Co-Creation
How can we move beyond simply “involving” people to genuinely co-creating solutions that reflect diverse perspectives, empower marginalized voices, and build ownership for implementation and sustainability?
From my perspective, co-creation is the aspect of power sharing, and this typically means the government doesn't only listen but also act upon what the community says. This empowers the marginalized group and also makes the implementations more sustainable because the people are included rather than being passive beneficiaries to the policies implemented.
True co-creation starts by handing over veto power and budget authority to community members from day one, rather than just soliciting their input on pre-set plans. We'll know we've succeeded when the community has the resources and confidence to run the project without us, and when our role becomes obsolete by their design.
Benard Ondiek wrote:
How can we move beyond simply “involving” people to genuinely co-creating solutions that reflect diverse perspectives, empower marginalized voices, and build ownership for implementation and sustainability?
We move beyond “involving” people by treating communities as equal partners—not simply respondents or beneficiaries. This means engaging diverse groups from the very beginning to jointly define the problem, set priorities, design interventions, interpret findings, and decide how solutions should be implemented. Marginalized voices need deliberate space and influence, including through community representatives, participatory workshops, lived-experience leaders, and mechanisms that reduce barriers to participation.
Genuine co-creation also requires shared decision-making and power, not just consultation. Communities should have clear opportunities to challenge assumptions, adapt proposed solutions, and see how their contributions influence final decisions. This should be supported by transparent communication, culturally appropriate engagement, fair compensation for community expertise, and feedback loops that demonstrate “you said, we changed.”
For implementation and sustainability, communities should be involved in ownership, capacity building, resource allocation, monitoring, and evaluation. Local knowledge should be integrated with technical and scientific expertise rather than treated as secondary. Solutions should fit existing community structures and health systems, with responsibilities progressively transferred to local actors.
Ultimately, successful co-creation means moving from “doing research or interventions for communities” → “doing them with communities” → “communities having the capacity and authority to sustain them.” The measure of success is not how many people participated, but whether diverse voices genuinely influenced decisions, strengthened local ownership, and produced solutions that communities consider relevant, feasible, equitable, and sustainable.
We can move beyond simply involving people by making them active partners throughout the entire process from identifying the problem and defining priorities to designing, implementing, and evaluating solutions. This means creating safe and inclusive spaces where marginalized and often unheard voices can influence decisions, not just provide feedback. Co-creation should also recognize lived experience as valuable expertise, ensure shared decision-making and ownership, and provide the resources and capacity needed for meaningful participation. Most importantly, communities should see their ideas reflected in the final solutions and have a role in implementation and monitoring. This builds trust, accountability, and a stronger sense of ownership, which are essential for long-term sustainability@all
Co-define the problem first: Don’t bring a proposed solution to the community to validate. Start earlier. Ask them to define what the actual problem is, as they experience it.
Share decision-making power: Co-creation means the community has the power to say "no." If a steering committee or advisory board of community members doesn't have the authority to veto or significantly alter the budget and project design, it is consultation, not co-creation.
Research on participation (going back to Arnstein's classic "ladder of citizen participation") shows the key shift is from consultation to actually sharing power, letting people shape the problem and hold real decision rights, not just react to options already set. Co-production literature backs this up: ownership sticks when communities help design and deliver solutions, not just weigh in on them. For marginalized voices specifically, that usually means deliberately redistributing resources like time, compensation, and language access, since "open" processes tend to quietly favor whoever's already most empowered in the room.
It is about generating policy ideas, for example, from the very people who need the solution most. It is about recasting your ides to align with the needs of the beneficiaries. It is about intended beneficiaries identifying with your worldview.
Interesting topic @Bernard. I suggest we consider the prerequisites of co-creation as well as the degrees of involvement of the creation partners.
People should be involved from the beginning in identifying the problem, setting priorities, designing the intervention, interpreting findings and deciding how solutions will be implemented. Their lived experiences and local knowledge should be valued alongside academic and technical expertise.
We also need to create safe and inclusive spaces where marginalized voices can genuinely influence decisions. This may mean using local languages, providing accessible platforms for participation, compensating community contributors, and making deliberate efforts to include groups that are often overlooked. Most importantly, communities need to see that their contributions have actually shaped the final outcome. This creates stronger foundations for implementation, trust and sustainability.