Give Everyone A Voice: Indaba
Not long ago, in Botswana, I had the privilege of participating in Indaba, a Zulu and Xhosa method of decision-making that brings all interested parties into the conversation. Instead of a small group of leaders making unilateral decisions for the group, without any input from those affected, those affected get to participate.
The issue in this case was where to spend our limited funds on a project that was underway in order to achieve maximum impact. The elders (in our case the senior officials) sat at the front of the room while the rest of us were arrayed in a semi-circle facing them. We each got two timed minutes to speak, no more. In the spirit of fun, those who spoke for less than two minutes were loudly applauded. In this manner, the negotiations moved along quickly and most of the opposing ideas were resolved in a structured, simple way.
I was reminded of this when I read that the Indaba method was used at the recent climate conference in Paris. The Chair of the conference, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, used Indaba as a way to shorten the discussion on contentious issues and find common ground among the representatives from 195 nations in attendance.
According to Brian Mantlana of the South African delegation, “it is not a festive event, but a participative one where everyone has a say and the community is consulted to get their views on decisions. It is a transparent and credible process.”
Indaba is a great way to resolve contentious issues. It gives voice to all opinions so you wind up with a solution that everyone can agree to and support because they participated in developing it. It’s a process with a structure that allows everyone to speak and be heard while ensuring no one gets to dominate.
Everyone is encouraged to state the thresholds they don’t want to cross. This sets the parameters so the discussion can move on to bridge the gap between differing goals and bring everyone to a fair consensus on what to do.
Indaba isn’t a cure-all that always leads to agreement on everything but it goes a long way in helping find common ground and resolving disagreements. In the climate change conference a few of the most intractable issues were left unresolved to be discussed in a future Indaba, but agreement was reached on hundreds of other points of contention.
In my experience with Indaba, what began with widely differing and intensely held opinions and ideas ended after an energetic but collegial meeting with concrete solutions and a plan to move forward together.