Bridge 4: Connecting Decision-Makers with Those Closest to the Issues

Partnerships
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I’d like to build on this set of very solid suggestions and offer one that can sometimes be overlooked… LEARNING FROM OTHERS.

During my time with Symrise we eventually (after 4 years, in part due to COVID but also in part due to a lack of prioritisation) managed to stage a cross-programme learning event in which participants from four multi-year, multi-actor, multi-million projects came together to exchange experiences and learnings. Was so powerful and would have been even more powerful if we had created the space for this programme much sooner. Collectively these projects spent €20m+, engaged 45,000 farmers and benefited over 200,000 community members.

We also benefited from bringing in external voices who were NOT connected to any of the projects to share their stories, their insights, and importantly invite them to ask questions of our project leads.

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124

Very much appreciate the reminder to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!)

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I work with an organisation in Uganda, Enimiro Products Ltd who are a vanilla specialist, who have an extensive network of farmers with a digital and paper-based “call-back” system to check on progress and monitor that actions are followed up on. This leads to highly effective training performance monitoring that ensures that the limited funds available are spent wisely and that impact is tracked in a dynamic way and not through the use of expensive base-line / end-line consultancy studies as favoured by other projects and programmes.

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Hi ! This is Suryamani Roul, Managing Trustee of Forum of Enterprises for Equitable Development(FEED). Dedicated to the cause of marginal farmers, we focus and lay emphasis on Public Private Partnership in Agri Value Chain Development(PPPAVCD). I am working in this sector over last 4 decades. We strongly believe in promoting inclusive value chains and active participation of private and public sector having farming community at the centre.Business planning and corresponding advisory to the farmers on package of practices and operating procedure on doing business have proven to be beneficial to the community. Currently, we engage in designing such models for the private sector.

127

Hi Everyone!! - Looking forward to today’s discussion. See below for a bit of information about me.

linkedin.com/in/kate-gibson-471456**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-gibson-471456

Kate is a global leader with more than 20 years of experience working at the intersection of corporate strategy, transformation, and sustainability in complex multinational businesses and is a member of the Business Fights Poverty Global Expert Network.

Kate was Global ESG Director at Diageo until the end of 2024, and was the architect of Spirit of Progress, Diageo’s industry-leading approach for environmental sustainability, social impact, and responsible business and collaborated with all markets and functions globally to embed this into the core of the business.

Prior to Diageo, Kate held leadership roles at InterContinental Hotels & Resorts (IHG) including head of Corporate Strategy for Europe, Middle East, and Africa before taking on the role of Vice President Global Corporate Responsibility, with global accountability for environmental sustainability, community impact, human rights, stakeholder engagement, and non-financial reporting.

Kate started her career as a strategy consultant, working across the Consumer Products, Manufacturing, Financial Services and Pharmaceutical sectors and is an experienced Non-Executive Director and Trustee.

128

Hello everyone, I am Austin Atsua https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinatsua/ based in North Central Nigeria. I have over twenty years of experience implementing complex agricultural, rural development, and humanitarian programs, focusing on rural development, livelihoods, agriculture, food security, nutrition, private sector engagement, market systems, and financial inclusion in Nigeria. My expertise extends to integrating livelihood, nutrition, and empowerment into one single project, village savings and loans, business development mechanisms, and climate-smart practices to meet short- and long-term needs by closing living inequality gaps. My work demonstrates a deep commitment to sustainable, locally led interventions that drive impactful change by linking local actions to global initiatives. I currently work with Burgeon Initiative for Sustainable Development (also known as BI4SD) is a registered Non-Governmental Organisation based in Nigeria.

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Brook Horowitz - International development consultant with hybrid experience with public and private sectors.

  • Years of working with the public and private sectors in emerging and developing markets to promote economic and social development.

  • Experience in bringing government and business together in building impactful public-private partnerships, innovative collective action initiatives and long-term multistakeholder solutions.

  • Experience in public sector anti-corruption reform, with a focus on helping governments create an enabling environment for companies to operate with integrity.

  • Expertise in working with the private sector on ESG governance, business and human rights, sustainability, compliance and risk, business integrity, supplier development. I have worked with global and national multinationals, SOEs and SMEs.

  • A track record in project design, management and implementation, cross-border team leadership, training, capacity-building, public speaking, thought leadership, research and analysis, report-writing, fund-raising.

  • Experience in ASEAN, China, Central Asia, Central and Eastern Europe.

130

Hello, good to be in community with you all. I have over twenty years of experience working with multinational corporations, subnational governments and local communities in driving equitable climate change solutions. I work across sectors in order to realize mitigation and resilience solutions at the scale and urgency that is required. After working for several non profit, for profit and start up organizations, I am currently an independent consultant, as well as, a Senior Advisor at Eco Equity. I am passionate about driving change and looking forward to meeting all of you!
Please connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trina-chattoraj-mallik-a11252/

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1. Can you share an example of where including / not including grassroots or frontline voices has impacted the effectiveness of strategies and programmes?

At Youth Business International (YBI), we are dedicated to driving economic growth and job creation through supporting and scaling youth-led businesses globally. We do this by combining global influence with local knowledge and experience. All our work supporting young entrepreneurs is delivered by and designed in consultation with local enterprise support organisations (ESOs) – our members - enabling us to successfully deliver global programmes with bespoke solutions in varied contexts.

Our members are rooted in local communities and provide direct support to the young people operating businesses in those communities. This means that they have a first-hand understanding of the challenges these young people face and the structural barriers that are holding them back. We know that the barriers young entrepreneurs face vary greatly across different countries and regions and that a one-size-fits-all approach would fail to address the different barriers effectively.

This is why our local members lead the design and delivery of their projects as part of our global programmes with YBI acting in a supporting and capacity-building role. Our experience with the Revolving Loan Fund developed in partnership with Somo, one of our members in Kenya, is a powerful example of how including grassroots and frontline voices leads to more effective and inclusive programme design.

The programme was launched in 2023 as part of the Futuremakers initative, funded by Standard Chartered Foundation, to address a critical gap: young women entrepreneurs in the informal sector were systematically excluded from formal finance due to a lack of collateral, credit history, and financial literacy.

By working closely with Somo — an organisation deeply embedded in local communities — we were able to co-design a financing solution that directly addressed these on-the-ground realities. The programme offers low-interest loans (US$1,000–$25,000) and uses an alternative credit scoring tool called the Somo Scorecard, which incorporates peer and business data rather than formal credit histories. This innovation emerged specifically from listening to and working with frontline stakeholders who understood the limitations of traditional financial systems in these contexts.

The impact has been significant: in its first year, the fund supported 77 women-led businesses, resulting in 28% monthly revenue growth and the creation of 326 new jobs—with zero loan defaults. Entrepreneurs also received holistic support, including financial literacy coaching and access to digital reporting tools. These were added because grassroots voices emphasised the need not just for capital, but also for support in managing it effectively.

This case highlights that when grassroots voices are not included, we risk designing interventions that are disconnected from real-world challenges. But when they are centred, we create pathways to genuine, scalable impact.

2. How are you (or others you’ve seen) co-creating solutions with people directly impacted by the issues being addressed?

At Youth Business International (YBI), we prioritise co-creating solutions with those directly impacted by the challenges we aim to address. Our Green and Social Entrepreneurship Toolkit exemplifies this approach. Developed collaboratively with nine of our global member organisations across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean, the toolkit underwent real-world testing with approximately 700 young entrepreneurs. Their feedback informed iterative improvements, ensuring the toolkit’s effectiveness and adaptability across diverse contexts.

This participatory process led to significant outcomes:

  • 100% of participants would recommend the toolkit to others
  • 97% are now operating social or environmental businesses
  • 89% reported increased confidence in managing such enterprises
  • 88% noted improved capabilities in achieving social and environmental goals

By engaging directly with young entrepreneurs and our member organisations, we ensure our solutions are grounded in real experiences and needs, fostering more impactful and sustainable outcomes.

3. What practices or platforms help ensure listening and accountability to communities or workers on the ground?

1. Communities of Practice (CoPs):
YBI has established global and regional CoPs that bring together our member organisations to share insights, co-create solutions, and refine support programmes. For instance, our High Flyers Community of Practice involves YBI members from seven countries collaborating to design and deliver effective support for young entrepreneurs aiming to grow and scale their businesses. This collaborative approach is informed by the feedback our members get directly from the young entrepreneurs they support and ensures that programmes are tailored to the real needs of the communities they serve.

2. Co-creation of Resources:
We engage directly with our member organisations to develop tools and resources that address the specific challenges of the young entrepreneurs they support. An example of this is our Sustainability Toolkit, co-developed with YBI members across five countries, which provides guidance on integrating sustainability practices into existing micro and small enterprises. Through testing the toolkit with young entrepreneurs, gathering their feedback and experiences, and then refining the tools, we ensure that the voices of underserved young entrepreneurs are heard and considered in programme development.

Through these practices, YBI ensures that its programmes are not only effective but also grounded in the lived experiences and needs of the communities and individuals we aim to support.

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Hi everyone! I’m Maggie Rarieya. I am a strategic partnerships and sustainability leader with over 20 years of cross-sector experience spanning the for profit and the development non-profit sectors. I’ve worked across Africa, Europe, and North America and led initiatives on ESG, climate-health, and systems change. I am passionate about equity, collaboration, and unlocking scalable impact, I’m excited to connect with this community to explore shared solutions to today’s most pressing challenges. Happy connect https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggierarieya/

133

Hello all, my name is Tesfaye Hailu Bekele, and I am a researcher at Wageningen University & Research (WUR), specializing in sustainable and healthy diets in low- and middle-income countries. My work focuses on food systems, the implementation of dietary guidelines, and the key determinants of healthy eating—particularly accessibility, availability, and consumption patterns. In addition to my research, I am deeply interested in empowering youth to engage with food systems and healthy diet issues, with the goal of fostering a new generation of leaders committed to ensuring that healthy diets are accessible and affordable for all.

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134

The risk of non-inclusion of grassroots voices in any strategy is failure and lack of sustainability. The first level of faliure maybe during implementation while the second level will come after implementation period. This is because the strategy built or developed without grassroot inputs is a like a house on faulty foundation.

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  • Can you share an example of where including/ not including grassroots or frontline voices has impacted the effectiveness of strategies and programs?

When it comes to carbon mitigation solutions, not including grassroots or frontline communities not only results in emissions not reducing but perverse consequences of emissions increasing. This has been seen time and time again in site selections for fossil fueled infrastructure and warehouses. A specific example from working with factories of apparel and footwear companies in Southeast Asia, is that biomass was selected as a replacement fuel for boilers. The biomass was consciously sourced so that it didn’t have perverse environmental consequences like felling old growth trees, however without community input it had perverse consequences like infringing on Indigenous rights and also revenue sources for farmers (which used the biomass for their own purposes).

Similarly, in climate resilience solutions, blanket approaches can be used across communities however local knowledge is the best suited for effective resilience solutions, such as site location for rain gardens and bioswales, planting natives, and using nature based solutions versus grey infrastructure.

  • How are you (or others you’ve seen) co-creating solutions with people directly impacted by the issues being addressed?

It is imperative that community input be integrated in decision making processes throughout the life cycle of a project. For instance, in retrofitting industrial processes with carbon mitigating technologies, senior representatives from local communities should be incorporated from the beginning when site selection, technologies, transportation frameworks and the like are discussed and decided on. They should also be included through construction, ongoing operations, and deconstruction of the project. Local communities can speak to any interference in the historical and culture context of the communities while identifying upside opportunities like local workforce development. Their input and decision making power mitigates downside risk while realizing upside potential.

  • What practices or platforms help ensure listening and accountability to communities or workers on the ground?

Representation of local communities and workers in decision making processes can be codified in legal documents, such as community benefit agreements. These can include a commitment to a mutually agreed upon regular cadence of meetings, investment in communities and workers, veto rights and decision making power. In addition to legal and formal incorporation in processes, an establishment of ongoing relationship that builds trust and mutual understanding between businesses, local governments, and local communities is key. Again, it mitigates downside risks and realizes upside potentials. In order to build trust, especially from the onset of the relationship, intermediaries are effective. These organizations or individuals have a deep understanding of the communities and workers perspectives and are thus trusted by them while understanding the way businesses and local governments operate and make decisions. Intermediaries are brought in from the onset of the project to understand multiple stakeholder perspectives and facilitate communication between all parties. In times of distress, intermediaries can act as mediators in conflict resolution.

136

Hi all. An overarching question/topic of the larger conversation I have is if folks see ESG as a pathway forward or does it need to be re-defined to address these bridges??

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At Youth Business International (YBI), we are dedicated to driving economic growth and job creation through supporting and scaling youth-led businesses globally. We do this by combining global influence with local knowledge and experience. All our work supporting young entrepreneurs is delivered by and designed in consultation with local enterprise support organisations (ESOs) – our members - enabling us to successfully deliver global programmes with bespoke solutions in varied contexts.

Our members are rooted in local communities and provide direct support to the young people operating businesses in those communities. This means that they have a first-hand understanding of the challenges these young people face and the structural barriers that are holding them back. We know that the barriers young entrepreneurs face vary greatly across different countries and regions and that a one-size-fits-all approach would fail to address the different barriers effectively.

This is why our local members lead the design and delivery of their projects as part of our global programmes with YBI acting in a supporting and capacity-building role. Our experience with the Revolving Loan Fund developed in partnership with Somo, one of our members in Kenya, is a powerful example of how including grassroots and frontline voices leads to more effective and inclusive programme design.

The programme was launched in 2023 as part of the Futuremakers initative, funded by Standard Chartered Foundation, to address a critical gap: young women entrepreneurs in the informal sector were systematically excluded from formal finance due to a lack of collateral, credit history, and financial literacy.

By working closely with Somo — an organisation deeply embedded in local communities — we were able to co-design a financing solution that directly addressed these on-the-ground realities. The programme offers low-interest loans (US$1,000–$25,000) and uses an alternative credit scoring tool called the Somo Scorecard, which incorporates peer and business data rather than formal credit histories. This innovation emerged specifically from listening to and working with frontline stakeholders who understood the limitations of traditional financial systems in these contexts.

The impact has been significant: in its first year, the fund supported 77 women-led businesses, resulting in 28% monthly revenue growth and the creation of 326 new jobs—with zero loan defaults. Entrepreneurs also received holistic support, including financial literacy coaching and access to digital reporting tools. These were added because grassroots voices emphasised the need not just for capital, but also for support in managing it effectively.

This case highlights that when grassroots voices are not included, we risk designing interventions that are disconnected from real-world challenges. But when they are centred, we create pathways to genuine, scalable impact.

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Excluding frontline voices disconnects strategies from real-world dynamics, leading to ineffective, unsustainable outcomes. In places like Kenya, Mozambique, Tajikistan, and Honduras, I’ve seen how the absence of grassroots input reinforces inequities and misses locally identified opportunities—such as tourism, entrepreneurship, or informal trade sectors.

Without that local insight, efforts often default to compliance over creativity. For example,—treating a business like an NGO can dull an innovation edge.

Beyond missing opportunities, the deeper risk is eroding trust. When strategies are top-down, they lose the power of co-ownership and adaptability—relying on assumptions instead of real-time, ground-up insights.

The greatest risk is perpetuating a cycle where solutions are imposed rather than co-owned—ultimately leading to poor results due to lost trust and inability to identify the most effective solutions, not those that sound the most interesting.

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Not including grassroots/frontline voices means, your solutions and strategies will fail to meaningfully address need, and achieve sustainable change owned by the community. It also will miss opportunities to capture cultural, historical, and contextual factors that could support local innovation, solutions, and leadership. A few of the risks includes:
• Failure to address actual needs, priorities and lived experiences of the communities the strategies or programs are aiming to support.
• A disconnect between the community and the strategy or program which can result in low impact or complete failure.
• Undermines accountability by limiting opportunities for feedback, ongoing monitoring, and learning. And without the insights of those closest to the issues, it becomes difficult to truly assess whether strategies are having the intended impact or not.
• Cultural, historical and contextual factors are also at risk of being overlooked without the meaningful engagement of communities. This could also lead to strategies to unintentionally reinforce the status quo. The key question for any strategy or program is not only whether frontline voices are included, but also whose voices are being heard; some groups may face social, cultural, or economic barriers that limit their ability to participate (e.g. women, girls, people with disabilities, IDPs…etc).
• Communities are also far more likely to support and champion strategies that they have helped co-create. Ignoring their voices reduces community ownership and buy-in. The strategy may be seen as externally imposed, leading to resistance and skepticism.
• Frontline voices are also critical for surfacing locally led solutions and innovations that support sustainable change. The contextual knowledge, creativity, and practical insights of communities are valuable assets, if ignored, results in missed opportunities to build on existing strengths that could support lasting changes.

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A1: When those closest to an issue aren’t part of shaping the strategy, the result is often a well-meaning solution that misses the mark. I’ve seen this firsthand in programs that looked good on paper but didn’t reflect people’s lived realities, and as a result, never took root. Others endured during implementation, but their impact quickly faded once the initiative ended.

Here are five examples of the risks of overlooking these voices:

  1. Misalignment: Strategies and solutions may not address the actual needs and challenges of communities, leading to ineffective or even harmful outcomes.
  2. Lack of sustainability: Top-down approaches often fail to gain local buy-in, making initiatives less sustainable over time.
  3. Missed opportunities for innovation: Communities often have the most creative and practical insights.
  4. Eroded trust: Exclusion can reinforce power imbalances, deepen disconnection, and undermine an organization’s credibility.
  5. Further inequity: Top-down strategies and decisions without local input can unintentionally widen gaps they aim to close.

Frontline voices bring essential insights and context, which are crucial when determining what to do—and especially why it matters and how to do it in ways that reflect local knowledge, honor cultural context, and are practically feasible.

141

Love this question—and couldn’t agree more. ESG isn’t entirely broken, but the way many companies approach it is. It’s not a side hustle or a PR move—it’s the infrastructure for future-proof strategy.

The issue? Too many organizations still treat ESG like it’s divorced from value creation. But the data (and market shifts) tell a different story: ESG done right isn’t a distraction—it’s a differentiator.

We’ve seen this firsthand in supply chains. When sustainability is embedded you unlock serious advantages:

  • Resilience in the face of climate shocks
  • Investor confidence tied to transparency and traceability
  • New market access through higher standards and trust

It’s not about redefining ESG—it’s about reconnecting it to business outcomes. The bold ones aren’t waiting to be regulated into change. They’re using ESG to drive innovation, attract capital, and future-proof their brands.

Strategy without sustainability is short-term thinking. And the future doesn’t reward short-term thinkers.

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Hi, my name is Amay Bansal, I’m an upcoming graduate from the University of Washington. I am based in Seattle, WA. I have experience working with regenerative farming on a systems perspective in India and participatory design for informal settlements in Nepal. I currently volunteer with a domestic violence relief non-profit.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amayb/