Develop! Integrating Territories
The arrival of a large group of migrants to a territory carries with itself a combination of capabilities, potentialities and challenges. This is the premise of Develop! Integrating territories, a methodology developed by UNDP Brazil and applied in Boa Vista, Roraima, in 2019.
The initiative is composed by a toolkit and a methodology created to promote local development. Thinking about human development in vulnerable territories is at the core of UNDP mandate.
“UNDP Brazil has national and international experience in creating solutions and methodologies that fosters the development of territories, prioritizing intersectoral and participatory approaches”, explains UNDP Brazil Assistant Resident Representative for Programme, Maristela Baioni.
The pilot application of the methodology was led by UNDP Brazil, in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM); the Integrated Center for Sustainable Development Studies and Programs (CIEDS); and the National School of Public Administration (ENAP).
TOOLKIT
Composed by a collective design method supported by a board game, a virtual platform and a mobile app, the methodology aims to create mechanisms to elaborate a diagnostic of the territory and a local development plan. This considers the needs and capabilities of both migrants and people already established in the territories, as well as the different challenges and capabilities that the locality has.
Develop!’s pilot application was carried out in a set of innovation workshops in Boa Vista, in the Brazilian state of Roraima, and were attended by different local government, private sector and community players.
“We believe that the collaboration between different areas is the way to enhance the assets of a territory in favor of those who live there,” says UNDP Brazil project manager Pollyana Miguel.
The Develop! method was created based on the concept of human development and on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Both adopt similar premises: the implementation of actions aimed at the different dimensions of development, respecting the needs of each place.
“Understanding the characteristics of a place before implementing an action, as well as engaging the different actors and institutions in the processes of promoting local development is essential for development to be a reality for everyone”, says the project assistant from UNDP Brazil, Júlia Matravolgyi.
Four dimensions were selected as pillars of the methodology: inclusion, productivity, resilience and effective governance, considering the premises of human development and the challenges faced by migrants, as well as the guidelines for development acceleration of UNDP in Latin America.
Considering that complex challenges require well-founded solutions directed to the real demands of the population, the methodology provides different instances of social participation and content management.
The Develop! board game was inspired by RPG (Role-Playing Games) and gamebooks. On it, characters from an imaginary territory have challenges related to the growth of this place. It is an invitation to think about the territory on a playful and joint way — playing turns into a richer process as the players have different profiles and points of view.
The missions of each player can aim at inclusion, productivity, resilience, and effective governance, and thus involve cooperation, cultural exchanges and collective designing for common goals.
Concerning the pilot version of Develop!, in Boa Vista, the game was applied as an introduction to the method and key concepts for the community and for public managers in innovation workshops designed to discuss local development initiatives.
The project’s virtual platforms were designed to allow citizens and managers to map and prioritize — in a collaborative way — the most relevant problems and capabilities in their region. Using data inserted by public managers, in the platform, and by the community, in the app, the tools help to trace routes of real capabilities — that are already available — and ideal, which are those capabilities that need to be developed to meet the demands of a particular location. The purpose of these routes is to subsidize analyzes of the territory, by citizens and those who think about its policies and initiatives.
Two events marked the activities carried out by UNDP, CIEDS and IOM in Boa Vista: a workshop entitled “Collective Ideation”, held in November 2019, for the construction of multisectoral actions; and another in December of the same year with municipal managers to consolidate local development actions.
The first meeting brought together representatives of the state and municipal government, members of NGOs, cooperatives, migrant leaders, universities and civil society to play the Develop! game, followed by a sequence of activities to think about solutions to Boa Vista’s problems in groups.
For the UNDP project’s local advisor, Anna Clara Monjardim, responsible for organizing and mobilizing the guests, in partnership with the CIEDS team, “mobilizing participants so different from each other was critical to bring together people with various interests to dialogue and build joint proposals for development ”.
Using methodologies such as design thinking and gamification, the workshop divided migrants into groups to discuss issues identified as problematic by themselves: among them, bullying in schools, gender violence, the lack of citizens’ knowledge about public management and the need for training of young professionals. “The proposal is to allow people from different backgrounds to dialogue with equality, transferring different forms of knowledge”, adds Anna Clara.
Moreover, using the Develop! game to open the Collective Ideation meeting supported the comprehension of concepts such as human development, inclusion, productivity so that the participants could identify and map the local problems, their causes and consequences. Once the problems were identified, the workshop guests were gathered in groups for maturing and planning initiatives designed to help solve the problem chosen by the group.
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The most relevant projects proposed by the group — selected in a public contest during the Collective ideation process — have received seed support to be implemented
“The mapped problems are wide-ranging and, therefore, the connection between people from different areas is so important: we get to know what different spheres of the public sector think, as well as the ideas of migrants or those in the private sector. We ask ourselves: what does the other bring and what can we bring to the discussion?”, explains the administrative technique of the State Government of Roraima, Gisele Tresoldo. “Today the discussions are transversal and from several fields”, she adds.
For the leader of the COOFECS cooperative, Maria dos Santos, the event was an opportunity to engage in a new activity. “I felt grateful, as I had never done a group activity like this,” she said. “The most difficult thing is to plan a solution right away, writing down everything we need. Here I gained new friendships, a partnership in which we’ll go together until the end”, she says.
“The methodology was able to integrate the group”, completes the leader of the Women’s Center of Roraima, Andrea Vasconcelos.
“We chose the name Women Who Shine [to the initiative presented during the Collective Ideation] because there are many women who are affected by situations of mistreatment, because they work and are not paid, or they have families they cannot support. We want to see women who shine!”, explains migrant Kerim Valentina.“If one woman, among all the participants, has a different life, the project will already be valid”. Women Who Shine was one of the initiatives financed and implemented during the project.
Following, the data raised during the Collective Ideation was shared among the municipal managers at the workshop held on December 9, 2019. The managers were invited to think, in groups that brought together technicians from different areas, solutions to issues that may later compose a local development plan, given the intense migratory flow.
“We were able to plan in an intersectoral way: meeting with colleagues from various departments, it is possible to have different visions of the reality of the city, then write down ideas and establish guidelines and objectives”, says the technician from the Boa Vista Municipal Education Department (SMEC), Alexandre Pereira.
MIGRATION: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT
The displacement of many people towards a territory can cause impacts that require planning to manage the new challenges. At the same time, migration flows can generate numerous opportunities for positive transformation and territorial development. Therefore, the method considers that there isn’t an unique way to generate development: it is necessary to adapt to the reality of migrants and of the community, contributing in the best way to advance. For that, it is necessary to get to know the local reality.
This way of thinking about local development and migration is in line with the objectives of the 2030 Agenda. Among them, Objective 10 (reducing inequality within and between countries) stands out, and has a goal directly related to migration: 10.7 (facilitating orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility for people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies).
Other objectives also have a strong relationship with the theme: objectives 16 (promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, providing access to justice for all and building effective, responsible and inclusive institutions at all levels) and 8 (promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all) are examples.
“The methodology Develop! and its toolkit will remain as a contribution from UNDP for replication in other territories, with a potential for supporting processes targeted to accelerating development across the country”, highlights the coordinator of the UNDP Brazil Peace and Governance Unit, Moema Freire.
Photos: UNDP Brazil/ Julia Matravolgyi
Originally published at https://medium.com on July 13, 2020.
