Co-creation in Practice: Learning With Partners and People With Lived Experience for MEL system design
Client
Porticus
Countries
Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany
Thematic Area
Displacement & Migration, Social Inclusion & Protection, Humanitarian Relief
Services
MERL advisory and capacity strengthening, End-to-end research, assessments and evaluations, Learning partnerships and third party monitoring
Methods
Co-creation / co-development, Sensemaking workshops, Field observation, Inclusion/gender assessment
Start Date
January 1, 2024
Team
Sanghamitra Mazumdar, Shireen Issa
Context
In 2023, Porticus launched its Immigration Detention (ID) program, which brings together civil society organizations from Africa, Asia and Europe to address the immediate needs of people affected by immigration detention and promote just alternatives.
Recognizing the need for grounded and inclusive program design, Porticus commissioned a participatory learning and design process. This process brought together insights from both implementation partners and people directly impacted by immigration detention. Among the six key recommendations that emerged, two directly addressed the importance of lived experience:
Co-create space to learn with partners by designing systemic change goals, grants, and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems collaboratively.
Find meaningful ways to incorporate the voices of those with lived experience into all aspects of the program.
In 2024, Porticus appointed Nurai Global as a Learning Partner to support the co-creation of the MEL system for the ID Program. Nurai was tasked with exploring how recommendations from the 2023 consultations related to lived experience and participation could be meaningfully integrated. This included identifying opportunities for people with lived experience of immigration detention to engage in MEL processes not as subjects of evaluation, but as contributors, collaborators, and co-creators of knowledge.
The Task
Our role was to help embed participatory approaches into the program’s MEL systems to:
Conduct a Stakeholder Mapping and Power Analysis exercise with 25 grantees across three regions to isolate context-specific power imbalances, documenting their relevance, appropriateness, and impact for displaced populations.
Create a program-level Theory of Change articulating the expected impact pathways towards the ID Programme’s 3 strategic systems change goals.
Our Approach
After the inception phase in early 2024, Nurai led an eight-month co-creation process to help shape the MEL system for the ID Program. Our focus was on working closely with partners and finding ways for people with lived experience of immigration detention to help shape the process from the start.
To support meaningful input, we followed the below guidelines:
Make it flexible: Working around people’s availability and time commitments. Allow people to review and respond on their own time, online or in writing if they prefer.
Keep it simple: Breaking down MEL ideas into clear, simple language and using direct questions to guide their input.
Focus on what matters most – pick sections of the tools that connect directly to the representative’s lived experience.
Ask targeted questions – to encourage reflection and help test the program’s ideas and assumptions.
Follow up personally – have one-on-one calls to go deeper, clarify feedback, and understand what changes feel most important to them.
Execution
We began by meeting one-on-one with grantee partners across three regions. These conversations helped us understand their work, how they currently approach monitoring and learning, who they work with, and what kind of support they might need.
We then organized regional workshops where grantees could take a closer look at the power dynamics in their contexts, i.e.who holds influence, who is excluded, and how this affects efforts to support displaced people. In some cases, these sessions helped partners jointly reflect on how change really happens, and what it takes to shift power in meaningful ways. In other cases, partners found it challenging to engage in this exercise because of the limited time for discussion (90 minutes), the charged nature of the discussion and/or they found the exercise redundant.
At the same time, we started reaching out through trusted networks (including through partner organizations) to find people with lived experience of immigration detention who might want to be involved in the program’s learning process. We did this through an open Expression of Interest and received responses from individuals across all three regions. This led to the formation of the 4 member Detention Experience Reference Group (DERG).
Once early drafts of the Theory of Change and Power Analysis were ready, we invited partners and DERG members to review and share feedback.
The Results
Over the course of the co-creation phase, we delivered two key products to support learning and reflection across the ID Program:
Stakeholder Mapping and Power Analysis: For each region, we identified which groups had a lot of interest but little influence, highlighting the need to support their participation and which had more power but were less engaged, pointing to the need for targeted outreach and awareness-building. We also shared a set of guiding questions with Porticus and its partners to help them keep asking, over time, how program efforts are shifting these power dynamics. A practical note was circulated to grantees on how to use the findings in their day-to-day work.
Theory of Change (ToC): We created a program-level ToC that brought together the work of all grantees. This shows how different activities and strategies connect to the program’s bigger goals, helps identify overlaps and collaboration opportunities, and highlights the key assumptions that need to be checked along the way. It was designed to be a shared roadmap that supports collective action and learning.
Through this process, we learned some important lessons about working with a diverse group of participants, especially people with lived experience:
Working closely with grantee partners through one-on-one consultations and regional workshops gave us rich insight into their contexts, strategies, and learning needs. However, we also learned that co-creation with partners takes time, trust, and a shared understanding of purpose, none of which can be rushed.
Partners are often stretched thin with program delivery and reporting, and may not always have the time or bandwidth to engage deeply in abstract design processes. Some were more comfortable contributing to practical tools or direct feedback, while others preferred to reflect on broader strategic questions.
When resources are limited, it’s not always possible or necessary to bring participants up to speed in technical MEL concepts. Instead, it’s more effective to adapt our approach to meet people where they are, using simple explanations, focusing on the parts most relevant to their experiences, and creating space for thoughtful reflection.
Asking people to participate in MEL design risks being extractive or tokenistic. A more meaningful and appropriate role may lie in other parts of the learning process. For example, helping shape the questions that matter, contributing to data collection as peer researchers or field advisors, or making sense of findings through discussion, reflection, and storytelling. These roles allow people to speak from their strengths and lived insight, and are more likely to support genuine, equitable participation.
This experience reminded us that meaningful participation, whether from people with lived experience or program partners, can’t be assumed or rushed. It works best when it’s purposeful, well-supported, and tailored to the strengths and realities of those involved. For people with lived experience, this means identifying roles where their insight can truly shape learning rather than pushing for involvement in highly technical MEL design work. For partners, it means pacing co-creation realistically, designing with empathy, and making engagement manageable. Participation isn’t just about inviting input, it’s about creating the right conditions for that input to matter.
Note: Nurai Global is currently in the second year of a five-year learning partnership with Porticus. Watch this space for updates as we continue our collective journey of learning and reflection.
Client Review
"We are pleased to have Nurai Global as our Learning Partner for the Immigration Detention Program (2024-2028). Their flexible and solutions-driven approach has been instrumental in adapting to our evolving MEL needs. They have successfully led the co-creation of the program's Theory of Change, working with 25 grantees across Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa, and Europe. At our request, they also embedded an inclusion lens into our MEL frameworks, ensuring that the voices of affected communities actively shape our learning journey."
- Senior Programme Manager, Porticus