Speaking from my experience at Amref Health Africa, the largest health development organisation in Africa spanning in 35 countries in the continent, we’ve seen time and again that the success of health interventions hinges on centering the voices of frontline health workers and the communities they serve. One clear example is our work during the COVID-19 pandemic, where early government and donor responses often lacked meaningful input from community health workers. As a result, many national strategies were misaligned with the realities on the ground, such as informal health structures, mistrust in institutions, and logistical barriers. When Amref helped convene the community voice, especially for women and youth, to inform public health messaging and vaccine rollout strategies, uptake and trust dramatically improved. This reinforced our conviction: exclusion from strategy design leads to inefficiencies and missed impact; inclusion leads to aligned, contextualised and scalable solutions.
It risks failure for any kind of intervention, being it from a not for profit or profit one. Ownership and local partecipation are key for any programme to succeed. From my experience at 3E and in various project this has been the key for any real impact.
Your strategy is impractical or likely ineffective in meeting real needs. In particular, it is important to include diverse voices of historically excluded groups in consultations or participatory processes.
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What are the risks of not including grassroots or frontline voices in strategy
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-subpar collaboration negating potential local buy-in to the strategy
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-missing out on local network resources, knowledge and practical know-how to get things done
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-disregarding potential local innovations already underway driving investment
A1: The key risk (as many others have stated) is that you move too quickly to a solution that does not fully meet the needs of people on the ground - and you miss the opportunity to deliver impact. One learning I had on the importance of including frontline voices was while leading the environmental sustainability and social impact agenda at InterContinental Hotels Group – one of the world’s largest hotel chains with more than 6,600 hotels in 100 countries. We were scaling up an international disaster relief programme and we wanted to ensure that we were having the most impact possible at a local level. We assumed that the biggest impact we could have would be in cash donations through fundraising after disasters – but it was only through engaging with local communities and humanitarian agencies at a local level and putting them in touch with hotel general managers that we had the real unlock. As a result of this local engagement we realised that: hotels can play an important role in preparing for disasters, speed of response was the most important thing in terms of donations – even if relatively modest as it allowed the humanitarian agencies to trigger an on the ground response and get match funding, and hotels can provide in kind benefits such as places for agencies to store luggage, meeting rooms so agencies can plan their response and help with local links to the communities – which hotel General Managers need to have in their day jobs. This was a really important learning and was key to ensuring the programme maximised impact with the resources available – and the unlock was local conversations. Over time, as we responded to more and more disasters around the world we were able to engage more and learn and further increase impact.
● Can you share an example of where including/not including grassroots or frontline voices has impacted the effectiveness of strategies and programmes?
Ownership and grassroots involvement are frequently highlighted as essential components across both non-profit and for-profit sectors. Communities play a pivotal role, serving either as direct beneficiaries in NGO initiatives or as key customers and co-creators for innovative startups and social enterprises. Particularly in emerging markets, close observation of local challenges often inspires successful, impactful business innovations.
In my experience at 3E Africa, integrating grassroots perspectives has proven crucial, particularly within agricultural value chains like coffee and dairy in Kenya. Effective adoption of new agricultural methods or crop varieties requires deep community buy-in, as behavioural changes are incremental and depend on demonstrating tangible benefits and early successes.
For example, involving grassroots voices significantly enhanced our dairy value chain programme in Kenya’s Molo region. Initially, our top-down strategies missed critical local realities, resulting in limited uptake of sustainable practices. After adopting participatory methods, such as community forums and inclusive planning sessions, smallholder dairy farmers identified key challenges, including feed scarcity and restricted market access. Integrating these insights into tailored training programmes and improved forage solutions led to increased milk yields by over 30%, substantially boosting farmer incomes. This practical experience aligns with the World Bank’s findings in “Localizing Development” (Mansuri & Rao, 2013), which demonstrates that community-driven projects consistently outperform top-down approaches.
Conversely, some initial reforestation efforts in Kenya’s Mau Forest faced significant resistance due to inadequate community involvement. Community members resisted adopting unfamiliar tree species and methodologies, driven largely by donor-imposed directives. However, when we adapted our strategy to actively involve local communities, adopting a holistic approach that addressed broader issues such as water, gender, and sustainable livelihoods alongside conservation, participation improved dramatically. Consequently, tree survival rates significantly increased, validating the long-standing academic finding by Isham, Narayan, & Pritchett (1995) that community participation directly correlates with more successful and sustainable outcomes.
● How are you (or others you’ve seen) co-creating solutions with people directly impacted by the issues being addressed?
Research consistently highlights a direct correlation between community participation, co-creation, and sustained impact. The World Bank (2013) explicitly acknowledges that citizen engagement significantly enhances project outcomes by ensuring interventions are relevant and sustainable. Examples from successful Kenyan enterprises, such as M-KOPA, illustrate that actively co-creating solutions with local communities—such as their pay-as-you-go solar energy model—can address pressing societal issues like energy poverty while driving sustainable business growth.
At 3E Africa, we have embraced co-creation with communities through practical solutions such as frugal innovation initiatives—deploying charcoal-based refrigeration units to enhance local cold chains in resource-scarce environments. Additionally, we leveraged indigenous knowledge by revitalising traditional vegetable cultivation for improved food security, demonstrating positive outcomes compared to standardised seed solutions. Our participatory demonstration farms further exemplify effective co-creation, enabling coffee farmers to test, refine, and adopt agroecological practices tailored specifically to local conditions. This approach aligns closely with IFAD’s evaluation synthesis (2020), which emphasizes that community-driven methodologies strengthen social capital and secure lasting impacts.
● What practices or platforms help ensure listening and accountability to communities or workers on the ground?
At 3E Africa, accountability and responsiveness to community needs are facilitated by structured feedback mechanisms and continuous communication channels. Regular community meetings, open forums, and ongoing engagement sessions allow immediate feedback and timely adjustments, thereby fostering mutual trust.
Additionally, digital platforms such as SMS-based surveys and WhatsApp groups are employed to maintain continuous dialogue with remote and otherwise difficult-to-reach communities. Strategic partnerships with local cooperatives and community-based organisations further institutionalise accountability mechanisms, creating formal feedback loops, community-driven monitoring, and transparent reporting frameworks. These structured approaches empower communities by providing a clear voice, enabling continuous improvement, and ensuring lasting engagement and ownership. Such practices are consistent with the UNDP (2012) findings, which underline that effective community involvement is critical for accountability, sustainability, and the enduring success of development programmes.
- What are the risks of not including grassroots or frontline voices in strategy?
I think that the key risk is that the products or the services that you are providing do not match the actual needs of the people to whom you’re intending to be of service.
For example, I had a recent interaction with a Foundation, that was designed specifically to help entrepreneurs, but was ignorant of their cash flow challenges and asked them to jump through specific hoops that jeopardized their cash flow.
In the simplest terms, the biggest risk is the failure of the initiative. You’re more likely to have poor design of the initiative and not meeting actual needs, a lack of buy-in/resistance, inability to implement, etc.
Fundamentally comes down to ‘giving them a fish or teaching them how to fish’. If the local voice and trust is not build, then any of the work will be short-lived and not sustainable.
Solutions need to be tailored to the people they are serving. This is the fundamental concept that defines business success for any organization, for or not-for profit. People know which solutions they need for themselves, and by not including these voices, we risk developing a solution that is not optimal for the communities they aim to serve.
Hello, this is Tesfaye. Excluding grassroots or frontline voices from strategy can lead to a lack of trust and mutual interest between decision-makers and the communities affected. It often resulting in a mismatch of priorities. This disconnect can undermine the relevance and effectiveness of the strategy, leading to low social impact and raising serious concerns about its long-term sustainability. Its also hard to bring a common ground interest between public and private sectors which can be a barrier for success.
What happens has been and is demonstrated by 95% of so-called development help, or if I dare add, CSRs 
Much of my background has involved working with the private sector on issues of economic policy, working via business associations/chambers of commerce, to get direct local business community input into needed reforms.
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.
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.
I’d like to build on the common sense suggestions included in this list of risks by adding one.
6. Lack of pragmatism.
For example I am an absolute out and out enthusiast for the AIM Progress Converged HREDD Assessment Tool because for me it is comprehensive, coherent, thorough and well articulated… however I have just finished writing an HREDD Study review and set of recommendations for an international NGO where I recommended NOT to follow that approach as the current state / context of the environment in which it would be deployed demands something more rudimentary and immediate in its impact. In essence a “less is more” solution.
Research consistently highlights a direct correlation between community participation, co-creation, and sustained impact. The World Bank (2013) explicitly acknowledges that citizen engagement significantly enhances project outcomes by ensuring interventions are relevant and sustainable. Examples from successful Kenyan enterprises, such as M-KOPA, illustrate that actively co-creating solutions with local communities—such as their pay-as-you-go solar energy model—can address pressing societal issues like energy poverty while driving sustainable business growth.
At 3E Africa, we have embraced co-creation with communities through practical solutions such as frugal innovation initiatives—deploying charcoal-based refrigeration units to enhance local cold chains in resource-scarce environments. Additionally, we leveraged indigenous knowledge by revitalising traditional vegetable cultivation for improved food security, demonstrating positive outcomes compared to standardised seed solutions. Our participatory demonstration farms further exemplify effective co-creation, enabling coffee farmers to test, refine, and adopt agroecological practices tailored specifically to local conditions. This approach aligns closely with IFAD’s evaluation synthesis (2020), which emphasizes that community-driven methodologies strengthen social capital and secure lasting impacts.
A2: Co-creation begins with slowing down enough to truly listen. Not just to gather input—but to shift ownership. In my work, this has meant creating space for people with lived experience to shape the agenda from the start, from defining the problem to determining the path forward. This can be done, for example, through peer-led research, cross-sector design sprints, and feedback cycles. Such activities aren’t one-offs—they’re part of a larger commitment to shared ownership, deep listening, and mutual respect.
Here are some of the things I’ve seen matter most:
• Deep community engagement: Grounding in the local context and prioritizing empathy builds trust and uncovers nuances. This also helps identify and address disconnects between organizational goals and community needs.
• Challenging assumptions: The best co-creation efforts create space to unlearn, not just plan based on inherited assumptions or outdated frameworks.
• Ground-truthing: Strategies only work if they reflect everyday realities.
• Cross-sector partnerships: Collaboration between local leaders and institutions from various sectors unlocks practical innovation and long-term impact. These partnerships can break down silos, identify unnecessary overlaps and gaps, and design cross-cutting yet locally tailored solutions.
Co-creation takes intention, humility, and consistency. And when done well, it doesn’t just lead to better solutions—it transforms relationships and systems.
Led a co-creation/co-design effort among USAID, private companies, private foundation, Smithsonian scientists, and a local NGO about conducting pre-feasibility and feasibility studies for a diversified investment platform focused on standing forest conservation in the Peruvian Amazon. The purpose driving the investment is countering illegal mining, illegal logging, and illegal trafficking of species. Valuable exchange of knowledge from different perspectives adding up to and forming a shared value investment platform
Co-creation is a mindset, not a one-time event. It starts by involving local actors early and often—not just as idea sources, but as invested partners. For example, I have supported and co-facilitated whole-systems workshops with hundreds of local stakeholders to define vision and scope together, shifting from designing for communities to designing with them, rebuilding trust through multi-stakeholder platforms.
True co-creation aligns with partners’ incentives, capacities, and constraints from the outset. In Tajikistan, projects began with joint assessments and targeted support tied to business goals. Crop insurance pilots involved farmers as active research partners, ensuring relevance and buy-in.
It’s also a shift to think more systemically. The shift is from linear “analyze, select, contract” models to systemic, adaptive approaches: analyze, set change objectives, co-create, learn, and adapt. This digs into root causes, focuses on flexible goals (not fixed solutions), and builds coalitions working in coordinated, innovative ways to tackle complex problems.
Here is some guidance that many folks, including field staff closest to solving complex challenges, put together to catalyze long-term change, including through co-creation. It’s one step in the right direction to shift our behavior to more “locally-led” solutions: https://www.acdivoca.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Operational-Guidance-to-Developing-Adaptive-Partnerships-final.pdf)