A conversation with Aminata Mansaray, a Strategic Foresight practitioner in Sierra Leone about how she is changing communities and lives using Strategic Foresight.
Interviewed by: Peter Hayward
Links
1. Link to UNDP workshop Twitter post –
https://x.com/undpsierraleone/status/1595412403268861953?s=46
2. The link for the IDRC Futures Project in SL
3. The Project Team with the UNESCO National Commission chairman to strengthen Futures work in’s Sierra Leone.
4. The launch of the Tumara Futures Literacy Center.
5. The Link on the Art and promotion of Foresight in Dankawali by Kewulay Kamara
https://badenya.org/dankawalievillage/?
6. My work as a change practitioner.
Transcript
Peter Hayward: Foresight transforms lives. It transformed mine and I love helping people both transform theirs and help others to do the same. It is good to be reminded about this.
Aminata Mansaray: There was one metaphor that we used which was there's this saying in Creole. I'll say that in Creole and translate, which says Osai den tie cow na day e day eat it means wherever you tie a cow, that's the area it will graze or it will not eat past that area it's tied. We usually use that metaphor when we're talking about corruption and people usually say if somebody's working at a particular place you have to find, every avenue possible to survive.
Even if that avenue means you have to engage in corrupt practices, it's where you are. You have to make use of that opportunity. So we asked the participants, to tell us about that metaphor? What do they mean? You hear interesting stories, that people share that's it's about making use of the opportunity that presents itself to you if you're in a particular space and there is an opportunity for you to get wealth, you make use of that opportunity.
And we're like, are you tied to that place? Are you tied to that job? Are you even a cow? Would you think yourself as a cow? No, you're not. You're a human. And if you're human, you're not tied. And if you're not tied, it means if you find yourself in a situation being compromised and you feel that you're not having enough to look after yourself, you can resign from that job . You go improve yourself, go educate yourself or move somewhere else to get better sustenance instead of engaging in corruption.
Peter Hayward: That is my guest today on FuturePod. Aminata Mansaray who is a Strategic Foresight, Design Thinking and Change Management practitioner in Sierra Leone.
Peter Hayward: Welcome to Future Pod Amina.
Aminata Mansaray: Thank you so much, Peter. It's good to be here and have this podcast with you after a very long time, being with you in the classroom in Australia.
Peter Hayward: Yeah. It's been a couple of years, hasn't it?
Aminata Mansaray: Yes. It's been 10 years and that's a very long time.
Peter Hayward: Let's tell the listeners the Amina Mansaray story. How did you get involved with the Futures and Foresight community?
Aminata Mansaray: It's quite interesting, Peter prepping for this interview and I was reflecting on my life and career path and one thing that resonates strongly with me is the fact that I had always loved visioning as a young girl.
Growing up I used to love sitting on, the porch in our two story house. Around nine (9) PM it's usually really quiet and dark. I'll just sit out there starring at the sky. Looking at the stars, the patterns, and then I'll just drift away, visioning about happenings around, visioning about my life, career or things I would love to do when I grow up.
The interesting thing was this one, which up to now stuck with me. The vision of myself as the owner of a hotel franchise.Interestingly, I had a name, which is a combination of the names of my siblings and it's called FIAG Hotel.
It's quite interesting, I'll see myself in the boardroom talking to people, making decisions and things like that. I have always loved imagining or visioning so reflecting on the career that I've chosen and my practice, foresight has been a thing since I was a child.
I ended up graduating with economics, which is far from all the visions and imaginings. I started working with the Tax Authority, the following year, after. Within the tax authority I had the opportunity to move into several roles. Which have given me the opportunity to implement key government reforms and initiative that has not only transformed the tax administration but also helped us mobilize revenue that governments over the years fund developmental activities. The key thing among all these roles is the fact that I have played an active role in transformation and Foresight is about using tools and supporting people through transformation.
I've worked in taxpayer services supporting taxpayers. I was managing the top 250 businesses and institutions within the country and engaging with people such as Corporate leaders, and finance directors of these institution. |Supporting them and making ease their compliance with their tax obligations. I've supported Various stakeholders through change management in systems implementation.
We introduced the tax identification number, which was giving taxpayers a unique ID number they used across all tax types. This was huge because back then it was individual numbers for various taxes. We introduced the goods and services tax which is called VAT in other places for the first time.
Recently automating domestic tax administration, which has made it possible for taxpayers or people dealing with the revenue authority or the domestic tax department in particular to be able to use online platform to file in the taxes to make Payments or just to comply with their key tax obligation. This currently helping, the revenue authority in mobilizing needed revenue for developmental activities.
After some period of time, I got tired and did some work with the UNDP coordinating donor intervention in the Civil Regislation and Vital statistics (CRVS) space. Specifically, on the U. N. Legal Identity for All (UNLIA) project. These experiences have been quite interesting as I've been using Foresight tools in the various roles that I've found myself.
I'm now with a feminist organization called Purposeful and I currently work in the Organizational Effectiveness team where, of course, we develop policies, address the operational, administrative and logistic needs of the organization, supporting those who do the Advocacy, Programming and things out there. As we work to bring radical change, move money and power to girls and, change the narrative of women.
Peter Hayward: I'm going to butt in just because foresight wasn't necessarily something you might've planned to add to your considerable career. I wonder whether you want to just talk a little bit about the seemingly accidental way that you finished up learning foresight?
Aminata Mansaray: Yes. So in 2014, I had a scholarship from the Australian government to pursue a master's program. It was quite interesting. at that time, I wanted to do an MBA as a way of positioning myself for senior leadership within the NRA or in any place I'll find myself.
So they provided Me with the list of courses that I should choose and MBA was not part of those courses. And what I saw was strategic foresight. And in my mind, I was thinking strategic foresight is about strategic planning which in some way I felt was closer to, an MBA.
I didn't think about the location or the university. I just jumped right in. I went to Australia, and started the foresight program. When we started to deal with the six pillars of futures, meta futures, spiral dynamics, I was like, huh, is this why I'm here? What is all of this? How does this relate to my work at the tax office? How does this relate to me or my future career goals?
I was struggling to understand and became worried that, oh, I've made a bad decision as to my choice of a Masters program. That’s when I went to see you at the office because I was quite confused about whether I’d made the right decision. Then we had a conversation about it which really helped in some way. But then as we delved deeper into the program and started doing the leadership courses, scenario planning, and Designing Innovative Future. It was quite interesting and I started relating the topics to myself, my organization, and my country.
There was one topic in Designing Innovative Futures which was about Design Thinking. I love that a lot, and we were asked to analyse a particular design product using design thinking. At that time, we had Ebola in Sierra Leone. My daughter was there at the time and they were doing virtual learning.
The way they did this was by recording on a compact disc (CD). Parents were asked to pick up this disc every two weeks with some papers that had questions and kids were supposed to do these exercises after they’ve listened to the CD.
I was to use design thinking to analyze that and it was quite interesting how much I learned from analyzing that particular form of learning during the Ebola. This helped me think critically, and analyze situations . It was quite an interesting journey and I'm really glad that I stepped into Foresight because the tools and the methodologies are quite useful and has changed me as a person. It has positioned me in the different roles and organizations that I've worked with over the years.
Peter Hayward: You've been exposed to a lot of tools and frameworks and philosophies. What are the ones that are closest and you use the most in the work you do now?
Aminata Mansaray: Thank you so much for that.
I most times use a future literacy laboratory. While I was doing my master's program, I had the opportunity to be a peer facilitator at a global youth conference in Paris. And then I had to actually, use those tools that I've learnt in class to address real-life problems. It was the first time the future literacy laboratory was being used to explore challenges youth in communities face with regards to the achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). And the way the participants ended up, thinking about the problems and the challenges that they face in their communities and how they get to critically think and question and identify some of the biases was for me very useful. So it's one of the tools that I love using.
When I had the opportunity facilitating a foresight process during the workshop I did for the UNDP project, we used Futures Literacy Lab to get people to critically think how to enhance coordination among the different, development partners in the CRVS space. The outcome was quite interesting especially how people got to identify their biases and reframe their thinking on how they see the future. It was quite interesting.
CLA, by Sohail Inayatullah which is a Causal Layered Analysis is also another tool that I find useful Most times we have the headlines, which is the litany or the problems that we usually see, but then people don't dig deeper to understand what are the world views aside from the causes, what's beneath those causes, what are the values, the beliefs that are making people behave in the way they do. How does society actually shape those views and values that causes the problems that we see right at the top. Also, some of the stories people tell and how they anticipate the future in those stories. It’s a tool I find useful.
I could remember also using in that same workshop and we were trying as a warm-up in using these tools to explore, the Future of drug abuse, which is a topic people are really passionate about. It's quite interesting how people hold certain vision or future, and then you get to throw in questions that get them to think about other things and, of course, reframe their opinion. Some of the stories they tell inform others about the future they anticipate, which was quite mind-blowing, even to the participants.
There was one, um, metaphor that we used, which is a saying in Creole. I'll say that and translate it into English ….”Osai den tie cow na day e day eat” it means wherever you tie a cow, that's the area it will graze or it will not eat past that area it's tied. We usually use that metaphor when we're talking about corruption and people usually say if somebody is working at a particular place you have to find, every avenue possible to survive. Even if that avenue means you have to engage in corrupt practices, it’s where you are you have to make use of that opportunity.
So we asked the participants, to tell us about that metaphor? What do they mean? You hear interesting stories, that people share that it's about, making use of the opportunity that presents itself to you if you're in a particular space and there is an opportunity for you to get wealth, you make use of that opportunity.
And we were like, are you tied to that place? Are you tied to that job? Are you even a cow? Do you think of yourself as a cow? No, you're not. You're a human. And if you're human, you're not tied. And if you're not tied, it means if you find yourself in a situation being compromised and you feel that you do not have enough to look after yourself, you can resign from that job, You go improve yourself, go educate yourself or move somewhere else to get better sustenance instead of engaging in corruption.
Helping them (participants) reframe this metaphor was really something that struck them deep because people never thought, ooh, I'm not a cow. Oh, I'm not tied. Oh, yeah. If even I'm faced with a compromising situation, I can take action, in not being corrupt, and be deliberate that there are pathways to move past the challenges of being corrupt.
I also use Design Thinking, as a way of, developing foresight processes. How I look at it is that Design Thinking usually have five stages. The exploratory stage, the ideation, the prototyping, the testing, and of course, you eventually launch.
The first stage for me is were for example, you've been told by an organization or a particular client that, Oh, I've got this problem I want to explore and see how that affects, my business or my organization in the next 10, 15 years. But then not just taking what the clients have told you. you do some observation. You talk to people, ask questions to understand better what the problem is?
You develop, or define your problem statements, which is the second stage of Design Thinking.
So maybe someone might say, Oh I need to for example to explore how to enhance taxes in the area of tourism within the next 10 years. But then after your observation, and talking to different people the challenge might not be increasing revenue in the tourism sector, but you might understand that there may be efficiencies the office you need to put in place to enhance your revenue collection. Not necessarily taxpayers paying the taxes,
Then the third stage is where you do ideation and for me it is where as a (Foresight) practitioner, you get to co-design a process. to explore this problem statement. So you have people, you talk about the process, the tools or methodology you intend to use in exploring that problem statement.
And then you have the prototyping. So let's say you've decided on using a Pollack Game or a Futures Literacy Lab for example in a Foresight Workshop. You run with a small group of people or participants to see how they warm up or what you might get within that prototype stage.
Then, of course, once you do the test, you use those tools in actually analyzing or digging down deeper to understand what are the problems and how the participants can chart the future in addressing that problem statement that was initially defined.
So design thinking is one tool I used a lot to develop Foresight processes when looking at Futures Thinking projects,
Peter When you're working with community groups, do you introduce the technique using, the language that, that, for example we use to describe processes and tools or do you try to simplify it or is it, or do just people just understand how to talk and think this way?
It's usually A bit of a challenge, especially when I talk about what I studied in college, talk about tools or the future but then you have to break it down into languages that people understand.
I work with some young people who are orphans in an organization called Ihsan Foundation West Africa, which is a faith-based, non-governmental organization. I'm one of the board of trustees and for me, I help them to change their thinking on how they see themselves as individuals, not necessarily orphans. There is this societal notion that if you're an orphan, all hope is lost for you. Because your mom or father is no longer around. You'd be lucky to have another family member that might look after you or help you to navigate through life.
So, it has become a thing even the orphans themselves, have, imbibed that thought or knowledge so much that They feel nothing good will come of them, even when they have the opportunity to make use of.
One thing I've been trying to imbibe in these young people is to encourage them to make use of the opportunities they have. You do not necessarily have to be a lawyer, an engineer, a doctor, but then if you make use of education and you learn skills or trade, even if you have to be a carpenter. With that skill, You might be able to fend for yourself. You might develop that skill in a way where you even employ people within your community. You'll be making change daily in that community and even working for the lawyers, the accountants and people that are having these white-collar jobs. So helping them to reframe their thinking of who they are is one way of Selling these tools or thinking about the future.
But it's quite interesting how people get to stare at you when you say, I studied Masters in Strategic Foresight. They will be like, What is that about? The look of surprise you get from people. But one way I try to also put it across to them is, Let's say you have to go shopping tomorrow and without that shopping, your kids are not going to eat tomorrow.
So in doing that shopping tomorrow, whether rain or shine, you plan. Let's assume it's going to rain tomorrow you'll find a way of getting your car.
Let's say there is fuel shortage in the country. You find another means of, getting to the markets to do your grocery.
Let's say you fall sick, you find someone who can do the grocery shopping for you. Let's say the shops are closed. You find a way of just getting the groceries done just so you can, bring food for your family.
This is how I sell Future to people.
That foresight is about tomorrow and having alternative options of how you will achieve a particular goal or what you intend to do in the future. Being aware there are emerging trends, things that you least imagine can happen. But then how resilient and prepared are you that when these things occur whether it be challenges or opportunities when they do occur you are well prepared to navigate to achieve your desired future. And even if it's not your desired future, but being able to survive in that future you find yourself.
Peter Hayward: I hope you're enjoying the podcast. FuturePod is a not for profit venture. We're able to do podcasts like this one because of our patrons. Like Yvonne Curtis who has been a long time patron. Thanks for the support Yvonne. If you would like to join Yvonne as a patron of the pod, then please follow the Patreon link on our website. Now back to the podcast.
Peter Hayward: Thanks. So what are the emerging futures around you that you're paying the most attention to? And why?
Aminata Mansaray: Peter, I remember when I finished my master's program in Australia, I was really concerned about coming back home, how do I get to other practitioners within the Foresight space in Africa? Back then there were not many people, but I'm happy through LinkedIn I see a lot of Africans now in the foresight space, and it's a positive.
However, I feel there is a need for us as practitioners to decolonize futures thinking in Africa and be able to explore issues like what democracy really means for Africa. The huge number of political unrests in our part of the continent is raising concern about what democracy means to people now. What does security mean? How do we develop our countries and our continents, with all these things happening? And for me, I think as a practitioner, how do we explore issues like political unrest or democracy and how does that informs the future for Africa? How does that enhance Africa as a continent that has so many not just natural resources, but also human resources? We have a population that is huge for any market for any product. How do we make use of these opportunities?
We have agenda 2063. How are these issues of unrest, increasing population, urbanization and their impact on cities and the scarce resources, impact that agenda 2063. These are issues as African futurist or foresight practitioners need to explore and come out with key narratives that will help propel the continent forward
Gone are the days we should be overly dependent on the West. Now we're seeing most of the countries that used to send Aid in Africa, are more concerned about problems within their country. I think with all the resources that we Africans have, it's best we try to make use of those opportunities to make us less dependent. Up our game in terms of, developing domestic resources or mobilize domestic revenue as a way of funding our developmental programs within our various countries.
Peter Hayward: Do you feel that the professional, our professional associations support You in decolonizing and empowering Africans to use futures tools to create the futures that they want for themselves?
Aminata Mansaray: Absolutely, Peter. The FuturePod is one community that has, over the years really helped in providing resources and knowledge for people who are listening. The Master's programs in the US and other parts of the world the teaching, foresight and the fact that we are now having universities in Africa teaching Futures Literacy courses. We have Stellenbosch in South Africa.
One important thing and exciting to share with you is that, 10 years ago, I was desperate to connect, desperate to get other people to learn about Futures thinking and Foresight. In 2022, I worked with the Canadian Institute of Development Research on the project of exploring the Future of women and that project was done with the University of Makeni. I was part of it with Kewulay Kamara. You remember him? You and Sohail connected us. because I wanted to know another Sierra Leonean in the Futures space.So we've always been collaborating in implementing Futures project here in Sierra Leone.
We went to a village called Dankawali, which is where Kewulay hails from and he’s been implementing a lot of programs there. Storytelling and getting people to think about the future.
One of the key outcomes of that project is the fact that we now have a Futures literacy center, which is called ‘The Tumara (Tomorrow). Yes. Tomorrow Futures center at the University of Makeni, which is one of the universities in the north of Sierra Leone. The project has trained researchers from the university, which involves university staff, and people within the Dankawali village, to be futurists and understand the tools and methodologies. Appreciative of Riel Miller, the team at Unimark and Kewulay for the amazing work in establishing this research center, and training other people in Futures Thinking.
When I was doing the workshop with the UNDP. I also brought in some of those researchers to work with me as a way to sharpen their skills on how some of these foresight tools are being used in addressing real-life situations or problems and this was quite helpful for them.
One thing I would also like to share with that particular project is the theory of hope, agency and pathways and how this helps to shape the future you anticipate for yourself, for communities and country. While we were doing the future literacy lab on the IDRC project. The women in the village will just burst out singing and dancing. Interestingly, those songs and dances tell stories about their history and the future they see for themselves.
For them, the future they see is how they could maintain their culture and tradition and, at the same time, develop themselves. One key challenge they raised was the introduction of education in their village. They were hoping that would create a gateway for their children to the world, empower them and develop their community. However, it was quite interesting for them to point out that it seems education has reduced the respect young people have for women and elders in their community. Even when it comes to farming if they (the mothers) tell the children to go farming, they will say, Mama, I have to study and don't want to go close to their culture.
For them, culture, values and traditions are the things that give women power and respect within their community and that is the future they want. A future where women are respected, they have the power, they can make decisions within their community. And they point that out through the songs and the stories.
An agency for them was what Kewulay Kamara was doing within that community because they see him as their child. He had left that village to gain education in the U. S. Yet, with all his education, experience and exposure outside, he's always coming back to the community. He has established schools. He has brought in solar energy, he respects their culture so much that he has established an Art centre where they do storytelling, dance and share cultural values.
So for them, they see him as a source of agency and motivation. Yes, even though education is in some way impacting on the respect and the future of women, they do still have hope that education will be a way of enhancing the power of women and the respect that they deserve within the community. That was a really strong message we got from that project with the women of Dankawali.
Peter Hayward: Thank you. So you talked a little bit about how you explain yourself and foresight to people. I might just get you to answer the questions we ask all the guests, which is, how do you explain to people who don't understand what Amina does, what it is that Amina does?
Aminata Mansaray: I know that has always been a tough one. It's good with the internet, podcasts and things Foresight practitioners are doing globally, you see other countries, even in Africa, using foresight, in addressing societal challenges and wicked problems.
I remember when I came back in 2016, we were doing, we're developing a strategy on compliance and we had a consultant who was helping in developing the strategy. But the interesting thing was we just didn't delve into the literature. We got data from the various tax types, analyzed those data through Data matching but we just didn't stop there.
We did was a co-designing process wherein we brought in various stakeholders. We interviewed or asked them to tell us what will enable them to enhance their compliance and they told us. We gained insight in some of the things that we were not even thinking about, and that informed the way we ended up developing the strategy. While we were doing that, I had to tell my colleagues this is foresight and this is different from the way we were doing strategy. We didn't just do a writeup. We had data, We analyzed those data. We ensured that we had a participatory or collective intelligence gathering by bringing all the different stakeholders ( taxpayers, the accountants and people that helped inform the beautiful strategy and implementation plan.
So for me, I use every opportunity I have working with people. Whenever I see foresight tools being used or the methodologies I use it as a way of telling that this is foresight and this is what I studied.
Peter Hayward: So Amina we're at the end and I'm going to ask you from the girl who looked up at the stars to the powerful woman that you've become, what are the hopes for yourself? Women in Africa, generally Sierra Leone. What are you hoping the next decade brings you?
Aminata Mansaray: I'm quite excited about, the changes I'm going to make in the world.
Just looking back at my career, the people and the initiatives that I've been able to impact through my work, through the engagement with the young people in the orphanage, I am quite excited that this is not the end. There are more things that I'm going to do.
One good thing is the fact that working here at We Are Purposeful, which is a feminist organization, that has a passion to radically change the power dynamics, move money to people and create space for women and girls to live and thrive. I am quite excited for women particularly in Sierra Leone because Purposeful as a way of creating example, we do amazing work, but we’re starting with ourselves. We only work four days a week from Monday to Thursday, we have 20 days in the year aside from annual leave, scheduled in every quarter that we dedicate solely to Resting. We call it Radical rest and that's a period where nobody works in the whole global organization.
We use it to look after ourselves, look after our family, rejuvenate and get back to doing what we do. It's quite impactful and prioritizing women's healthcare is key to enhancing the family, key to giving more to family, community or work.
Also, Purposeful is moving away from the traditional ways of grant-making.We know from the traditional donor organization. If you go to them and say I would like to build a bridge that connects Freetown to, another city. They will have conditionalities you need to meet for you to be given that money. Let's say they do agree but then your priorities change. How do you go back to them and change? Or maybe by the time you get the money for the bridge, you don't need it anymore because there is an alternative.
Purposeful is changing the narrative and creating spaces for women to grow and thrive in the way we do our grant-making. We have a process where you don't necessarily need to have, those neatly done write-ups or grant proposal that takes months for the country director to send to the global office outside that country. When these grants are being made, whether it's about you sending a picture or video as a way of applying for that grant, we have women and girls who understand the problems facing girls. look into these grants in real-time. And if it means we have to get someone to drive to a particular location to provide you with money to solve whatever challenge you're having within the community, we do that.
The way our grants-making process is done, and the way we are moving money to places to address community or societal challenges that are affecting women is different. This is impacting communities positively so much that we're having other traditional organizations that are coming to us to learn about our grant-making process, how we are impacting People as a way for them to inculcate some of these values in how they are providing grants to communities to solve wicked problems or challenges that they face.
With all of these things Purposeful and other organizations are doing, not only in Sierra Leone, but globally, I'm very hopeful that, we can only grow as women. In our country, we see the initiatives, implemented by the government; The 30 percent quota for women in government institutions, and those in politics, they recently passed into law, the Gender Act, which has a lot of positive change in terms of the laws, and changing some of the patriarchal challenges affecting the growth of women in our communities and leadership positions. So I'm quite hopeful about how women are going to change the world and impact our communities.
Peter Hayward: Amina. We had a lot of fun in the classroom together. I've taken a considerable interest in your career. I'm very proud of what you've created for yourself, irrespective of any help you got. You're the person who's driven your future and I'm very proud of you and thanks for taking a little bit of time out to share your story with the FuturePod community.
Aminata Mansaray: Thank you so much, Peter. It's always lovely to engage with you. Usually when some key things are happening, globally, or there is a crisis somewhere, I'll imagine, if I'm in a class with Peter? How would we dissect these issues? I miss that a lot.
And I'm looking forward to, engaging with you. Keep on learning from you. Thank you so much for this platform you've created that foresight practitioners come in to share their ideas and help hone the skills of other practitioners, communities and people who have an interest in using Foresight, which is a multidisciplinary tool that can be used by engineers, people in the health sector, the security sector etc.
It's a tool that everybody needs to learn, understand and utilize daily in whatever career path. So thanks to you and the team for doing all of this and helping to promote Futures thinking and Foresight in the world. Thank you.
Peter Hayward: I do hope you enjoyed Amina's story and in her story you are reminded of just how much of a difference helping people find their agency to create better futures for themselves and their communities will change the world. Future pod is a not-for-profit venture. We exist through the generosity of our supporters. If we would like to support the pod then follow the patreon link on our website. This has been Peter Hayward. Thanks for joining me and I'll see you next time.