Do Communities Feel Heard?

When introducing Kuja Kuja earlier this month, I mentioned that one of our goals is to systematically incorporate the voice of the user or affected community to be central to decision making for the services they receive. We know that yes, service providers are talking to people in affected communities, informally and through mechanisms like focus group discussions, and complaint boxes.  But, do communities feel heard?  Recent data in the news including a report from the CHS Alliance leads me to say no, communities do not feel heard.  That’s what Kuja Kuja is trying to change.

While service providers are committed to listening to community voice in theory, it’s much more difficult to make it happen in practice. Most often, community members have informal, unsystematic ways to submit complaints or speak about the projects that affect them. These happen to different levels of effectiveness at different locations, and are used in different ways.  A lot of the information comes through to project implementers in a pull fashion, where the service provider has to actively seek out the information.

I think a key difference and strength for Kuja Kuja is that we are constantly pushing insights to the service providers. While yes, this can be overwhelming, the feedback from the community is a constant voice in a providers’ head, rather than something that might be consulted occasionally for project review, or future project design. Another value for us is that Kuja Kuja delivers the same, systematic approach across multiple locations and services. These different locations can then be easily compared to understand different challenges and needs for different geographies, as well as to dig deeper into how the teams in each location may be operating differently.

If you disagree, or if your organization has come up with an approach that you are proud of, we’d love to learn more about it!  Reach out to us for a learning discussion.