Justice is the work: supporting systemic reform for climate, reparations and people power
We are in a moment defined by overlapping crises: climate breakdown, deepening inequality, shrinking civic space and escalating debt.
But for communities across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), these aren’t new problems. They are the result of long-standing systems of extraction and control, rooted in colonialism, upheld by today’s aid and development structures.
Bond’s recent webinar Power in perspective: LMIC voices on Justice, Solidarity and Systemic Reform invited advocates and organisers from LMICs to explore how to reimagine global development with justice at its centre.
This wasn’t just a policy discussion. It was an invitation to listen differently, to reckon with power, to honour the historical and ongoing resistance of communities that have been historically marginalised, and to recognise that real transformation must be rooted in solidarity, not saviourism, and include accountability and repair.
Climate justice must begin with repair
Speaking from Ethiopia, Martha Bekele from DevTransform argued that climate justice is not only about emissions or adaptation, it’s about historic and ongoing extraction. From slavery to colonialism to today’s carbon markets, the same systems continue to exploit land, labour and life in LMICs.
Africa, which contributes the least to the climate crisis, now experiences its most violent impacts. Yet instead of grant-based climate finance grounded in justice, many African countries receive loans. This is deepening debt and forcing communities to pay the price for a crisis they did not cause.
Bekele put it bluntly: “You’ve burnt my house down and now you expect me to borrow money from you to rebuild it, and then pay you back . Where is the justice in that?”
Bekele called for a shift away from market-led, extractive solutions towards climate action grounded in equity, historical responsibility and self-determination. “It starts with acknowledgement,” she said, “and with recognition must come repair.”
International systems are not broken; they are working exactly as designed
Joining from Nairobi, Vitalice Meja from Reality of Aid Africa situated today’s crises within a broader reckoning with international development architecture. He asked a fundamental question: who are these systems really built for?
Tracing the origins of official development assistance and multilateral finance to post-World War Two Europe and colonial extraction, Meja argued that current structures reinforce dependency, enable exploitation and sideline LMIC leadership. Development, he said, should never be about “managing poverty”; it should be about transformation.
He called for the creation of a new global framework for development cooperation, housed within the UN, not dominated by OECD donors, to rebalance power and enable rights-based financing, grounded in equity, trust and shared accountability.
“The way development cooperation functions now is incoherent and unjust,” he said. “It must be reshaped, not just slightly improved.”
Reparations are not a radical demand, they are a moral imperative
Dr Sheray Warmington, an accomplished academic and researcher, reframed reparations as essential to development justice. Speaking from Jamaica, she reminded us that reparations are not only about history, but about the legacies that shape our present: underdevelopment, debt, inequality and disrupted self-determination.
She highlighted Haiti’s forced ‘independence debt’ to France; a payment not for freedom but for lost profits, which drained the nation’s resources for over a century.
Drawing on CARICOM’s 10-point reparations plan, Warmington outlined what repair could look like: debt cancellation, investment in education and healthcare, repatriation and the restoration of memory and cultural identity. She also pointed to the growing global reparations movement, including Black communities in the US organising for self-determined reparative justice.
“Development must no longer be an act of generosity,” she said. “It must be a practice of responsibility rooted in justice, equity and dignity.”
There is no justice without civic space
Civic space, and the right to organise, protest and build movements, is foundational to justice. And it is increasingly under attack.
Gina Romero, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of assembly and association, joined us from Colombia. She painted a stark picture of what’s happening globally; from surveillance to criminalisation, the tools used to silence dissent are growing. So too are the hostile narratives that frame activists as threats rather than as defenders of rights, especially those fighting for racial, climate, gender or economic justice.
But Romero also offered hope. She lifted up stories of youth organising, mutual aid and creative resistance, from Belgrade to Bogotá, as signs that people power endures even in the harshest conditions.
“We’re seeing an erosion of solidarity and suspicion of civil society,” she warned. “But solidarity is not an idea, it’s a practice. It’s people showing up for each other.”
Development through a justice-led lens
Across climate, finance, reparations and civic space, the speakers named the same truth: that the systems we are working within were never designed for justice. They were built to extract and control. And so reform must not be cosmetic. It must be systemic, grounded in repair, and led by those who have long been on the frontlines.
For those of us based in the UK, in INGOs or donor institutions, this moment calls for a different kind of leadership. One that steps back, listens deeply, follows the lead of communities most affected, and rethinks development beyond the limitations of charity.
This is a call not just to adjust how we work, but to reimagine what development is for, who it’s accountable to, and how justice can truly be centred.
As Martha reminded us: “Justice isn’t done for the past or even the present. It’s done for the future.”
Bond continues to work with members and partners to support civic space, advocate for financial architecture reform and embed justice-led approaches across the UK development sector. Find out more about our civic space work and how to get involved here. For further information or to connect directly, reach out to Rowan ([email protected]) or Bibusa at Bond ([email protected]).
Bond also convenes work on financing for development through our International Financial Architecture Working Group which any member is welcome to join.
