Global Development Institute podcast
Global Development Institute podcast
In Conversation: Jon Alexander with Nicola Banks and Chibwe Masabo Henry
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Selim Iyidirli hosts a conversation around One World Together and its model for Global Citizenship with Jon Alexander, author of Citizens: How the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us, and Nicola Banks and Chibwe Masabo Henry, Co-Founders and Chief Stewards of One World Together. Have a listen, and then come and join their wave of change!
More about Jon Alexander
Jon Alexander began his career with success in advertising, winning the prestigious Big Creative Idea of the Year before making a dramatic change. Driven by a deep need to understand the impact on society of 3,000 commercial messages a day, he gathered three Masters degrees, exploring consumerism and its alternatives from every angle. In 2014, he co-founded the New Citizenship Project to bring the resulting ideas into contact with reality.
Citizens: How the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us
Find out more about the Global Development Institute:
Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters
Intro Welcome to the Global Development Institute podcast based at the University of Manchester, we're Europe's largest research and teaching institute is addressing poverty and inequality. Each episode will bring you the latest thinking, insights and debates in development studies.
Selim Iyidirli Well, hello, everyone. My name is Selim Iyidirli. I'm a second year student at the HCRI, the Humanitarian Conflict Response Institute. I'm doing international disaster management and humanitarian response. And I'm a member of the One World Together Students Union Society. I'm the treasurer and I'm also a member of the Youth Board of One World Together. And yeah, welcome, everyone. We're so excited to be here today with author and co-founder of the new Citizenship Project, Jon Alexander and Niki Banks and Chibwe Masabo Henry, co-founders of exciting new social enterprise One World Together. Niki and Chibwe are also both lecturers, Nicola here at the Global Development Institute, and Chibwe at Queen Mary University, London. Well, everybody, welcome again. Thank you for doing this.
Nicola Banks Hi. Thank you. Selim.
Jon Alexander I'm your non-lecturer guest
Selim Iyidirli Are you're not a lecturer?
Selim Iyidirli Well, we're here today to talk about the role of citizens, the power that each one of us can have in an unequal world if we come together, create and collaborate in ways that are meaningful to us. John, can you tell us a bit about this citizen story? How does it differ to the roles that we've been conditioned to play in society and economy, and what do we need to do to unleash it?
Jon Alexander I would love to, thank you for having me. So The book 'Our Own Citizens: why the key to Fixing Everything is All of Us' is the subtitle, which is very ambitious. But the the what I was really trying to do in writing the book was offer a way of seeing the moment in time, we're living in through the lens of what I call stories. And I think through that, through three stories really, I talk about the subject story, the consumer story, the citizen story, and like, without which it will come back into more of the nuance of this. But but as a very brief introduction, you can think of that as a kind of historical shift over the last century or so. So in the 19th century between the 20th, we're something like subjects, the right thing for us to do is to keep on heads down, do as we're told, because the God view runs society know best, they'll lead us to the best outcomes society as a whole, which obviously was always flawed and horrible in so many ways, but but kind of held for a very long time. And then end of the 19th Century, beginning the 20th, that kind of fell apart out of the two world wars in the middle of the 20th century, we constructed a different kind of story. What i call the consumer story. And the logic of that story is the right thing to do is to is to is to choose the best option for you from those that are offered. To pursue your own self-interest on the basis that that self-interest will add up to collective interest. And to your question about like what roles are we in and what's conditioning us. That is the story that shaped so much of our world today, whether it's like dating apps where you flip between choosing who to go on a date with, right? Right through to councils send you letters about their customer services through to voting which has become in elections which has become an act of like identify what's in your greater self-interest through then to charity which is like what's going to give you the biggest bang for your buck. And so this is what I think, what I say, what I'm arguing is that just as the subject story fell apart before, a consumer story is falling apart now because that logic just can't work. And added. And what we are stepping into was so many ways and I think One World Together is part of I think that the courses that I'm understanding that you're doing are parts of is is seeing through a different lens that says actually, how do we tap into the ideas and energy, resources of everyone? How do we, instead of a logic of do as you're told and think if you will do it or self-interest which will add up to great interest a logic that says actually all of us are smart and that any of us. And if we get everyone involved, if we get everyone on the pitch, that's what will work. And so that's the story. That's the role that like a participant in shaping the world, not just a consumer, a self-interest triggered consumer that I think is really important.
Selim Iyidirli Yeah, I had this one moment back in Turkey where one of my relatives asked if I wanted to be the sheep or the shepherd. Yeah. So, yeah, well, this fantastic. It's an inspiring call to action to us all to get involved and do more citizen and say, Well, Niki and Chibwe You've just launched One World Together here in the UK to provide more equitable, impactful funding to communities around the world as well as to offer a more engaged form of support for global development. Can you tell us a bit about this, please?
Nicola Banks Sure. Thank you. Salim. So Chibwe and I came together to start One World Together as people that have been both researching and working in the sector for many years. we find ourselves at a time where everyone knows that existing systems of funding for global development are broken. All of the money, the power, the resources are held in the global north amongst the largest organizations where money reaches the most important impactful level at the community level, the communities that are fighting the daily challenges of poverty, inequality. That funding reaches them on terms that might help them to firefight, but it rarely helps them to get ahead. I've done some research that revealed the power and the volume of funds that the UK public gave to global development charities on average 2 billion pounds a year. But all of that money is going to the biggest organizations, which is a very expensive way to do charity to support community development, which is, after all, what we want. So as sort of someone outside the system, we decided that actually what we don't need to do is tweak what's already not working. That by coming together we can build, we can vision first, and then we can build an alternative system of funding that completely changes things. So we have a very simple but transformative premise, which is just imagine if we can get even a small proportion of that 2 billion pounds a year directly to communities to spend how they want. Just think how that can help them move from firefighting to social justice to building strong and thriving communities. So that's what we've set out to do by building a new affordable wave of change that everyone can come together to sort of fight for and vision a better future.
Selim Iyidirli Perfect. Well, passing it over Chibwe. Do you wanna tell us a bit more about our global citizens and how you will activate that citizenship in our community space?
Chibwe Masabo Henry Sure. Thanks, Selim. So as Niki, says, we really are the global citizens and we have the power, therefore, to transform and shift the system, to ensure that funding reaches the organizations that are closest to the community, to the issue together. But we can't do it on our own. So as One World Together, we ask our global citizens to do two things. The first one is to sign up as a global citizen, to join our movement by paying a minimum amount, 5 pounds a year, towards building our movement, investing in our movement and supporting our operational costs. Then the second thing we ask our global citizens to do is to sign up for an affordable, regular contribution to our Solidarity Fund. Solidarity Fund enables us to pool all these contributions together and send every penny to our partners on a long term, unrestricted, predictable basis. So we're very, very proud that we're able to offer an alternative to how funding is done within the system and hopefully be a leverage point. We will claim a major leverage points, but be a leverage point in the system that enables us to shift the dial towards transforming it to how we feel and believe philanthropy and international development should be. So the second part in how One World Together is working to activate our global citizenship is to launch a community platform, a digital community platform that will enable our partners to share their stories in an authentic, genuine. I don't know how to say this like I've worked in the sector. I want you to get my point. Yeah, I've worked in the sector for so long and seen how fundraising videos are made where you try to sell the story of your poverty because if you don't sell it in a certain way, you won't get funding or you try to report in a certain way because if you don't report a certain way that ticks a certain box, then you don't get funding or you get a bad report. Then the next one will be like, Nah we won't fund you. So we have created a space where we will enable and enhance our partners voices in how they tell their story. They don't have to fit in a box. They can just be who they are and show the authenticness and genuineness of their context and the impact of the funding that the global citizens are able to provide to support them.
Selim Iyidirli Well, you've mentioned many things and I would like to also talk about our like the Student Union Society back in Manchester. So we planned to have a student society because we didn't think of One World Together is just as something that is a new way of funding, Basically.we wanted this to be a movement. And for that we thought having a student society and making people aware of the disparities in the funding system and the global development sector would be the best way to kind of tackle these issues that both, like everyone mentioned. And as a member of the Student Union Society of One World together, what we do is we have weekly meetings and events where members and also like committee members, we all are trying what we term let's say we have storyboards where we create, you know, reels, Instagram reels, videos. We have, you know, advert fans like a fundraising, like we talk about those things and we also develop our skills and how we could actually make these kind of events real. And in a way, it's very different from other societies. And speaking from experience, I've been in lots of societies in my first year and I can say that the committee board and the members, there's a huge difference like. It's not like the members can go to the committee members and say, you know, we want this event, we just want to have lets say. We want to go to restaurants together. They would be okay to speak to the committee members we have to do this. But in One World Together, we're joined together is very inclusive. It's not something that is, you know, difficult to get your point across. So I guess that's what makes our student union One World Together society, basically.
Nicola Banks Yeah, I love that because ever since we started One World Together, it's been a collective good. It's been something that's about the movement and the power, and we've built it together. So we've always been very kind of hinging around the idea of kind of generating and nurturing a new generation of supporters of global development, young people who are coming into a world where the systems already don't work can now play a role in creating an entire new system of not giving for global development. Because it's more than that. It's about supporting, It's about connecting, it's about converting, it's about respecting. So it's been such a joy to see the first the youth board form, then the Student Union Society here at Manchester flourish. And hopefully this time next year we will have more SC societies and the wave of change will grow. That's that's the plan and yeah.
Selim Iyidirli Hopefully. And well coming back to you, Jon, I know we've talked a lot, but can you reflect a bit through your subject, the Consumer Citizen framing and how One World Together differs from the broader charity system in UK society? Like which framework has the UK case charity sector historically and currently activate and encourage among the UK public?
Jon Alexander No, I think it's really good. I mean, one of the things I love about this set of ideas is that I play with and I often do think that has played with it more than kind of working with it. And I think that's because that's a creative way of being and thinking. But as you could, you could a hold this subject consumer citizen thing up to almost anything and It helps you distinguish some of the dynamics that are going on. I we we play as a game in our team at the New Citizenship Project sometimes. Just picks something, the BBC the other day. We were like the BBC was created in the subject era to inform, educate, entertain the prols. And it really really struggles and the consumer, because there are so many models for creating content for consumers, right? Like and they see the BBC, like Netflix and Disney+. And then it's like, what if it if it if that entered the Citizen era you'd be like, oh cool. Like we have this thing of like what if it became not the BBC but the MBC, the movement for British culture and like every was co-creating it, it was like we all know each other. But coming back to your question so you can play the same game, I think quite helpfully with the concept of charity. Like a charity, the language of it actually sort of is quite deeply embedded in the subject story. I think it's quite a kind of paternalistic thing, its an idea of like we 'we who have things will do right by the little people' and there's... Too much charity still operates in that model, actually hasn't even come into the consumer story, but it's still in this thing that we know best that we will do unto these people. And many of the the reporting structures and so on. that I know you guys think about, and talk about are symptoms of that right there. the sort of symptoms of lack of trust in people to do the work that is most necessary and therefore wanting to know exactly what are you going to do with this money, exactly how are you going to that's that's really problematic then you come to the consumer era. And I think the architype of charity in the consumer era is is the effective altruism movement, Right. And this idea of I sometimes call it the change you can buy, it's like that that the whole logic of that space is this logic of prove to me exactly what the total return on investment will be of any given donation. And unless you could do that. But that's just not how systemic change, changes in power, changes in systems actually work. And so this thing about like what, you're trying to build and what you are building and like I think I think maybe this like model all together you heard it here first is the next effect of altruism be played like this is the citizen equivalent. it's like how do we it's a it's a space where I think you are honestly and openly asking like, how do we how do we how do we do this together? How do we build something of the world we actually all want to be part of and see everyone as contributors to that. Everyone is having a role in that. Everyone is having power in that rather than. er yeah, the sort of giving back logic, it's like it's not giving back. It's actually just investing in one another, supporting one another, building together. And I think so I think it's I think it's absolutely in that frame. It's one of the reasons why I was so keen to come here.
Selim Iyidirli Well, thank you Jon. It certainly sounds like One World Together and your movement as well is It's like we're doing things differently. Do you think the citizen story can work at the global scale as One World Together envisions with their global citizens?
Jon Alexander Yes, absolutely. I mean, firstly, I'd say I don't have a movement.
Selim Iyidirli I would say, like you've changed people's ways of thinking, you know.
Jon Alexander And bless you, my friend. You could you could stay. the reason I say that I just is because what I think I trying to do is, uh, is maybe offer a bit of language and give people confidence in a, you know, a bit of language that. But the word citizen is problematic, right? Like it at the moment in the in the consumer story, it's become a kind of legal status that you have or don't have. It's at it's actually in many places it become something you could buy. Right. Like and that. And so I think really my contribution is more about storytelling and more about sort of language offering such that we could hopefully tried connect up some of these movements and help them see what what we're all part of. In our conversations already today we've been talking about the Global Alliance for Communities, which is sort of almost the global South answer to One World Together in some ways, I think. We've been talking about asset based community development. we've been talking about. And so I guess to answer your question about the global scale I think it, I think absolutely Can, is manifestly at that level. I guess what I would want to compliment that with is by saying and that depends on us uh, also at some level kind of digging where we live is the phrase I laugh like that thinking of like the six feet of your street, like where you live, who you are, how you orientate there. Uh, I think the, the one of the most exciting challenges of this, of this phase and again why I see myself slightly outside of any give movement is that I think if we can, what we don't, what so often happens is it starts to become a contest between like local, doing work locally and doing work globally. and it's like that is a false contest. Right. We need to work at all those levels. We need to be I think I sometimes think of it very like concentric circles diagram because I'm a citizen of of partly I'm a citizen of London, I'm a citizen of south east england, I'm a citizen of the UK, I'm a citizen of Europe, I'm a citizen of the world, I'm a citizen of the biosphere. And I want to be in relation to all of those levels as a citizen, not as a consumer. And I can't do that all the time. All of levels but I can hold that spirit and I could choose where where to invest most of my energy at any given time. So yeah, so rambling on lots and lots of different parts to it.
Nicola Banks I can I add a bit there Selim. So I think, I think it's really important to highlight there that by the concept of global, we don't just mean international, we mean here and international. So we have a partner here based in Manchester and Sheffield called Community Savers, and their entire model has been sort of inspired by a similar group of savings led mobilization in Kenya. So they regularly have exchanges, they learn from one another. And I think what's so exciting about One World Together here in Manchester at the moment and as we as we grow nationally is we have a student union society that's kind of building that relationship with Community Savers. So tomorrow I think there's a session at the Aquarius Community Center where they're going to get to know each other and see how the SU society might might help them out. And if you have that building in different cities across the country and then the community space that says this is what we're doing in Sheffield, this is what we're doing in Manchester, this is what we're doing in Zambia. We all begin to learn, we all begin to share. And it just it could be so powerful.
Jon Alexander If I just riff off that in return. There's a there's a I thing I think which is really powerful in this. The logic of work in within the Citizen story is that what you're trying to do with these sorts of movements is you're trying to build something so that it can spread and pollinate and connect up and then become like mycelium kind of rather than the consumer story that the ambition is always to scale, to, to create single behemoths. And and I think that this way that you're talking about student unions popping up in universities and maybe connecting up with community level organizations. And then learning going in both directions, like not just sort of learning in the north to the south, but vice versa primarily, and all of this sort of stuff that you could sort of visualize this, this this is mycelium network kind of spreading and growing. I think that's what that's the that's the model of growth and the ambition of growth that I would I would kind of put forward.
Nicola Banks Very exciting
Chibwe Masabo Henry Yeah, and actually they were pretty excited about that, I think, as even as. Chief Stewarts of One World Together, we see ourselves as and that's why we we changed our titles, we are no longer directors. We see ourselves as stewards of this movement. You know, it belongs to everybody, it belongs to the global citizens. And how it grows depends on how people begin to understand what we're trying to... we're trying to fix. Sorry I'm just recovering from a cold. But this growth depends on people like Salim and our communities and our partners and our global citizens. It's not like a business where we're trying to sell shoes and then we try to build a store, you know, let's scale up, it's more about the global citizens themselves taking the message forward and bringing other people on board.
Nicola Banks Chibwe told me very early on in this journey that one of our favorite kind of poets phrase, 'we plant trees knowing that we will not be the ones to sit in the shade'. And that it's a movement for the world and for the next generation. And we start small, but we see where we go.
Chibwe Masabo Henry We're just the stewards. We're just the gardeners. and then you let it grow.
Selim Iyidirli Wow. Yeah. Well, this has been such a fascinating conversation. And thank you for everyone for spending your time here and giving insights. Well, can I ask each of you to share some closing thoughts, perhaps some motivation to those that are listening around how they might want to kick start their citizens story and get involved. Niki, would you like to start?
Nicola Banks Oh, yes, of course. It's been a great conversation. Really amazing to hear Jon your thoughts on One World Together and to see it in the language that you've kind of you've built, which is really helpful for us in what we do. So for me, it's thank you, everyone, for listening and for watching. And if you like what you if you like what you're hearing and you want to get excited about this new world and how you can contribute, please do join our wave of change. We are about learning and we have this community space where we want to build conversations like this. We want to kind of really spotlight our partners and kind of move from a we're pitching ourselves to fix a broken system to, Wow, look what we can do. We're going to be about positivity and space and look what we can do when we all come together. But we can't do it without you. So, yes, please do take a look and join our global citizens.
Selim Iyidirli Jon?
Chibwe Masabo Henry I don't mind going. So Jon can close.
Jon Alexander Oh, Drama.
Chibwe Masabo Henry Yeah. Actually, Niki's is right. Our wave of change is actually a pivotal point in philanthropy, a pivotal point in our century, I would say. I know it sounds all dramatic, but it's actually one of those things that, when you look back in hindsight and you see how this one tiny thread transformed the whole system. So please, if you're listening and you've enjoyed a podcast and our conversation, please come join us as a global citizen and help us spread the message. Join and join us to spread quickly. Absolutely right.
Jon Alexander No, no, I. I i i. It's a joy to be here, to be part of a conversation with you guys, to know more about what you're doing. I think like. And so I just I guess I just want to go, yes and. to be a global citizen, be a be a citizen in your own community and neighbourhood, fight what's going on for you. Find the way of contributing in the works best for you as well as. Because there's so much like there's a lovely expression, so two little bore, I think I seem to have become the mental image guy in this conversation. So i'll give you two little mental images to leave you with. The first is I love the metaphor that citizenship is a muscle you build, not a cup you empty right. And like when you start to work that muscle, you start to like, really, want to do it more you and you start to get stronger and stronger? So. Fight. But also it's a muscle we're not encouraged to use. So don't be shy that like, don't be afraid that the first things that you do feel small. Like we all are trying to figure, trying to build this ourselves. So muscle you build, not cup you empty. And the final one I'll leave you which Niki just made me think of is the the. Some of the best advice I was ever given was by my driving instructor when I was 17, which is a long time ago Selim. Not sure you were even alive. But The advice he gave me was always stare at the road you want to drive on not at the truck you don't want to drive into. And it's this is like stupid and facetious, but it's also pretty profound, right? Like, we need to know the truck is there and goddamn, the truck is there right. This time we're living in right? But there is also road and staring at that, building for it, insisting on it, is a deeply powerful way of being in this time. And I know that's what you're all doing and I'm super excited to be with you as part of.
Jon Alexander Wow. Okay. Well, I guess what I could say is stay foolish. Always learn and always try to, I guess, get up when you're down and just yeah, stay on the road, as you said. Yeah, I don't know if that was too rambling on ish but yeah. Thank you everyone.
Nicola Banks Thank you Selim.