CollaborateUp worked with the USAID mission and the Government of Indonesia to design and facilitate a co-creation/co-design process on workforce development where more than 100 executives participated, representing academia, civil society, the national and provincial governments, large and small employers, the American Chamber of Commerce, industry associations, and other bilateral and multilateral donor agencies. During the workshop, we convened participants who brought fresh eyes to the problem, formed new teams and coalitions, and came up with actionable ideas, several of which USAID chose to fund.
Addressing Power Differentials and Information Asymmetry
During workshop we had to address gender inequality in several ways. Participants included numerous female-led NGOs who had not worked with USAID before and who felt uncomfortable speaking forcefully in public. This set up a difficult dynamic in the room, with numerous USAID-veterans represented by very fluent, very extraverted men. To address this, we used pre-workshop sessions to even out the information asymmetry. During the workshop we created numerous opportunities for these new players to work together in smaller groups and build up the confidence to speak in public using simultaneous translation. We also bolstered this approach with specific interventions by facilitators to call “timeout” on some of the more outspoken USAID-veterans. The content of these concept notes also directly dealt with gender in developing a more inclusive workforce in Indonesia. Lessons from this project were published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review and became part of the blueprint for development redesign.