🗞️

Issue 1

Dear Bankless Africa fam, 

Welcome to the first edition of the Bankless Africa governance newsletter.  

Woohoo! 🎉 🥳

As we officially step into Season 5, it’s important that we take steps to understand what the DAO needs from each of us and that we keep reminding ourselves of where we might be struggling. Governing is one key area DAOs seem to be struggling with. It’s no different for the Bankless Africa team. We’ve decided to publish a bi-weekly newsletter to educate members about the various aspects of governance in DAOs and get members genuinely interested in the process.

In this first-ever edition, we provide some insights into cultivating self-governance by learning from the human body, summarise some of the governance ideas in Bankless Africa, and of course — memes! memes! memes!

Enjoy!

I Get It, Governance Sucks 🙃

There’s a wave of apathy surrounding the different processes it takes to make decisions in decentralized organizations such as DAOs. It’s a specific kind of indifference, not the kind where members do not care, but a kind where they do not remember that action needs to be taken. Like fungus seeping into the wood, this apathy has slowly glued itself to the very fiber of organizations that are supposed to be autonomous. It’s another classic case of members bringing their Web2 behavior into Web3.

Governance, in real life, has often sucked. In many cases, citizens have distanced themselves from these processes when it became more than just governing or regulating how things operate/function among people of the same interests in a fair and equitable manner; it became politicking. It became campaigning for votes by standing on platforms and making big speeches, only to protect the selfish interests of just a few over the many. It became sheets and sheets of unfulfilled promises and neglect of public infrastructure. It became less about representing the people and more about protecting the interests of the party at all costs, including the suppression of all opposing forces. And so I get it, governance, when it’s poorly handled, does truly suck. 

The Human Body Is a Self-Regulating Machine; Learn From It

Yet, it’s unavoidable. Just because we hate a thing or refuse to acknowledge its existence or participate in it doesn’t mean it ceases to exist. Our indifference towards a system as important as governance doesn’t mean we don’t need governance, it just gives more room for incompetence and corruption to thrive. Your body, for instance, is an entire organism built around its own system, one that continues to function with or without your permission. In biological terms, this is referred to as homeostasis. 

According to Britannica, homeostasis is “any self-regulating process by which biological systems tend to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are optimal for survival. If homeostasis is successful, life continues; if unsuccessful, disaster or death ensues.” Different parts of your body are each responsible for functioning in a set way. Your lungs control the pH amount in the body, your digestive tract ensures that the toxins do not stay in your body, and your heart — with the help of your brain — ensures that the body maintains healthy levels of blood pressure by speeding up or slowing down its rate. Your brain is the engine house. It controls your thoughts, memory, emotion, touch, motor skills, vision, breathing, temperature, and hunger and is in charge of every process that regulates your body.

Now stop for a second and imagine that your lungs decide to stop being responsible for regulating your body's pH, imaging for just a second that it stopped taking in air, or your small intestine decides to stop its work of food digestion and says to itself, “let the large intestine do it”. In that instant, the alarms would go off in your brain and send it into a frenzy. You’ll feel the effects of that decision through pain of some kind and if it goes on for too long, it could lead to the rest of your body shutting down, ergo, death.

💡

Decentralized autonomous organizations have given each of us the power of collective governance and autonomy. If even a single member is indifferent toward decision-making and operational functions, the organization suffers.

A DAO needs more than just governance token holders or voters, it needs members who’re actively concerned about its maintenance, nourishment, and growth. It needs members who’re very involved in its day-to-day operations beyond getting tasks done. It needs guardians and protectors, it needs lungs and brains, it needs you and I. 

Will you show up?

What’s Up in DAO Governance? 🧐

Governance Participation: Perils and Promise

Author: Dan WuThe state of member participation in DAO governance is currently poor. Governance is what ensures a DAO’s realization of its mission and fosters meaningful participation from members; it also helps reduce the risks and coordination costs associated with operating a DAO. In most cases, treasury management, project funding, and contributor on/off ramping are key decisions a DAO would need some human input for prior to action. Results from data gathered by Orca show that members’ participation by voting reduces as a DAO grows in size. So larger DAOs experience lower voter turnout, as little as 5% compared to smaller organizations. DAOs and protocols like Compound have as little as 3.5% voter participation across 70 on-chain proposals. 
Delegation is yet another aspect of governance that’s falling through the cracks. In DAOs, token holders are often allowed to transfer their voting power to other members, thereby delegating their voting power to people they trust and saving members time. While this was one-way DAOs thought to solve the low voter participation problem, it didn’t solve much, as delegates also seem to not be voting. 3/4 of all $COMP delegates have never cast a single on-chain vote. 
This voter apathy could have many reasons including:
Information accessibility: Most governance tools’ poor user experience might be affecting members’ ability to easily access governance information; designing more user-centric governance dApps could help improve things.
Engagement and participation: DAOs are unable to look beyond just the need for voters. In reality, they need people with the right kind of mindset to make well-informed decisions.
Accountability: Are members being held accountable to the DAO’s mission and values? DAOs need delegates who can stand behind the decisions they’ve made.

Inside BA Governance 💬🕳️

Stay updated on all the latest governance ideas and needs in our media node, share your opinions and get governing!

Active proposals 🔥

Restarting the BA FB Guides

Innovator has put up a proposal to restart the BA educational guides on Facebook. “The nice thing with FB guides is that even rural Africans can see them because FB offers a discount on web access, where even Google doesn't. Even Africans on really tight data packet budgets can still access global level education”. 

Building an Open Community

ThinkDecade pushes us to think deeply about Building an Open community, Preventing deliberate and non-deliberate governance attacks, and fostering web3 culture. He highlights the many flaws and challenges the community is currently experiencing as well as the ways members of the DAO might be using the familial alliance to sway community consensus, lobby voting their way, and sign up for positions they’re not well equipped to handle. He ties this harmful behavior to the African mindset/political culture of viewing positions of responsibility as “power” and greed. He also posits that Bankless Africa needs a better governance framework and encourages core community members to act as knight guards in order to prevent these bad actors from infecting the community further. “The last thing we want to do is re-create the same destructive traditional governance systems in our community with the same cultural mindset. We need to evolve, we can do better!”

Coordinape Education Needs

Innovator urges us to pursue a Coordinape education program as once again, some members didn't follow the best practice which is to allocate all their GIVE to others in the Circle. ETrinity007 thinks it might be a problem of a lack of time and a visibility problem where people reward those who’re more visible over those who’re putting in the actual work in the background.

Key Actions for the Week

Get involved in governance by signing up on the BA CommonWealth and contributing to discussions.

Contribute to the BA weekly newsletter by writing an editorial, editing, or designing a cover.

Bankless Africa has educational needs. Implement a deliberate learning system/framework for members.

Vote on innovators BA guide proposal.

How Can I Help? 💪🏾

This governance newsletter is currently created by only Abidemi; the newsletter would very much benefit from contributions by more members interested in writing, design, editing, and researching. 

Note: Contributions are currently pro-bono (unpaid).

Upcoming Operations Call 📢

Don’t forget to drop by the Bankless Africa weekly operations call at 10:30 AM UTC every Thursday to get plugged in on how things get done.

Issue 1

Dear Bankless Africa fam, 

Welcome to the first edition of the Bankless Africa governance newsletter.  

Woohoo! 🎉 🥳

As we officially step into Season 5, it’s important that we take steps to understand what the DAO needs from each of us and that we keep reminding ourselves of where we might be struggling. Governing is one key area DAOs seem to be struggling with. It’s no different for the Bankless Africa team. We’ve decided to publish a bi-weekly newsletter to educate members about the various aspects of governance in DAOs and get members genuinely interested in the process.

In this first-ever edition, we provide some insights into cultivating self-governance by learning from the human body, summarise some of the governance ideas in Bankless Africa, and of course — memes! memes! memes!

Enjoy!

I Get It, Governance Sucks 🙃

There’s a wave of apathy surrounding the different processes it takes to make decisions in decentralized organizations such as DAOs. It’s a specific kind of indifference, not the kind where members do not care, but a kind where they do not remember that action needs to be taken. Like fungus seeping into the wood, this apathy has slowly glued itself to the very fiber of organizations that are supposed to be autonomous. It’s another classic case of members bringing their Web2 behavior into Web3.

Governance, in real life, has often sucked. In many cases, citizens have distanced themselves from these processes when it became more than just governing or regulating how things operate/function among people of the same interests in a fair and equitable manner; it became politicking. It became campaigning for votes by standing on platforms and making big speeches, only to protect the selfish interests of just a few over the many. It became sheets and sheets of unfulfilled promises and neglect of public infrastructure. It became less about representing the people and more about protecting the interests of the party at all costs, including the suppression of all opposing forces. And so I get it, governance, when it’s poorly handled, does truly suck. 

The Human Body Is a Self-Regulating Machine; Learn From It

Yet, it’s unavoidable. Just because we hate a thing or refuse to acknowledge its existence or participate in it doesn’t mean it ceases to exist. Our indifference towards a system as important as governance doesn’t mean we don’t need governance, it just gives more room for incompetence and corruption to thrive. Your body, for instance, is an entire organism built around its own system, one that continues to function with or without your permission. In biological terms, this is referred to as homeostasis. 

According to Britannica, homeostasis is “any self-regulating process by which biological systems tend to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are optimal for survival. If homeostasis is successful, life continues; if unsuccessful, disaster or death ensues.” Different parts of your body are each responsible for functioning in a set way. Your lungs control the pH amount in the body, your digestive tract ensures that the toxins do not stay in your body, and your heart — with the help of your brain — ensures that the body maintains healthy levels of blood pressure by speeding up or slowing down its rate. Your brain is the engine house. It controls your thoughts, memory, emotion, touch, motor skills, vision, breathing, temperature, and hunger and is in charge of every process that regulates your body.

Now stop for a second and imagine that your lungs decide to stop being responsible for regulating your body's pH, imaging for just a second that it stopped taking in air, or your small intestine decides to stop its work of food digestion and says to itself, “let the large intestine do it”. In that instant, the alarms would go off in your brain and send it into a frenzy. You’ll feel the effects of that decision through pain of some kind and if it goes on for too long, it could lead to the rest of your body shutting down, ergo, death.

💡

A DAO needs more than just governance token holders or voters, it needs members who’re actively concerned about its maintenance, nourishment, and growth. It needs members who’re very involved in its day-to-day operations beyond getting tasks done. It needs guardians and protectors, it needs lungs and brains, it needs you and I. 

Will you show up?

What’s Up in DAO Governance? 🧐

Governance Participation: Perils and Promise

Author: Dan WuThe state of member participation in DAO governance is currently poor. Governance is what ensures a DAO’s realization of its mission and fosters meaningful participation from members; it also helps reduce the risks and coordination costs associated with operating a DAO. In most cases, treasury management, project funding, and contributor on/off ramping are key decisions a DAO would need some human input for prior to action. Results from data gathered by Orca show that members’ participation by voting reduces as a DAO grows in size. So larger DAOs experience lower voter turnout, as little as 5% compared to smaller organizations. DAOs and protocols like Compound have as little as 3.5% voter participation across 70 on-chain proposals. 
Delegation is yet another aspect of governance that’s falling through the cracks. In DAOs, token holders are often allowed to transfer their voting power to other members, thereby delegating their voting power to people they trust and saving members time. While this was one-way DAOs thought to solve the low voter participation problem, it didn’t solve much, as delegates also seem to not be voting. 3/4 of all $COMP delegates have never cast a single on-chain vote. 
This voter apathy could have many reasons including:
Information accessibility: Most governance tools’ poor user experience might be affecting members’ ability to easily access governance information; designing more user-centric governance dApps could help improve things.
Engagement and participation: DAOs are unable to look beyond just the need for voters. In reality, they need people with the right kind of mindset to make well-informed decisions.
Accountability: Are members being held accountable to the DAO’s mission and values? DAOs need delegates who can stand behind the decisions they’ve made.

Inside BA Governance 💬🕳️

Stay updated on all the latest governance ideas and needs in our media node, share your opinions and get governing!

Active proposals 🔥

Restarting the BA FB Guides

Innovator has put up a proposal to restart the BA educational guides on Facebook. “The nice thing with FB guides is that even rural Africans can see them because FB offers a discount on web access, where even Google doesn't. Even Africans on really tight data packet budgets can still access global level education”. 

Building an Open Community

ThinkDecade pushes us to think deeply about Building an Open community, Preventing deliberate and non-deliberate governance attacks, and fostering web3 culture. He highlights the many flaws and challenges the community is currently experiencing as well as the ways members of the DAO might be using the familial alliance to sway community consensus, lobby voting their way, and sign up for positions they’re not well equipped to handle. He ties this harmful behavior to the African mindset/political culture of viewing positions of responsibility as “power” and greed. He also posits that Bankless Africa needs a better governance framework and encourages core community members to act as knight guards in order to prevent these bad actors from infecting the community further. “The last thing we want to do is re-create the same destructive traditional governance systems in our community with the same cultural mindset. We need to evolve, we can do better!”

Coordinape Education Needs

Innovator urges us to pursue a Coordinape education program as once again, some members didn't follow the best practice which is to allocate all their GIVE to others in the Circle. ETrinity007 thinks it might be a problem of a lack of time and a visibility problem where people reward those who’re more visible over those who’re putting in the actual work in the background.

Key Actions for the Week

Get involved in governance by signing up on the BA CommonWealth and contributing to discussions.

Contribute to the BA weekly newsletter by writing an editorial, editing, or designing a cover.

Bankless Africa has educational needs. Implement a deliberate learning system/framework for members.

Vote on innovators BA guide proposal.

How Can I Help? 💪🏾

This governance newsletter is currently created by only Abidemi; the newsletter would very much benefit from contributions by more members interested in writing, design, editing, and researching. 

Note: Contributions are currently pro-bono (unpaid).

Upcoming Operations Call 📢

Don’t forget to drop by the Bankless Africa weekly operations call at 10:30 AM UTC every Thursday to get plugged in on how things get done.