (I borrow a leaf from a research done by Universal Access Project, which we collaborated with United Nations Foundation, to understand female workers resilience in flower farms during COVID 19 in Kiambu County in Kenya). It is their inclusion in the processes that creates effect, socially and environmentally.
There are many white elephant projects in existence simply because their scalability and sustainability would have greatly depended on taking into the account the core concerns of the beneficiaries. Their outcome? Misaligned priorities and wasted resources.
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Lack of ownership by the community. Risk of designing products/services that are not affordable, accessible or relevant. If cultural contexts and feedback loops are underestimated/poor, the company will never know…