SHENGO · ሸንጎ — Structured Policy Consultation for Africa

ሸንጎ

Shen·go · noun

In Ethiopian traditions, the shengo is the assembly where the community deliberates, and every voice has a verified place in the decision.

We built a platform around that idea: structured deliberation, relevant stakeholders included, made digital, scalable, and accountable across the continent.

The gap

Today, most people are left out of the policies that shape their lives.

Governments still consult through workshops and email chains: costly, geographically narrow, and impossible to audit. The people with the most at stake are the easiest to leave out.

The regional expert

Has the knowledge, not the plane ticket.

Consultations happen in Addis Ababa. A specialist three hundred kilometres away is excluded by cost and logistics, not by lack of insight.

The community group

Submits, then hears nothing back.

A regional civil society group sends written input and attends workshops, but never receives proof that its voice was actually considered.

The citizen

Has a phone, but no door to knock on.

Most people have no channel at all to take part in a national consultation, even on policies that will define their daily lives.

01

No audit trail

Verbal and email submissions leave no public record of what was sent, considered or ignored.

02

Cost rations quality

In-person consultations are expensive, so governments consult when there is budget, not when policy needs it.

03

Compliance is manual

Donor safeguard frameworks require documented consultation that current processes cannot reliably produce.

04

Incentives misfire

Experts show up, yet contributions go unattributed and unverifiable.

How it works

One consultation, start to accountability.

Every SHENGO consultation follows the same verifiable path, from the moment a ministry opens it to the public record that closes it.

1

Open

A ministry publishes a structured consultation with clear categories, a deadline and invited stakeholders.

2

Submit

Experts, civil society and citizens respond in structured form. Each submission is timestamped and logged.

3

Synthesise

The AI layer groups submissions by theme and position, giving officers a briefing in hours, not weeks.

4

Decide

Decision makers work from the synthesis alongside every raw submission, with dissent kept visible.

5

Account

A public record shows who took part, what was incorporated and what was not. Compliance exports follow automatically.

The platform

Four parts. One auditable system.

SHENGO is not a survey tool. It is structured infrastructure that replaces the workshop and email model with a verifiable, scalable, AI-assisted process.

PART 01

Structured submission engine

Ministries publish consultations with defined categories, deadlines and response formats. Every submission is timestamped, attributed and cryptographically logged.

Response templates that reduce noise and improve analysis
Multilingual by design, including Amharic and Afaan Oromoo
Deadline management with automatic stakeholder reminders

PART 02

Stakeholder verification

Civil society, experts and citizens register through a verified identity layer. Submissions carry institutional affiliation, with an anonymous option for citizens.

Civil society verified against the civil society registry
Expert profiles with affiliation and credentials
Citizen portal with an optional anonymous route

PART 03

AI synthesis layer

Submissions are clustered by theme, stakeholder type and position. Policy officers receive a structured summary that turns weeks of reading into hours.

Independent bias audit by an academic partner
Raw submissions always available beside the summary
Minority and dissenting views flagged, never lost

PART 04

Audit and transparency

Each consultation produces a public record: who was invited, who submitted, what was submitted and what was incorporated. Donor safeguard reporting follows from it.

One-click safeguard and compliance export
Public record verifiable by any stakeholder
Expert contributions cited and attributed

See it working

Touch the platform, not a slideshow.

A preview of the working interface for each role. Figures shown are illustrative during the testing phase.

shengo.com.et / consultations

Testing phase

Government dashboard

Overview of active consultations across ministries.

Testing

Submissions

Testing

Experts

Testing

Civil society

Testing

Citizens

Consultation	Ministry	Status
Climate Resilience Policy	Planning and Development	Open
Higher Education Reform	Education	In synthesis
Digital Accessibility in Services	Technology and Innovation	Open
Smallholder Irrigation Strategy	Agriculture	Draft

Citizen portal

Share your view in your language, from your phone. Anonymous option available.

Open consultation

Climate Resilience Policy. Three short structured questions, about four minutes.

Your protection

Submit anonymously, and still receive a private receipt that proves your voice was counted.

RECEIPT

Your submission was logged on the public record. You can check, at any time, whether it was reflected in the final policy.

Digital Accessibility in Government Services

Ministry of Technology and Innovation · consultation detail

AI policy synthesis

Submissions cluster around three priorities: reliable infrastructure in regional areas, clearer regulatory guidance for service providers, and accessibility standards for citizens with disabilities. Two dissenting positions on rollout pace are flagged below and preserved in full.

Infrastructure priorityRegulatory clarityAccessibility standards2 dissents flagged

Contributor	Type	Status
Regional ICT Association	Civil society	Logged
Dr. expert (verified)	Independent expert	Cited
Anonymous citizen	Citizen	Logged

Who it serves

Everyone in the policy circle, at the same table.

Each actor needs something different. SHENGO is designed so that the whole circle benefits when consultation is done well.

For government ministries and agencies

SHENGO turns consultation from a compliance burden into an intelligence asset. Ministries receive structured, synthesised input from verified stakeholders, ready for decision making.

Weeks of analysis become hours

AI synthesis clusters submissions by theme and position, so officers get a briefing rather than a data dump.

Compliance documentation, automatically

Each consultation produces audit ready records for donor safeguard frameworks, removing manual reporting.

Legitimacy you can demonstrate

An immutable audit trail lets ministries show genuine consultation, protecting decisions from challenge.

"This is exactly the kind of homegrown digital governance infrastructure the Digital Ethiopia 2030 mandate is supposed to deliver."

Reviewed in conversationPublic policy faculty, Addis Ababa University

47

Ethiopian federal ministries addressable

Testing phase

processing time reduction, measured in pilot

3

languages supported by design

Testing phase

consultations per ministry, tracked live

For bilateral and multilateral donors

SHENGO reduces a real operational risk in development programmes: undocumented or inadequate stakeholder consultation. Portfolios that require safeguard compliance can use it as their documentation layer.

Safeguard documentation by default

The audit trail is generated through the standard consultation workflow, not as a separate reporting task.

Real evidence for monitoring

Donors can verify that funded policy work involved genuine input, with timestamped, attributed records.

Built to scale across programmes

The architecture supports multi country deployment, so one engagement can cover several portfolios.

"Active portfolios carry consultation documentation requirements across many projects. A workflow that satisfies them automatically meets a real, current need."

Safeguard alignment reviewDonor portfolio assessment, Ethiopia

Testing phase

portfolio value in compliance alignment

3

donor frameworks targeted for native support

55

AU member states addressable at scale

Testing phase

requirements met automatically, in pilot

For civil society organisations

SHENGO gives civil society something it has rarely had: a verified, public record that its policy input was received. Advocacy moves from hope to documented fact.

Verified participation records

Export participation directly for your own reporting, instead of reconstructing it after the fact.

No geographic barrier

Regional groups submit to national consultations without travelling to the capital, on a mobile first interface.

Accountability after the decision

The audit trail shows which submissions were reflected, creating a new accountability mechanism.

"We have taken part in consultations for years, but never had a verified record that our voice was actually heard. That is the structural change."

Civil society representativeFocus group, Ethiopia

Testing phase

civil society groups in onboarding cohort

Zero

travel required to take part nationally

All

submissions cryptographically logged

Free

access for registered civil society groups

For citizens and independent experts

SHENGO opens consultation to people who never had access, and gives experts a reputational reason to contribute quality input rather than attend for a per diem.

An open, mobile first portal

Any citizen can submit to public consultations, in their language, with an anonymous option.

Citation and attribution for experts

Expert submissions are attributed, timestamped and citable. Contributions that inform decisions are flagged.

A profile that grows with you

A verified record of policy contributions builds professional standing in a way no workshop attendance can.

"The shengo principle is simple: every voice has a verified place in the decision. We are making that principle work at the scale of a country."

Kaleb AmareFounder, SHENGO · Addis Ababa

Testing phase

citizens in first deployment cohort

3

Ethiopian languages supported

Free

access for all citizens

Cited

expert contributions permanently attributed

Your voice is protected

What happens after you press submit.

For a citizen, taking part should feel safe and worthwhile. Here is exactly what SHENGO does with your voice, in plain terms.

You choose how you appear

Submit with your name, or anonymously. Either way your response is recorded. Anonymous submissions are never linked back to your identity.

Your submission is sealed

Once logged, your response is timestamped and cryptographically protected. It cannot be quietly edited, removed or lost from the record.

You can see if it mattered

When the policy is decided, the public record shows what was incorporated. You can check whether the themes you raised were reflected.

Just a verified place in the decision.

Trust and sovereignty

Your data. Your country. Your control.

SHENGO operates under a published Data Governance Charter. Sovereignty is handled by architecture, not by promise.

In-country data residency

Consultation data is hosted on national infrastructure. Nothing leaves the country without explicit government authorisation.

Architecture level

Government owns its data

Each ministry retains full ownership of its consultation data. Data is portable and exportable.

In the Charter

Independent oversight board

An independent board oversees data practices, conducts annual audits and publishes public accountability reports.

Third party

Four-tier access control

Administrators, ministry officers, verified stakeholders and public viewers each have strictly defined permissions.

Role based

Defined retention

Active records, closed records and public reports each have set retention periods with secure deletion protocols.

Published schedule

Annual public audit

SHENGO undergoes an independent annual governance audit. Results are published, with any remediation timeline.

Full transparency

Deployment

From Ethiopia, to fifty-five.

Ethiopia is the foundation. The continental pathway runs through existing African governance institutions, in honest, staged phases.

Phase 1

Anchor

2026 to 2030 · testing now

Ethiopia

Federal ministries, with CAFOR as institutional anchor.

Phase 2

East Africa

2030 to 2035 · planned

Kenya

Rwanda

Somali

An East Africa cluster, on an ECA facilitated pathway.

Phase 3

West and North

2034 to 2040 · on roadmap

Ghana

Senegal

Egypt

Regional entry points across language groups.

Phase 4

Continental

2040 onward · vision

All 55 AU member states

An open-source replication toolkit, published at month 60.

The mandate

Built for Ethiopia. Designed for the continent.

Digital Ethiopia 2030 sets the national mandate. Agenda 2063 frames the continental vision. SHENGO is the civic infrastructure that serves both.

Digital Ethiopia 2030

The national foundation

The national strategy names citizen centred e-governance as a core pillar. SHENGO is the structured consultation layer that makes that pillar real rather than aspirational.

AU Agenda 2063

Aspiration 3 and Aspiration 6

Good governance and people driven development need the same foundation: a way for citizens and civil society to take part in decisions at scale. That foundation is SHENGO.

AU Digital Transformation

Built in Africa, for Africa

Civic technology aligned with Smart Africa and the AU digital governance agenda, owned and operated on the continent.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 16 and SDG 17

Strong institutions need participatory governance. Partnerships need multi stakeholder engagement infrastructure. SHENGO delivers both.

Engagement models

How institutions work with us.

SHENGO is in its testing phase, so these are engagement models rather than fixed prices. We shape each one with the partner.

For governments

Pilot deployment

A scoped consultation programme inside one or more ministries, with onboarding and support included.

Grant or programme funded

Ministry onboarding and staff training
Structured consultations end to end
Compliance ready audit exports
In-country data residency

For donors and programmes

Portfolio licence

SHENGO as shared consultation infrastructure across the active portfolios in a country programme.

Annual, by programme size

Multi consultation, multi ministry coverage
Safeguard and monitoring evidence by default
Multi country ready architecture
Priority support and reporting

For the continent

Open-source toolkit

A replication toolkit so any AU member state can stand up its own structured consultation infrastructure.

Published at month 36

Open replication toolkit
Deployment through AU institutions
Shared methodology and templates
Community of practice

Resources

Read the thinking behind the platform.

Methodology, evidence and the documents procurement teams ask for. More will be published as the testing phase progresses.

SHENGO · Case study

Case study

A regional consultation, start to record

How one structured consultation reached contributors beyond the capital, and what the public record showed at the end.

Read the case study

SHENGO · Methodology

Methodology

How the AI synthesis is kept honest

The clustering approach, how raw submissions stay visible, and how an academic partner audits the synthesis for bias.

Read the methodology

SHENGO · One-pager

One pager

SHENGO for procurement teams

A single page that covers what SHENGO is, what it produces, and how it satisfies safeguard documentation requirements.

Download the one pager

About

Who is building this, and why.

"I grew up in a house and community where decisions are made collectively and earn their legitimacy. Most policy today loses that. We are putting it back, at the scale of a country."

SHENGO began with a simple observation: Ethiopia, and much of the continent, has no shared infrastructure for structured, auditable policy consultation. The knowledge exists, the people are willing, but there is no door for most of them to walk through.

We are building that door. Ethiopia first, continental by design, and rooted in a tradition of deliberation that long predates the technology.

Kaleb AmareFounder · Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Product and platform

Engineering and design

Policy research

Methodology and bias audit

Institutional partnerships

Government and AU pathway

Civil society and community

Onboarding and capacity

Partnership

Build the infrastructure with us.

SHENGO is built through institutional collaboration. There is a path for every kind of partner.

Resource partners

Funding, cloud and infrastructure

The capital and technical infrastructure that makes SHENGO deployable at scale.

Grant co-financing for the pilot

Cloud infrastructure credits

Development finance for expansion

Programme integration

Service partners

Implementation and training

Delivery on the ground: training staff, facilitating consultations and building local capacity.

Ministry onboarding and training

Consultation facilitation

Regional language support

Civil society capacity building

Research and academic

Bias auditing and validation

Independent credibility: auditing the synthesis, researching outputs and publishing findings.

Independent bias auditing

Policy effectiveness research

Participation quality frameworks

University partnerships

Joint activities

Co-hosted consultations

Co-designed consultations, joint publications and shared presentation to the wider community.

Co-hosted national consultations

Joint research publications

Shared monitoring evidence

AU and UN forum presentations

Express partnership interest

Tell us your organisation and the kind of partnership you have in mind. We respond within two working days.

Thank you. We will be in touch within two working days.

Testing phase · onboarding partners now

Ready to make consultation accountable?

Whether you are a ministry, a donor, a civil society organisation or a researcher, there is a way to work with SHENGO.

Request Pilot Access Read the resources

Government

Explore a pilot in your ministry. We handle the technical setup, you focus on the policy.

Start a conversation

Donors and partners

Use SHENGO as consultation infrastructure across your portfolio, with evidence by default.

Request a briefing

Research and civil society

Join the network. Verified participation records for your advocacy and publications.

Join the network