StakeholderDialogues.net is a first – the interactive learning space for practitioners acting in multi-stakeholder environments goes online.

Online today, StakeholderDialogues.net offers practitioners from the private sector, the public sector, and civil society organizations an interactive learning space about stakeholder dialogues. It conveys the methodology that empowers to make stakeholder collaboration work and thus better face global challenges, secure competitiveness while operating in a sustainable way. Unlike conventional approaches, StakeholderDialogues.net equips practitioners with an integrated system that makes a difference and has a real impact on their multi-stakeholder environment.

While a more general theoretical framework of stakeholder dialogues is widespread, there is a lack of practical experience and methodological expertise in this field, especially in developing and emerging countries. Despite the high potential of this kind of approach, not enough stakeholder processes lead to the desired results because the capacity building measures are not adequately accessible on a large scale and with a low threshold. This applies particularly to representatives from developing and emerging countries.

Petra Künkel, Executive Director of the Collective Leadership Institute, explains that “the key to sustainable development lies in bringing together professional competence, stakeholder perspectives, political negotiation and result-oriented implementation. Innovative approaches and new solutions often derive from people’s ability to dialogue and partner for the future. The quality of how we do this, matters. As a combination of comprehensive theory and practical e-learning exercises, StakeholderDialogues.net uses the power of story-telling and case-coaching to enable you to become a stakeholder dialogue expert.”

This is where StakeholderDialogues.net fills a gap. It caters for the growing demand for cross-sector stakeholder cooperation. The platform provides access to specific methodological expertise through web based capacity building. It highlights the added values of the stakeholder approach by means of research, publications, media and documentation of the impact. Access to the established methodological approach through e-learning modules is easy, hence it creates a platform for the exchanges of best practices, builds a network of partners from different sectors who use stakeholder cooperation for improved impact, and contributes to the development of a renowned community of experts. The more people are empowered to use Stakeholder Dialogues as a methodology for profound change, the higher the likelihood that successful stakeholder cooperation becomes the norm. StakeholderDialogues.net introduces the Dialogic Change Model, the Collective Leadership’s core methodological and helps the user put this knowledge into practice by assessing and helping design the steps needed for a successful implementation of stakeholder processes. It is a source of knowledge, knowledge generation, and a means of realizing sustainable management that facilitates the shift from purely profit-oriented towards value-oriented business, a powerful tool for finding joint solutions to shared problems, strengthening social cohesion, improving overall governance, and building trust and relationships for change.

The Collective Leadership is also looking for strategic partners and supporters for StakeholderDialogues.net: engage with us now!

We considered ourselves to be quite well prepared going into this workshop, having already been been closely involved in Silva Mediterranea’s other project activities in Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco throughout 2012.This time, located in a beautiful hotel in the city of Oran in the North West Region of Algeria, we immediately felt overwhelmed by the warm spirit of the 21 participants, who came together from the capital Algiers la Blanche to discuss the nature of dialogue amongst peers.

This said, participants showed a side of Algerian forests that offer a wide range of products and sites close-by its own beautiful beaches and the Mediterranean Sea hardly known to tourists. Further, with its country strategy developed in 2009, Algeria plans to overhaul the country’s agriculture industry, and its key priorities remain to improve current regulations and modernize bureaucracy through public-private-partnerships and by opening markets.

While conducting our tailor-made training “Working with Stakeholder Dialogues”, the growing position of Algerian women in local elections (that took place on 29 November 2012) confirmed their role as an emerging force country-wide. In forestry and agriculture, the active participation of women professionals as engineers, technicians and networkers opened the way during the course towards learning. Engaging in dialogue among stakeholders in a structured and at the same time open manner favored dialogic conversations along the different dimensions of change. These dimensions were intensively exchanged with a view to adopting newly drafted get-together meetings, stakeholder consultations or institutionalized platforms for public- private interventions.

Reflecting on the workshop in Oran, we truly learned how to build working relationships during our exchange on stakeholder opportunities that may effectively bring about impact at different levels of change, addressing issues from rural employment to urban governance and other topics brought up by the various stakeholder groups. One participant noted at the end of the workshop: “Had I known how one can systematically learn about our own challenges and overcome the deadlock of communication in our hierarchies, we could have started dialoging much earlier!”

This morning I left Nairobi, Kenya, where I spent the night on the first stopover of this long journey from one coast of Africa to the other. But my journey started in Maroni, the Comoros – a little set of islands in the Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar. Grande Comore, Mohéli, Anjouan, and Mayotte.

I spent the last week there with Susanne Bauer, my colleague from the CLI, and Gerlinde Reiprich, from Health Focus GmbH, also based in Potsdam. It was the follow up workshop of an exploration mission CLI conducted with Health Focus in June 2012, where Susanne and Gerlinde explored the inner workings of the Global Fund’s “Country Coordinating Mechanism” – CCM for short.

Situation

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, was created in 2002 as an innovative financing mechanism which aims to rapidly raise and disburse funding for programs that reduce the effect of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in low- and middle-income countries.

The Global Fund is structured as a partnership between developed countries, developing countries, the private sector, civil society and affected communities. The CCM mechanism is responsible for overseeing the development of grant proposals and submitting them to the Global Fund for approval, ensuring their ensuing implementation and good governance in the Comoros. The members of the CCM represent their sectors (the Global fund defines 8 sectors) on a volunteer basis.

This particular CCM has existed since the creation of the Global Fund in 2002, but recently has not been able to fill its mandate due to lack of sufficient cooperation between the partners sitting on the CCM causing an impasse in the Global Fund’s fight against Malaria and HIV/AIDS on the Comoros going into the next round of funding. One of the CCMs main targets is to completely eradicate Malaria on the small set of islands, a commitment that needs an effective cooperation at many levels in order to succeed. Additionally, the funds to support this and other projects can only be obtained if the if there is a close collaboration between the local government and civil society organizations to define the scope of a potential grant.

This Tailor Made course in cooperation with Health Focus GmbH was an effort to revitalize the CCM on the Comoros in order to jumpstart the next phase of grant proposals and increase the chances of a successful implementation of these projects.

Why do collaboration efforts so often fail?

Collaboration is not just a question of sitting together on a committee, voting on a budget or even having similar interests or objectives. Collaboration is a conscious and unremitting effort to work together toward a common goal with another group of stakeholders. It is a willingness to listen to others’ opinions and preoccupations, to take them into account and when it comes down to the line to even make compromises. Until now, the Global Fund CCM in the Comoros was not collaborating effectively – a fact to which they would openly admit.

Approach

One can often put the blame on rigid and predefined formal structures by saying that the form does not fit the function. But when one does not have the choice – which is often the case – it is important to look at how to give such a structure the best possible chances of survival and of fulfilling its mandate.

In my opinion, creating an enabling environment – in this case the right setting and structure to promote dialogue – is an important factor in helping collaboration and co-creation take place. The right setting can help the collective intelligence of a group emerge and permit generative dialogue leading to a noticeable improvement in trust, understanding and mutual respect. This eventually leads to ownership and implementation of agreed upon activities.

Transformation

This is what happened during the 4 day CCM Workshop in Maroni, on the Comoros Islands. Despite a slight fluctuation in the size of the group  – and of the electricity – the group was able to grow together and develop a common understanding of what the CCM is, why it exists, and how each different stakeholder can contribute to its effective operation. New members were able to quickly grasp the complicated structures of the Global Fund and be integrated into the immediate actions the CCM needs to take in order to become operational. A space was created to discuss existing issues, explore misunderstandings and misconceptions and jointly take a step towards the fight against Malaria, Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

A general assembly of the CCM including its President, and 2 Vice presidents was scheduled to take place directly after the workshop. In the past, the secretariat was surprised if even half of the members showed up to the assembly. This time it had to be different. On the last evening before the assembly in a display of genuine leadership, several key members – a “container” if you will – of the CCM decided to go door to door, engaging each of the CCM members and inviting them personally to the general assembly the next day. As a result of this engagement process, over 90% of the members showed up to the assembly, not only reenergizing and confirming the members’ commitment but also producing tangible results and next steps. Several key committees were formed, which are responsible for monitoring and evaluation and preparation of the grant proposals. Further meetings to dialogue on other issues that were deemed important during the general assembly.

This is a perfect example of how it is often necessary to integrate elements of Phase 1 (Exploring and Engaging) of the Dialogic Change Model even when in the middle of Phase 3 (Implementing and Evaluating). It’s never too late to engage stakeholders, no matter which Phase of a Stakeholder Dialogue you are in!

We are just dodging in and out of beautiful white cumulus congestus clouds above Burkina Faso, the voyage on to Dakar continues!

Working with people and organisations, I often meet people who are overworked, rushed, with dwindling personal relationships, haunted by overexposure to new technology and usually exhausted.

In this respect, sustainability leaders cannot be greatly distinguished from those who can be observed anywhere in an international business setting: who would dare to admit that they work less than 12 hours a day? How do you even spell weekend or holiday?

Recently, we had a guest from a global consulting firm at our German office who admitted that whenever he integrates soft aspects (such as collective reflection, dialogue or relationship building) into his projects with large multinational companies, it is exactly this part of the proposal that gets cut first by his clients.

What counts in the sustainability effort, as much as in all other less-questioned business settings, is “flatland”. The term can be attributed to US author Ken Wilber, who describes it as the world out there that most of us call reality (as if all other parts of life were not real). It is the world of key performance indicators, quarterly reports, monitoring systems and incentive schemes. It is the dominant culture that determines not only the corporate world, but also government and civil society organisations.

Who can afford to not have performance contracts and impact monitoring?

There is nothing fundamentally bad about flatland – we need to measure our progress, we need structures to hold complexity at bay, we need technologies to push us into the future and we need rules that govern our societies. We need to give evidence that sustainability is possible and that it works. We need to make it work for business.

Will flatland get us to sustainability?

What is disturbing is that we somehow create another separate world, which Wilber terms wonderland, a world where different things count: our personal development, our spiritual growth, our zest for life, our heart’s passion, our ability to be with others in mutually supportive communion, our appreciation of others as fellow human beings. And there’s our way of being in dialogue with nature, with ourselves and with our colleagues, our capacity to learn collectively, our competence to co-create a more sustainable future, our feeling of being connected to something larger than ourselves, our longing for meaning. We do this almost as if both worlds – wonderland and flatland – need to be mutually exclusive; one can only exist at the expense of the other. As rational human beings, we know that we need more balance.

But is balance the only issue here? Or do we need a shift in mindset? Can we attempt to rethink the unchallenged assumption that these two worlds need to be separated?

In an article published by the Ashridge Business School, Dave Bond and Emma Dolman argue that meditation as a practice of mindfulness in leadership has slowly become a more prominent feature of leadership development programmes. In a research project I carried out with 14 leaders from 8 different countries, it became evident that intention is a potent driver for mapping one’s path towards leadership for sustainability. It is the underlying quest that is re-awakened through reflection, dialogue, and encounter – but also times of solitude – that helps leaders to reshape their contribution to sustainability, and guides them to achieving a deeper fulfilment.

How can we become more creative with integrating the two worlds?

If we are serious about co-creating a more sustainable world, we need to re-integrate the worlds we have separated, and defragment what are actually parts of a whole. In his recent book, Joseph Jaworski shows that integrating wonderland into flatland can be more than just productive. He argues that the capacity for dialogue and acute listening skills can help increase mutual understanding and respect for difference in teams, and that meditation practices can often lead to financially measurable outcomes.

However, it can also work the other way round: one can use tools from flatland in wonderland. High-quality Stakeholder Dialogues in sustainability initiatives provide a space for people to collaborate constructively. They can offer a ground for true social, environment and economic innovation.

If we want to build our capacity for co-creating a more sustainable future we need both flatland and wonderland – we need to refuse the divorce and get marriage counselling. The world is one and both worlds belong together.

Outer action (individually and collectively) and inner development, as well as attention to the way we are with each other, need one another and have a reciprocal effect – if one is missing, the other is lost or falls short of its potential.

Petra Kuenkel is founder and director of the Collective Leadership Institute

This article originally appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday 17 April 2012. Click here to view the original

At the beginning of May, 2012, a national road map on political dialogue in the health sector was signed by local and international partners including the EU and the WHO. Susanne Bauer and Andrew Aitken recently travelled to Togo to support the implementation of the national health plan in the local districts during a tailor made training on Stakeholder Dialogues with district and national health representatives.

Having to leave Berlin on a Sunday morning and then more than an hour of delay in Paris was quickly compensated when we received an upgrade to Business Class because the flight Paris-Lomé was overbooked. We gratefully accepted!

Our counterpart from the WHO picked us up personally from the airport and brought us directly to the IBIS hotel, which turned out to have a spectacular ocean view – but our rooms were on the city side of the hotel…

On Monday we were informed that several participants had been swapped out last minute, and that there would no longer be any female participants, as was originally planned. This would be something new for me, seeing as how I am currently the only male staff at the CLI!

To our pleasure, we worked for four intensive days with a group of dynamic and highly qualified doctors, medical professionals, and representatives from international organizations who all were eager to explore what the main goal of the seminar was about: to support the EU/WHO project on policy dialogue in the health sector, currently being implemented in 3 pilot countries (Sierra Leone, Liberia and Togo). This EU/WHO project is spearheading the development and implementation of the national health plan in Togo, a plan developed in dialogue with all the stakeholders in the health sector. This was not the first time Togo has developed such a plan – 2 others had been developed since the mid 90s. This is, however, the first time one was developed based on a cross-sector dialogue approach, which led to the recent signing of a national compact between all actors to formalize their engagement and insure implementation.

Amongst other actors, we worked with 10 district heads in charge of implementing the national health plan locally in their own districts. It became clear during the workshop how important the initial engagement process would be in guaranteeing that both  local actors and the local representatives of the organizations that signed the compact would proceed with its implementation. In several working groups, we designed and discussed an engagement process that will be tested in several districts, learning’s shared and the process adapted for the specificities of the other districts.

One main supporting factor was the initial “container” build during the course, these stakeholders will now have a common ground to begin the challenging process which lies ahead. This was reconfirmed when the Minister of Health joined-in to stress Togo’s commitment during the last day of our workshop, in cooperation with the local European Union delegation. The Minister, the WHO representative in Togo, a representative from the EU and the CLI facilitators handed over the certificates to the participants at the end of the celebration, applauding their renewed engagement.

Of course, before leaving Lomé on Friday night to head back to Berlin, we made sure to stop by the famous Bavarian restaurant “Bena Grill” in Lomé with our counterparts from the WHO. The beer was definitely German!

Susanne Bauer and Silvine Gerlach spent a week in Hammamet, Tunisia working with the GIZ and members of the Tunisian National Forestry Directorate 

Upon arrival in Hammamet Sud, it did not take long for us to realize that we had landed in one of those hotels that had seen better days – back in the 1990s or even before that…!

Our first check-in with the group of 20 participants went smoothly, all of them confirmed that the idea of meeting in a more remote location was just right – they all had come from the various regional or national forestry departments, or even from far away Algiers to dialogue among practitioners, experts and project directors. Moreover, a Tunisian tourism expert joined-in to test the ground of how the idea of eco-tourism would be received by the forestry colleagues. Since Tunisia is only ranked at place # 5 today amongst all Arab tourist destinations, wouldn’t it be a good idea to try to move it up in the rankings?

Yes it was indeed a good idea – because Tunisian forests offer a wide range of products and leisure sites beyond the beautiful beaches and the Mediterranean sea, which are hardly known to most tourists.

So this is how the Tunisian group learned to engage in dialogue among stakeholders, both in a structured manner as well as engaged in dialogic conversations along the different dimensions of change. Here they all interacted, be it for a regular coming-together or a singular stakeholder consultation, or to launch institutionalized platforms of public exchange or private interventions to start-up in business. What was most important was the work on “HOW-TO“ engage in dialogue can to test and learn by doing, in brief: experience real dialogue!

And to conclude our CLI-event in Hammamet, we also learned to joke in French:

C’est l’histoire d’un jeune homme qui arrive avec sa voiture 4×4 au niveau d’une montagne aux Alpes où il y a un nombre très important de brebis…le jeune dit au berger: « si je Vous dis combien d’animaux vous avez, est-ce que vous m’en donnez un…? »  Le berger répond: « ok ».

Le jeune fait sortir de moyens de haute technologie (antenne parabolique, Ordinateur etc…) et après quelques minutes il dit: « Vous avez 2197 têtes d’animaux. »Le berger confirme le chiffre et demande au jeune de prendre un de ses animaux. Mais juste avant que le jeune parte le berger lui dit:

« Si je Vous dis quel est votre métier, est-ce que vous me rendez mon animal? » Le jeune dit: « ok. » Le berger dit alors: « Vous êtes un expert. » Le jeune demande: « Comment Vous avez su? »

Le berger dit: « Par trois choses: un expert te tombe dessus sans préavis ni information. Vous venez me dire quelque chose que je connais. Vous ne savez pas de quoi Vous parlez – rendez-moi mon chien. »

Cross-sector initiatives and complex co-operation projects have become key elements for global and local change toward more sustainable development. Effective water resource management requires not only co-ordination between different public sector entities, but also productive co-operation between public sector, private sector and civil society actors, and collaboration across borders.

Effective water resource management requires not only co-ordination between different public sector entities, but also productive co-operation between public sector, private sector and civil society actors, and collaboration across borders.

The absence of living wages in some Asian countries is not a local phenomenon, but the result of a wide range of global factors that cannot be influenced by factories in Bangladesh alone. Shifting the system so that it empowers textile workers to receive wages that are sufficient to feed their families requires an approach that cannot afford to leave out any of the actors throughout the entire value chain: workers, factory owners, buyers, retailers, consumers, governments, and NGOs.

Such cross-sector initiatives and complex co-operation projects have become key elements for global and local change toward more sustainable development. The proof of these sustainability endeavors is in the achievement of tangible (and measurable) results that often require the commitment and collaboration of various actors.

Leadership in a collaborative context suggests concepts that take into account the diversity of internal and external stakeholders and foster the ability to create acceptable solutions for all. Collective action for sustainability must be guided by a leadership paradigm that is inspirational, fosters commitment by various actors and acknowledges the role of collective contributions to decision-making. Leading, here, can be seen as a co-creative process that often begins with a small group of people and aims at profound collective change.

Learning to engage

Overcoming the challenges that lie ahead requires building teams within organizations or across several institutions. Different organizational cultures need to be integrated into joint initiatives and foster collaboration between actors that are often not even used to communicating with each other.

But even the best solutions are futile if not enough people take them up. Considering the need for collective intelligence, and the fact that change comes about fastest in a web of relationships between people who are committed to making a difference, leadership for sustainability requires us to develop our capacity to engage. People who have been part of creating solutions will be active drivers in implementation.

‘Only dedicated circles can give birth to something new’

This saying by a circle of African wise women captures an important lesson in sustainability leadership: engagement often starts small, not big, and it requires a team of committed people.

The term “container” refers to such a committed team of actors and describes its function and relational quality. A good container exists if all actors in the team are dedicated to the change envisaged, emotionally engaged with future possibilities and if they are committed to jointly initiating and implementing the intended change. Ideally, this group of people already represents, to some extent at least, the diversity of actors so that it can embody the range of interests in the change initiative. It is composed of people who are willing to respect each other and who are committed to the goal. It creates a holding space for the planned change, an emotional home for the joint initiative and an initial pattern of the envisaged dialogue and co-operation. The more this group is able to provide coherent collective leadership, the more likely the endeavors will be set on a route to success. An initiating team that have the qualities of a good container help bring about change by establishing ever broader containers for change.

Creating a context for commitment

People engage when they resonate with the content and goal of a sustainability endeavor. But the context of most change initiatives for sustainability is much more complex: there can be contradicting agendas of stakeholders, conflicting interests or actors who are overwhelmed by other commitments. The willingness to engage in a collaborative effort is enhanced by an initiating team, if they take care of the following factors:

• Keeping the relevance of the endeavor in focus, for all the involved actors

• Staying clear, transparent and reliable regarding the collaborative and dialogue process

• Focusing on results that can be perceived as jointly achieved

• Creating opportunities for joint emotional goals

Engaging means gradually building larger and larger containers for change. This is what makes leadership for sustainability successful. Collaboration becomes more effective when people feel engaged, acknowledged and taken seriously. When they perceive the existence of a good container as diverse group of actors who move an issue forward, they become inclined to engage, too.

Building commitment, fostering engagement, creating tangible results and enhancing collective responsibility for change will continue to become our daily business. Effective water resource management in the Congo basin and ensuring living wages in Bangladesh are both extremely complex issues. Both can be done, if people are dedicated to gradually building circles of engagement.

Petra Kuenkel is founder and director of the Collective Leadership Institute

This article originally appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday 17 April 2012. Click here to view the original
Image credits: Oregon State University (OSU)

“Soyez les bienvenues” à Beirut! said the driver waiting for us on time in the arrival hall…we had landed safely – no passport hassle, no cues, no worries – all were so friendly and English turned out to be the language we would communicate in as much as French and Arabic among our Lebanese partners. And we were happy to have Moussa, a Turkish forestry expert who had joined our group to get a taste of engaging in stakeholder dialogues for his own country.

“Hi – keefak? Ca va?“ A member from another teem greets us in colloquial Lebanese and we discuss forestry in a fancy Beirut hotel. Did we think it works? Yes we did – and why? Lebanon is considered the safest place in the Middle East (if it were not for the situation in Syria these days), and the Cosmopolitan spirit is making it easy to communicate even beyond languages. So we were thoroughly prepared to facilitate a tailor-made course on Stakeholder Dialogues for the regional GIZ initiative for the National Forest Plan (NFP) in Lebanon.

The CLI sent a team of 2 trainers – Petra Künkel and Vera Frieg – to Lebanon, both their very first visit to the country. Woops…and then, just as I was scribbling down these thoughts, Vera came by to tell me that I would have to jump in and co-facilitate tomorrow: Petra wouldn’t be able to make it due to unforseen circumstances, so I should get prepared for my debut as CLI staff member!

Time passed by so quickly that we just jumped into the welcome and introduction round, getting a first taste of policy analysis and the status quo of the Lebanese National Forestry Plan (NFP). So we explained that although Petra and Vera had spent the first two days in Lebanon preparing and interviewing the group of some 25 participants, it turned out that she would no longer be able to join our dialogic practices. Now it was up to us to handle the whole team!

“Normal, at home” was the answer of one of the stakeholder participants invited by the GIZ when we asked him what the course atmosphere was like for him: he felt cozy and at ease during the entirety of the capacity building workshop! And this is how we Berliners from CLI Potsdam felt when heading home – thanks to all the participants in Beirut, it was a wonderful experience!

“It’s good to have someone talk about the report to add political momentum“, said Dr.Imme Scholz, Deputy Director of the German Development Institute (Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik, DIE) that received János Pásztor, Executive Secretary of the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, to present the report “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing” on 27 February 2012 in Bonn (and on 24 February 2012 in Berlin).

And so did the commentators who discussed the report, a new UN blueprint for sustainable development and low-carbon prosperity drafted by the 22-member High-level Panel on Global Sustainability. The Panel’s 19 visions are meant for a child born in 2012 that will become of age in 2030, and so are the 56 recommendations: they are meant for a world that desperately needs to put sustainable development into practice and to mainstream it into economic policy. Right in time for this year’s Rio+20 Summit, the Report is considered a road-map of action for the negotiations in Rio in June 2012.

Observers were generally happy with the outcome, yes, but wanted even more vision and bolder recommendations, as Heiko Warnken put it in his capacity as head of Environment at the BMZ. Dr. Christoph Beyer, member of GIZ Management Board, is of a similar opinion: for him, the report ’is not very new’ and yet the message is essential for the concept of sustainability as a ‘continuous learning process’ with a strong political demand. In terms of incentives, ‘we have to get the matrix right’, Beier said, reiterating the „green economy“ as a positive argument for development partners to grasp new opportunities for new products with growth potentials. This is because developing countries are growing and there is a new global middle class that wants to participate in Western consumption patterns while at the same time, inequality in the global economy is growing, and more than a billion people still live in poverty.

To this end, Manfred Rink from the Bayer company applauded the UN report which “…now provides a complete picture…” including diversity. At the same time, Rink sees the need to translate the message about ‘resilient people resilient planet’ into the life-cycle model of business’ everyday operations: combining business and good behavior in citizenship stands for the long-term vision also promoted by the ‘sustainability climate initiative’ where Bayer is a member.

János Pásztor concluded the feedback round by admitting: “yes, the report did not go far enough” and there could have been more time spent on discussing ways to achieve political impact in dialogue between the people, the companies and the institutions. For CLI, this is the right blueprint to hook-on for outreach and expansion.

Background: A quarter of a century ago, the Brundtland report introduced the concept of sustainable development to the international community as a new paradigm for economic growth, social equality and environmental sustainability. As a result, three new environmental conventions were signed at the Earth Summit 1992 in Rio. Nevertheless, sustainable development has undoubtedly suffered from a failure of political will. It is difficult to argue against the principle of sustainable development, but there are few incentives to put it into practice when policies, politics and institutions disproportionately reward the short term. In addition, the concept of sustainable development has not yet been incorporated into the mainstream national and international economic policy debate. Integrating environmental and social issues into economic decisions is not only vital, there is no alternative. Thus, Rio+20 is a summit about the future of our global economy within the planetary boundaries and not just another environmental summit.

• Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing János Pásztor, Executive Secretary, High-level Panel on Global Sustainability

Commentary by:

• Dr. Imme Scholz, Deputy Director, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)
• Dr. Christoph Beier, Member of the Board, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)
• Heiko Warnken, Head of Department Environment, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
• Manfred Rink, Head of the department “New Business”, Bayer MaterialScience AG

This blog post comes to you directly from Kinshasa. Its about how Stakeholder Dialogues in the water sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are becoming an important topic and I give some of my personal impressions of the people, the places and the local music.

Our plane arrives exactly on time. The landing strip is a little bumpier than usual. A bus takes us directly to the terminal along with the rest of the travelers. Passport control is straight after entering the terminal, and unfortunately, I have forgotten to fill in the arrival form. That turns out not to be a problem: the official kindly asks for the form and when I admit that I have not filled it out, he calmly fills it in for me, just asking where we would be staying during our time here.

Another official politely asks for my official travel documents and proof of my yellow fever vaccination. When we continue on to the baggage claim, a police officer stops us, addresses us with our names, and welcomes us warmheartedly.  He directs us to the luggage and in less time than at the Berlin airport, our luggage is loaded onto to a trolley. The police officer guides us out of the airport terminal and hands us and our luggage over to the driver. He warmly welcomes us, assures us that it will be only 30 minutes into the city center, and asks us inquisitively about our journey, trying to find out if this was our first time here.

When we slowly begin our journey towards town, he apologizes for the occasional pothole: the Chinese are building the road. A little while later we are driving onto a close to perfect four lane boulevard, and almost everybody keeps their lanes and stops at a red traffic light. Digital signs indicate the seconds the traffic light will remain green.

Where have we arrived?

You may not believe it: in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – a country most people only have one single picture of: Chaos, violence, corruption, exploitation, crime, inefficiency, ……yes, and , of course, music. This is a country as large as the whole of Western Europe with resources that could make it the wealthiest country in Africa.

Indeed, the security instructions we receive are more than concerning: we are strictly not allowed to leave the District of the “Rich” called Gombe. Yes, we can go jogging along the Congo River, no problem, but only during day time and only along the strip between the embassies, and only if our driver takes us to the jogging lane. We decide to abstain from sports all together!

When people want to make a difference

The following day we have an intense discussion with officials from CICOS, the regional organization responsible for water management in the Congo basin: a well-structured organization with representatives from 4 different countries. The conversations centers around the first phase of our model for dialogic change. The officials remark that all structures for an efficient regional management are in place, but they do not function. People cannot see the joint goal and too many different interests are pulling national level actors in different directions. Hence: SICOS has difficulty to live its mandate, to deliver what is expected. The officials discuss amongst each other how a structured dialogue process could get their vision back on track. Could they re-engage people and create better resonance for their purpose?

The next day we are sitting at the African Development Bank which is heavily supporting the construction of an infrastructure for drinking water in the rural areas of the DRC. What they consider important beyond all technical expertise is dialogue: getting safe water to people is also an issue of communication.

The German Development Cooperation is currently supporting capacity building for the water sector on the national level – where policies and stringent implementation plans are being developed. And here we bounce around different ideas and discuss strategies.

Could a better and more structured dialogue between the different responsible ministries and the various actors in the water sector improve delivery? What are the communication structures that already exist? What could be revived? How can we build on the enthusiasm of people for a better future? Could the CLI’s approach of Stakeholder Dialogue help improve the service delivery in the water sector not only in Congo, but also in the whole region?

Some people say, the in the DRC people are ruthless, they have become inhuman. Others say, in the DRC you find more people who think in possibilities than in any other country. We do not know the truth, but our experience is that people want to make a difference – it is about supporting the willing to create an impact.

The future researcher Mathias Horx says: trust reduces the transaction costs of a society, and: a pattern of dialogue and cooperation between people is contagious – it will always lead to increasing patterns of cooperation.

Could this idea be valid in Kinshasa, in the DRC? Can people learn to gradually build patterns of dialogue and cooperation? And above all: can they build on patterns that already work?

We are excited about the possibilities and it looks like this may only be the first of many visits here.

And finally: there is the music. The music group we are listening to is well known in Kinshasa. A Congolese colleague from the government who speaks Lingana, one of the local languages, but also fluent English, French and German, translates the song for us: it is about a child soldier who tells his boss he does not want to fight anymore, because they will never stop the war – I want to play, just play like other children do.