During this learning cycle, we designed a research protocol to validate with the people who experience the challenges, what we learned in previous cycles about the problems faced by indigenous communities to fully exercise their right to prior, free and informed consultation. The protocol consisted of a series of workshops where, from a systems thinking and community participatory research approach, we validated and refined the narration of the problems and designed a portfolio of interventions with the potential for systemic change. We learned that: 1. The framework of 16 problems resonated strongly with the people. We defined them in a previous phase through in-depth interviews with similar people. Now, those who participated in the workshop agreed that they had experienced them in one way or another. This framework served to have an orderly conversation and helped to create bridges of empathy between participants. 2. We learned some blind spots about the way we had narrated the problem. For example, in the case of the problem of the scarce participation of women, we learned that there are other groups that are excluded such as youth and childhood. This helped us to strengthen the problematization framework. 3. When designing solutions, we brought together indigenous people with a transdisciplinary group of people identified by the Acceleration Lab divided into three working tables: law and justice; learning and creativity; and culture and cosmology. We learned that these three dimensions are relevant for designing solutions that address specific aspects of the problems, but that the time we had was not enough to reach the level of depth we aspired to. 4. We learned that, for each working table and depending on the aspects of the problem that it was responsible for addressing, the prioritization of problems was different. For the law and justice table, the priority is the prior nature of the consultations; for the teaching and creativity table, it is the pedagogy of the sessions; and for the culture and cosmology table, it is the lack of inclusion of women, social polarization, and imbalances of power between the parties. 5. Finally, we learned that a group like the one that was formed in the workshops was able to come up with a portfolio of 9 public policy solutions that together address 12 of the 16 problems identified, in what truly can be called a portfolio of solutions with the potential to trigger systemic changes.

Our work will become a written report with which we wish to attract donors to fund the portfolio of interventions designed.

The micronarratives and interviews where used in the first activity of the workshop. People role played as reporters from a local newspaper and had to interview  other participants to learn about issues in the consultations. Collective intelligence, co-creation and consultative workshops where part of the rest of the activities where people prioritized issues and designed solutions divided in working tables.  

Ethnography and micronarratives helped us understand the issue of consultations from the standpoint of the people who experiment such issues. Collective intelligence was needed to collectively design a portfolio of solutions and design sprints where our inspiration when planning the workshops where it all happened. 

The workshops helped untangle what really constitutes for people to exercise fully the right to prior, free, and informed consultation. Which is a right established in ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, which Mexico ratified in 1989. It is one of the most important binding legal instruments for the protection and defense of the human rights of indigenous peoples. It refers to the right of indigenous peoples to maintain and strengthen their cultures, ways of life, and institutions, and to participate effectively in decisions that affect them. This will lead us to conduct better consultations and achieve SDG 16, which requires countries to learn to consult with people and take them into account in all decisions. Goal 16.7 calls for ensuring the adoption of inclusive, participatory, and representative decisions at all levels that respond to the needs of people. The ability to listen to people and take them into account is part of what makes sustainable development possible.