Private Foundations and Corporate Grantmakers in Africa

The purpose of this document is to pull together in accessible form information on private foundations and corporate grantmakers and their activities and priorities for Africa within the various sectors that USAID works. It is anticipated that this document will facilitate the formation of partnerships and alliances that further the objectives of development in Africa

Designing for Social Infrastructures in Complex Service Systems: A Human-Centered and Social Systems Perspective on Service Design

Service design is one of the keys to improving how we target today’s complex societal problems. The predominant view of service sys- tems is mechanistic and linear. A service infrastructure—which includes solutions like service blueprints, scripts, and protocols—is, in some ways, designed to control the behavior of service professionals at the service in- terface. This view undermines the intrinsic motivation, expertise, and cre- ativity of service professionals. This article presents a different perspective on service design. Using theories of social systems and complex responsive processes, I define service organizations as ongoing iterated patterns of relationships between people, and identify them as complex social service systems. I go on to show how the human-centeredness of design practices contributes to designing for such service systems. In particular, I show how a deep understanding of the needs and aspirations of service professionals through phenomenological themes contributes to designing for social in- frastructures that support continuous improvement and adaptation of the practices executed by service professionals at the service interface

Designing for Social Infrastructures in Complex Service Systems: A Human-Centered and Social Systems Perspective on Service Design

© 2017 Tongji University and Tongji University Press Service design is one of the keys to improving how we target today's complex societal problems. The predominant view of service systems is mechanistic and linear. A service infrastructure—which includes solutions like service blueprints, scripts, and protocols—is, in some ways, designed to control the behavior of service professionals at the service interface. This view undermines the intrinsic motivation, expertise, and creativity of service professionals. This article presents a different perspective on service design. Using theories of social systems and complex responsive processes, I define service organizations as ongoing iterated patterns of relationships between people, and identify them as complex social service systems. I go on to show how the human-centeredness of design practices contributes to designing for such service systems. In particular, I show how a deep understanding of the needs and aspirations of service professionals through phenomenological themes contributes to designing for social infrastructures that support continuous improvement and adaptation of the practices executed by service professionals at the service interface

Designing social infrastructures for complex service systems

Services delivered through the public and social sector play an important role in addressing complex societal problems. Services consist of interfaces between service consumer and deliverer, and infrastructures that support the service deliverer. Infrastructures such as protocols, scripts and blueprints are often intended to control the behaviour of service delivers. This is a linear top-down view of service organisations. This paper presents a different perspective, using Stacey’s theory of complex responsive processes: service organisations are ongoing iterated patterns of relationships between human beings. Infrastructures for complex service systems can therefore be considered ‘social infrastructures’. Two case studies are presented that each describe the design of a successful social infrastructure, in the education and health sector respectively. To analyse the human-centred design practice of these case studies the author introduces the NADI-model, which identifies different levels of depth in needs and aspirations of stakeholders. The deepest level of this model consists of phenomenological ‘themes’. The model is used to show how themes explain the success of the social infrastructure in the first case study. The second case study subsequently shows how, using Dorst’s frame creation methodology, themes support designing social infrastructures for complex service systems