Facilitating multi-actor change

Facilitating multi-actor change

Boosting the honey trade – Ethiopia

In English: Facilitating multi-actor change, article 16 pages, Dec. 2010
In French: Facilitation des processus plurilateraux, article de 16 pages, dec 2010

In the practice of capacity development, there has been a gradual shift away from training individuals to strengthening organizations. Currently, the emphasis seems to be shifting again; from working with single organisations to facilitating multi-stakeholder processes (MSPs).

Donor agencies are learning that most development challenges cannot be addressed by individual organisations. Agencies face the challenge of developing new ways of providing funding that allow for effective engagement with MSPs.

Donors face the challenge in ensuring that established donor-recipient relationships do not undermine support for MSPs. Donors need to recognise that they are also part of the system and that their role can beneficial but also harmful to MSPs.

Facilitating MSPs requires considerable skill. Many of these competencies can be acquired through research, while others are honed through experience. While MSPs may be about working towards a common vision, they are also an arena for power games. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

“The role of a trusted broker is to decrease the levels of risk for actors to engage and who helps them to do things that they did not consider feasible before” (Kenyan advisor, Thomas Were, one of the co-authors of enclosed article.

Interview with Advisor Thomas Were on the new livestock market in Samburu, Kenya

Related:

The Change Alliance is an emerging global network of organisations joining forces to increase the effectiveness of the multi-stakeholder processes in which they engage. Its aim is to help improve the quality of the design, dialogue, learning, and facilitation, on which these processes depend. The logic of the Alliance is that complex problems demand a new dynamic of how governments, citizens, business and civil society organisations work together. On the NING, their online learning platform you will find interesting discussions, a Q&A section, blogs and announcements from members of the Change Alliance. For a short introduction to the change alliance you can read and share the four-pager "the Change Alliance in a nutshell"