How a first draft was tested before anyone was asked to carry it
Healthy Prosperity for Africa · October 2026
Transparency first: The co-authors and reviewers described on this page are simulated perspectives, generated with AI systems. They are not real people, they do not speak for anyone, and they have endorsed nothing. They were used to test the draft against the objections it is likely to meet. Real voices are invited to take their place (see the end of this page).
Why this method
A new idea faces a dilemma. Presented alone, it remains one person’s view. Handed to a formal group too early, it is negotiated down to the lowest common denominator before it has been understood. This draft takes a third route. It is written from experience and with a clear position. Before publication, it was exposed systematically to the perspectives that would challenge it.
AI systems make it possible to model such perspectives quickly and in many variations: typical arguments, interests, sensitivities and blind spots of defined roles. This cannot replace consultation. It can make a first draft much more robust before it reaches real people.
Three steps
1 · Draft from experience
The starting point is thirty years of practice in Africa and Europe and the Relational Systems Framework as analytical lens. → RSF
2 · Virtual evaluation
In three rounds, six virtual review panels examined earlier versions:
| Panel | Perspective |
|---|---|
| Political spectrum | left to right, nationalist to pan-African, African and European |
| Interdisciplinary experts | psychology, political science, peace research, economics, governance |
| Track I–III | governments and diplomacy; civil society and religious leaders; communities |
| Voices of nature | water, land, forests, animals, the next generation |
| Affected people | survivors, displaced people, relatives, former fighters |
| Business and finance | investors, entrepreneurs, development banks |
A further version was then cross-checked by a different AI system, from five roles and in general terms. Its core finding was that the problem was not the basic idea but its overextension: less new content was needed, and more resistance.
Numerical scores were initially used and then deliberately dropped. They suggested a precision that modelled judgements do not have. The feedback is used qualitatively.
3 · Virtual co-authors
For the public draft, a panel of eight virtual co-authors was formed. Each represents a role, not a person. Each was asked three things: What would you carry? What do you reject? What must change? The draft was revised wherever an objection held.
| Role | Would carry | Main objection | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Young entrepreneur, Dakar | apprenticeships, fair work, youth budgets | “Healing” makes us sound like patients; we are shapers | youth protest read as civic agency; focus on trust and legitimacy |
| Elder and customary mediator, Somali region | repair embedded in tradition | outsiders tend to codify and instrumentalise customary law | tradition and religion as partners, never as tools; social embeddedness as a test condition |
| Development economist, Dar es Salaam | measurable pilot, link to livelihoods | evidence at state level is thin; costs are unclear | a testable hypothesis; comparison with existing approaches; criteria for disproof fixed in advance |
| Women’s peace platform, conflict-affected region | survivor participation | no reconciliation without material repair; nobody may be pushed to forgive | material repair in every pilot; nothing about us without us; no pressure to reconcile |
| Civil-society voice, Sahel | sovereignty, own interpretation of history | yet another European agenda | African organisation and implementation; northern donors at the margin; northern responsibility for illicit flows named |
| Police reformer, East Africa | trauma-informed security forces | trauma must not become an excuse for abuse | healing is not impunity; independent investigation; civilian oversight |
| Critical scholar, diaspora | rigour, honest limits | psychologising structural problems (“therapeutic governance”) | strongest objection stated on the overview page; healing treated as an additional factor only |
| Community conservancy leader, southern Africa | nature as living wealth | nature appears as a resource, not as a stakeholder | ecological check for every measure; intergenerational funds |
What this method can and cannot do
It can: anticipate predictable objections; expose blind spots of the author; force clearer hypotheses; document openly how a draft changed and why.
It cannot: replace real consultation; represent African societies or affected people; generate legitimacy; detect what no one has written about before. Simulated perspectives reproduce the patterns of the data they are trained on, including its biases.
That is why the initiative requires, before any political use: a review by real people from the regions concerned, an independent interdisciplinary expert review, and one carefully designed pilot with independent evaluation.
Take a seat
Each role in the panel is open. If you recognise yourself in one of them, or in one that is missing, I invite you to replace the simulated voice with your own: to contest the draft, to sharpen it, or to carry it further.
Contact: peter.aeberhard@thac.ch
Sources and references
Sources cited across the pages of Healthy Prosperity for Africa.
Frameworks and policies
- United Nations (2015). Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. A/RES/70/1.
- African Union (2015). Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want; and Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan 2024–2033.
- African Union (2019). Transitional Justice Policy.
- African Union (2003). Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption.
- African Union Centre for Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development (2024). Towards developing an African Union guideline on mental health and psychosocial support to persons in conflict, emergency and post-conflict situations. Press release, April 2024.
- African Union Peace and Security Council (2025). Communiqué of the 1314th meeting, 21 November 2025: Open session on children affected by armed conflicts.
- UN Security Council (2022). Resolution 2668 on mental health and psychosocial support for peacekeepers.
- United Nations and World Bank (2018). Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Economy, corruption and natural resources
- World Bank (2025). Africa’s Pulse, vol. 32: Pathways to Job Creation in Africa. October 2025.
- UNCTAD (2020). Economic Development in Africa Report 2020: Tackling Illicit Financial Flows for Sustainable Development in Africa. Geneva: United Nations.
- The Gambia: Commission of Inquiry into the financial activities of public bodies, enterprises and offices (Janneh Commission), 2017–2019.
- BudgIT, Nigeria: civic technology organisation for budget and procurement transparency. budgit.org
- Namibia: communal conservancy programme, supported by the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organisations (NACSO).
- Senegal: Loi n° 2022-09 du 19 avril 2022 on the distribution and management of hydrocarbon revenues; Décret n° 2024-153 du 21 février 2024 on the management of the Intergenerational Fund.
Security sector and trauma
- Aeberhard, P. (primary author), Robinson, A. and Hales, D. (2024). Addressing trauma as a missing element in security sector governance and reform: Perspectives on trauma-informed policing. Geneva: DCAF.
- Robinson, A., Hales, D. and Stark, E. (2026). Guide on assessing and addressing trauma in the security sector. Geneva: DCAF.
Switzerland and the Horn of Africa
- Swiss Federal Council (2013). Press release on the Swiss Strategy for the Horn of Africa 2013–2016, 16 September 2013.
- State Secretariat for Migration (2014). Switzerland and IGAD sign framework agreement on partnership and cooperation, 4 July 2014.
- Hiiraan Online (2014). New Switzerland ambassador presents credentials to the Somali president, 26 February 2014.
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