Since 2018, the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA) has become a major partner of Sense-Lab. ISA is a civil society organization of public interest, which for 27 years has been dedicated to defending social goods and rights related to the environment, cultural heritage, human and peoples' rights.
In the past few years, Sense-Lab has been developing many consultancy projects with ISA, such as organizational review, strategic planning for the Xingu Program and the structuring of a compliance program, in addition to continued support to one of its major partners, the Xingu Seed Network Association (ARSX), in the form of the development of a business plan ( https://www.eng.sense-lab.com/post/business-plan-for-the-seed-network-association-from-xingu-arsx) and the continuous refinement of its governance and organization. In September 2020, Sense-lab received another calling, this time, to help think and develop a short-term strategic plan to meet the needs of the current context.
The dynamics and complexity of the political and economic scenario we were experiencing at the time made it difficult to create a vision and objectives for a very long horizon, especially in the field of ISA's action, which has at its center the rights and autonomy of traditional peoples and local communities, and the preservation of forests through the promotion of socio biodiversity chains, especially, but not exclusively, in the Amazon. Given this, ISA's calling was to develop a “bridge” strategic plan, looking at focuses and objectives for a period of 2 years.
The ISA organizational model
The Socioenvironmental Institute operates through programs and projects, which are coordinated at different levels – regional, national and international –, requiring an integrated organizational structure and at the same time with a high degree of autonomy in the field to ensure adherence to diversity of local context. Governance is anchored by the coexistence of a central structure and a program governance structure, in a condition of relative autonomy. In this context, the Regional Programs (Vale do Ribeira, Xingu and Rio Negro) have a complementary political and administrative-financial management structure, compatible with the size, complexity and territorial dispersion. ISA has headquarters in Sao Paulo, sub-headquarters in Brasilia and offices in six different cities, with employees working in different Brazilian territories and states.
The ambition of a strategic planning in which all voices are heard
ISA has an extremely participatory culture and it was in this capacity that Sense-Lab was inspired to create a living, relevant, inclusive and present planning process in everyone's daily lives, taking into account ISA's organizational model and performance in different territories. The best way to do this was to bring people together to co-create. Everyone was invited to contribute in different formats, from coordinators of national and regional programs, field and territory coordinators, fiscal council, executive secretary, people from communications, areas such as financial administration and important partners of ISA.
The development of the strategic planning was guided by three phases, divided into six stages, with detailing and deployment within all programs.
In the initial phase of exploration and understanding of how ISA is and how it is seen today, all programs participated in listening workshops, involving approximately 100 people and a survey, with more than 90 responses.
Then, ten workshops were held in the interpretation and visualization stages, with the aim of having a joint look at the collected information, reflecting on what still makes sense for the organization and what doesn’t, and then being able to see possible paths for the construction of the new short-term planning.
Throughout the conversations, the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities for ISA in the current context were outlined. This exercise served to support reflection on the strategic focuses and actions of the new planning cycle, which has its design anchored in context, strategic orientation and action. To better understand how all this unfolds, looking at expected results and a vision of change, the planning for ISA's short-term operations is represented in the format of a simplified Theory of Change. It was built under two lenses: looking at the external and internal context, in order to strengthen the organization itself.
Once the general vision of strategic planning was consolidated, the process moved on to interaction with teams from each of the programs to gather reflections and direct the deployment and detailing of the strategic plan according to their respective contexts.
Transformation vision:
“Setbacks in the rights of people and their territories are avoided, the autonomy of local partners and the socio-biodiversity economy are boosted, at the same time that recognition of the socio-environmental importance of forests and their people and community takes shape, positively influencing the political scenario.”
For Sense-Lab, following the struggle of the Socioenvironmental Institute in the face of such a critical moment for Brazil and the world, especially in socio-environmental issues, it is an honor to be able to contribute to achieving the proposed objectives and results that will lead to a change in the direction of ISA’s vision of transformation. Sense-Lab also believes that it is necessary to continue resisting!