How international aid charities are decolonising to tackle racism

Transferring power to local people can help the international development sector move on from its colonial roots, according to a new report from the House of Commons International Development Committee. 

 

The report by MPs, released in 2022 as part of their inquiry into the philosophy and culture of aid, highlighted long standing concerns around racism within the international development charity sector.  

 

It found that “racism is particularly pertinent for aid organisations because they work directly with individuals from around the world who are Black, Indigenous and People of Colour”. The report added that “discriminatory attitudes within these organisations will have a negative impact on the communities they work with and the programmes they deliver”. 

 

One key factor in racism in the sector is down to its “roots in colonialism” which “reinforces ideas that ‘the West’ is the ideal that others should aspire to”. Charities in the sector are therefore urged to “decolonise” by transferring decision making around projects and funding to local communities to tackle racism in the sector.  

 

Bond, the UK network for organisations working in international development, has acted on this recommendation and, along with The Social Investment Consultancy, has produced a guide for international charities on ‘becoming locally led as an anti-racist practice’. 

 

Here we look at the guidance’s key recommendations for the international aid sector and how it can tackle its troubled roots in colonialism by empowering local communities abroad. 

 

 

Examining colonial origins 

 

The International Development Committee’s report details how the “structure of the aid sector” is a “legacy of the colonial era”. 

 

This sees the “power imbalances” of the imperial era replicated within charities and beyond, through global institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and some UN agencies involved in international aid.  

 

Within charities, the legacy of racism and colonialism has led to perceptions “that these communities were incapable of self-governance”, while the legacy of colonialism and slavery in creating racial hierarchies, and the extraction of wealth of countries across the world by the British Empire, has also “contributed to many of the conditions that necessitate the aid sector to exist today”. 

 

“The aid sector needs to have difficult conversations about how power imbalances, racial injustice, and poverty came about and how it can help to address these underlying factors,” said the MPs’ damning report.  

 

Among organisations helping aid charities to have such ‘difficult conversations” is Bond, through its guidance for the sector on tackling its colonial past through devolving power to local communities.

 

 

Committing to anti-racism through decolonisation 

 

A key theme to emerge in Bond’s guidance is that “locally-led development is an anti-racist practice”. Charities will be unable to tackle their colonial roots until they “understand that the two are inherently linked”. 

 

Charities are urged to firstly tackle ideologies of “superiority and privilege of Western thought and approaches” within their organisation.  

 

Charities should then: 

• Reflect on how they can decolonise their organisation by identifying practical steps that can be taken to make them more equitable and locally-led
• Have conversations internally to draw out and address differences of opinion around decolonialisation
• Talk to funders to see how funding models can be adapted to better support locally-led development 

 

 

Becoming locally led 

 

The next stage is to ensure local communities are in control of aid and how it is used. Organisational structures charities should consider adopting include being:  

• Locally-led and owned – local communities design projects and strategy, set their own priorities, and those from outside of the area assist with resources
• Locally-managed – while the overall strategy is developed outside of local areas, it is managed at a local level
• Locally-implemented – this is the softest form of decolonisation, where local communities implement strategies and priorities that are primarily managed externally 

 

 Asking more questions 

 

The guidance from Bond offers a raft of suggested questions international aid charities need to ask themselves around how well they can decolonise. 

• What level of representation is there is on charity boards from those from lower-income countries and people of colour? 
• Who is responsible for anti-racism and how the chief executive can be held accountable on equality issues?  
• Where is the charity’s board based? Can it be in lower income countries? 

Among charities considering such questions is Save the Children, which is looking to tackle “colonial mindsets” and “white-saviourism” in its organisation. 

 

In 2020, Save the Children UK published research that revealed that almost a third of workers at the charity felt excluded or oppressed. The charity is looking to tackle this through its diversity strategy, which includes a focus on decolonisation.   

 

According to the charity’s Senior Social Media and Content Manager Jenny Jahans, the charity launched after the First World War, at a time when the British Empire covered a quarter of the globe.  

 

“We cannot and should not try to untie Save the Children’s 1919 birth to Britain’s not-so-historical colonial and racist history,” she says. 

 

“Decolonisation is the act of undoing colonialism – not just when a country physically relieves its power over another country, but also undoing mindsets of racism, sexism, power, control, and the combination of all of these that live in British and European institutions and individuals. 

 

“We’re beginning to understand that colonial mindsets have infiltrated not only the work we do and the way we interact with the world, but also internally in our organisation’s structure. We recognise it and we’re acting on it.”