14th June 2024
How can we harness the power of communities and networks as tools for humanitarian learning?
In this podcast episode, Esther Grieder (the HLA’s Global Communities and Partnerships Lead), leads a deep dive discussion with three seasoned community builders from Ghana, Nigeria and the UK to share and compare professional experiences.
Tune in to hear insightful learnings and reflections from Esther and guests Ese Emerhi (Global Fund for Community Foundations), Nancy Kankam Kusi (West Africa Civil Society Institute), and Jon Novakovic (Global Inter-agency Security Forum).
Intentionality in community building work, as well as the importance of trust, emerge as key themes in this illuminating discussion.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and Buzzsprout.
Note on audio: minor connectivity issues occurred during the speakers’ video call, affecting the audio quality in certain segments.
About the speakers
Ese Emerhi: Global Network Weaver, Global Fund for Community Foundations – GFCF
Since 2017, Ese has served as the project director for the Kiisi Trust Fund, a donor-advised-fund managed by TrustAfrica in Ogoniland in Rivers State, Nigeria. She has spent the past 20 years working in the international development field, supporting human rights defenders and organizations, developing non-profit boards, working with marginalized communities and groups, as well as youth-led organizations across the globe advocating for greater youth inclusion in development projects, leadership, and youth empowerment. As the project lead for the Kiisi Trust Fund, she directed a multi-million USD fund for the benefit of the Ogoni people in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, instilling a new model of participatory community-based grant making for sustainable development.
In 2018, in her role as project director for TrustAfrica, she partnered with the GFCF, Africa Philanthropy Network, and the Kenya Development Community Foundation to host the Twitter chat “You Say Intermediary, I Say….?” that sought to better understand and define the controversial word “intermediary” as it is used in the development field.
Nancy Kankam Kusi: Programme Officer, West Africa Civil Society Institute – WACSI
At WACSI, Nancy Kankam Kusi leads in curating, documenting, packaging and sharing learnings and knowledge on civil society to facilitate growth in the civil society ecosystem. Nancy also leads a diverse team of civil society actors to initiate and implement international development programs that promote community philanthropy, shifting power and resources to the grassroots, localising and decolonising development initiatives in the global south. She is a member of the RINGO project and an idea career for the Decolonising Advisory Community.
Nancy holds an MPhil degree in Planning with experience in international development, development research (quantitative and qualitative) and knowledge management. She is a trained urban and regional planner. She has a demonstrated working experience in different sectors, including research institutions, the government development sector and the civil society sector and has worked with partners across Africa, Asia, North America and Europe.
Jon Novakovic: Executive Director, Global Inter-agency Security Forum – GISF
Jon Novakovic joined the GISF Secretariat as Executive Director in March 2023. Jon started his career in government in Australia before moving into overseas development. In almost 10 years in the aid sector, he has been involved in SRM within local and international NGOs, and private consultancy. He has spent significant time in Afghanistan and Timor Leste, and is now based in Scotland.
As the Global Manager of Crisis Analytics at Mercy Corps, Jon was a key part of the team defining and growing the new offering that proved a key point of difference in Mercy Corps’ access and operations in high risk environments. He ran the Syria and Nigeria teams, and set up new operations in Mozambique and Ethiopia. He fostered the introduction of new AI-based technologies, and the recruitment of OSINT specialists to enable work in hard-to-access areas. Jon has a Masters Degree in Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism.
Hosted by Esther Grieder: Global Partnerships and Communities Lead, Humanitarian Leadership Academy
Esther Grieder is Global Communities and Partnerships Lead at the Humanitarian Leadership Academy. She holds 20 years of experience in the international development and humanitarian sectors, working primarily on education, youth, health and humanitarian issues.
Esther has worked at the Humanitarian Leadership Academy since 2016. She was responsible for developing, launching and growing HPass, a platform enabling humanitarians to showcase verifiable evidence of their skills and experience using digital badges. She holds extensive business development and partnerships experience, and enjoys figuring out how organisations can work together to turn good ideas into great social initiatives. Esther holds a BA and MA in History, and is based in London, UK.
We have this great belief that communities have power because communities – civil society as a community, civic activists as communities, especially those residing and embedded in the South and the Majority World – have a lot of resources, knowledge, expertise, so they hold a lot of power. And bringing communities together really is a great way to drive this collective power together, for transformation to happen.
It’s really valuable to be able to speak with one voice – and communities can deliver that. There are a number of communities around your community, so for us, whether it’s the UN, donors, commercial providers, you need to be able to speak with a single voice – and having a strong community really helps with that.
Building communities takes time…it’s not a quick fix. Communities ebb and flow according to the energy and interests of members who are participating. And so for those who are convening, it is to understand that that this is several years in the making, several months in the making in terms of having a successful community that can then maybe evolve into an actual institution or an actual business once the problem has been solved.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and Buzzsprout.
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The views and opinions expressed in our podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of their organisations.