The Listening State

The evening.

At the 2026 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 81), many of the people who fund, lead, and shape Africa’s future will be in New York City. We’re gathering a few of them for a small evening on one question:

what does it take for a state to listen to its citizens and to respond.

The Listening State is a conversation on strengthening public service delivery and governance through data, civic technology, and citizen engagement. The conversation will focus on strengthening public service delivery and governance through data, civic technology, and citizen engagement.

Three questions will anchor the evening:

What rebuilds trust between citizens and the state, and what wears it down?
As aid shrinks and technology changes who gets heard, whose voice counts, and who decides?
What should the next decade of support for African institutions and services look like, and who should lead it?

Why we are hosting this?

For close to a decade, across several countries, we have worked as a civic-technology and evidence organisation where citizens meet public services. Through our #WeShapeGov work, we gather and curate what citizens say about the services meant to serve them, turn it into data and evidence institutions can act on, and follow it through until something changes. This work is patient and often unglamorous, and it has shown us what rebuilds trust between citizens and the state, and what wears it down. Hosting the evening is a small way of showing what that shift looks like in practice: African-led, evidence-based, and willing to speak honestly about what works and what does not.

People in the room

Funders and philanthropies shaping their strategies for Africa; African leaders and reformers; peers and allies from civil society. The programme includes a panel discussion featuring Tawanda Mutasah, President & CEO, American Jewish World Service, Roland Ebole of Ford Foundation, Mandeep Tiwana from CIVICUS, Kyra Darnton, Executive Producer Retro Report, Dr. Jackie Dugard, Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Human Rights, Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University and Zenande Booi a Member of Peer Defense Project (PDP).

The evening’s MC is Mwanase Ahmed, Coordinator, Pan African Solidarity Network and panel moderator Michael Katagaya, Team Leader, Evidence and Methods Lab and Visiting Scholar, Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University.

What we hope to achieve

By the end of the evening, we hope everyone in the room leaves with two things: a clearer, shared understanding of what rebuilds trust between citizens and the state as well as new relationships across people who rarely sit in the same room including funders, reformers, practitioners and allies.

What does it take for a state to listen to its citizens — and to respond?

~10 yrsof civic-technology and evidence work where citizens meet public services

9speakers and hosts in the room

3questions anchoring the evening

The questions. Anchoring the conversation.

01
What rebuilds trust between citizens and the state, and what wears it down?
Trust
02
As aid shrinks and technology changes who gets heard, whose voice counts, and who decides?
Voice
03
What should the next decade of support for African institutions and services look like, and who should lead it?
Next decade

The panel. Voices in the room.

Dr Tawanda Mutasah

President & CEO, American Jewish World Service

Took up the role in February 2026, from Oxfam America, after senior roles at Amnesty International and the Open Society Foundations. Organised against government abuse in Zimbabwe as a young man and paid a personal cost for it. AJWS is forty this year.

Dr Jackie Dugard

Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Human Rights, Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University

Co-founded the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa. Studies the gap between what constitutions promise and what states deliver on housing, land and water. Her recent research compares nearly thirty years of rulings across three South African courts on the same rights. Visiting Professor of Law at Wits.

Mandeep Tiwana

Secretary General, CIVICUS

Seventeen years at CIVICUS, Secretary General since mid-2025; earlier work on community policing and access to justice in India. CIVICUS finds civic freedoms under serious attack in 116 of the 198 countries and territories it monitors.

Roland Ebole

Regional Programme Officer, East Africa, Ford Foundation

Joined Ford in late 2025 after more than seven years at Amnesty International, including a 2025 briefing on Tanzania's election-related crackdown. Now funds the work he used to do.

Zenande Booi

Member, Peer Defense Project (PDP)

Clerked for Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke. Years on land rights and traditional governance in rural South Africa, at the Social Justice Coalition and as lead researcher at the Land and Accountability Research Centre. Has appealed directly to South Africa's Parliament for communities dispossessed without consent.

Kyra Darnton

Executive Producer, Retro Report

Leads Retro Report, the non-profit newsroom that sets today's news in historical context, where she has overseen more than 150 short films with partners from The New York Times to PBS. Came to Retro Report from 60 Minutes, and shared a 2012 Peabody Award. Retro Report hosts the convening.

Hosting the convening. Who holds the evening together.

Panel moderator

Michael Katagaya

Team Leader, Evidence and Methods Lab, and Visiting Scholar, Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University

Master of ceremonies

Mwanase Ahmed

Coordinator, Pan African Solidarity Network

Opening reflection

Sandra Coliver

Board member, Evidence and Methods Lab, New York

Photos.

Hosted with.

Host

Evidence and Methods Lab

Venue partner

Retro Report