The Listening State

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 an evening 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. It will be candid and practitioner-grounded.

Three questions will anchor the evening:

1. What rebuilds trust between citizens and the state, and what wears it down?
2. As aid shrinks and technology changes who gets heard, whose voice counts, and who decides?
3. 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 keynote address by Chidi Odinkalu, Professor of Practice in International Human Rights Law at the Fletcher School, with other speakers including Tawanda Mutasah, President & CEO, American Jewish World Service, Roland Ebole of Ford Foundation, Mandeep Tiwana from CIVICUS, and Kyra Darnton, Executive Producer Retro Report.

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.