The Place of Dialogue in Capacity Development

Dialogue is an essential ingredient of any intervention directed at changing a situation and is a vital competence for any adviser. While it is not easy to facilitate true dialogue, it is a capability that can be developed in its own right. Real dialogue can create collectively shared and owned understanding and an agreed direction of effort as well as clarity about divisions of tasks and responsibilities.

This chapter by Marianne Mille Bojer reviews factors critical to the success of capacity-development processes that use dialogue as a key philosophy. Her excellent menu of dialogue tools and approaches shows the reader what is on offer and how to choose between them. She also provides concrete examples of how some of these methods have been used.

About the Author

Mille is a creative and experienced practitioner and thought leader in the space of social transformation and systems change. She co-founded the Reos Partners offices in Johannesburg, São Paulo, and Geneva, where she is now based.

She is the lead author of Mapping Dialogue: Essential Tools for Social Change, which outlines a variety of transformative dialogue tools and change processes. Her expertise includes facilitating complex and high-stakes multi-stakeholder processes and building purposeful networks and organisations.

Mille has worked as a lead facilitator on numerous transformative scenarios processes including Alerta Democratica and Cyprus Futures. She was the interviewer, facilitator and knowledge manager on Scenarios for the Drug Problem in the Americas and she convened and led facilitation on Leadership and Innovation Network for Children.

A Danish national, Mille has lived in seven countries on four continents. She has also published a cookbook.