I think that the appropriate platform really depends on the context. I was just speaking to a candidate the other day and asking just this, what REALLY works on the ground. In some cases it is village groups, in many communities, a faith-based platform can be very powerful. In other cases I think that radio really is effective. In some ways, the platform also needs to be community driven 
don’t engage in “pseudo” co-creation. Either listen genuinely and include feedback in re-design/adaptations or don’t do it at all. The loss of trust is more harmful
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If you don’t include co-create solutions with those stakeholders we aim to inspire and empower how do we know what they are feeling, experiencing, need?
A collaboration of ages, lived experiences, culture, with a shared goal at the heart, enable us to create a hugely successful programme, which nurtured, and met the needs of the majority, whilst also, through the relevant, researched breadth of 12 different programmes which made up ‘IF was able to dive deeper into specific topics
This led to real and enthusiastic engagement.
Grassroots Collaboration meant we were able to identify the key issues, areas our target groups we were seeking to empower, were interested in, needed support with.
Collaboration increased the opportunities to understand and build bigger, more far reaching bridges, and sustainable partnerships: to get it right first time, avoiding assumption
Collaboration meant products /programme a resounding success reaching over 32000 girls/young women and creating a network of over 450 volunteers- all this from a one-day a week project, over 3 years!
Ensuring listening and accountability starts with creating a culture of psychological safety, where people feel genuinely safe to speak up. On farms I have worked with, this has included an open-door policy from management and multiple channels for workers to share their views. Structured worker committees are one way, but there are also anonymous comment boxes - (though these need to be placed thoughtfully and, crucially, the comments must be responded to). Tools like SMS-based worker voice platforms, such as nGaje, can also help gather real-time feedback at scale. But the real test is not in collecting input, it is in acting on it. When people see their concerns are acknowledged and responded to, trust grows. If feedback is ignored, it not only wastes the opportunity but can damage trust and make people less likely to speak up in future. And this process needs to be ongoing - creating a listening, feedback, action loop.
An3. Some of the platforms that could ensure listening and accountability to
communities on the ground are: Transparent Feedback Mechanism and Youth Innovation, and mentorship programs.
Listening and accountability can also happen through deliberate focused conversations - carrying out consensus workshops and encouraging transparency and inclusion as a standard all across the organization’s processes. Also closing the feedback loop - taking feedback, and communicating what is done by that feedback.
A3: What practices or platforms help ensure listening and accountability to communities or workers on the ground?
The fact that we work with cooperatives which are member owned really helps ensure accountability for us. In the sense that solutions co-created at the cooperative level directly impact productivity, incomes and livelihoods of the farming communities (members of the cooperative). And as such it is almost like a cyclical loop. Any good or bad decision made at the cooperative level has repercussions and through the cooperatives processes and systems the members/ farmers hold us to account. Such issues are brought up during the AGM or by board members and is fed to the management of the cooperative who we work with directly. And they then need to report back to the members.
A3: At GAERS, we combine digital and community-based practices to ensure continuous listening and accountability.We maintain active WhatsApp groups that serve as real-time feedback loops between farmers, cooperatives, extension agents, and researchers. These groups aren’t just for announcements they are dynamic spaces where challenges are raised, discussed, and often spark our next workshop or response session.
We also follow up our virtual workshops with short feedback surveys and reflection meetings to check whether participants felt heard and if their inputs translated into action. Where possible, we include community members in drafting reports or co-presenting findings, which fosters shared ownership.
To stay accountable, we share summary reports and action points with all participants including what we can realistically follow up on and what needs broader support. Transparency about our limitations has helped build trust, especially in underrepresented communities.
Ultimately, we see listening as an ongoing practice, not a checkbox. Accountability means showing people not only that their voices were heard, but how their insights shaped the outcomes or why not, if that’s the case.
The United Nations (UN) has introduced several impactful initiatives to encourage corporate compliance in regions where labour regulations are weakly enforced and organizational HR policies often take precedence. One such initiative is the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a framework designed to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace, and community.
As a signatory to the UN WEPs, our organization is committed to periodically reporting to the UN on our policies and progress concerning women employees. This includes transparency on:
- Equal pay and career advancement opportunities
- Health, safety, and anti-discrimination measures
- Leadership representation and inclusive workplace culture
By aligning with the WEPs, we not only strengthen internal governance but also contribute to global sustainability goals (SDG 5: Gender Equality). This initiative helps bridge the gap between local labor law shortcomings and ethical corporate practices, ensuring businesses uphold dignity, fairness, and opportunity for all employees.
A2:
At FATE Foundation, co-creating solutions with entrepreneurs and our alumni communities ensures programs are relevant, inclusive, and impactful. These are some of the approaches we have used over the last 25 years:
1: Participatory Design Workshops
Host sessions with FATE alumni and prospective program beneficiaries and also other key stakeholders to get their feedback on the design and implementation process. For example, before launching our Transformers Program which is a high-growth SME initiative, we convened a number of workshops with existing entrepreneurs who we thought fit into the program design mode and also those who aspired to be to identify their top barriers (e.g., access to capital, access to markets, mentoring) and used their input to shape our selection process, theory of change, curriculum, funding models, and success metrics.
2: Community-Led Pilots
We also test programs with small, representative cohorts and iterate based on feedback. For example we recently launched an inclusive AI driven WhatsAPP LMS focused on financial literacy for micro businesses. We had to pilot this within a target program community group which had very specific and similar demographics which was young people less than 35, had gone through a baseline programme and had persons with disabilities too. This allowed us to learn and get feedback from the pilot which we are now expanding to larger segments and groups based on the outcomes.
3. Alumni & Local Champions as Advisors
This is key for us and we use our Alumni Community champions specifically the executive committee and also the leaders of previous cohorts and classes to integrate frontline voices, review strategies regularly and ensure sustained alignment with needs while fostering ownership.
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The digital platforms ensures transparency and accountability when the systems are working properly. Many times such systems are created but do not sustain over time. Hence a mix of digital and direct connect is important to ensure that the voices are really heard and understood and ensures impact.
Making, ensuring you have a representative healthy proportion of your ‘target’ group on your management team.
- · Regular feedback sessions with wider audience :
- · BRIEF digital surveys,
- · workshops,
- · 1-1’s with target participants
- · after event feedback questionnaires and interviews
- · qualitative and quantitative research /feedback loops
Ensure touch-points throughout whole process, ensure we on track, do we need to reiterate… don’t be scared of negative feedback, its an opportunity to pivot, be even better.
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A1: Misalignment with realities on the ground
Missed opportunities for innovation
Weak ownership and limited sustainability
Reputational and social risk
2. How are you (or others you’ve seen) co-creating solutions with people directly impacted by the issues being addressed?
We have institutionalized co-creation through several approaches:
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Human-centered design: Participatory tools, including human-centered design, have been used to ensure that solutions are not only technically sound but also culturally appropriate, affordable, and user-friendly. Frontline input has directly shaped product features, service models, and delivery mechanisms.
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Participant-first models: We treat participants as co-creators, not just beneficiaries. For example, micro-SMEs have been instrumental in shaping last-mile distribution models, and in coastal aquaculture projects, farmers’ feedback has led to practical adaptations in pond management practices.
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Collaborative piloting: In our sanitation and WASH initiatives, we co-pilot technologies—such as improved latrine components or water filtration systems—with target users. Feedback from these pilots directly informs our scale-up decisions.
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Joint sustainability planning: Rather than handing off responsibilities, we work with local actors to co-develop sustainability plans that reflect their capabilities, aspirations, and constraints.
A3 . What practices or platforms help ensure listening and accountability to communities or workers on the ground?
Several institutional practices help maintain accountability and continuous engagement:
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Embedded field presence: Maintaining a strong presence through field teams and local partners ensures that feedback loops remain active and responsive, even in remote or underserved regions.
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Integrated MEL and KM systems: We have prioritized structured learning through after-action reviews, joint reflection sessions, and community-involved case studies—ensuring that learning is shared and acted upon across program levels.
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Digital engagement platforms: Tools like WhatsApp groups for rural entrepreneurs, digital surveys for frontline agents, and media monitoring for scam alerts enable two-way communication that informs real-time decision-making.
Structured government engagement: By embedding local government actors into program planning and monitoring processes, we create shared accountability while reinforcing local institutional roles.
Hi I’m Hamish Taylor, an independent consultant with a long history of engagement with sustainable development projects in Madagascar, Uganda, India, Brazil, Philippines and numerous farm-based value chains in US and Europe.
I’m part of the Business Fights Poverty Expert Network and 100% support the initiatives to tackle those complex socioeconomic and environmental challenges that demand collaboration to solve.
Biggest risk is that you try to solve the wrong problem! Regrettably like many others I have had experience of working with NGO and business partners who seek to bring in the solutions that have worked elsewhere but are not sufficiently targeted or adapted to the context of the challenges facing a particular value chain, or community of producers.
It’s where I prefer adopting proven “practices of change” over implementing a hypothetical “Theory of Change”.
By engaging with local grassroots stakeholders you may end up with an extensive wishlist of initiatives but at least you understand their priorities and needs.
Few examples spring to mind.
1. Happy Bergamot with farmers in Calabria
Here the co-invention was done with all actors in the value chain - farmers, processors, ingredient end-users, SAI Platform, UEBT and the Agriculture department of the local University. Students supported farmers in completing SAI FSA assessments and then providing readymade templated ideas on how they could improve their rankings, boosting productivity and reducing cost of inputs.
Greatest tool for engagement was a smiley face drawn with a Sharpie on a freshly picked bergamot as a symbol of the project.
2. Evolution of VSLAs to CBSGs in Madagascar Vanilla
Village Savings & Loans Associations morphed into Community Based Savings Groups as the conditions of governance were eased to allow for savings amounts to vary according to cash availability throughout the year. This allowed members to save more when they had more and created a deeper pool of funds from which to borrow (and pay back) when cash flow was more difficult.
3. Brazil nut processing in the Amazon
Here the smartest solution and stakeholder engagement driven breakthrough was the use of the outboard motors on the community members’ boats to power the nut-cracking machine. The result was more income for the local communities, reducing logistics and shipping costs, a circular economy benefit of returning the waste shells to compost immediately and genuine step-change in product quality thanks to greater local engagement.
A1: The UK changes in immigration policy incorrectly included people from the Windrush Generation and their descendants who were invited to the UK to help rebuild Britain after the second world war. They arrived, some with small children from Commonwealth nations to staff the newly formed NHS, working on the transport system both rail and busses, manufacturing in factories and engineering roles. Because of their commonwealth status at the time there was no need for visas, or much formal documentation just a valid British Passport to travel at the time and probably a birth certificate. If the Home Office had consulted with their own staff from Caribbean origin or conducted a robust consultation before implementing the policy, they would have realised that people from Black Caribbean backgrounds with parents who arrived between 1948 – 1972 should not be subject to any new immigration rules. This would not have been hard to do, as the Home Office had the largest Race and Cultural Inclusion network in the Civil Service and the organisation actively engaged with them on key internal events and conferences for their employees from all ethnically diverse backgrounds. There are many traumatic stories because of this policy not including the relevant people at the time and the government have had to set up a compensation scheme for those wrongly impacted by the policy. The compensation scheme was not well administrated with many complaints about the time lag to receive compensation. A Windrush Day 22nd June was introduced and various statues erected to try to repair the reputational damage of a policy implemented without having the key people around the table.
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A2: BITC working in partnership with grass roots organisations, local employers and local government to ensure that all voices are heard around the table in various places. Looking at local employment solutions. For example, BITC have a Place Summit happening tomorrow in Manchester. The mayor is attending, employers and many grass root organisations with their ears to the ground about the main challenges. Listening first is really important, then exploring where value can be added.
BITC Partnership with Youth Futures Foundation working together to support NEET(not in education, employment or training) young people from Black, Asian, Mixed Race and ethnically diverse backgrounds into work, where they can develop new skills and progress at work.
We have co-created a Seeing is Believing visit programme where the projects and initiatives to be visited are chosen in collaboration with young people, the content of the presentations, group conversations and commitments to action from leaders are co-created with young people.
IMPACT: great visit, positive impact on leaders – realising great talent everywhere – some just need more support if their parents do not have the socio-economic capital and connections to support them. The need to widen access to opportunities and ensure young people have a better understanding of their skills so that they seize opportunities as they arise.
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Used a very similar approach, “Bridges and Barriers to Success” in the multiple PPP projects I established for Symrise AG in its “Bridging The Gap” global programme together with GIZ and other private sector partners, including MARS, Unilever, Pernod-Ricard, Franklin-Baker Group, Natura, Haleon, Kellogg’s, etc.
BTW one of the biggest invisible and intangible “barriers” is “unchallenged beliefs” particularly those beliefs that say, “You can’t do that!”
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A3: One of the most common requests we receive from employers is to conduct listening groups. Taking the time to enable stakeholders to share their challenges without being interrupted.
And then commitment from the leaders to respond to what they have heard, not just with positive statements but with changed behaviours, updated policies and tracking progress once a commitment has been made.
Employee surveys disaggregated by ethnicity groups to understand if there are nuances in perception and experiences, so that if required, targeted solutions can be explored.
88% of employers who completed our Race at Work Charter survey in 2023 said that there was an employee advisory group who supported their senior executive sponsor to take action.
Building in measurable targets, KPI, goals and schedule a date for a formal review when progress against ambition or plan can be discussed and practical, creative and innovative solutions introduced if the course correct progress if project, initiative or programme is not on track.
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