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

Partnerships
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Pact Inc. in its 53 year history with community engagement has perfected a number of tools, platforms and methodologies to ensure the local communities find their voice and can become mobilized to be heard. Here is an explanation of how these all work:

Pact views capacity development as an approach, a process and an outcome. Our capacity development work is intentional, goes beyond knowledge transfer, relies on co-creation and co-implementation, incorporates technology in creative ways and agilely works within complex, adaptive systems. Our process aligns with the project life cycle core pillars of scan, analyze, plan, act, and learn, to ground our work in the principles of learning, quality, customization, and partnership.

Our tools and methodologies

Integrated Technical and Organizational Capacity Assessment (ITOCA) — Pact uses a relationship-driven approach to assess organizational capacity with a focus on building on existing strengths. In co-creation with partners, ITOCA is customized to ensure that it can examine organizational, technical, adaptive, and influencing capacities and leads to the development of a change action plan.

Change Action Plans (CAP) — We focus assessment results on co-creating a CAP that outlines organizational needs to improve capacity so our partners can better meet their missions. This process empowers organizations to use data to inform their plans and priorities.

Human-Centered Design (HCD) — Pact implements human-centered design as an approach that identifies underlying causes, creates genuine collaboration with communities, and rapidly prototypes and tests solutions. We currently have an online, asynchronous HCD course developed for communities and local partners.

Organizational Performance Index (OPI) — Pact’s OPI and its sister tools for community groups and government partners (Community Performance Index and Government Performance Index, respectively), are the USAID-endorsed approach for measuring performance improvement. Modeled on global standards, the tools measure performance in the five domains of effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, sustainability, and resilience.

System Mapping — Pact uses iterative, participatory processes to map systems to inform strategy at the program and local partner levels. We draw from Net Mapping, Actor Mapping and Systems Practice to create a best-fit approach for each context.

Network Analysis and Strengthening — Pact utilizes a data-driven approach that brings partners together to collectively act and develop strategies to achieve their goals. The process allows partners to visualize patterns of interaction, ask better questions, deepen understanding of how their network operates, and develop strategies for network strengthening.

Collective Impact (CI) — Pact uses CI as a framework to bring people together to work toward achieving social change when confronting complex social problems. While the idea of collaboration and bringing diverse groups of stakeholders together is not new, CI offers a common language and structured approach to follow that has proven successful in implementation around the world.

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A2: 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.

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Through daily communications . We use zoom daily for an hour and whats app 24 hours/day

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Excluding grassroot voices from strategy risks creating discrepancies between conceptual design and on-the-ground realities. It often results in impractical plans that overlook impact optimization and lack effective measurement. Additionally, it misses the opportunity to identify and leverage hidden local talents that could bring innovative insights when included.

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Co-creation is embedded in how Amref operates. One example is our Digital Health platform, which was designed not solely by technologists, but in collaboration with health workers, community, and local leaders. We held participatory design workshops in rural and urban communities across several African countries to understand real challenges—from mobile data costs to language barriers. This resulted in a more accessible, user-friendly solution that frontline health workers could immediately integrate into their workflows. We’re now expanding the model across maternal health, immunisation tracking, and climate-resilient health systems. For us, co-creation isn’t a one-time activity; it’s an ongoing commitment to designing with, not for, communities.

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NGM co-creates solutions by embedding listening and feedback processes into its work, ensuring that strategies are grounded in the lived experiences of those most affected. This includes early-stage consultations, engaging local leaders as co-designers, and adapting tools to fit specific cultural or community contexts. In initiatives like the Abantu Disruptive Fellowship, NGM builds in regular feedback loops and ensures that fellows and their communities actively shape the programme’s direction.

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A2: During the c. 6 years I spent leading the ESG agenda for Diageo (Global beverage company with 200 premium brands sold in c. 180 countries), we implemented a major shift in the approach to social impact programmes – making sure that they were inclusive by design and a key method we used was co-creation of solutions with the people directly impacted. One of the examples of this is in water stewardship – an area of focus for Diageo for more than 20+ years as it is a beverage company operating in many water-stressed areas around the world (including across Africa and in many sites in India). A key learning from engagement on the ground is that the impact of water replenishment projects can be hugely increased if they are co-created with the local community, especially women as it is women and girls who suffer the most when there is a lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene (missing out on opportunities to go to school and seek paid employment and also put their safety at risk in walking long distances to find water). As a result of this insight and a lot of work in co-creation, water replenishment projects are designed to empower women, with an aim for equal representation of women and men on water committees to oversee the project for the long term and often involve opportunities for female entrepreneurs (for example in running water kiosks for the community). This co-creation has helped to ensure multiple environmental and social benefits from water replenishment work and is helping to make communities and Diageo’s business operations more resilient.

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Human-centred design is a great methodology to get close to peoples’ needs - and desires. Quite often what people might need is different from what they desire, or vice versa. It’s not the providers’ job to judge between these but to see how they can best be met.

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When I worked to design an intervention for an informal settlement in Nepal, we held workshops where we asked guided questions to help the community decide for themselves which solution they needed the most. We used a participatory design method, with a heavy focus on visual prototyping and community discussion.

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We engage directly with the targeted community members in all our programs and interventions. Often, we work with women, community groups, farmers, etc.. I have put below some of my learnings from CARE programs that I believe are essential to support co-creation with communities:

  1. Listen to and understand the barriers and challenges they face and their needs, which shape the program. We use need and contextual assessment; and in emergencies, we conduct rapid analysis.
  2. Collaborating across is critical, as well as working with community groups, traditional leaders, and formal and informal institutions in the community. This shapes our work to identify entry points and engage those who often don’t have access to community platforms. The goal should not always be creating new platforms, more focus should be given on how to leverage and work with existing structures by looking at available structures and platforms; for example, if the program focus on improving access to clean water, the question should start in identifying if there are water committees, and how the community already manages water and who is engaged and who is not.
  3. We also found that community groups are powerful spaces. We have been working with VSLA groups for the past 30+ years, a self-selected and self-managed group. Working with VSLAs to co-create solutions has helped us to identify solutions on how to make financial services accessible for rural communities, women, and other groups who often are unbanked.
  4. Initiatives like Women Respond and Women Lead in Emergencies (WLiE), including other tools we use to support community action planning, needs assessment, and context assessment, are how we work with women and communities and co-create solutions.
  5. We also found that sharing and discussing the data and learning with communities is critical. And always be active to change and adapt tools and processes; the aim is to continuously listen, learn, reflect, and act based on the learning. Making programs and strategies open to learning and change is essential to the process, and as communities see their voice shaping action, you can build better relations and trust.
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At Value for Women, we focus on bringing the needs of women, in all their diversity, to the forefront for business, investment and finance strategy. We work with thousands of businesses, investors and FSPs in emerging markets to translate the needs of women into practical, actionable solutions that these entities can take to enable the creation of products, services and ecosystems that work for women; and create opportunities for them. We focus on how to change the institution/system versus hyper-focusing on ‘changing women’.

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For me, co-creating solutions with directly impacted people involved many audiences, namely working with refugee-led structures like SINGA and others. For this kind of missions I center focus on human experiences in a holistic to include various pserpsectives. This approach shifts from “empowering” to “repowering,” emphasizing agency and enabling genuine co-construction of solutions that serve diverse needs, especially those of “Extreme Users”, multiplying the quality and quantity of champion leaders.

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A3: 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.

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Daily communications through platforms such as whats’spp for the hourly comm and zoom or Teams for the daily

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Hi everyone,My name is Angelina Nyachol and I am the founder of women prosper organization.we work to empower women to know there rights and give back to this women through partnership projects to enable them to take care of there families and their communities towards financial freedom through empowering women in business and towards Good leadership in their communities.

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● 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.

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Co-creating solutions with people directly impacted starts with actively listening to their experiences, understanding how they interpret the causes and potential solutions. It benefit identifying any misunderstandings that may exist to ensure clear and accurate communication. Using both bottom-up and top-down approaches helps bridge community insight with institutional support. Establishing platforms for continuous dialogue such as workshops, learning sessions, and co-creation spaces enables shared understanding and collaborative action. Additionally, leveraging social media and print media strengthens outreach, engagement, and the visibility of community-driven solutions.

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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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Co-creation, in part, requires transformation within an organization to have the capacity to transform the broader system. But systems change requires transformation outside of the organization including changes in networks, power, resources, and culture. This means:  Giving space for others to try new ideas even if they are fundamentally different than our own,
 If those ideas fail, allowing the partner to learn and adapt,
 Expand the boundaries (sectors, etc.) of what is and isn’t allowed (in SOWs, etc.),
 Avoid highly defined problem statements and highly prescriptive scopes of work,
 Recognize there is more than one way to achieve our development objectives,
 Be mindful of unintended outcomes and consequences from changes in factors and actors.

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A3: Listening and accountability aren’t just built into programs—they’re built into relationships. The most effective practices and platforms I’ve seen prioritize proximity, trust, and a willingness to act on what’s heard—not as a checkbox, but as a commitment. These practices work because they center local voices, strengthen shared ownership, and embed continuous learning into the process. Here are a few that stand out:
• Community-based monitoring (CBM): When local groups track progress and hold systems accountable.
• Feedback loops that lead to action: Not just collecting input, but closing the loop—“you said, we did.”
• Participatory design: Bringing communities into the room early, often, and meaningfully.
• Developing cross-cultural fluency and actively addressing power dynamics: This means being intentional about how we listen, who we center in conversations and decisions, and how we make space for shared leadership.

Ultimately, it’s not about having perfect tools—it’s about consistent, respectful presence. When people feel heard and see change, accountability becomes mutual, not transactional.