Values — not funding — should be driving the “localization” discourse in international development
Calls for new ways to reduce global poverty and hunger are being driven by today’s socio-political climate and a weak track record of producing sustainable change. Thus the ideas of “localization” and “#shiftthepower” are getting a lot of well-deserved attention. Unfortunately they run the danger of being reduced to a single metric: funding shifted from international to “local” organizations. (Note that “local” in this use unhelpfully conflates all domestic civil society organizations in low- and middle-income countries, from the national level institutions to the rural village women’s group.) For those international NGOs (INGOs) that measure their self-worth by annual budget, number of employees, and business “win rates,” this has led to registering country offices as “local” so they can continue to access the #shifting funding.
We have an issue because many international organisations like INGOs are relocating their operations or headquarters to the Global South. They are talking about this as if it was the localisation agenda. — West African Civil Society Institute
Yes, domestic civil society efforts need more resources. But simply restructuring funding mechanisms will not transform poorly performing “aid” systems: it will simply transfer the international problems caused by top-down, outsider-driven, individualistic, and often harmful programming to the domestic sphere. Development imposed on societies and communities can foster “learned helplessness.” It undermines dignity, voice, and agency. It ignores local contexts, replete with assets, history, aspirations, beauty and potential.
Most forms of transformative potential exist as intangible human qualities: intellectual energy, social cohesion, lived experience, synergy with nature, collective vision, commitment, mutuality, creativity, humor, hopes and dreams, artistry…and much more. From the Western point of view, “intangible” usually equals “invisible,” as in, not really real. And certainly a bother to measure quantitatively. Yet these same intangibles are the driving forces of human progress through all time. Hello?
How can we leverage this charged moment to ditch troubled systems that ignore and even undermine the vast inherent potential of individuals and groups of humans and their ecosystems?
First, we need to back the truck up a bit, as they say. Before we talk about money, let’s come together as respectful adults (and even listen to children). Let’s take stock of the baggage, the trauma, of all that has come before, and continues to undermine us all.
Localisation does not cut it for us. It’s a term that’s loaded with all the wrong things that we want to dismantle. Our communities and countries don’t need to be localised. We don’t need the global north people to do something to us or for us. We need global north organisations to recognise their purposeful neocolonial role in perpetuating an aid system that is all about continuing the power dynamics that continue to keep us in poverty and in a position of need. — Degan Ali at the 2021 Humanitarian Leadership Conference
Mahatma Gandhi started with this: if you want to change the world, start with yourself. As Ali notes, the term “localization” is a Western point of view, and reduces whole countries to “local.” The “white savior” mindset is deeply embedded in all of us…just this week in school, my son was taught the Maslow trope: People can only mature to full human beings once their basic physical needs have been met. What does that say about people in resource constrained settings?
As we dig deep to recognize our own biases, we need to imagine new ways of conceptualizing ourselves — all of us involved — as equals, and partners. We need to keep rooting out racism and colonialism woven into our language, our organizational structures, our concepts of “partnering,” and much more. This applies not just to individuals, but more powerfully, to all organizations involved. Power dynamics are inherent in every relationship, and unless we actively work to balance those, rejiggering funding mechanisms will be a hollow effort.
‘First there is the need to create allies in both the Global North and Global South. And also, to create platforms for learning, knowledge management and sharing because this will foster collaborations or partnerships. And when these actions begin to take place, it creates opportunities for co-creation between development actors here in the Global South and the Global North. — West African Civil Society Institute
If we aren’t careful, history will repeat itself and a reductionist localization discussion will devolve primarily into a focus on funding flows — which then highlight “compliance capacities” and how different donors define “local organizations.” We have been through this before, and it didn’t work out well.
Instead, diverse stakeholders should build on values and principles to co-imagine new relationships that put people — not money — at the center. (And then the money can be really helpful.)
Within our National Chapters of the Movement for Community-led Development, we’ve found that the values and principles of community-led development work well for us, mostly domestic civil society leaders from many countries, as a substantive starting point. And we come back to them constantly. When any outsider, be they from the capital city, or from London, or the UN, or an INGO enters a community or a country, even on paper (think proposal), or runs a “training,” or posts photos on a website, or writes a blog…we need to ask ourselves: Are we being true to ideals that trace right back to human dignity? And not just the dignity of individual people: also the dignity of nature, our planet, and the human collective in its infinite variations.
