AYIN Reviewing and development of 'local' theories
From Harambee Wiki
Results of interview with 'Gbenga Sesan by Riff Fullan to reflect on AYIN's experiences to date. Interview conducted at the XXXXX workshop, Kampala, xxxx.
Contents |
General Background on AYIN
AYIN's objective is to provide opportunities for youth to get involved in ICT4D activities. It is a Pan-African initiative, but is adopting a phased approach, building first on networks in a few countries.
The AYIN Action Plan that was funded by Harambee had several key goals: 1) Streamline ICT4D youth activities in Africa, thereby making them more efficient (and also aligning them with the AYIN constitution) 2) Serve as a platform for youth activities related to ICT4D 3) Establish a secretariat (to give the network a focal point and administrative/legal hub) 4) Highlight ICT4D best practices
Expected outcomes included: Sustainability Legally established secretariat Set of case studies
The idea was for these to contribute to African youth moving from activism to advocacy and into evident results.
With this background, the interview proceeded to explore with 'Gbenga how things went from the initial stages of the Action Plan to today.....
Question 1 - Situation
1a+b. In what ways were we mistaken about the situation, and which assumptions about it misled us?
First was the volume of funding. There was a hope it would be enough to establish a full secretariat and conduct a number of activities. There was a need to better match the needs of AYIN with the financial resources available.
Then there was documentation....a realization that AYIN needed to document best practices and situations in different countries.
1c. What have we learned? What different conclusions will we reach about similar situations in future?
We need to develop more effective facilitation to enable networks to do their work better. Also, for AYIN, we realized that we needed a CEO to enable daily running of the secretariat and ongoing decision making, in cooperation with an advisory committee. We also realized the need for maturity to deal with personality clashes as the network came organically out of the commitment and dedication of a few people who were activists.
Also, we need to take better advantage of technology to coordinate network activities.
Finally, we raised our awareness of the difference between results from paid work and work that you do from passion.
[Note On questions 2 and 3- Outcomes and Actions: The notes from the interview did not capture specific responses to some of the questions, although the responses that were captured provide a strong indication of the learning AYIN has incorporated into its thinking. Thus, the questions will be summarized, and the remaining responses from the interview follow]
Question 2 - Outcomes
2a. In what ways was I mistaken about the desirability of the pursued outcomes? 2b. Which of my reasons for favouring those outcomes misled me? 2c. What have I learned? What outcomes will I try to pursue when next I'm in such a situation?
Question 3 - Actions
3a. Did I succeed in carrying out the planned actions? If not, what prevented or discouraged me? What have I learned about myself, my skills, my attitudes, and so on? 3b. If I did carry out the actions, in what ways was I mistaken about the effect they would have? Which of my assumptions about the actions misled me? 3c. What have I learned? What actions will I try next time I am pursuing similar outcomes in a similar situation.
In terms of things AYIN would do differently next time, we would emphasis increasing network efficiency. It is important to listen to failures of other networks, for example to inform dealing with secretariat and administrative issues.
Also, we would try to make more use of new learnings.
We will be looking to ensure a strong CEO is established. This creates more opportunity, but also with opportunity comes responsibility.
Learning Utilisation: One final question used to support learning utilisation... "When will be your next opportunity to make use of your new insights? What will you do to make use of them?"
It is important to harness passion and volunteerism (youth activism and advocacy) and crystallize it into a more formal (stronger, more efficient, legal) network.
There needs to be a clear-cut structure (with member roles and responsibilities identified) and more efficient network coordination.
It is crucial to learn from the challenges of other networks and to document best practices.
