Turning diversity into an asset: how Mosaic Partnerships helps communities achieve their potential.

ETHNIC DIVERSITY IS A MINE RICH WITH POSSIBILITIES. The wealth of world views and experiences of a diverse community gives rise to varied ideas, perspectives, knowledge and skills that can significantly enhance a community's ability to prosper. However, the realization of the potential benefits of diversity on development depends on the degree to which a community is cohesive. Diverse societies that achieve a high level of social cohesion are well-positioned to realize their full social and economic potential.

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In too many places, however, ethnic diversity has become the source of civil disorder and unrest rather than a force for social and economic development. Globally, ethnic tensions are on the rise. The division of society into competing adversarial factions, segmented by perceived differences, is having a baneful impact on the functioning of our communities. Recent events in the Middle East offer a prime example of the effects of disunity and its impact on the functioning and development of a region.

Although ethnic diversity has often led to civil strife and destabilization, the cause of the conflict is not the diversity itself, but rather the underlying lack of social cohesion between ethnic groups. Ethnic diversity is in and of itself neither helpful nor harmful for development purposes; it provides the potential for both the growth and deterioration of a community. Unfortunately, most societies have demonstrated a lack of competency in building and sustaining sufficient social cohesion to prevent disintegration and capitalize on the positive potential of their diversity.

Ethnicity-based conflict is emerging as a key factor contributing to social and economic disintegration in many areas of the world. Much research has been devoted to studying the impact of social cohesion on sustainable economic development--the process whereby future generations receive at least as much capital per capita as the current generation. Traditionally, the term capital has included natural, physical and human capital; these forms, however, constitute only partially the process of economic development. What has been overlooked is the manner by which economic actors interact and organize themselves to generate growth, that is through social capital, which refers to the level of social cohesion and the norms that govern interactions among people and institutions. In a paper produced by the World Bank, social capital is described as "the glue that holds societies together and without which there can be no economic growth or human well-being". (1)

A wide variety of specific social and economic benefits is derived from social capital. Studies show that communities with high levels of social capital experience social conflict reduction, greater academic achievement, reduced levels of crime and violence, greater governmental efficiency, healthier citizens, poverty alleviation, and faster economic growth. Social commentator Francis Fukuyama says that economies whose citizens have high social capital will dominate the twenty-first century.

Turning for a moment to the United States, research indicates that the United States has experienced an erosion of social capital over the past few decades; its citizens and various ethnic communities are becoming increasingly disconnected from each other. People of all races and ethnicities are feeling disappointed and frustrated by what each group perceives to be a failure of efforts in recent decades at effecting progress in the relations between ethnic and racial groups. To rationalize this failure, many people have been retreating to the more familiar ground of racial and ethnic separation. Consequently, as some researchers have shown, the United States is currently suffering from the greatest segregation between races within the last century.

To combat the growing ethnic polarization in the city of Rochester, New York in 2001, Mayor William A. Johnson initiated the Mosaic Partnerships Program. (2) It was not designed to resolve social conflict, but rather to prevent conflict through creating, developing and nurturing the foundational building blocks of a community--that is, trusting relationships among individuals and groups of individuals. The Program's success in fostering social cohesion across racial and ethnic barriers has led to replication in two other United States cities: Greensboro, North Carolina and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its goal is to stimulate a cultural shift in a community--a shift in common values from an exclusive to an inclusive culture, and from social isolation to social integration. Because creating systematic and sustainable change requires leadership with a new vision, the Mosaic Program focuses on the opinion leaders in a community, those respected and trusted members with dense social networks over which they have substantial influence. They are the permission givers for the community and serve as tipping points for the diffusion of the Mosaic concept and its transformative impact.

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The Mosaic Program pairs leaders across ethnicity and guides them through a one-year process of relationship development and trust-building, which encourages leaders to extend beyond their comfort zone and connect with people with whom they typically would not interact--those of another ethnicity. It affords them the opportunity to view the world through the eyes of another leader, whose perspective is likely very different from their own and changes how the participants engage other relationships in their life--friend, family, professional, etc. The participants begin to recognize, understand and even rally around their commonalities, as opposed to allowing their differences to hinder the development of a relationship. When a trusting relationship develops, leaders open their social networks to each other, allowing for the integration of the ethnic groups that were previously siloed in the community.

The Mosaic process has successfully bridged diverse networks of people within a community and proliferated the "weak tie" relationships that are foundational for a community's social and economic advancement. Such relationships are more distant, whereas strong ties are with people with a sociological niche similar to their own, e.g., relatives, close friends, business associates. While strong ties have their benefit in a community in that they undergird solidarity, it is the weak ties that are the key mechanism for mobilizing resources, ideas and information, whether for finding or filling a job, solving a problem, responding to a crisis, launching a new product, locating a service, establishing a new enterprise, etc. Weak ties are also essential to the creative environment of a community, as they facilitate rapid entry of new people and absorption of new ideas. The social cohesion that weak ties engender will ultimately reduce the potential for ethnicity-based conflict and promote sustainable economic development.

We can no longer afford the social disengagement and estrangement of the diverse elements of societies. Ethnically fragmented societies are prone to civil disorder and strife, which break down the social and economic functioning of our communities and undermine sustainable development. The resolution of this most fundamental social problem requires an organic change, one that rests ultimately on the common recognition of our human oneness. The purpose of the Mosaic Partnerships is to foster that recognition and build unity in diversity, two people at a time, as the foundation for social transformation. Such a transformation requires that the social and emotional distance that exists among people of different ethnicities be bridged by close association and fellowship. Communities that intentionally and systematically strengthen the bonds of trust between people of different ethnic backgrounds elevate their level of social cohesion, enabling themselves to reap the benefits of diversity while reducing the potential for destructive conflict.

Policymakers cannot legislate social cohesion and trusting relationships. At the same time, the impact of social cohesion on minimizing the likelihood of conflict and promoting sustainable development is too evident to be ignored. Therefore, policies aimed at promoting the development of social capital must be of priority. It calls for policymakers to thoroughly integrate innovative ways of building social capital into its community development planning so that it becomes tightly interwoven into all aspects of community life.

NOTES

1 Grootaert, C. 1998. Social Capital: The Missing Link? Social Capital Initiative Working Paper No. 3, World Bank.

2 Robert Rosenfeld, President and Chief Executive Officer of Idea Connection Systems, Inc. created and designed the Mosaic Partnerships.

Dash Douglas, as Director of the Mosaic Partnerships Program, is responsible for providing leadership, vision and direction for all aspects of this project. A civil rights attorney by training, he litigated fair housing cases for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and has done extensive research on race and its relation to inner-city social and economic development.

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