Claudia Piacenza is Wasafiri’s Food lead, and a food system changemaker

by Stella Odhiambo/

Claudia Piacenza is Wasafiri’s Food lead, and a food system changemaker

Stella Odhiambo

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As a child, she dreamed of becoming a journalist, firewoman, or painter. Realising that she wanted to make the world a more just place led her to Wasafiri. Get to know her with me.

Who is Claudia?

If I was to ask her best friends or closest family to describe her in three words, Claudia says they would say she’s fun, just a bit controlling, and grounded.

She is a passionate change-maker who believes in the power of human agency. With her energetic and dedicated approach, she is an idealistic leader shaping the Food Impact Area at Wasafiri.

Growing up in a small town in the South of Italy (Sicily), Claudia says her childhood experiences significantly shaped her perspective and the person she is today. They influenced her line of work and her passion for making a positive impact on food systems.

It was during her teenage years that Claudia realised the role that luck plays in one’s life. Because of this, she developed a strong interest in global justice. She embraced vegetarianism (even before it gained popularity), volunteered in a fair-trade organisation, and joined several campaigns to boycott big corporations exposed to serious human rights and environmental violations.

During her university years, she studied International Relations in Rome, focusing on social movements in Latin America. She found joy in the multi-disciplinary nature of her studies but quickly realised that she was drawn to development issues.

Rome, with its vibrant intellectual scene, diverse forms of political activism, and abundant beauty and art, made her feel like she could spread her wings.

Fuelling her curiosity and desire for learning, Claudia pursued a master’s degree in Rural Development when she was almost 30. This choice took her on a transformative journey across countries like Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Uganda.

Not only did she expand her analytical capacity, but she also made lifelong friends from all over the world.

Claudia’s passion for improving food systems has always been deeply rooted in her personal choices. She worked for the Right to Food Campaign, which connected her with various international organisations.

It was during this time that she discovered her interest in delving deeper into the intricacies of food systems. While she didn’t have an agronomic background, Claudia’s focus has always been on human interaction and socio-economic dimensions.

Claudia Piacenza

Interview with Claudia

What led you to Wasafiri?

I joined Wasafiri after 10 years between a large bilateral donor and a UN agency. It feels like closing a loop and going back to a dimension that I feel more comfortable with. At the same time, Wasafiri is small, but it has great minds and incredible ambition. That fuels my drive to keep improving myself.

What excites you the most about leading the Food impact area at Wasafiri? And about working in Africa particularly?

Working to bring together different actors, giving voice to those unheard, and developing human potential. I come from an ageing country where there is little space for the youth. Working in Africa feels like working on the future of humanity; we will have the highest number of young people globally in just a few decades.

At the same time, Africa presents the world’s most stubborn problems, so working here feels relevant and inspiring at the same time.

What would you say is the biggest hurdle in achieving food systems transformation in Africa?

One of the biggest conundrums we face is following the path of Western countries where agriculture rapidly increased its productivity after the second world war. People progressively moved to urban areas and better-paying jobs, with improved living conditions.

Agriculture became highly mechanised and food production highly industrial. Despite the negative consequences for society and the environment, this is still perceived as the way to go.

This approach is simply not possible due to the massive public investments in agriculture required to support the sector.

There is a general lack of alternative models that look at food systems holistically, and too much focus on addressing specific problems in isolation. This is where system thinking changes the questions we ask, and the possibilities we imagine.

What’s your vision when you think about the possibility Wasafiri can contribute to?

Wasafiri’s efforts to ignite food system transformation by working with leaders through the African Food Fellowship is a fantastic example of working through others to achieve big impact. We are a small organisation and can only leave a significant mark on this planet if we work with, and through others.

By blending our technical expertise on “the what” and our capacity as an institute on “the how”, we can reach medium and larger organisations that are serious about tackling complexity.

I am also a strong believer in the importance of the “the why”. To ignite the spark of change, humans must be emotionally connected and dream the change they want to build.

What exciting trends in Food do you see emerging that will shape the coming months/years in food systems?

Circular economy. There is a growing debate that doesn’t just focus on the problems related to food waste and loss or environmental externalities, but on the possibilities to turn waste into resources in the food system.

We are finally talking about food waste and referring to the Global South. This recognises the web of interactions with diets, urban-rural linkages, and changing societies where more people depend on markets for their food.

The climate crisis has brought into consideration how food systems interact with energy and water systems in a more mainstream way. This multidimensional approach is a true paradigm shift.

You are currently working on complex problems, what motivates you the most?

I am charged by our efforts to build coalitions that last and to nurture networks that are rooted in countries where those problems are felt the most.

What resources would you recommend in the world of food systems?

The Feed podcast from Table which unpacks the future of food, and the book Stuff and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System by Raj Patel.

What would people be quite surprised to know about you?

I collect the safety cards from airplanes!

What do you want to do before you die?

Take my mum to the Masai Mara and visit the Namib desert.

What’s your favourite holiday destination?

The Kenyan coast!

And your greatest achievement?

I walked the Portuguese Camino de Santiago – 280 kilometres in 13 days!

Finally, what’s your favourite pastime activity?

Putting on costumes with my kids.

Read more blogs related to our Food impact area

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Faster food system transformation: why it’s more art than science

by Alex Rees/

Faster food system transformation: why it’s more art than science

Alex
Alex Rees

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Changes to the way our food is produced, processed, distributed, consumed, and disposed of will rely more on creativity, intuition, and subjective judgment rather than strict scientific principles and methodologies. This is why…

The first-ever UN Food Systems Summit in 2021 provided much-needed impetus to the transformation of African food systems. Countries across Africa are developing policies and encouraging actions to transform their food systems. This is exciting and much-needed work. And I find myself asking key questions:

  • Who are the food systems leaders that can make change happen at a scale never seen before?
  • What kinds of food systems leadership is needed?
  • How can we work together to speed up change?
  • Are food systems leaders being supported in the most effective ways?

These questions matter because change is driven by the interactions between people. Science and technology will find their place, but change will come from the priorities we hold, the choices we make, and the ways we choose to work together.

Who transforms food systems?

Transforming food systems requires large numbers of people connecting and collaborating. Farmers, aggregators, truckers, policy writers, regulators, researchers, marketers, and consumers all have a role to play.

Transformative change will only happen if the week-to-week decisions of many millions of people working in areas such as these change.

Two people who exemplify the kinds of people who are making change happen are Tabitha Njuguna, from Kenya and Innocent Bisangwa from Rwanda.

Tabitha is the Managing Director at AFEX Fair Trade Limited Kenya, a private company that provides end-to-end solutions to farmers including input financing and warehousing. With 17 warehouses spread across two counties, AFEX has registered over 11,000 farmers and traded over 11,000 metric tonnes of maize.

In February 2023, AFEX Fair Trade Kenya secured certification of their Soy Mateeny warehouse which marked the first time a warehouse receipt operator license has been issued to a private company in the country. This will open private investment to local farming, playing a vital role in fostering sustainable and resilient food systems for coming generations considering the growing population and the demand for food only going up.

When asked what major hurdle needs to be overcome in food systems transformation, Tabitha says, “Increased production costs means reduced production or a compromise on quality which trickles down to the food on our tables. Providing affordable, accessible, and timely financing for farmers is critical.”

Innocent on the other hand, works for Rwanda’s Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI). As an environmental and climate change specialist with experience in sustainable agriculture advocacy and policy development, he is currently working on the My Food Is African campaign that aims to mobilise for an African food policy at the national level across the continent.

It is calling for Africans to shape the food systems and policies that enable (or disable) this access to healthy food for all. He has also been instrumental in the Irrigation Strategic Plan and the Post-Harvest Strategy, both in Rwanda.

Innocent recognises that policy and systems-change leadership are intertwined. “A food systems leader is one who recognises their skills and capacity and uses it to support systems-level change.”

What kinds of leadership do we need?

Changing food systems requires amplifying the potential of leaders such as Tabitha and Innocent. They work towards significant transformations, making progressive decisions within the existing limitations.

Change requires passion. It requires determination for the long haul. It requires bringing a form of food systems leadership that is diverse, reflective, relational, contextual and doing the work collaboratively in the here and now.

How can we speed up change?

Change is often slow because there is resistance to it. Can we speed it up?

Food systems leaders must be willing to ask difficult systemic questions like: ‘Who is the system working for?’ Answering this shows us where resistance sits; and where we need to focus our efforts.

Many national food systems around the world appear broken. But they aren’t broken. Rather, they are inequitable. Some people lose out, and some people gain. Let’s take examples inside and outside Africa:

  • In Kenya, most people get their food from local micro and small enterprises. If these enterprises could bring healthy and sustainable foods to local markets in greater numbers, they could be a big part of the solution. The new Government speaks of its support for small businesses including with a Hustler Fund – this creates a climate for change.
  • While in the UK, there is ample evidence the food system is not working in the national interest, notably for the long-term health of the population and the environment, but traditionally a steady supply of affordable food has been achieved. Brexit provides a unique opportunity for radical change, notably for environmental benefit in balance with peoples’ needs.

A systemic change in all food systems will happen faster when efforts are made to wire people together in new ways that in turn spark new forms of collaborative action. This is true in Africa and beyond.

Change happens when interactions build shared goals about changes that are needed; and when the ‘change that is needed’ becomes widely understood and grows in significance among targeted decision-makers.

It happens when the incentives decision-makers need to create a new path become strong enough to trigger action; and it happens when intelligence about what is going on in the system and about the change that is needed, is shared in an equitable way.

How to support our food system leaders at the front line?

One of the things that make changing food systems hard is that these systems often involve a lot of different actors who don’t have mechanisms to connect with one another. This makes it hard for farmers to effectively influence policy, or for institutional food buyers to influence food producers or national researchers to connect with regional food markets.

Without these kinds of unusual connections, it is hard for progressive food system leaders to connect and collaborate in new ways to help them accelerate their efforts to transform food systems. How can this change? Let’s look at one model of doing this.

In 2020, Wasafiri and Wageningen University and Research wondered: Could an African Food Fellowship support a new generation of food systems leaders to build more inclusive, healthy and sustainable food systems across Africa?

With support from the IKEA Foundation the African Food Fellowship launched with a focus on Kenya and Rwanda but oriented to a continent-wide ambition.

Three aspects mark the African Food Fellowship as innovative:

  • Participants are selected for impact. Fellows are selected for diversity and in combinations that are most likely to achieve practical impact together. The Fellowship targets participants within sectors of food systems (e.g. horticulture) and it builds up a network of Fellows in each of these areas over multiple years connecting public/private/civic sectors. For example, we are building a network of Fellows in the aquaculture sector in Kenya and from this multistakeholder collaboration early positive results are emerging: Aquaculture collaboration.
  • The first Food Systems Leadership Programme: The African Food Fellowship designed and has demonstrated the value of the world’s first action-oriented Food Systems Leadership Programme. The 10-month programme curriculum includes world-leading food systems foresight and Systemcraft to equip leaders to drive transformational change. The Programme enables participants to understand food systems and advance food systems actions collectively as Fellows and separately to the Fellowship.
  • Curating impact networks: Most of the energy and resources are focused to nurture ‘impact networks’ of Fellows from Rwanda and Kenya. The Fellowship encourages self-organisation. It promotes conditions for Fellows to advance food systems actions collaboratively and independently. While this is early days; there are encouraging signs: Goat project for disabled by economist Suleiman Kweyu African Food Fellowship wins.

If nurtured well, the Fellowship can become a diverse and powerful professional network of thousands of food systems leaders operating across multiple countries agitating for change and providing practical pathways for doing so.

The art of supporting diverse and progressive leaders

Food systems can be healthy for people if led and managed well. And they can provide good financial rewards for those working in them and be sustainable for nature and the climate if led and managed well.

We will greatly accelerate progress if more resources are focused on the art of finding, connecting, and actively supporting the diverse and progressive food systems leaders, who can make radically different decisions about how businesses operate, what food-related policy contains and so on.

Cultivating food systems leaders to make different decisions in every country, and in large numbers, is how we can transform food systems faster and better. Let’s find ways to make it happen!

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Creating change: Aisha Adan’s journey towards inclusion and peacebuilding

by Stella Odhiambo/

Creating change: Aisha Adan’s journey towards inclusion and peacebuilding

Stella Odhiambo

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Wasafiri’s new Peace and Inclusion Senior Manager has many passions and talents. Read more about her journey to where she is today, and her future plans.

As a programme management, evaluation, and research specialist with over ten years of experience working on governance, countering violent extremism (CVE), cross-border resilience, peacebuilding, and youth empowerment programmes across the Horn and East Africa, Aisha Adan is a champion of inclusive development.

Born and raised in Mombasa, Kenya, Aisha has fond memories of her childhood. Her closest sibling describes her as responsible, empathetic, and dependable.

A pleased Aisha says she was blessed with supportive and loving parents who instilled in her strong values of hard work, education, and community service.

Despite the tragic loss of her father at a young age, and her mother before she graduated from University, Aisha remained resilient and focused on her aspirations, driven by her mother’s unwavering support and guidance before she passed away.

Aisha’s passion for community led her to study Environmental Studies at university, with a major in community development and a specialisation in Peace and Security at master’s level. She furthered her education in Nairobi, which exposed her to opportunities to work for NGOs and start her career in conflict and peacebuilding.

“My greatest challenge working on countering violent extremism was the evolving and dynamic nature of the complex problem. In this line of work, adaptability and learning as you go is paramount”, she says.

One of Aisha’s most meaningful professional achievements was leading the Vijana Kazini initiative, a platform for creating greater inclusivity for at-risk youth (Opportunity Youth) to access livelihood opportunities. Through her leadership and advocacy, she was able to help transition ownership of this initiative from a donor-funded programme to the Ministry of Youth Affairs, which has now initiated follow-on activities in support of Vijana Kazini with county and national government resources.

Aisha’s new role gives her the chance to build on this success. She will lead the implementation of impactful and systemic projects, and bring together stakeholders from local communities, governments and the private sector to generate cross-sectoral collaboration to realise development goals in different contexts.

One of Aisha’s key strengths is her ability to connect with people on a personal level. She has a genuine interest in the lives and experiences of those around her, and this makes her an excellent listener and communicator.

For her, the inclusion of all people is fundamental for communities, organisations, businesses, and networks to grow and develop in a way that allows societies to be at peace and thrive.

“Socio-economic exclusion and feelings of marginalisation and hopelessness among communities in the Coast where I was born and bred, and Northern parts of Kenya where my roots are, encouraged me to study and specialise in this line of work.”

Aisha looks forward to the challenges and opportunities ahead. She anticipates systemic challenges becoming a barrier to inclusion, but she plans to use Systemcraft to help leaders make positive change happen.

Outside work, Aisha enjoys spending time with family and friends. Her passion for contributing to a more inclusive and peaceful society is her motivation to come to work every day, and working with a supportive team keeps helps. Taking time off every now and again is how she keeps balance in her life.

With her eyes on the future, Aisha’s long-term career goal is to become a system change specialist, supporting leaders and organisations to address conflicts in fragile and conflict-affected contexts globally.

Overall, Aisha’s passion for creating a more inclusive and peaceful society is evident in everything she does. We wish her all the best in her future as she takes on this new role.

Take five with Aisha

What was your favourite subject in school growing up?

Islamic religious education (IRE)

What would people be surprised to know about you?

I fear cats and dogs.

What do you want to do before you die?

I hope I will travel to Mecca and perform pilgrimage/Hajj.

Favourite book?

Holy Quran

Favourite song?

Give thanks by Nasheed

Read a recently published article where Aisha explores the challenges faced by Somali refugees and Kenyan-Somalis in Mombasa, Kenya as they navigate their ambiguous identities and access privileges.

Photo by Belle Co

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The Great Race to Make the Deep Sea Matter

by Ian Randall/

The Great Race to Make the Deep Sea Matter

Ian Randall

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A passionate coalition of scientists, indigenous leaders, Hollywood stars, and other Ocean champions are trying to persuade enough governments to vote against the granting of mining concessions. Their work is an inspirational example of how to “Make it Matter” when addressing complex issues.

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A complex kind of peace

by Kate Simpson/

A complex kind of peace

Kate Simpson

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It’s been 25 years since the Good Friday Peace Agreement was signed and brought an almost end to the violence in Northern Ireland. What have we learnt from The Peace Process? How ready and willing are we to let go of being right and accept the truth of vastly different perspectives?

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The Good Food Hub: Plugging entrepreneurs into food systems transformation

by Stella Odhiambo/

The Good Food Hub: Plugging entrepreneurs into food systems transformation

The Good Food Hub supports small and medium businesses for a healthier, more equitable food future. Join our community of changemakers transforming the food system towards sustainability

Stella Odhiambo

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Food matters to all of us. How we grow, process, transport, cook, and eat it directly impacts our health, our environment, and our economies.

Food systems are highly complex and interconnected. There is an urgent need, particularly in Africa where Wasafiri is based, to transform current food systems to produce more nutritious food, more equitable livelihoods, and be more environmentally sustainable and resilient to climate change.

Creating such a transformation requires a systemic approach that considers the entire food system, from production to consumption, and engages multiple stakeholders to identify and implement solutions.

While we may not know how to go about that, what we do know is our food systems must become more nourishing, sustainable, equitable, and resilient.

Convening a global community of food businesses

In 2021 the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) set out a bold vision to change the way the world produces and consumes food. Much of food production is done by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

From restaurants to farms to small-scale processors to the management of local markets and the shops you go to, the food systems around us are made up of many small and diverse players.

As smaller organisations these players often have the agility to change their practices in ways that bigger organisations do not; and as the UN Food System Dialogues showed, many food SMEs are bringing much-needed innovation to the world of food.

And yet, despite the prominent role SMEs play in food, their voices and contributions are too often overlooked as we struggle with what it will take to transform our food systems. And so, the Good Food Hub was born.

The Good Food Hub started as an experiment. We know that food system transformation is going to require unprecedented levels of collaboration; we know that SMEs have an important role to play but have underpowered voices.

Inspired by Systemcraft and specifically the ‘organise for collaboration’ dimension, we launched the Good Food Hub as an online platform for Food SMEs. We didn’t know what would happen next. Would small to medium-sized businesses be interested in joining a global community? Would they find practical value in connecting with like-minded businesses? Would anyone turn up? We didn’t know, but that’s the point of an experiment, and we were willing to learn our way through it.

The Good Food Hub was launched by Wasafiri in 2021 with support from EIT Food. It created a platform through which SMEs have shared knowledge, accessed opportunities for support, and have a shared voice in international policy forums.

“Every day, food entrepreneurs experience the tensions in the food system. Pay more to farmers, or keep food affordable for consumers? Stop using plastic, or reduce food waste? Their frontline insights and innovations are invaluable to policymakers who are otherwise making decisions amidst a cacophony of bombast and old data. The Good Food Hub bridges that gap, elevating the missing but essential voice of SMEs”.

Ian Randall, Director of the Good Food Hub

What’s happened and what have we learnt?

The Good Food Hub now has over 1,500 joined up entrepreneurs, and has been a part of some significant work:

  1. Promoting sustainable and resilient food systems: By bringing together food SMEs from diverse parts of the world, the Hub has facilitated the exchange of knowledge and experience on sustainable and resilient food systems. This helps SMEs learn from each other about how to grow their businesses whilst improving the food system.
  2. Fostering innovation and entrepreneurship: The Hub is a platform for sharing ideas and resources which has led to the development of new and more sustainable food products and production methods, as well as the creation of new businesses that can help to address systemic food system issues.
  3. Improving access to markets: Mastercard held a learning event on the Hub to introduce the Mastercard Community Pass helping members expand their reach and find new customers in hard-to-reach places. This helped Mastercard reach a new audience and SMEs to access new digital services created especially for rural communities in Africa and South Asia. Similarly, the HarvestPlus team shared business opportunities to bring more nutritious crops to market.
  4. Bringing SME voices into the UNFSS Coalitions of Action: In 2022 the Good Food Hub hosted a series of dialogues with five UN Food System Summit Coalitions, asking how they can each integrate and support the transformative potential of pioneering small businesses. Whether the conversation was about building a green and inclusive financial system for small food businesses by 2030, or spotlighting innovative businesses advancing nature-positive solutions, the Good Food Hub helped garner collective intelligence, ensuring information flows through the different levels of the system. And when the War on Ukraine caused a spike in food prices, we were able to ensure the impact upon SMEs was heard by those managing the global response.

Over the last year, we have done and learnt a lot. We now need to work out ‘so what do we do next?’.

The Good Food Hub has proved a useful and powerful platform for Food SMEs. However, it has also proved a hard model to fund. Food businesses work in a competitive environment and often have little to invest in anything without a direct RoI, and traditional ‘funders’ remain cautious about investing activity that targets systemic conditions, and where the ultimate impact can be hard to measure.

Despite these challenges, we know that system change cannot be achieved by any actor alone, no matter how powerful, informed, or wealthy; we know collective action is the only sort of action in the face of complex problems. And we know that there is work to do in building the conditions for collective action. At Wasafiri this is our work.

Read more on the Good Food Hub

The Good Food Hub was launched by Wasafiri with founding sponsorship by EIT Food. It is a hub for pioneering entrepreneurs to access support, meet peers, and advocate for a more conducive business ecosystem. Are you making our food more nourishing, sustainable, equitable and resilient? Join the community here: Good Food Hub

Photo by Habeeb
 

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She is Nature, not natural capital

by Ian Randall/

She is Nature, not natural capital

Ian Randall

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How might Western culture give Nature the reverence it deserves?

“Orcas have inherent rights.” So proclaimed two US cities bordering the Salesh Sea where the last 73 southern-resident Orcas reside under threat from declining salmon and warming oceans.

This assertion includes the Orcas’ “right to life, autonomy, culture, free and safe passage, adequate food supply from naturally occurring sources, and freedom from conditions causing physical, emotional, or mental harm.”

This is the latest victory for advocates of the ‘Rights of Nature’. This concept argues that all living things have inalienable rights, just like humans (or indeed corporations), and these rights should be defended in law when threatened.

Last year, Wasafiri supported the Blue Climate Summit, held in Tahiti with the aim of accelerating ocean-based solutions to climate change. Whilst delegates came from all over the world, many were Polynesian and part of a profound Oceanic culture that spans from the Maori to the Hawaiians.

Polynesians revere the Ocean as an ancestor, and, like many indigenous cultures, attribute a spiritual status to all living things. Humans are to treat Nature with the same sense of honour and care that one would afford one’s Grandma. Why wouldn’t you? It is Nature that bestows us with water, food, oxygen, shelter, beauty, and joy.

In contrast, Western culture sees humans as having dominion over Nature, with the Oceans, Forests, and Soils as God-given riches for people to exploit. In almost every sentence, I embarrassed myself in front of Polynesians. I spoke of “natural capital”, “marine governance”, and “fish stocks”. These well-meaning terms only make sense if you are discussing Nature as yours to own or control. Even “sustainability” felt awkward, as if our only goal was to ensure living things were maintained at a minimum level to continue their usefulness to humans.

No wonder we are witnessing interlocking crises for the climate, biodiversity, soils, water, and oceans. We have forgotten our place.

In the words of Deen Sanders, Worimi man and co-author of an excellent new World Economic Forum report on indigenous knowledge and conservation, “My culture reminds us that the earth, the air, the water is not ours for the hoarding. Nature belongs to none of us. We belong to it.”

When tackling complex social or environmental issues, Systemcraft asks us what hidden assumptions or mindsets perpetuate the damaging dynamics. What are the informal incentives that mean we collectively continue to act in unhelpful ways?

We are often blind to these because they are the cultural norms and values in which we swim. It is only when we move beyond our usual circles, when we listen deeply to those with different lived experiences, that our own assumptions are revealed.

A third of the Earth’s territory is stewarded by indigenous people or held as common land, and 91% of these lands are in good or fair ecological condition – a statistic that embodies the kind of positive anomaly that systems leaders must look for when seeking a way out of a crisis.

Indigenous cultures have much to teach us about living within planetary boundaries; and repairing Western culture’s relationship with nature.

Adopting the “Rights of Nature” might work to embed indigenous wisdom within Western legal constructs. If the Orcas have a right to food, then the salmon need protecting, and for the salmon we need the rivers and forests protected, and so on. This might be one of many cultural changes that shifts our collective behaviours and choices.

Indigenous languages attribute personhood to Nature by using pronouns or capitalising all living things. How will you give Nature her due rights? She has a capital N after all. Like your Grandma, with a capital G.

What next?

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Wasafiri to launch the Climate & Nature Sprint course

by Ian Randall/

Wasafiri to launch the Climate & Nature Sprint course

Ian Randall

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Systemcraft is an applied framework to help leaders and organisations tackle complex problems. Wasafiri developed the approach by combining our real-world experience with a broad body of research and theory on complexity, systems, power, adaptive management, leadership, and social movements.

There are no problems more complex than the interlocking crises relating to climate, biodiversity, water, and other natural systems.

Designed to help you scale your impact, from 2 May 2023, The Climate & Nature Sprint is available for peer leaders around the world to come together to learn about a practical approach to tackling complex issues and put new insights, skills, and tools into action.

This 8-week course helps you answer, “What do I do next?” when you need to unlock system change. It will convene a cohort of up to 16 climate and nature leaders and includes four live interactive sessions and four modules of self-paced learning. Certification is available upon submission of a final assignment.

Sign up to The Climate & Nature Sprint
Check out our Systemcraft Essentials course

Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

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The cost-of-living crisis: building more collective responses

by Kate Simpson/

The cost-of-living crisis: building more collective responses

Kate Simpson

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The UK cost-of-living crisis is a complex problem.

  • It has multiple root causes (inflation, the war in Ukraine, fuel prices, long-term economic trends and more).
  • It is dynamic so it is changing and shifting as we work on it.
  • No single institution can solve it alone (however powerful well intentioned or well-resourced they are). It is a problem that will only give in to collective action.
  • And finally, some of the reasons it is so hard to shift is that there are trade-offs. Putting up wages puts pressure on inflation (and raises costs). Higher taxes have both political and economic implications, likewise with greater subsidies for things like energy costs.

For these reasons, there are no simple answers to the cost-of living crisis; no silver bullet solutions to reach for.

So, what do we do next?

In moments like this, when faced with problems with a high degree of complexity and uncertainty about ‘who should do what’, we need to stop calling for other people to ‘do something’ and start building better collective responses.

Complex problems by their nature need collective actions. We need actions that vary by context – that are adapted for different social groups, regions and the different ways that the cost-of-living crisis is driven and experienced.

Wasafiri has been supporting a range of organisations and clients with their work to build more collective responses to the Cost-of-Living Crisis:

  1. The Forward Institute has convened leaders from across some of the UK’s leading public, private and not-for-profit organisations. And together they are sharing ideas, collaborating and getting practical with their response.
  2. Brighton & Hove City Council convened a summit (facilitated by Wasafiri) that brought key partners together to align and coordinate support, share information and identify ideas and actions to strengthen a collective response. The large turnout demonstrated the high levels of motivation to work more collectively across the city.

Across this work we are noticing a few trends:

  • The cost-of-living crisis cannot be solved at the individual level – food banks, personal finance advice, low-interest loans for travel passes, and even home insulation are all things that will help people to live in the current context but won’t change the context. They are useful and important, but they are a response to the presenting problem – not an attempt to shift its causes.
  • Local collective action – the specific drivers and experiences of the cost-of-living crisis vary by geographic region but also industry, demographics, and a whole host of other variables. Consequently, responses need to be equally varied.

    For example, in Cumbria, a rural area in the north of England, there is a lot of available employment but the cost of transport is a significant barrier to people accessing it. The current (government-funded) experiment to cap bus prices at a flat £2 has more than halved the cost of bus transport in the region and opened up employment opportunities. 

    For an even more innovative (and artistic) attempt to take a collective response check out Power, a project to get a street in London to become its own green power station. The Power project is a recognition that the incentives for individuals to invest in things like solar panels just don’t stack up. On top of this there are significant barriers for individuals including finding suppliers, dealing with planning permissions, having the upfront cash to invest. By taking a collective approach the logistics and the financial incentives are shifted and a sense of belonging and community is created.

Let’s look to the long term

 

The cost-of-living crisis is a symptom of an underlying system driven (in part) by a dependency on carbon-based energy. We know that we need to change this.

As the cost-of-living crisis stimulates us to change the way we do things – like how we build our homes, use transport, the food we eat, the energy we consume, the products we reuse (or never use) – let’s make these changes not just to get us through this storm but to help us adapt and move towards a more sustainable and even regenerative future.

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Photo by Sarah Agnew on Unsplash

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