Social & Economic JusticePractices
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Practice III — Social and Economic Justice
Power shifts in practice, or not at all.
Societies function through inequitable and exclusive structures that produce a growing population of oppressed and minoritised people. We work with the organisations trying to change that — on the operational mechanics, not the declarations.
The practice
Power, not participation
We work with communities, movements, civil society organisations, intermediaries, journalists, academics, businesses, governments and international agencies to amplify alternative and new forms of power.
That means retiring regressive humanitarian terminology, moving past checkbox diversity, and treating structural power imbalance as the design problem rather than a sensitivity to be managed. It also means being specific: locally led development fails when ‘local’ is reduced to nationality in ways that privilege elites, or when funds are routed through intermediaries in ways that outsource power rather than shift it.
Who we work with
Civil society organisations Community groups & movements Intermediaries & ecosystem actors Regional human-rights institutions Government actors Journalists & academicsScope of service
Three ways we come at a problem
Design strategies
Navigating contextual realities, systemic constraints, needs assessment and power dynamics — daunting, and essential for building societies that work for more of us.
Change analysis
There is no one size that fits all. Systems are dynamic, interconnected and constantly changing in ways that require reimagining the paradigms we brought with us.
Sensemaking & learning
More information is being produced to improve the odds of transforming complex 21st-century systems — but ambiguity, uncertainty and complexity are rising alongside it.
What we do
Four lines of work
Locally led development
Co-design and prototyping with civil society organisations, communities and ecosystem actors through the Local Leadership Labs — surfacing local priorities, testing new ways of working, and challenging the political, technical and behavioural barriers that stop local civil society being recognised, enabled and resourced as key development actors.
The Equity DNA Playbook
A framework built to move organisations beyond checkbox diversity toward addressing the structural power imbalances that produce the outcomes they say they want to change.
Power & localisation research
Research-driven advocacy on shifting power to local actors — including the uncomfortable questions about what funders give up, and where localisation risks reproducing the hierarchies it claims to dismantle.
Facilitation in hard rooms
Inclusive, trauma-informed and low-literacy facilitation for multi-stakeholder processes — designed for the realities of working with diverse communities in constrained environments, rather than applied as a fixed recipe.
Signature method
The co-design and prototyping journey
A four-phase journey, usable end-to-end for multi-day labs or modularly inside a strategy session, community dialogue or programme design process.
Problem discovery
Surface and unpack the real issues underneath visible symptoms. Problem mapping, problem statements, stakeholder mapping, causal layered analysis, How Might We statements — moving from generic problems to a shared, context-specific understanding of what is at stake and for whom.
Problem definition
Narrow the focus and decide which part of the system to work on first. 10x10 brainstorming, user personas, user journeys — clarifying target users, lived experience and priority leverage points.
Designing solutions
Create early-stage solutions that can be tested quickly and cheaply. Prototyping techniques, assumption mapping, prototype storyboards — surfacing what must be true for an idea to work, and designing prototypes local actors can realistically own.
Testing solutions
Stress-test prototypes in real or simulated conditions and generate usable learning. Role-playing and experiment design, supporting structured feedback and a decision to adapt, scale or stop.
Evidence & publications
Where the work has run
Locally Led Development in Civil Society
A co-design and prototyping toolkit created for the Local Leadership Labs — a practical resource for civil society organisations, community groups, intermediaries, funders and government actors advancing locally led development.
Nonso Jideofor, Nithima Ducrocq and Amalee Nsour · Brave Village
Equity DNA Playbook
Present Lab’s framework for moving organisations past checkbox diversity into the structural questions — budgets, hiring, decision rights and who sets the agenda.
In development for publication
| Country | Project | Partners |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-country | Local Leadership Labs — discovery, co-design and prototyping with civil society and ecosystem actors | Brave Village |
| Nigeria | Equity DNA and localisation research — advocacy for shifting funding and decision power to local actors | Civil society partners |
| The Gambia | Human-rights institutional strengthening alongside the ACHPR engagement | EPD, ACHPR |
How we hold ourselves
Values that constrain the work
Local agency & power
We amplify local agency and new forms of power, retiring regressive humanitarian terminology in favour of equity-centred models.
Bias for evidence
We move past the theatre of development toward interventions rooted in implementation science and rigorous evaluation.
Future-facing rigor
Contextual depth paired with strategic foresight — designing for second- and third-order consequences.
Psychological safety
An internal culture modelled on Amy Edmondson’s research, which encourages error-reporting and continuous learning.
Work with this practice
Bring us the problem you can’t name yet
Most engagements begin with problem discovery — before anyone commits to what the intervention is.
Request a scoping call Download the co-design toolkitElsewhere at Present Lab
Four practices. One method.
Each practice runs its own team, partners and body of evidence — sharing only the studio’s methodological spine.