|
Webinar: Leadership for Organizational Resilience
|
|
|
|
This month we also invited Taaka Awori from Busara Africa to deliver an online session on leadership for organizational resilience- a guide on how to effectively use leadership to practice reliance. This is of particular relevance and importance for many organizations that have had to weather a pandemic as well as uprisings around the globe as well as their implications. Taaka Awori has more than ample experience in leadership training and organizational development, making her the perfect person to deliver this session. This webinar was organized in partnership with East Africa Philanthropy Network and Busara Africa.
If you missed it, you can listen to the discussion below.
|
|
|
|
Leadership for Organizational Resilience Zoom video.
|
|
|
Guest Contribution:
Interview with Nana Asantewa Afadzinu, Executive Director of the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI).
|
|
|
Can you please tell us a bit about yourself and your organisation?
My name refers to the Asante queen mother who fought the British at a time when the men were afraid. She rose up to lead an against the invading . Thus, the spirit of fighting injustice is something that is innate. and I am a lawyer by profession. From the time I was called to the bar just after a very short stint with the legal firm that I was working with, I started working for on and ' (the ACHPR) as a lawyer.This is how I got myself into the work of human rights, governance, civil society. I do not miss private practice at all - I feel fulfilled in what I am doing now - working with the civil society and looking at social justice and social accountability issues.
The organisation that I work for now, was set up in 2005 to strengthen civil society in West Africa.You cannot do things for the people without them, and civil society is the people. Therefore, WASCI works to strengthen civil society, to enable them to play the role that they can play in development. Our goal is to make civil society more effective, efficient and sustainable. We do that in a number of ways: through training, knowledge creation, and policy advocacy. We look at the civil society as a sector even though it is more than that.We want to make sure that we provide everything that makes that sector vibrant, efficient and effective. Our primary constituency is West Africa; and WASCI is a capacity development organisation for civil society.
How would you describe the philanthropy sector in your context, what are the main trends and challenges?
What I would call a philanthropic sector in West Africa is an interesting one, mainly because when you mention philanthropy the impression that comes in mind is the westernised idea of philanthropy; the wealthy giving to the poor, and it is often done through institutions. This is the kind of philanthropy that has also supported the civil society sector particularly NGOs for many years in West Africa. However, we do have our own kind of philanthropy, what scholars have looked at and called African Philanthropy. I think the challenge with that is even though we have our giving and people give to families, friends, religious institutions, they give to their community institutions, they do not give to the kind of institutions that support the work of social justice and social accountability. To some extent, they give to the work that supports social protection, because they are looking at welfare, but when it comes to particularly social justice and social accountability, the kind of giving that we have in Africa does not look at that. That is where I see a gap. The infrastructure does not currently support African philanthropy and it is not given priority.All the NGOs are relying on external funding because the legal framework, the legal policies, the institutional framework that has to support local resource mobilisation is limited.
The opportunity is that, even if it is a challenge, now as we look more and more particularly with donor funds dwindling, the external philanthropy that we have so much depended on is becoming more and more constraint. Many organisations are being forced to look from within, to build an infrastructure and to start conversations about local resource mobilisation.
What are you doing as an institution in promoting African philanthropy or community led development in your work?
We focus on civil society sustainability and we look at sustainability from many angles. Civil society itself in our country must have a change of mindset, we must be reoriented to start looking within for support. This is what we do at WASCI, we have a training programme, we publish materials, we do research around local philanthropy to produce information that can help civil society to mobilise local resources for sustaining their work. We do that with a number of partners, for example Africa Philanthropy Network (APN) has supported us to do some research, Change the Game Academy (CtGA), Global Fund for Community Foundations (GFCFs) and also Star Ghana Foundation. We work with a number of partners looking at the local philanthropic culture, system, infrastructure, data, and policy to make sure that we are able to get to a place whereby local philanthropy supports social justice, accountability and protection work. We focus on creating knowledge in the sector and for aid organisations to think about alternative resource mechanisms. We have been looking at alternative ways that organisations can resource the work that they do and we have come up with a publication on alternative funding mechanisms. We did the research with Innovation for Change Hub. We are also very active in supporting institutions like the Star Ghana Foundation, an initiative that is Ghanaian owned, the first of its kind. We are active in supporting it to succeed. We are also engaged in advocacy internally with the Ghana Government, particularly looking at Ghana Beyond AID.We have said Ghana Beyond AID should also take into consideration local philanthropy. We have been working with the Ghana SDG Platform to advocate and engage the Ghana Government to take a more critical look at local philanthropy and support it.
We are also part of the Shift The Power movement, which is looking at the global ecosystem of the international aid and international development system. The movement is saying that we should look at how to balance the power, address the inequalities, and shift more resources to the global south, making sure there is balance and support of local knowledge and local resources. We are also part of a project that is looking at Reimagining the INGOs, looking at the whole INGO ecosystem as a critical player which could support better power balance. WASCI works in all these different ways to look at this particular problem of giving more value to local resources and making sure that it becomes a critical part of what we do in building local philanthropy and making sure that it gets the support.
How can philanthropy encourage innovation at the grassroots?
They say that necessity is the mother of all inventions, so currently we find ourselves in a position where we actually do not have a choice. We must look inwards. I think when we look inwards, we find resources and more sustainable solutions to our problems. Local philanthropy would come out that way, where we continue to push for it and give it the support, invest in building it because then if we are supporting ourselves, whatever that we are doing is ours, we own it and it is more sustainable.
As for the innovation, I believe that being pushed into the corner will force us to be innovative, that is why we are coming up with different ways of resourcing the sector and civil society organisations (CSOs) are doing different things now. When you read the alternative funding publication that we published, you will see the different ways in which civil society across Africa are looking at funding their work. However, when it comes to local philanthropy, particularly Africans giving, we would have to come up with more innovative ways of doing it. It would come up not only because it is necessary to do it, but with the emphasis that when CSOs are supported locally or the people, the citizens see themselves in the work that CSOs are doing, they will in return give their support. There has to be a connection, but at this point, l think there is a bit of a disconnect because even though the work of these CSOs benefits citizens, the accountability goes to their donors, mostly external and not communities that are beneficiaries of what they are doing.
Therefore, the communities do not necessarily connect that way with the work that is being done. If we are going to shift the accountability towards the beneficiaries, they would give and also ask for that accountability. We would have to invest more in that, how do we build trust? How do we build community? We know that in Africa, we are communal, Ubuntu, I am because you are, you are because I am, we are connected and therefore people will give if they feel they are part of that community. If citizens are part of the social justice work, they will give more and CSOs would account to them. Those are some of the things that I think about when it comes to innovation.
How do you believe philanthropy support organisations (PSOs) can improve and expand the available data on philanthropy?
I believe we have to document what we do provide that data. I also believe that organisations like APN need to have something like a repository where you would have information on African Philanthropy. People should be able to come to APN and ask what is the philanthropic culture like in Ghana, what is the policy framework and you either have the information or you can direct them to where they can get the information. We need our Governments to also take local philanthropy seriously and invest in the infrastructure that supports it. That is an important thing that philanthropy organisations can also advocate for, our organisations should invest in local philanthropy research, and we should look at our academic institutions. I only know of one in Africa that focuses on African philanthropy, I do not know if there are any others, apart from Wits University in South Africa. Yet, Cambridge University has just set one up; there is another one in the USA. What about us? The question is how are we investing in our own philanthropy research in that area?
I think that is one of the areas where we should improve, we need to fund more research and we need to bring the discussions about African Philanthropy into the main global discourse so that when you say philanthropy it is no longer the philanthropy of the west. When you say philanthropy, African philanthropy is also given the same respect and value that we give to western philanthropy. We also need to use technology to invest in getting the relevant data. The world is now driven by data, so if we do not invest in data somebody else will do it and they will own it. APN should consider building the repository that I am talking about.
How is being a member of APN strategic for your work or work being done in the continent?
APN has widened our network, particularly looking at the work that we do on philanthropy. Being a member of APN has connected us to other members who are like-minded and doing the same work. I met people like Jenny Hodgson of GFCF at the last APN conference in Mauritius and connected Star Ghana with the Foundation. It has widened our network of contact; we are all now part of the Shift the Power movement because of such connections. APN has invested and supported a very critical research in Ghana on the philanthropic sector particularly looking at the legal and policy framework that we have in Ghana. We are also looking at working together as part of a consortium to further advance local philanthropy in West Africa, we are also working with APN on another initiative.
Is Africa’s philanthropic sector changing and evolving on the continent? If yes, how?
Yes, it is evolving but I would say that the evolution has been tilted more towards the Western and Eurocentric form of philanthropy. We are having more organisations that are calling themselves foundations, we have more high net-worth individuals who are coming up with their own foundations. All of that is modelled around the Eurocentric form of philanthropy that we know and have supported. What about our own? Do we even know it that well and how do we build on it or we just have a hybrid? Scholars and APN members are advocating for something like that. How do we evolve a kind of infrastructure that is embracing our cultures, our values and what is it that we are as Africans? I do not see a lot more of that evolution happening and these are some of the critical conversations that I believe APN should lead. Even as we do research and gather data, we need to be asking ourselves very critical questions around where we want to grow. We can build these foundations just like they do in Europe but is that sustainable in the long term for us as Africans? Is the model African?
In your work, how are you addressing the power structures that perpetuate poverty and marginalization in your country or on the continent? How do we make sure that the power within the international development system becomes more balanced?
There is group that has been set up by DFID, even though they are becoming swallowed by the foreign office, we always advice on the things that they should be looking out for. I am constantly hammering on this information about addressing power structures. The kind of international NGO boards that we find ourselves on, we are pushing the same agenda. We are also working on the reimagining INGOs initiative, which is looking at addressing power and looking at the balancing of resources. We are also having the same conversations internally, discussing with civil society to look at the way we engage amongst ourselves and even open up the space for more organisations. If we are shifting the power, it is not only about the global north and global south, it is also within our own ecosystem, within our countries and within the regions. Even when we speak against inequality, it is important for civil society to introspect and see how we practice what we are preaching. There is an African saying which says “when you point one finger and someone, the other fingers are pointing at you”.
In a changing development landscape, what are some of the strategies you are exploring an institution for sustainability?
There are a number of things that we have looked at, firstly changing our mindsets, to really look at ourselves and say this is where we want to go and these are the things we need to do. For us, OSIWA was a major donor; we very dependent on them. In exploring sustainability strategies, we had to look at our organisation to identify what services we have, what we can offer to ensure that we can get funding that is not earmarked. We thought about how do we then package those services and how do we market them particularly to the constituency that we are working with, taking into consideration that we are not a profit-making organisation? We are an organisation that exist to serve, so how do we make sure that we serve the people, they benefit from what we are doing and we do not run bankrupt while doing that. The second thing we had to ask ourselves is how does the constituency we serve become a critical part of our program and what we do? Like I said, if we are going to go to our constituency and ask for their support, they have to trust us, they have to feel that they are a part of what we are doing.
We also had to enhance our own visibility; these questions helped us to think. How do we make sure we are relevant, so that if WASCI is not there, organisations will be asking where is WASCI? We have been one of the main champions lobbying for support for core funding, technology for civil society, today with COVID-19 pandemic everyone is beginning to see what WASCI has been talking about for years.
Another question we asked ourselves was how do we grow our reserves? In this, I am not only talking about our finances but even our people, assets and material reserves so that we become a more resilient institution. We bought land as an asset, we wanted to build an office and have training facilities that we would hire out. We now own land and we have started building our reserves and we invested a lot in our staff, in our people, so that they are capable and qualified and motivated, who want to work for the institution. We also planned ahead, asking ourselves what our future looks like?
|
|
|
Visit the APN website to stay up to date with our events and activities.
|
|
|
|
|
|
