Reflections on MAVC Community of Practice’s journey
Reflecting on role of community organizations and the impact they may have on government and other institutions
The Making All Voice Count’s Community of Practice (CoP) journey came to an end in late September 2017. Debby Byrne, country engagement developer at MAVC, described the days proceeding as a day of reflecting on the CoP. The goal of the MAVC CoP meeting was to document the successes and failures of the practice. The CoP dates back to 2014, from a concept born in Tanzania from grantees who wanted to learn and share about how to work together to improve processes and services for ordinary citizens. South Africa and Mozambique are two of the countries that have had successful implementation of CoP’s despite its challenges, says Gontse Legong, programme officer at MAVC.
“Other countries haven’t been very successful in implementing the CoP. South Africa has been the most successful, and globally MAVC has seen the most success here [South Africa]. We’re hoping to be able to collect and document what’s happening here,” says Legong.
To get the meeting off the ground 12 posters from the 12 CoP meetings that took place since 2014 were put up on walls at the Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct where the final meeting took place. The posters formed part of the discussions for the day.
The rest of the sessions for the meeting touched on the power of learning together through to how MAVC affected the technology for transparency and accountability space in South Africa and Mozambique.
Although the organisation’s journey with MAVC’s CoP came to an end, they believe they will continue with their projects as many of them have built a series of partnerships and commitments with local organisations.
On the second day, the Civic Tech Innovation Network gathering hosted delegates from various civic tech organisations. The morning started with a keynote address from Nishendra Moodley from the Cities Support Programme at the National Treasury. The programme is aimed at supporting metropolitan cities within their transformation programmes. “Much of the work we do is on the importance of social accountability and what civic tech plays,” he says. He added that government needs to find ways of strengthening accountability.
Following his address, there were several sessions that guided the participants on remembering and rounding up their journey with MAVC’s CoP. JamLab director Indra de Lanerolle shared results from a survey on setting the landscape. He recapped on MAVC’s CoP of why it was useful, what the possibilities are and what the CoP has been doing to build an innovation network that will continue to evolve and grow without the support from MAVC.
Throughout the day there were different poster sessions where different organisations were able to share and talk about their projects and the work that they do. In between these poster sessions, delegates networked and participated in various activities.
To round up the day’s proceedings, participants where again divided into several groups where they discussed what each organisation has and what they can contribute to network building within the CoP going forward.
From here onwards, the network will continue to collaborate with and learn from each other in using technologies in responsive governance, transparency and accountability. The aim is to continue collaborating and continue with a CoP that can be useful and reach out to more organisations within the sector.
The full report from CTIN’s final meeting will be published soon.
