Decolonisation and locally led

The international development sector has woken up to the need to shift power to local peers. Yet these changes often focus on programmatic work, with fundraising and communications as an afterthought. By co-creating campaigns with local peacebuilders, this is an approach we’re trying to dismantle.

Claims of locally led development often remain rhetorical unless colonial power and its patriarchal legacy are confronted. This must involve women-led initiatives which use female insight and evidence to drive policy, financial, and systems change.

We hear from people with disabilities in Bangladesh, Nepal and Kenya who are showing what locally led change means in action. How is participatory storytelling powering locally led disability rights work?

As STiR fully localises its programmes in Uganda and Indonesia, Co-CEO Jenny Willmott and Uganda Country Director Modern Karema reflect on what they’ve learned so far.

Charles Kojo Vandyck discusses his new book, The Engine Behind the Mission: Re-imagining Non-Profit Operating Models in the Global Majority and how he was inspired to write it having seen passionate teams slowly lose energy, not because they no longer believe in the cause, but because the way their organisation is structured makes everyday work unnecessarily hard.

The community is already empowered. They just need the right convergence point to work with the government and help orient them on this. It is a process of building leadership at the community level.