UNDP Technology for Citizen Engagement Challenge
UNDP Technology for Citizen Engagement Challenge ‘Raik Shino’? 1. Description (max. 600 words) Ten years after the signing of the Peace Agreement ending Sudan’s second civil war in 2005, Sudan is still marked by conflict which negatively impacts daily lives and overall development. The volatile and restrictive political environment is limiting the space for people to freely discuss a common vision for the future of Sudan. Lack of access to information and information-sharing is a big issue for people in Sudan, and is limiting the development of new solutions to peace and development. Numerous stakeholders are engaged in peacebuilding, but they lack opportunities for sharing knowledge and identifying best practices. ‘Raik Shino’ is Sudanese slang for ’What do you think’. The idea behind the platform is to provide a forum for people to creatively interact and discuss the future of Sudan through a gamified dialogue process. Gaming is used to engage a broader set of stakeholders normally excluded by more traditional approaches, and encourage participation through a depoliticized process. Ideas proposed on Raik Shino will for each game be analyzed and shared with relevant stakeholders and participants, and feed into offline dialogues, including the Sudan 2030 visioning exercise, the Peace Ambassadors network working at the community-level in close collaboration with the State-level peace building mechanisms, and Sudanese academia. The targeted users are Sudanese peacebuilders based in conflict-affected communities. The platform will be accessible on standard browsers through mobile devices, tablets, and computers, requiring low bandwidth, and be user-friendly for the non-technology savvy. Participants in areas with limited internet access will be able to post their opinions through SMS or voice message, or at locations such as community centers with computers to minimize the inequality of access. Challenges will be formulated offline with representative platform users, and challenges will be launched on the platform for participants to discuss and solve together. Participants will vote on the ideas proposed and those who get more points will get more power with their votes and move up the ‘influencer’ hierarchy. The main game dynamic is quantification of the feedback mechanics and the high-score. Each game will run for 4-6 weeks, and each winner will receive a prize. Throughout the game, different moderation techniques will be used, i.e. posing questions to proposed ideas, introducing potential spoilers, trends and scoring updates, or offline contacting contributors to encourage participation. The platform will offer a safe space to discuss and reflect in an open manner, but in a closed online environment as login and a game profile name will be required. This initiative will benefit peacebuilding from a critical reflection on past experiences and exploration of more innovative approaches by a broad range of participants. Based on the success of introducing futures thinking for common visioning in Sudan by UNDP Sudan, a futures thinking approach will be added to the formulation of the challenges for participants to explore common visioning for Sudan. Once the platform has been successfully tested in Sudan, this could easily be replicated in other Arabicspeaking countries. This would give participants an opportunity to broaden their network among peacebuilding stakeholders and learn from other contexts. The platform will provide opportunity for dialogue and learning for peacebuilders in conflict-affected areas. The first phase will aim at local community-based actors, limiting government participation to state-level peacebuilding mechanisms, with the hope to scale-up participation to national level actors as the platform matures. Our theory of change is: IF the online dialogue can promote active participation by community peacebuilders, THEN national peace capacities will be strengthened and a peacebuilding network promoted across sub-national and national levels. Users will enhance their critical thinking ability and together identify new ways of working on peacebuilding. The team behind the platform will work to support that ideas developed online will feed into offline activities. The offline forums to develop the challenges will also ensure a strong linkage with peacebuilding on the ground. 2. User Personas (max. 150 words each) Persona 1 Name Hamdi Omer Shigafa Boshara Age 36 Type Teacher in North Abyie Area (Diffra) Essential Characteristics Low Income Goals Assist my communities to live in peaceful coexistence with less violent conflict, particularly with Dinka Nock. Limited communication means (Internet network not available all the time). I only have a phone, not a personal computer. I live in a small village. It could be a bridge to overcome and discuss our difference ethnic problems. He has a Samsung smart phone (S Duos 2) and he is using mostly mobile apps. Hamdi Omer would be able to participate in the dialogue using the mobile access to post solutions and interact with other community peacebuilders. Obstacles / Pain Points How can your prototype help? Most important feature Persona 2 Name Jawahir Komondan Age 25 Type Peace Ambassador in Baw Locality in Blue Nile State Essential Characteristics Low Income, Driven but disconnected from professional peers “I need more information about how other peacebuilders are working.” “I want to gain more skills to engage with the different communities more effectively.” “I want my voice to be heard.” “Communities who do not know me do not trust or respect me.” “I only have a phone, not a personal computer.” “I live in a small town and do not have the means to travel to meet with communities in my region on a regular basis.” - Exchange information and opinions with other peacebuilders and collaboratively develop solutions and approaches. - Know people from different communities beyond her local area - Enrich her peacebuilding activities The ability to share information and knowledge with actors beyond her community will be very important for Jawahir. The gamified aspect will appeal to her and allow her to further develop her community theatre and acting skills. Goals Obstacles / Pain Points How can your prototype help? Most important feature 3. Community Engagement (max. 300 words) Peace Ambassadors are working at the community-level in each target state: South and West Kordofan, Blue Nile and Abyei Area, in close collaboration with the respective State-level peace building mechanisms. Two representatives of the Peace Ambassadors (one male and one female) will be selected to be part of the design phase in the target users group. In the Darfur Region, two youth volunteers and community peacebuilders will be identified to join the group. Peacebuilding professors or senior students from two universities (University of Khartoum and Al Salam University, West Kordofan State) will also be invited to join the design group. The group members will be carefully selected taking into consideration age, gender, tribal affiliation and accessibility to internet/smart phones/mobile phone. Group members with no access to these devices will also be consulted to ensure inclusivity. When the first prototype is ready, the target group will be invited to Khartoum to test the prototype and provide feedback. Each target group member will then lead the testing of the second prototype in their respective States involving more community peacebuilders for further iteration. Furthermore, the UNDP Sudan team in close collaboration with the universities will work on providing an offline method to use the platform in university course modules. Once the platform has been piloted for community peacebuilders in the target areas, the Peace Innovation Hub under the University of Khartoum will broaden the user group to include nationwide community peacebuilders. Furthermore, the UNDP Sudan team will support the Peace Innovation Hub in the identification of one or more UNDP Country Offices among the Arab States with an interest of using the platform and developing an exchange with Sudanese youth. 4. The Team (max. 450 words) Anne Kahl: Team Leader Anne is working on conflict management and peacebuilding at the UNDP. Anne is currently heading the Analysis and Capacity Development Unit of the UNDP/IOM Joint Peace Building Programme in Sudan. - Provide overall supervision to project implementation and technical advice to strategic project planning and moderation of ongoing platform games; Design a scaling-up plan and establish contact with other UNDP Country Offices and regional stakeholders Margunn Indreboe Alshaikh: Strategic Partnership and Communication Advisor Margunn has over 10 years of experience working in the field of crisis mapping and conflict analysis, policy research, innovation and communications. She currently heads the Partnerships & Communications Unit for UNDP Sudan. - Provide overall guidance to the project implementation, strategic communication and outreach; Build partnership with relevant partners, including sponsors for prizes Yumiko Shinya: Dialogue Design Coordinator Yumiko has been involved in development and peacebuilding in Africa and Asia, and currently works for the Joint Conflict Reduction Programme (JCRP), UNDP Sudan. - Develop challenges with the users group representatives; Ensure linkages with offline activities of relevant stakeholders; Closely work with the Platform Administrator, Community Coordinator and Platform Developer Ali Ibrahim: Platform Administrator Ali is an Economics and Political Sciences major, and has been working with different NGOs in the field of development for over five years. He recently worked as a consultant for UNDP Sudan’s foresight project. - Undertake design research; Facilitate communication among the team members and co-designers; Manage the platform and encourage participation by the users; Engage with users and co-designers for feedback and updates; Monitor the platform to avoid misusage of the platform, hacking, or trolls Almutaz Angabo: Community Coordinator Almutaz, specialized in MBA-Information System, has been working for conflict issues with NGOs and UN Agencies for six years. He is currently working with the JCRP. - Main focal point for communication and interaction with community stakeholder; - Work on the linkages between the online proposed ideas and the offline responses; Liaise with other peacebuilding activities in the target areas. Peace Innovation Hub and Peace Research Institute, University of Khartoum and Peace Research Center, Al Salam University: Co-designers/users - Be part of prototype testing with university students - Oversee the dialogue process during competitions - Launch dialogue platform within their universities for students - In case of scaling-up of the platform, Peace Innovation Hub could host the platform through self-funded or with limited financial support from UNDP Sudan 10 Peace Ambassadors and youth volunteers: Co-designers/users - Get involved in design research in their communities in each state/area - Test prototypes among themselves and in their communities - Act as a focal person of the platform in each state/area Serious Games Interactive: Platform developer - Develop the platform according to the requirements identified by the co-designers team - Test the first prototype with co-designers group in Khartoum - Improve the first prototype and continue iterating - Conduct ToT for the use of the platform and content management system 5. Draft Prototype 6. Budget Please provide an outline of the budget using the following table: Activity Intended result of Deliverable Responsible Location activity (what will be person/partner activity produced as a (if known) result of the activity) Proposed budget (US$) Development of platform Fully functioning online dialogue platform Dialogue platform of Timeframe: Indicate the month/year that the activity will take place Denmark/Sudan April – July USD 25.000 (covered by JCRP/UNDP Sudan) Design phase and development of challenges User-friendly platform and game ready to be launched, including formulation of challenges for the first rounds of the dialogue Final prototype Project Team + of dialogue game co-designers ready Sudan May – August USD 2.000 15 persons trained in the use of the platform and facilitation of Khartoum, Sudan August USD 2.500 Training for users Training of main and key focal points user group and focal points in each State Serious Games Project Team + Serious Games dialogue processes Outreach of dialogue platform within Sudan Communication material and strategy developed, partnerships established with key community peacebuilders and other relevant stakeholders. Communication material and partnerships agreements Project Team Sudan July-August USD 2.000 Customization of platform to include more than one challenge/country per game Dialogue platform can run a challenge across various countries in the Arab region Dialogue platform customized to expand to several countries Project Team + Serious Games Denmark/Sudan AugustSeptember USD 1.500 Outreach of dialogue platform to other countries in the Arab States region Communication material and strategy developed, partnerships established with key community peacebuilding organizations. Dialogue game Project Team initiated including participants from at least two Arab States, including Sudan. Sudan/Amman USD 2.000 TOTAL September – December USD 10.000 7. In-kind Contributions Once your concept goes back onto Mahallae, members of the public will be able to endorse it, ask questions, provide comments and offer in kind resources. Use the table below to indicate the resources you would like to request from your community, up to a maximum of 6 different items. Resource Prizes for prizewinners (communication devices, mobile credit, training opportunities) Volunteers to test platform (based in Arab States, Arabic speakers) Graphic designers for development of communication material, including infographic with result of each dialogue game Illustrators to develop logo for the gaming dialogue platform and images of future visions developed through the games Quantity 10 5 2 1 8. Sustainability (max. 300 words) After having invested in the development of the online dialogue platform, the costs related to the running of the platform will be very low, limited to hosting of platform etc. The platform will be self-sustained by having the Peace Innovation Hub, established in the Peace Research Institute, University of Khartoum, taking the lead and having ownership of the platform and running the challenges to feed into their work on support societal dialogue on the future of Sudan in addition to their promotion of the Sudanese peacebuilding network. The initial phase will test and showcase how the platform can promote a more inclusive dialogue process in Sudan. Furthermore, the platform could be used in a creative way, such as a part of university modules and training opportunities, for a stimulation of community dialogue, or a tool for international exchange. The gamified platform can be used without giving prizes for the purpose of dialogue. However, at the same time, UNDP Sudan will facilitate for the Peace Innovation Hub to find partnership with different stakeholders who could be potential contributors for prizes and who are interested in broadening the outreach of the platform.
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