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 …
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 …
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 …
Guest post by Megan Campbell, Sr. Research, Learning, and Engagement Consultant at Feedback Labs What does it take to make feedback the expected thing? At Feedback Labs we believe it means getting to a tipping point of leaders and organizations acting in dispersed but coordinated ways — experimenting with different tactics, tools, and techniques, and then coming together regularly to …
Fifty people including citizens, representatives from Community Based Organizations (CBOs), NGOs, INGOs, government, and traditional authorities turned up at the Rumphi Malin Lodge to reflect on their recent efforts to innovate together and address emerging issues of trust and power within their group. They came by bicycle, mini bus, car, motor bike and on foot from almost every corner of …