Context, international cooperation
An introduction to our organisationAbout us
Context, international cooperation (Utrecht, the Netherlands) is a development organisation understanding itself as a social enterprise. We are innovators who use business principles that aim to achieve fundamental social change and generate revenue. Currently Context has 7 staff members, in addition to a number of external Programme Associates.
We position ourselves between the development and academic communities, and try to facilitate dialogue between policymakers, academics and development practitioners. Context staff members and Associates have a sound academic background as well as working experience in development practice.
To outline the methodology we work with, we take this quote from Peter Senge as the starting point:
The irony is that to do things faster you often have to go slower. You have to be more reflective. You have to develop real trust. You have to develop the abilities of people to truly think together.
In terms of development paradigm, we position ourselves within complex systems theory, whereby development is seen as a non-linear, chaotic and complex process with potentially meaningful and unexpected outcomes. We work, therefore with a combination of different methodologies: experience-based training; action learning; collaborative action research; and a systemic approach to organisations.
Context staff members work on three major fields of activity: exploratory research (exploration); facilitating and accompanying organisational change processes within client organisations (adaptation); and dissemination of experiences and research findings through publications, workshops etc (contribution to dialogue about global issues).
These are applied in the following thematic areas:
- capacity enhancement for development, including a focus on the learning organisation;
- civic driven change and civic driven child development;
- measurement of development interventions;
- knowledge management;
- facilitation and accompaniment of change processes within organizations; and
- strengthening Dutch societal support for global issues.
For more information about specific areas of our work, please visit also our other websites:
- Centre for Civic Driven Change and Civic Driven Child Development
- Change for Children workshop November 2008
- Child-Centered Community Development workshop September 2008
the Context-team
