Welcome to Proximate East Africa, a newsroom that will explore participatory problem-solving approaches across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
In this newsroom we will write about the role of money and power in the field of development, looking across East Africa – and how local leaders can have more control over solving problems to which they are proximate.
We are living in quite an interesting time for the global development sector. The past few years worth of conversations around decolonisation, shifting power, and localisation have suddenly shifted to massive and historic funding cuts in both the public sector and philanthropy.
I see this as a new era for the global development sector. Simply put, we're getting comfortable with being uncomfortable because we need to be, and we're having conversations that challenge how we have always thought about and practiced development.
So, how do we ensure that this new era of development does not turn into a new error? We can create systems for participatory problem-solving.
A new regional newsroom
Participatory problem-solving refers to modes of decision-making that place collective community expertise at the forefront. That includes participatory grantmaking, mutual aid, democratic investing models, and participatory democracy.
In this newsroom, we’ll explore contemporary and traditional participatory problem-solving techniques that have been developed and implemented by communities in East Africa. The aim will be to show that only those who experience a problem can solve it, the importance of the utilisation of local assets and the prioritisation of local ownership towards development processes that lead to the sustainability of solutions.
We’ll explore how community dynamics are unique to every setting, discrediting the viability of a one-size-fits-all approach that seems to be adopted by contemporary problem solvers.
Finally, we’ll acknowledge how some of these models have been politicised and the resulting processes have led to the misappropriation of funds. How can we learn from these past mistakes, and how can we mitigate them from happening again?
Join us on this journey as we ask ourselves the question, what is development? Are we all working to achieve the Western standards of development - which according to me don’t seem to work everywhere? Or is there room for multiple facets of development that match the unique settings of a society?
Let’s learn together!
