Happy New Year! As in the case of many folks who start the year with a list of new year’s resolutions, we too stepped into 2020 reflecting upon what we want out of this year at Root Change. Intentional learning from, and sharing of our knowledge and resources with fellow development practitioners made it to the top of the list …
From 2014 to 2018 the Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement (SACE) project in Nigeria sought to build a stronger, more resilient, and more nimble Nigerian civil society by strengthening the capacities of civil society actors to form common agendas, coordinate strategies, align outcome measurements, and share knowledge. SACE organized 18 clusters of civil society organizations working on clearly-defined thematic issue areas with …
This post was originally published by MERL Tech on December 17, 2019. It is the result of an opportunity to present a five-minute Lightning Talk on Pando LLS at the MERL Tech DC conference in Sept 2019. “Localization”, measuring local ownership, USAID’s Journey to Self-Reliance… We’re all talking about these ideas and policies, and trying to figure out how to …
From 2014 to 2018 the Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement (SACE) project in Nigeria sought to build a stronger, more resilient Nigerian civil society by strengthening the capacities 18 clusters of civil society organizations working on clearly-defined thematic issue areas to form common agendas, coordinate strategies, align outcome measurements, and share knowledge. SACE organized with shared visions for change. To support this …
How can all of us in the social sector become more accountable to the communities we seek to serve? How can those of us on the outside, who act as funders, implementers, or intermediaries identify and support community-led approaches to change? GlobalGiving, in partnership with Root Change and other members of the Movement for Community-Led Development, has been shepherding a …
This post was originally published by MERL Tech on November 18, 2019 and was written by Alexis Banks and Rachel Dickinson at Root Change, in collaboration with Jennifer Himmelstein at ACDI/VOCA. Social network analysis (SNA) is a powerful tool for understanding the systems of organizations and institutions in which your development work is embedded. It can be used to create …
Over the past two years, Root Change, Youth and Society (YAS), and Keystone Accountability have supported district level social labs in Mulanje and Rumphi, Malawi as part of the USAID Local Works program. As USAID-funded support for the social labs came to an end, we worked with the labs to craft a Constituent Report to showcase their activities, highlight the …
The development sector increasingly recognizes the need for organizations to embrace adaptive management practices to achieve lasting change to address systemic and complex social issues. For those who are new to this methodology, “Adaptive rigour: bridging the art and science of adaptive management,” breaks down the concepts well. However, finding the right tools, metrics, or signals to help inform adaptations …
This post was originally published by the Global Partnership for Social Accountability on July 9, 2019. “We need the local people themselves to prescribe solutions to the problems they’re facing, and they must be able to lead in testing and implementing those solutions.” Charles Kajoloweka, Founder and Executive Director of Youth and Society (YAS) in Malawi. The importance of locally led development …
This post was originally published on the CIVICUS blog on June 28, 2019. Real change happens when local communities are in the lead—leveraging their assets, ideas, and expertise to implement solutions to their own problems. Unfortunately, too often, development initiatives bypass local communities and local resources in designing and carrying out programmes. At Root Change, we aim to break this pattern …
