Multimedia

ECDPM event

Workshop

Facilitating social innovation: Appreciating critical junctures in multi-stakeholder processes for development

By invitation only

At the heart of social innovation are social actors, stakeholders who find innovative ways to relate, communicate and act in order to address “entrenched social challenges”. Social innovation is a well-known phenomenon: it is people trying to organise themselves in effective ways to achieve (some of) the objectives they see as vital to their lives and the future of their children. It is governments, institutions and civil society engaging to secure human rights are respected. It is companies engaging the government to improve the business environment. And it is companies, governments and civil society engaging in public-private partnerships to achieve common objectives.

Facilitators of social innovation support multi-stakeholder processes in order for these to be effective and to achieve sustainable results. Facilitators may be insiders or outsiders who facilitate process enhancing: dialogue, networking and learning; knowledge brokerage, meeting moderation e-exchanges and problem solving amongst the stakeholders who are driving the process. Over the past decades professionals engaged in facilitating multi-stakeholder processes have gained a good deal of practical knowledge and experience in process facilitation. They have done so integrating different schools of thought into their approaches, instruments and tools.

We are convinced that facilitators of social innovation today can benefit from the art, craft and science developed by those who have facilitated multi-stakeholder processes for development. Furthermore, bringing together professional facilitators from a variety of backgrounds, who use different approaches in diverse areas of work will enhance individual as well as collective learning processes. For this purpose we propose to organise a workshop where participants will have the opportunity to discuss what they do and how they do it, share what they know, and interrogate the kinds of results they achieve.

Please find the full programme here.