Paper short abstract:

What might an innovation process look like that brings in both participants’ ideas and actions and the needed clout for larger change from development organisations? We reflect on learnings from a community research & design project on resilience within a savings group program in Nigeria

Paper long abstract:

Resilience is a strategic focus of most development actors such as the World Bank, DFID, USAID, FAO and WFP. There has been some criticism, however, that without a real framework, it runs the risk of being “just another buzzword” seen as donor requested by program teams (Mitchell 2013).

We ran a three-week participatory research and design sprint with savings group members, facilitators and program team members of a savings group program in Northeastern Nigeria aimed at exploring three research questions:

1. How do savings group members view and try to achieve resilience currently?

2. What new ideas or improvements might we develop together to improve resilience?

3. What can this process teach us about participatory and community-centered innovation?

Six community researchers – all savings group members or facilitators – conducted 43 interviews and focus groups with savings group members in two states in Northeastern Nigeria. Together with participants, they created visual maps of participants’ financial lives, social networks, annual cashflows, income sources and use of saving groups. Community researchers then analyzed findings together with program team members in two co-analysis workshops and developed new ideas in discussions between themselves, a co-design workshop with other NGO representatives and in discussion sessions with participants.

We reflect on this process, its outcomes for participants, community researchers and the NGO partner, and our experience as we try to answer the question what “true” participatory innovation looks like and what responsibilities we have in the process as NGO project lead (Wale) and lead researcher (Anne).