Knowledge and Change Dialogue: Which change agents really matter?

Newsflash 1st of October

Additional tags: Knowledge and change; change agents; new actors; hivos

Who bring about real change? New actors? Old actors? Or perhaps old actors that are just recently recognized as “actors”? These were some of the questions that have been asked to several participants on the second day of the Knowledge and Change conference.

According to Marlies Glasius, “new” actors are not always that new. Religious groups and tribal leaders for example have always been active, but have not necessarily been acknowledged as agents of change by the traditional donors. Besides the recently acknowledged old actors, there are also the “mimickers”: Business NGO’s and Government NGO’s that are copying/mimicking traditional donors. The actors most entitled to the label “new” however, would be the Diaspora; “new” technologies and the people using them, and organizations engaged in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). According to Marlies, all these actors do not differ that much from each other. What has changed though, are the methods they all use (i.e. ICT) and the targets they all set (i.e. ethnic nationalism, populism).

Perhaps the question about old and new suspects is not that relevant. As Steven Heydemann put it, what could be more important to ask ourselves is what actors hold the promise for meaningful progress? Zaheera Jinnah gave a nice example of such an actor: The Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg, South Africa. For the labelers amongst us, it can be categorized as a “recently recognized old actor”, but what is more interesting is the way in which it cooperates with two secular organizations: MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières) and LHR (Lawyers for Human Rights). The cooperation is very loosely and informally organized and is basically all about responding to perceived needs instead of being rooted in some complicated agreement of understanding. Migrants in Johannesburg are provided with food and shelter by the church, indoor medical care by MSF and legal services by LHR. It is not about funding but about providing basic services free of charge. Would these actors ever have discussions about who of them is the “newest” change agent?