Equity-Based Research and Action

Welcome to our fourth edition of the Equity-Based Research and Action Newsletter.

For new subscribers, my name is Jess, and I am the founder of Equity-Based EiE consulting. After a decade working in the humanitarian sector, with experience in programme design, research, and participatory action research, I'm on a mission to support individuals, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations to design equity-based research and programmes. As a practitioner, I am interested in putting theory into practice.

Designing and delivering aid programs is a core function for most humanitarian, international development and community-based organizations. While multilateral reform and changing the current financing models are ultimately needed for systemic change, every non-profit organization or institution working towards global goods could adjust the way they develop programmes- and this small change has the potential to transform aid.

Here is where Equity-Based Design thinking comes in. If in your day to day roles you write project proposals, work in fundraising, manage programmes, design monitoring and evaluation frameworks, decide or influence advocacy agenda, you are a designer. It is worth considering that:

• In your role, you have opportunities to shape how programmes and politics aimed at improving the lives of potentially thousands of people are framed.
• Due to your positionality, you might find yourself in positions and spaces where your voice, perspectives and lived experiences are either valued or excluded.
• In certain spaces, you may be able to leverage your privileges to make sure those at the margins or those most affected by the challenge that you are 'designing for', are in the room, at the table and playing a pivotal role in framing, shaping developing solutions for the issue.

Equity-Based Design thinking rethinks design processes, centres people generally marginalized by design and uses collaborative, creative practices to address our communities' most profound challenges. Equitable design acknowledges that equity doesn't happen by chance but with intent and focus. Unfortunately, as Dean Spade points out in the brilliant Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During Crisis, the non-profit sector can replicate injustice, with hierarchical structures and models that result in the people with the greatest proximity to social problems being the furthest from the decision-making.

However as a wise friend pointed out yesterday, it is very easy to blame the inequity and exclusion that is rampant in the sector on someone else or another entity or institution within the non-profit sector. Whilst of course there are huge asymmetries of power, and structures and relations that perpetuate exclusion, as individuals working within an ecosystem, it is also important to reflect on our own positionalities, agency and opportunities to influence change. This leads to our reflective question of the month:

In what ways are you a designer?

What do you design?

Who is and who isn’t involved in designing solutions, agendas and strategies in your area of work?

Feel free to share your responses on our community padlet

Five things to read, reflect and listen to in November

Read and watch: 'How grantmakers and philanthrophy can shift power'. This article outlines that we need to rebuild new systems of grantmaking that invite marginalized groups to be genuine owners of grantmaking programs and financial resources as we define, design, introduce, and drive new solutions. Participatory grantmaking has been practised for many years and is increasingly being explored, promoted, and strategically used by foundations and collaboratives around the world today. Check out the Participatory Grantmakers site and introductory video for more information. If anyone has come across participatory grantmaking in humanitarian contexts, let me know!

Attend: 'Decolonising Research Webinar Series'. In this webinar series over November, eminent decolonial experts Vineeta Sinha, Linda T. Smith, Raewyn Connell, Walter Mignolo, Sujata Patel & Jeong-Eun Rhee will reflect on some of the critical issues relating to the coloniality/decoloniality of academic research methods and methodologies. Even if you are not in academia, this will be useful for anyone working on research, monitoring and evaluation in the non-profit space.

Listen to: Bon Ku's Design Lab podcast episode Designing for Public Health with Michael Ngigi. In this episode, Director Michael Ngigi discusses how he used design thinking to design public health interventions and solutions with communities across Africa. Using practical examples, they discuss how evidence shows design thinking and human-centred design techniques lead to better project outcomes. Essential listening for anyone working in the non-profit, International Development, Humanitarian aid space looking to improve their practice through collaboration and co-design.

Attend: This year marks the centenary of one of the greatest thinkers in education: Paulo Freire. The Cambridge Latin American Research in Education Collective (CLAREC) partnership with the Faculty of Education community will promote several academic and cultural activities to foster discussions around Freire's work. Events will take place between the 1st and 12th of November 2021. They will be online and free of charge. Access programme overview HERE

Listen to :the New Humanitarian's Rethinking Humanitarianism podcast. In this episode on new approaches to aid reform, the panel discusses how for many years of reform agendas to make the humanitarian sector more inclusive, efficient, and accountable are yet to lead to a radical overhaul of the aid industry. Delve in to hear how new recommendations, based on three years of research by the Washington, DC-based think tank Centre for Global Development, propose four ways to more fundamentally reform the underlying architecture of the aid system.

Project Update: Online Learning Lab launching in 2022

We believe that those closest to the issues should be the people with the loudest voice and the most seats at the design table.

Practitioners, academia and students tell us that they want to embrace amore participatory, collaborative and socially just methods- Our learning lab, which launches in 2022, will give you the tools to turn theory into action.

We will be teaming theory, lived experience and practical action to support anyone interested in being more radically inclusive in their work within the non-profit sector. So whether you work in a small or large non-governmental organisation, study at a University, work in fundraising, advocacy or programme management, this is the space for you. Over the past few months, we have been busy putting together a fantastic learning experience with guest speakers and faculty from across the globe, all with practical knowledge of centring equity in research, programmes and advocacy work.

Rooted in socially-just frameworks, each week, you will access sessions that combine theory, guest speakers , practical tools, readings and methods to apply to your daily work, as well as being part of a community of changemakers determined to reimagine aid.

Sign up here to stay up to date and be the first to receive the founder members membership offer.

If you have any thoughts, suggestions, or recommendations, please don't hesitate to drop me an email at info@jessoddy.com or connect https://linktr.ee/equityeieconsulting. For work inquiries, please check out my website jessoddy.com to see a range of my work and potential areas of collaboration.