The Change Alliance

General Frequently Asked Questions

1.    What is the aim of the Change Alliance?

The aim of the Alliance is to strengthen humanity’s capacity to achieve sustainability – socal justice, healthy economic development and environmental protection by increasing the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder processes.  By the term “multi-stakeholder processes,” we refer to a diverse range of learning, dialogue and innovation processes that complement formal governance mechanisms by bringing citizens and stakeholders from government, civil society and/or business together to tackle difficult issues in ways that build trust and understanding and enable collective action. These processes have become increasingly important parts of strategies to address the most pressing and intractable societal challenges. However,  they often do not realize their potential and this shortfall limits the ability of the different elements of society to work constructively together on a common agenda.

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2.    Why has the Change Alliance been established?

The idea for the Alliance has evolved from a wide set of conversations between individuals in organisations who are engaged with multi-stakeholder, learning and dialogue processes and who have indicated strong interest in participating. These conversations have focused on three areas of need:

• To strengthen and improve the depth and quality of the dialogue, interaction and critical learning that multi-stakeholder processes produce;

• To develop the capacities of those who lead and participate in multi-stakeholder processes to work with the full range of issues – for example, about social, economic and political change, power dynamics, and different forms of governance and democracy – by bringing the most relevant theory and practice to bear in critical reflection on real-world experiences;

• To advance the practical application of complexity thinking in support of multi-stakeholder processes and the mechanisms of governance more broadly.

The institutions that have initiated the Alliance are committed to looking critically at their own successes and failures with multi-stakeholder processes.  They also seek to gain access to a wider network of expertise and support by linking with other institutions to explore the challenges they face. The Alliance aims to deliver practical support in both these areas to those who participate and to others involved in multi-stakeholder processes.

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3.    What are the activities of the Alliance?

The Alliance will provide support to multi-stakeholder processes through two main activities:

• Action inquiry initiatives that will engage the multi-stakeholder processes of the Alliance partners, providing access to expertise and knowledge, financial support and a practitioner network. Through such inputs, the Alliance expects to strengthen and improve such initiatives and enable them to be developed, implemented and reflected upon with a depth and quality otherwise not possible.

• The global learning platform that will link the action inquiry initiatives to each other and to a wider group of practitioners, process experts, researchers and thought leaders. It will provide research, learning, knowledge management and capacity development functions that only become feasible and cost effective when supporting a wide network of partners.

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5.    How is the Alliance governed?

The Alliance is governed by its partner institutions through a globally representative Steering Group. One partner institution, Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation, will serve as the Secretariat, coordinating the activities of the Alliance under the direction of the Steering Group.

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6.    How will it be funded?

Seed funding has been provided by the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO), Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation, and the Generative Change Community.

Currently, the Alliance funding approach draws heavily on the resources that can be generated by the members of the alliance itself, at least through-out its start-up phases. Such a self-financing approach would foster genuine interest, a mean and lean set-up of the alliance, and might assure its best possible integration in the regular activities of all participating organisations.

The Alliance may introduce a layered membership fee structure in future and continues to seek fundong opportunities, in particular for the larger and externally oriented events.

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