Re-thinking the Policy Making Process for today's needs | Betty Tushabe | TEDxRugando

when I was 17 years old at the height of

my puberty and self-awareness my mother

came to visit me at school

this wasn't your routine visit it was a

special visit because I was just a seed

for my signal six exams and the school

had given us forms to fill out

to show what courses we wanted to do in

university naturally because I knew what

I wanted I didn't think the need I

didn't feel the need to consult with

anyone I filled in my forms but at this

particular visit my mom is there and I'm

explaining to her oh yeah so I filled in

this form I filled in this form and I

want to do mass communications and she

looks at me and said no you're going to

do no and that's the end of it of course

I was gutted I would have expected her

to be you know excited for with what was

exciting me at the moment but anyway I

went ahead and did low and I can say now

that I have three degrees in law so and

this legal training is what has created

the foundation for the love of policy

that I have today and the reason why I'm

standing here speaking to you about

policymaking so just like our parents

our governments they play a very central

role in our lives they plan for us and

in that they create they they plan they

create budgets they allocate resources

and that is what is part of the whole

strategy for policy and policymaking

sometimes we might not agree with some

of the things that they say oh they plan

for us that's beside the point

so

going back to the story of my mother I

go I study law but then I go back and

study one more degree in public policy

but this time I didn't run it by her I

didn't want her to you know influence

that decision so when I came back I had

the opportunity to to walk in the Office

of the President

we worked on policies I understood how

policies are met I understood who the

key actors are in policies in

policymaking and student the role of the

officials and the appointed officials

but also the influential stakeholders

that we never really pay attention to or

even know that they exist

but they make these decisions on our

behalf and just like our parents these

decisions are meant to provide us with a

safe environment make sure that we have

access to affordable electricity water

and education so why does policymaking

matter I remember when I got my job as a

legal and policy analyst I knew exactly

what the legal part entailed but I

didn't know what the policy might

entailed so I walked to my immediate

supervisor at the time mr. washer minor

and I entered his office said mushara so

what is policy and he looked at me and

he said I'm going to give you the one

lesson if you're ever going to become

policy person that you need to put the

back of your mind with every policy and

he said with every policy there are

always winners and losers so take a

minute and think about that for most of

us here we don't really care about

policies unless they affect you you or

someone you care about and that's when

you're like oh hold on how did this come

about and that is not at that point that

we should care we should care before

because if you take a minute and think

about it

the problems we face

today are not new they're just evolving

becoming bigger and bigger and bigger

and that means governments have to

devise strategies to respond to this

policy to these issues that we face in

2030 for Africa is going to have the

biggest youth population the highest

rate of urbanization with lots of people

moving into the cities these are all

issues that are going to affect us going

forward but of course governments don't

always match sometimes they don't always

match the pace at which we are also

trying to face these issues because they

face I mean truth be told some of them

are still bureaucratic they don't reward

innovation or even invest in it they

don't they still have these rigid rules

especially around procurement that

stifle creativity but do you know the

beauty about it all today is that all

these rigidities adjustables

by the fad of right now we are living in

an era of unprecedented access to

knowledge this knowledge has made us

walk as matters are where we are

increasingly putting excessive demands

on our governments for accountability

and to provide us with better services

so governments cannot leave they cannot

sit back and not walk with us to provide

us with the services that we need so to

do this governments have to innovate so

for most people when you think about

innovation you think about tools you

think about products you think about

that is what comes to everyone's mind

but innovation in government is around

finding new working methods very

creative methods to provide citizens

with services that are affordable quick

and easy to access and then now we're

now living in an era of technology and

there's quite a number of tools that are

available for our governments to use so

for this particular talk I'd like to

talk about three issues

co-creation of policies through Design

Thinking I mean for many of you who are

in the startup community and the tech

world you understand what Design

Thinking is but it's basically breaking

it down thinking about a problem

different in looking at it differently

employing empathy and listening and

walking together with the communities

that you serve to create solutions for

their problems my first experience with

co-creation through Design Thinking was

in 2015 and I was working on a project

in North Carolina and we had to walk

with a city that wanted to become

entrepreneurial and so my team and I

went to this city that we had we were

walking with we interacted with the

people in the city we interacted with

the city officials and it was so amazing

that that collaboration that

coordination with the people and

listening to what people wanted ended up

being the basis for the strategy that we

came up for the city government which is

instead of thinking about it in the

sense of how do we give more government

support to these people instead the

citizens were telling the city officials

how about we want to create this city

into a livable city as a festival as a

festival city or an artisan in a way I'm

excited I was excited because I

understood the power of collaboration

and co-creation for participative and

inclusive policies and that is something

I think we can adopt today but also

again I we go back to the issue of data

governments have always been the

custodians of all the data that we have

if you look at the statistics I think we

produce about 2.5 continuing bytes of

data every day and more this is an

opportunity for us an opportunity for

our governments to exploit evaluate data

and give us decisions that are unbiased

discs and not discriminatory there's

actually a platform that I read about

the UK that uses predicts it's called

predictive and they provide an online

platform within which they test out then

polish the new policies to a small group

of people online and the results that

they

the results that they get are able to

inform them whether they can now roll it

out nationwide or start again again this

is just simple ways of walking changing

the formula of how we walk in order to

provide very clear and inclusive

decisions and lastly and I think my most

the one method that I think is very

poignant and interesting how do we

communicate as policymakers how do we

communicate to engage and not

communicate to inform the power of

storytelling we all love good stories

right that is why we are here tonight to

listen to all his amazing stories but