Small business engagement for the UN Food Systems Summit

by Ian Randall/

Small business engagement for the UN Food Systems Summit

  • Client: World Food Programme
  • Location: Global

The challenge: How to boost the role of SMEs in providing good food for all?

Our food systems must become more nourishing, sustainable, equitable and resilient. This is the imperative set by the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit. Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) constitute at least half the food system, so are fundamental in efforts to transform the ways we produce and consume our food.

Despite their importance, food SMEs were at risk of under-representation in the Summit’s multistakeholder process. Entrepreneurs are focused on running their businesses, not turning up to be heard in global policy discussions. The Summit’s secretariat contracted Wasafiri to engage SMEs from all over the world, so their needs and potential were understood, and their entrepreneurial drive was mobilised for food systems transformation.

Our work: Engaging food SMEs globally

UNFSS Competition: Best 50 Small Businesses providing Good Food for All

On behalf of the United Nations, Wasafiri ran a competition that showcased 50 diverse winners from 42 different countries. The winning businesses contribute to healthier, more sustainable and equitable food for the communities they serve. Their inspiration sends a message to entrepreneurs and food system leaders everywhere – that SMEs are quiet revolutionaries forging better food systems.

  • 1700 +applications came from 135 countries, with half the winning businesses led by youth and nearly half led by women.
  • Every winner is featured on the UNFSS website and the VC4A website.
  • Every winner has a feature video on UNFSS social media and an online badge to laud their achievement.
  • $100k in prizes were distributed equally across all the winners.
  • Winners’ announcement was live-streamed at the Pre-Summit with celebrity chef Robert Oliver
  • Four of the winners represented their peers across multiple stages at the Pre-Summit
  • A video showcased their collective story, including at the Pre-Summit’s closing ceremony.
  • Extensive global press coverage included, for example, Sky TV, Forbes, the Straits Times, the Hindu Times, and Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.

Dialogues, Survey & Outreach: SMEs and Support Organisations mobilised globally

Regional dialogues, an SME survey, an expert survey and expert interviews all served to engage a global community of food SMEs and their support organisations, consulting them on their role in food system transformation, and rallying them to the Summit agenda.

  • 11 regional dialogues in 7 languages engaged a thousand people in discussion.
  • Global dialogues for Eastern and Western Hemispheres ensured validation of the report and the SME pledge, with hundreds participating via zoom and live stream.
  • 2673 SME survey responses received from 137 countries.
  • 58 expert survey respondents and 14 expert interviews.
  • Contact list developed of over 5000 food SMEs and ecosystem support organisations, with regular communications to update them of the Pre-Summit’s progress in relation to SMEs.

Small Business Agenda: Bringing the opportunity and needs of SMEs to the Summit

The consultation combined with a literature review to develop the report “A Small Business Agenda for the UN Food Systems Summit”. This highlighted the essential role of SMEs in food systems transformation and the importance of improving the enabling ecosystem to help purpose-drive food SMEs thrive.

  • The Small Business Agenda report was shared as Pre-Summit pre-reading and included with press releases, with the exec summary translated into all UN languages (Arabic | Chinese | English | French | Russian | Spanish).
  • The SME Priorities session presented report findings to the Pre-Summit with responses from entrepreneurs and food system leaders.

SME Pledge: Committing to the decade of action

An SME pledge was launched at the Pre-Summit, committing SMEs to help forge stronger food systems, asking food system actors to create the conditions for food SMEs to flourish, and ensuring entrepreneurs offer to contribute to action coalitions and national pathways.

  • Pledge harnessed as the SME commitment statement during the Pre-Summit’s closing ceremony.
  • Over 700 SMEs signed the pledge.

The outcome: SMEs mobilised to inform and act upon the Summit’s ambitions

Wasafiri’s work for the UN Food Systems Summit successfully mobilised a previously under-represented constituency of dynamic change-makers – small and medium sized enterprises. The subsequent report, “A Small Business Agenda for the UN Food Systems Summit”, presents a compelling case for SMEs as drivers of positive change:

  • Integrating markets to reduce poverty and hunger.
  • Creating opportunities that improve equity.
  • Innovating and scaling solutions for nutrition and sustainability.
  • Elevating resilience to shocks, through embedded yet agile business models.
  • Influencing to passionately shape the future of food.

To deliver the Summit’s goals over the next decade, the report argues that cross-sector actors must create conditions for purpose-driven SMEs to flourish:

  • Create a business ecosystem in which food SMEs thrive
  • Incentivise businesses to provide good food for all
  • Increase the power of SMEs within sector planning

SMEs are hungry to see change at country-level and within specific value chains, where it will become tangible for them. As the Summit process moves from dialogue to delivery, food system leaders now better understand the potential scale of impact that SMEs can deliver and have a nascent global network of entrepreneurs ready to support the decade of action.

Examples of our work

Generation Africa: Grow Entrepreneurs.Transform Food.

New approaches for preventing violent extremism in East Africa

Millions of smallholders reached through private investment

Systemcraft Labs: innovating new approaches for complex problems

Generation Africa: Grow Entrepreneurs. Transform Food.

by Hamish Wilson/

Generation Africa: Grow Entrepreneurs. Transform Food.

  • Client: Yara International
  • Location: Africa

The challenge : Driving tech-led and inclusive growth in agri-food systems in Africa

Africa is rising. Across the continent, from the most rural villages to the bustling megacities, entrepreneurs launch start-ups, cultivate growing businesses, and scale breakthrough ventures. They recognise untapped opportunities for strengthening livelihoods at the base of the pyramid and for skyrocketing productivity and innovation through private sector-led investment, diversification and competition at scale. It is these businesses that can deliver nutritious food to Africa’s booming urban populations.

Africa’s next generation brings a confident entrepreneurial mindset which, when matched with education, support and investment, accelerates technology-enabled, inclusive growth, job creation and food security. Much of this potential lies at the intersection of the agri-food sector and the current technology revolution. Never has there been a more powerful moment in history – nor a more digitally-capable generation – to leapfrog Africa’s agri-food sector.

Entrepreneurs thrive when multiple sectors and actors consciously work together to develop a supportive environment for business innovation and growth. Many pioneering initiatives already successfully support young entrepreneurs directly but tend to act in isolation and are not achieving meaningful scale. There is a strategic opportunity to increase their impact exponentially by linking these efforts together into a wider movement.

Africa’s next generation brings a confident entrepreneurial mindset which, when matched with education, support and investment, accelerates technology-enabled, inclusive growth, job creation and food security.

Our work : Building a movement that strengthens the ecosystem for agripreneurship

In September 2018, Yara, a global crop nutrition company, commissioned Wasafiri to identify opportunities to support young African entrepreneurs in the agri-food sector. Initially assigned to undertake a Landscape Study that highlighted priorities for action, the work quickly transitioned into a year-long effort to build and lead an ambitious partnership that is actively strengthening the ecosystem for agripreneurship. From initial research, to partnership development, strategy design, team leadership and project management, Wasafiri has played a central role at every stage of the journey.

The outcome : Generation Africa – a transformative partnership

By the African Green Revolution Forum in September 2019, Generation Africa had established itself as the leading partnership supporting youth agripreneurship on the continent. Leveraging the leadership of Yara International and Econet Group, the partnership is expanding to include other influential public and private sector organisations. Achievements to date include:

  • A landscape study, launched at Davos, highlighted key opportunities to inspire and propel Africa’s agri-food stars of tomorrow.
  • The GoGettaz campaign and prize reached over 50 million individuals with a positive message on youth agripreneurship, and lauded 11 inspiring finalists, providing both a practical and reputational boost to their high-potential start-ups. A cash prize for two winners was awarded alongside the Africa Food Prize.
  • The GoGettaz community of current and aspirant agripreneurs has grown to over 25,000 social media followers and 2000 users of an online platform for accessing education, support and capital.
  • An Ambassadors Group of influential leaders has formed to advocate for the needs of young agripreneurs at the highest levels. This includes the principals from Yara, Econet, IFAD, SACAU, and AGRA.
  • A Members Group of leading institutions supporting agripreneurship is now sharing learning and coordinating action to strengthen ecosystems across the continent.

Examples of our work

Generation Africa: Grow Entrepreneurs.Transform Food.

New approaches for preventing violent extremism in East Africa

Millions of smallholders reached through private investment

Systemcraft Labs: innovating new approaches for complex problems

New approaches for preventing violent extremism in East Africa

by Ian Randall/

New approaches for preventing violent extremism in East Africa

  • Client: British High Commission East Africa
  • Location: East Africa

The challenge : How best to strengthen community resilience to violent extremism?

What prevents a young unemployed Tanzanian man from joining an extremist organization? What reduces the likelihood that a poor mother from Kenya’s coast might unwittingly offer her child as collateral to a recruiter in exchange for financial support? What options does a young woman in Eastern Uganda face other than to feel compelled to marry into a ring of militants? What are the ideological incentives that inspire a pious community preacher toward violence? How best to prevent and counter the rise of Violent Extremism (VE) in East Africa?

Hard questions such as these have increasingly vexed policy makers, security actors, political leaders, development organisations and community representatives across the region in recent years. All too often, the response has been viewed through the narrow lens of counter-terrorism, or reduced to an issue of poverty and unemployment, or argued to be the unfortunate by-product of someone else’s ‘war on terror’.

In the absence of compelling answers, the British High Commission boldly committed to a 3-year programme to tackle the drivers, narratives and enablers of violent extremism. In 2015, it commissioned Wasafiri as its Regional Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Research Unit to learn about what does, and what doesn’t work.

In the absence of compelling answers, the British High Commission boldly committed to a 3-year programme to tackle the drivers, narratives and enablers of violent extremism.

Our work : Launching the UK’s Regional CVE Research Unit

In 2015, Wasafiri established a dedicated CVE Regional Research facility (RRU), the first of its kind in the region, working alongside an Implementation Unit overseen by Development Alternatives International (DAI). The RRU quickly established a capability for primary research and community engagement that stretched from Kenya’s remote North-East to Tanzania’s turbulent Tanga region, to Uganda’s hidden religious communities. Since its founding, it has:

  • Developed community-led approaches to VE, including in hotspot Kenyan counties such as Lamu and Garissa.
  • Worked with communities to identify at-risk groups, including in some of the hardest to access and most insecure regions of East Africa.
  • Helped identify and strengthen networks and partners for the implementation of CVE initiatives across the region.
  • Examined the context and dynamics of VE in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda.
  • Established forums for the coordination of research aligning the wider body of research and evidence in the region.
  • Helped develop the strategy, theory of change and monitoring approaches for the UK’s regional programme.
  • Investigated vital areas of interest in preventing VE, including
    • Community-security cooperation
    • The role of social networks and influencers
    • The role of women in VE and in PVE
    • Youth education and employment
    • The role of theatre and the arts in countering narratives
    • Regional dynamics, networks and hotspot locations
    • The role of private business in PVE
    • The role of religious leaders in providing alternative narratives

In doing so, it has conducted 28 primary research projects, 10 secondary research reports and over 3,000 interviews covering 12 Kenyan counties, 6 regions in Tanzania and 3 in Uganda, as well as South-Central Somalia.

The outcome : Strengthened regional resilience to violent extremism

Wasafiri has seen itself as an actor, influencer and catalyst among the wider network of organisations and institutions tackling VE in the region. In doing so, it has contributed to;

  • The development of government strategies and plans, including Kenya’s County CVE Action Plans, the Ugandan National CVE Strategy, and in the future, child protection policies in Tanzania.
  • UK government policy in Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, and Uganda through targeted research on the context and dynamics of VE.
  • Stronger networks more effectively able to identify threats and respond to VE across the region.
  • Successfully working with at-risk individuals and groups through trust-based and long-term engagement in VE-affected communities.
  • Building the capacity of local leaders, government officials, civil society and informal networks to better understand and address VE in their respective communities.

Examples of our work

Generation Africa: Grow Entrepreneurs.Transform Food.

New approaches for preventing violent extremism in East Africa

Millions of smallholders reached through private investment

Systemcraft Labs: innovating new approaches for complex problems

Millions of smallholders reached through private investment

by Ian Randall/

Millions of smallholders reached through private investment

  • Client: Grow Africa
  • Location: Africa

The challenge : Galvanising inclusive investment into African agriculture

In 2011, Wasafiri realised that while the African Union’s plan for transforming agriculture (CAADP) was making progress with the public sector, it risked stalling unless a private-sector response was triggered. At the same time, the World Economic Forum’s private sector-led “New Vision for Agriculture” was calling for transformative multi-stakeholder partnerships, but needed government counterparts to provide political leadership to advance enabling environment improvements.

Wasafiri connected these two efforts and Grow Africa was born. It was conceived as a partnership platform to accelerate investments for sustainable growth in African agriculture. Convened by the AUC, the NEPAD Agency, and the World Economic Forum, Grow Africa generates concrete commitments by companies for inclusive and responsible agri-investment, and facilitates multi-stakeholder collaboration to ensure this investment delivers shared value, as both commercial returns and a beneficial impact on jobs, incomes, and food security.

Grow Africa was conceived as a partnership platform to accelerate investments for sustainable growth in African agriculture.

Our work : Strategic support and stakeholder engagement for the World Economic Forum

Since Grow Africa’s conception, the Forum has contracted Wasafiri to support with strategy and project management, including in the following ways:

  • Strategy development and resource mobilisation, including successful grant proposals for USAID, DFID and SDC.
  • Country representatives to facilitate public-private collaboration on agricultural investments and value chain partnerships in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Malawi.
  • Developing the Implementation Guide for Country Agribusiness Partnership Frameworks and supporting their roll-out through priority value chains in Tanzania, Uganda and Senegal.
  • Stakeholder relations with AUC, NEPAD, G7 and Civil Society.
  • Managing annual reporting to track and analyse progress and challenges for over 200 leading agribusinesses.
  • Coordinating the Smallholder Working Group for peer learning between companies pioneering new business models for commercialisation of smallholder production, including developing a series of best practice papers.

The outcome : Millions of smallholders reached along key value chains

Since its launch in 2011, Grow Africa has mobilized US$10 billion in investment commitments by 230 companies.

  • At the end of 2015, US$ 2.3 billion of the committed investment had been implemented.
  • 70% of committed investments are by African agribusinesses, which also account for 73% of the implemented investment amount.
  • This investment provided 10 million smallholder farmers with services and contracts in 2015.
  • A total of 88,800 jobs were created over the three years.

Grow Africa’s impact has been and continues to be broader than the figures alone reveal. It attracted new champions to African agriculture, including numerous Heads of State and leaders of major international bodies and companies. Backed by its three founding partners, Grow Africa has been a catalyst in changing thinking about African agriculture, contributing to a recognition among governments and donors that private-sector investment is vital for agricultural transformation to succeed and that public-private collaboration is vital to incentivize and increase the impact of private-sector investment. Grow Africa has incubated the development of multi-stakeholder business models and platforms that enable public and private sector investors and donors to collaborate effectively. This approach is now codified in the concept of Country Agribusiness Partnership Frameworks that the AU and NEPAD is promoting across the continent.

Examples of our work

Generation Africa: Grow Entrepreneurs.Transform Food.

New approaches for preventing violent extremism in East Africa

Millions of smallholders reached through private investment

Systemcraft Labs: innovating new approaches for complex problems

Systemcraft Labs: innovating new approaches for complex problems

by Hamish Wilson/

Systemcraft Labs: innovating new approaches for complex problems

  • Client: The Metropolitan Police, The British Army, The NHS, Warrington Council
  • Location: Global

The challenge : It just seems so big and there is so much going on that we don’t know where to start

Our world is full of complex problems. Problems such as homelessness in Warrington, knife crime in London; transitioning businesses to Net Zero across the UK; supporting people with disabilities to enter the workforce; providing integrated social and medical care — and countless more.

What these problems have in common is that we will only be able to tackle them by changing the ‘systems’ that produce them. That is, by changing the networks of connections, the underlying beliefs and values, the flows of money and information, the patterns of institutional interactions and so on. These are not engineering challenges; or problems of structure or resourcing – rather these are challenges that require broad coalitions of people to come together and figure out ‘so what do we do next?’ in order to evolve, develop, test and scale new solutions.

Through our Systemcraft Labs we have worked across the private and public sectors to help develop new and practical ways to generate change at the system-level, working with real, live and specific challenges.

Our work : Helping organisations develop practical ways to create system change

Through our Systemcraft Labs we have worked across the private and public sectors to help develop new and practical ways to generate change at the system-level. Systemcraft Labs work with real, live and specific challenges (including some of those referenced above). We introduce Systemcraft as a practical way to look at these often very familiar issues in new and unfamiliar ways, and so generate new approaches to tackling them. The Labs are highly participatory, can work with large or small groups and are focused on generating practical insights and action.

The outcome : Shared understanding, new language and collective ideas for action

Clients have cited a range of outcomes from our Systemcraft Labs, including:

  • “Much better shared understanding of some of the really tricky, nebulous issues we are working with.”
  • “Systems-thinking can be so abstract — but Systemcraft has helped us get practical with it and know what it means for our people and our context.”
  • “We now have a shared language for some of the deeper level changes we are trying to make.”
  • “We collectively developed some intriguing new ideas that we hadn’t seen before.”

Depending on the level of ambition, our Labs can be tailored around varying group sizes, the diversity of stakeholders, at some or all stages of change processes.

“Wasafiri helped us identify new and practical ways we could make progress on some really ‘stuck’ and difficult issues. The structure of the Lab meant that the time was focused on our real world, with Systemcraft used as a way to help us think in new ways about very familiar things. This wasn’t an abstract training about a model — it was time spent doing real work on real issues.”

— Client, Metropolitan Police

Examples of our work

Generation Africa: Grow Entrepreneurs.Transform Food.

New approaches for preventing violent extremism in East Africa

Millions of smallholders reached through private investment

Systemcraft Labs: innovating new approaches for complex problems

The challenge of eliminating extreme poverty in Kenya

by Hamish Wilson/

The challenge of eliminating extreme poverty in Kenya

  • Client: DFID
  • Location: Kenya

The challenge : How best to ‘graduate’ the extremely poor from poverty, sustainably and at scale?

At the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals is the first one: eliminating extreme poverty by 2030. This ambitious challenge has been adopted by Kenya in its Vision 2030, and as part of its ‘big four’ agenda of tackling food insecurity.

As complex and ambitious as this goal may be, the evidence is encouraging; high-quality, well designed and sequenced support can enable the poorest families to escape the deepest forms of poverty. Studies as far afield as Bangladesh to Senegal are showing how micro-businesses and livelihoods support are improving social and economic wellbeing, enabling access to better food and vital services such as healthcare and education. This is the essence of the graduation from poverty approach.

Yet serious obstacles continue to block the path to scale. In Kenya, as in many countries, graduation packages are being provided by NGOs in select few communities. Few mechanisms exist to scale successful initiatives country-wide or without the involvement of large aid organisations. Coordination mechanisms remain weak, and the lack of shared commitments continue to underpin ad hoc programming.

High-quality, well designed and sequenced support can enable the poorest families to escape the deepest forms of poverty.

Our work : Generating new approaches and shared commitment to scaling up poverty graduation in Kenya

Wasafiri was commissioned in 2018 by DFID to lead a collaborative effort between development partners and government, drawing in USAID, the World Bank, EU and Gates Foundation to work with government ministries, the Council of Governors and Vision 2030 Secretariat. Our work has included:

  • Designing and facilitating a national Graduation Conference which secured collective interest and commitment for scaling up graduation from poverty across Kenya from almost 150 senior government representatives, development partners and implementers. The workshop report is here.
  • Launching an inaugural Working Group on Extreme Poverty designed to facilitate ongoing alignment and coordination between government and development partners.
  • Capturing the perspectives of practitioners and implementers which can be found here
  • Examining the challenges and opportunities facing rural youth migrating to urban areas in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.
  • Conducting research on poverty in Kenya, designed to inform policy makers and implementers at national and county level. These included Defining and Targeting the Ultra Poor in Kenya, and county scoping exercises in West Pokot, Marsabit and Kakamega and development of a tool to inform future engagement at county level.
  • Managed communications and stakeholder engagement including establishing a website to facilitate communication of products developed.

An emerging collective determination to scale up graduation efforts in Kenya

Our work has led to encouraging and important shifts; a shared commitment to poverty graduation at scale has been reached by key donors and government partners; graduation is now central to Kenya’s Social and Economic Inclusion Programme; new investors such as the Open Society Foundation have begun investing specifically in new poverty graduation approaches. It is perhaps too soon to determine whether these constitute tipping points, but the inertia has well and truly been lifted.

Examples of our work

Generation Africa: Grow Entrepreneurs.Transform Food.

New approaches for preventing violent extremism in East Africa

Millions of smallholders reached through private investment

Systemcraft Labs: innovating new approaches for complex problems

Strategy development and impact measurement for systems change

by Hamish Wilson/

Strategy development and impact measurement for systems change

  • Client: World Economic Forum
  • Location: Geneva

The challenge : Designing strategic frameworks for global platforms tackling systems-challenges

Inspired by demand from partners of the World Economic Forum, the Platform of Global Public Goods (PGPG) is a bold response to the urgency and scale of the environmental and developmental challenges facing the planet. The Centre’s mission is to enable public, private and civil society leaders to form exceptional cross-cutting communities of action to deliver practical outcomes in line with meeting the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement.

The work of the PGPG is vital yet extraordinarily ambitious; it is a platform of platforms; each bringing together stakeholders to tackle a range of complex problems ranging from ocean health to urbanization. And as such, each platform requires tailored strategies, the means to hold itself to account and mechanisms for tracking progress.

The work of the PGPG is vital yet extraordinarily ambitious; it is a platform of platforms; each bringing together stakeholders to tackle a range of complex problems ranging from ocean health to urbanization.

Our work : Establishing theories of change and metrics for accountability

Wasafiri has been working closely with both the PGPG and platform teams to help establish a strategic agenda underpinned by a credible Theory of Change and metrics of progress. The work demanded detailed mapping of stakeholders and their respective interests, a review of existing charters and terms of reference for the platforms, and an analysis of donor reporting requirements. Our consultants designed processes for each team to define and test metrics for each activity and workstream, in ways which allowed for non-linear interrogation of progress and results.

The outcome : New approaches to tracking progress on global systems challenges

For complicated problems such work is relatively straightforward. For problems as complex as climate change, such work is pioneering.

These Theories of Change and corresponding metrics serve as live frameworks for each platform, helping ensure a focus on areas of systemic impact, an appropriate balance of effort and resourcing, and dynamic tracking of progress.

Examples of our work

Generation Africa: Grow Entrepreneurs.Transform Food.

New approaches for preventing violent extremism in East Africa

Millions of smallholders reached through private investment

Systemcraft Labs: innovating new approaches for complex problems

Supporting Least Developed Countries in climate negotiations

by Hamish Wilson/

Supporting Least Developed Countries in climate negotiations

  • Client: Climate Analytics
  • Location: West Africa

The challenge : Low capacity of poor countries to represent their interests in global negotations

The world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are the ones most affected by Climate Change. Yet they bear little responsibility for humankind’s contributions to the problem. Achieving a fair and legally-binding deal from multilateral climate negotiations has become quite simply an issue of survival for the most vulnerable. And yet, these countries have weak technical capacity to represent themselves and minimal access to the data they need to make their case.

Our work : Providng capacity support and technical assistance for LDC representatives

Wasafiri’s co-founder Liberal Seburikoko was contracted by Climate Analytics to lead their support to African LDC’s, providing them access to real-time, cutting-edge scientific data, and supporting their political and strategic engagement in global Climate Change negotiations.

The outcome : A stronger African voice in climate negotiations

Representatives of Africa’s poorest countries– those most affected by Climate Change – testified that their capacity to negotiate a fairer deal at global Climate Change forums was greatly increased. Indeed, additional countries requested similar support for future negotiations. Through our support, LDCs are in a stronger position to ensure their interests as considered alongside those of the world’s richest nations.

Examples of our work

Generation Africa: Grow Entrepreneurs.Transform Food.

New approaches for preventing violent extremism in East Africa

Millions of smallholders reached through private investment

Systemcraft Labs: innovating new approaches for complex problems

Supporting the transformation of the NHS

by Hamish Wilson/

Supporting the transformation of the NHS

  • Client: The UK National Health Service
  • Location: UK

The challenge : Creating an NHS fit for the 21st Century

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is both the world’s most efficient and biggest health care provider. Whilst it is a matter of national pride, it is also facing unprecedented challenges. An ageing population, innovations in the possibilities (and costs) of medical care, changing workforce dynamics and ever growing popular expectations… are just some of the systemic forces that, in combination, challenge the notion of an NHS fit for a 21st Century Britain.

In 2016 the NHS launched the ‘Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships’, through which ‘place-based plans’ for the future of the NHS were developed. In many ways these plans are radical. They bring together local and national public sector bodies with civil society and community organisations and even businesses to collectively co-create the future of healthcare in the UK. Working in such a collective and ultimately adaptive way demands changes in all sorts of ways and at many levels; including in the very beliefs, values and behaviours of those leading change.

An ageing population, innovations in the possibilities (and costs) of medical care, changing workforce dynamics and ever growing popular expectation are just some of the systemic forces that challenge the notion of an NHS fit for a 21st Century Britain.

Our work : Developing NHS 2020 Change Leaders

This ambitious transformation agenda has been underpinned by the equally ambitious NHS 2020 Leadership Programme, designed to equip the organisation’s leaders with the skills to drive change. Cocreate Consulting have been working for a number of years to support the development and delivery of the programme. in 2017, Wasafiri joined forces with Cocreate to introduce Systemcraft to NHS 2020 Change Leaders, with the objectives of:

  • Introducing a systemic view to specific problems
  • Understanding patterns, problems, complexity and how they can be leveraged to make change happen
  • Identifying different ‘types’ of action to create change and shift entrenched patterns
  • Exploring ‘what next wise action’ participants could take as leaders working on specific challenges

The outcome : Helping Change Leaders create local futures for their NHS

The NHS 2020 programme has enabled leaders from organisations joined by geography but separated by institutional differences to come together, work together, build relationships together and create a local future for their NHS. Wasafiri is proud to have played a small part in this journey and we look forward to continuing to work with Cocreate and the NHS 2020 programme.

Examples of our work

Generation Africa: Grow Entrepreneurs.Transform Food.

New approaches for preventing violent extremism in East Africa

Millions of smallholders reached through private investment

Systemcraft Labs: innovating new approaches for complex problems