The power of co-creation

Co-creation is a values-based, inclusive approach that focuses on bringing together different societal actors around matters of shared concern. It’s an interdisciplinary process that emphasises the complex web of relations surrounding any issue, ensuring fuller understanding of challenges related ownership and agency for subsequent activities or actions.

Co-creation starts from the idea that everyone is an expert on one issue or another, first and foremost on their own life. Different levels of expertise are equally valuable in co-creation. As a generative method co-creation allows for more latent knowledge to emerge: hopes, dreams, hunches that don't have the right words yet, but that are fundamental to understanding the context of a potential intervention and do justice to lives and experiences of those involved.

Co-creation brings relevance, ownership, agency and sustainability to development. Involving experts ensures relevance, as they connect with the dialogue that is already out there. A topic needs to speak to the audience that it is intended for. Ownership will emerge when people feel that they are part of something, or when they have made something themselves; it makes them both proud and willing to committed.

When solutions are co-created, it will also generate agency, which means it gives the people involved a concrete view of their options. They get to see how things could be handled or changed, which gives them perspective to make informed choices. And finally, experimenting with designs, together with co-creators, will generate sustainable design options. Trying, (re)iterating and improving designs and solutions, eventually will lead to the best fit for a particular audience, in a particular context.