The Problem with Partnerships – EP 1 Back to Basics Transcript

Raaval Singh Bains: The international development system is all about hope, hope for a better, more equitable world for everyone. Around the globe, our sector puts that hope into action, finding ways to bring an end to poverty and conflict. Activists seek to change the future of their communities, and international funders and INGOs offer solidarity and funding. But there's a problem. The sector itself is marked by inequality, power imbalances, and problematic ways of thinking often shape its work. Racism and neocolonialism affect and undermine our relationships and our shared goals. The truth is, the system was built that way.

The origin story of this sector is colonial. So racism and white saviorism are embedded in its foundations. But how do we fix it? How do we ensure that the amazing work of peacebuilders and humanitarians around the world is supported to have the greatest impact?

I'm Raaval Singh Bains, your host on this podcast series from Peace Direct, an international peacebuilding NGO. For the past few years, we've been digging into the way systemic racism plagues our sector, working with activists to try and find a new way forward, a way to decolonise our work and rebuild a more equitable system. Our latest effort is a paper we launched in 2023 called Transforming Partnerships in International Cooperation.

It's a practical guide to change the way international NGOs and funders work with civil society around the world. In this guide, and throughout this series, we explore the power dynamics between two halves of the world; the Global North, made up of so-called developed countries like the UK, often former colonisers, which have outsized power and resources compared to countries like Pakistan or DRC in the Global South. Organisations like us in the Global North often wield greater power in our partnerships with Global South practitioners.

Despite years of conversations about the need to shift power to be more equitable, that dynamic still exists. Neocolonialism still shapes the assumptions of many Global North organisations and their relationships with those in the Global South. Our guide called on the sector to recognize these problems in our partnerships, and it presented recommendations to help us all do better.

One year on, we're digging deeper again. In this series we speak to experts about their experiences in this sector and what the future of partnerships looks like to them. We explore how the problems with the current partnerships are uniquely affecting certain communities, such as those with disabilities and other minoritized identities. We ask, what does decolonisation really look like, and how do we get there? Can the sector change its ways, or should we start from scratch? And one burning question that global south activists have been asking for years: why is it taking so long to change? In this episode we start from within. Where did this research come from, and what did we learn?

Our internal experts share their thoughts on our sector's journey so far and the findings and the recommendations of this guide. Here's Dylan Mathews, our CEO and the author of "War Prevention Works" to start us off. Dylan, thank you for being part of this episode. Can you please tell us the story of Peace Direct’s research into decolonisation and share some of the findings of our reports?

Dylan Mathews: Thanks, Raaval, I would be very happy to do so. Peace Direct, as you mentioned, is a UK based international NGO, and for the last 20 years, we've been working in partnership with people that we call peacebuilders, local people who build peace and stop violence around the world in some of the most difficult contexts. These are extraordinary human beings who are at the front lines of conflict, and we have been working in solidarity and in partnership with them for many years. We believe that they are everywhere. Wherever there is violence, there are people willing to tackle that violence at its source. So for many years, we've been trying to explore how to shift power and resources in the international system towards local peacebuilders, because we recognize that they are undervalued, under resourced, underappreciated, and as a result, this enormous capacity for long term peace is not being realized.

When I talk to donors and policymakers and fellow INGOs and ask them why they aren't providing more support to local organisations, they often share with me various excuses, such as, local organisations can't be trusted. Local actors lack the capacity. Local civil society doesn't exist in this region. The risk of fraud and funds going into the wrong hands is too great. They aren't effective. All of these sort of excuses. And every time we hear those at Peace Direct, we have tried very hard to counter those with evidence that they are. They can be trusted. They are effective. They are sustainable. All of these types of evidence that we've produced over the years, but what we found is that most of those fall on deaf ears.

So much of the resistance in shifting power to local people was based in overt and structural or systemic racism. And that was quite a revelation for us, because up until that point, we really hadn't explored this issue of structural or systemic racism in the sector, and that began our own journey of exploration. So, we decided to host a global conversation in 2020 only months after the murder of George Floyd, to ask local actors, local practitioners and activists, how they experience us, how they experience racism, what do they see as the blockages in the system and the barriers in the system that are preventing them from playing the role that they should play because they are the leaders in their community, and that led to an outpouring of insights, which were quite sobering for us and quite shocking when we started to hear just how profound the sense of hurt and the profound sense of discomfort that local actors have about how the system works, and doesn't work actually. And that led to our report "time to decolonise aid" which came out in 2021.

Since then, we've developed our thinking even further. We've held further conversations with local actors, with INGOs, with others in the sector, to really try and understand the detail the root causes of some of these problems, and that led us to a second report called "Race, power and peacebuilding," which looked at the problems of structural and systemic racism in the peacebuilding sector. And both of those have been an enormously important moment for both Peace Direct, for local actors, but also for the sector to be able to reflect on just how this sector has developed and our blind spots and the realization that in the pursuit of trying to do good, we've actually done harm. And it's something that I talk about a lot, because I think some people find it very hard to wrap their heads around this concept that a sector that they're proud of, a sector that is trying to help people around the world simultaneously, has done harm. So those two reports have come out in the last few years, and what we've seen from that is that it has, catalyzed a widespread conversation, along with other reports and other initiatives that have happened around the world, looking at, how can we dismantle some of these problematic mindsets and attitudes and practices that continue to disadvantage local actors in the Global South and favor Global North actors.

Despite this outpouring of self reflection and conversations and dialogue, the change has been really slow. We still hear from INGOs, from policy makers that they are wrestling with how to change themselves, how to transform themselves. So we felt that we needed to dig a little deeper again and hold a conversation about partnerships. If we really want to establish a new paradigm, if we really want to build a new way of working between the Global North and Global South, we have to think about what are partnerships really mean? And that was really the genesis of our conversation that we had about a year and a half ago with local actors and INGOs to ask that question, what is wrong with partnerships? Where have they gone wrong? And how can we imagine transformed equitable decolonise partnerships.

We heard how problematic the knowledge generation is within our sector. We heard again that partnerships themselves are extractive and transactional. They're not really transformative. We might talk a good talk about building equitable partnerships, but what we seem to want is just transactional relationships, almost like a subcontracting relationship. We have a situation where we have projectized funding, absolute risk aversion, no sense of trust in local organisations. And all of this undermines the ability of local organisations to take a leading role to in the work that they want to do in their communities. They feel that they are just implementing activities that have been designed by others.

The insights that we gained from that conversation was so rich that we produced this important piece of research.

Rather than just dwell on the problems, we wanted to look at the solutions. We wanted to reimagine what partnerships could look like, and that's where we started to ask and invite participants to think about the values that underpin good, equitable partnerships. And the four most commonly mentioned values were trust, humility, respect and mutuality.

Now I really want our listeners to understand that we might believe that these are things that we hold dear to ourselves, and the way we live our lives and the way we conduct our relationships. But what we heard from the local actors is that's not how they experience us. They hear that we don't trust them. They experience us as not coming from a place of humility and not coming from a place of respect. So the purpose of the transforming partnerships report is to get back to some basics, to think about the mindsets and the world views that we hold that have led to us not focusing on the right set of values, and then from that emerge a set of practices.

The final thing to say around about the transforming partnerships report is that most organisations jump to practice. They start thinking about budgeting, and they start thinking about operations and roles and responsibilities and monitoring and evaluation, and those things are important dimensions of partnership, but we describe them as the tiles of the house.

You don't build a house starting with the roof tiles. You build a house from the foundations and with the walls. So we must start with those things, first, with the values and with those mindsets. And then when we've got those in order, we can then start to think about the practice, the different dimensions of partnership, the budgeting, the roles and responsibilities. And we hope that if we can encourage our peers and donors and policy makers to really think intentionally about those areas that we have a chance of seeing genuinely decolonised, equitable partnerships. And I encourage all the listeners to have a look at the report.

Some people in the sector said that this didn't apply to them, and that's for a number of reasons, first, that they believe that they already have equitable partnerships. There is such a blind spot amongst Global North actors because they believe that they already live those values they can't imagine that they need work.

The second was, as a peacebuilding organisation, some people said, well, this might doesn't relate to us, because we don't work in peacebuilding. Actually, we decided to call the report Transforming Partnerships in International Cooperation for that very reason. This is not limited to those who work in the peacebuilding sector. This is for any organisation or entity who wants to partner with others in the Global South, whether you're a human rights activist, whether you're in international development, whether you're in humanitarian intervention, whether you're in environmental or conservation work, it doesn't matter. What we're talking about is a set of principles and a guiding framework that will help build stronger relationships between global north and global south actors, regardless of the cause or the theme.

Raaval: I think that that leads us very nicely into the next segment of our podcast where we are joined by two very special guests, Ruby Quantson Davis and Dr Prince Charles Dickson, who will be able to share their wisdom and their understanding on decolonising partnerships.

Ruby is the Senior Learning and Impact Advisor at Peace Direct. She has almost 20 years of global experience on public policy, research and advocacy, deliberate conversations, community engagement and institutional development. She has worked extensively within Africa and the South Pacific, as well as in Israel and the United States, where she uses innovative ways of reflecting, learning, documenting and sharing knowledge.

Dr Prince Charles Dickson is a is a peace practitioner and Policy Analyst with decades of experience in media, public policy, psychology and development practice based on Plateau State, Nigeria. Dr Prince Charles is currently team lead for the Nigerian-based Tatawa Round Table Initiative, a non-profit, non-partisan and non-allied community-centred organisation that brings people together and connects people of all ages and backgrounds to bridge the gaps in the community needs.

A very warm welcome to you both, and thank you for joining us in this conversation today.

Now, the first question that I have in in my mind, and Prince Charles, I think I'll start with you is, what does decolonising partnerships mean to you in this context?

Dr Prince Charles Dickson: I'll make it as simple as possible. It simply means, when you say decolonisation, it’s shifting power, shifting power shifting decision-making power back to local communities, back to local actors, ensuring that their voices and their needs are prioritized.

For me, it’s very important, challenging and reflecting the practices generally. And this has come at a cost, because some of us have begin, are beginning to say, if we're changing and challenging attitudes, we're also looking at use of nomenclatures, lingua franca in the entire development sector, localizing these, leaving the academia, leaving the practice itself, to localize Even the vocabulary of the peacebuilding or development sector overall. So basically, when we say shift, shifting power and bringing decision making back, it's taking it back to the roots. Is having a localized sense of the entire conversation.

Raaval: The question that came to my head when you were speaking was about responsibility, the responsibility for decolonising partnerships, and as you say, shifting the power and localizing the responsibility actually is on both, both partners, or all of the partners within the partnership in itself.

Prince Charles: That's true because, for example, if you want to build randomly, let's say, if you want to build local capacity, what's the responsibility? The thinking here is probably, for example, Peace Direct has the capacity, and then the locals are saying, this is the expertise that we want. So that's shared responsibility. But before these conversations, before the advent of decolonisation, we used to have a template where donors would say this is what we want to build your capacity for. No one's asking, do you want your capacity to be built in x, y. There was someone who was taking up responsibility and forcing it down the throats of the locals.

Raaval: Ruby. I'll come on to you. What does decolonising partnerships mean to you in this context?

Ruby Quantson Davis: It's difficult to talk about decolonising partnerships without first acknowledging what the colonial paradigm was, and that is important in moving forward. That colonial paradigm was characterized by power. It was characterized secondly by superiority versus inferiority and how we saw each other. These are the mindsets that enabled something as drastic and evil as slavery. And so when we want to begin to talk about decolonising partnership, we need to acknowledge that there was a form of partnership that existed. You may have heard people who tried to defend colonialism or slavery and say things like, well, the other side was complicit, you know, like partners in it. Well, what kind of partnership existed at the time?

You know, you've encouraged us to talk about our personal experiences. And so, being from the part of Ghana where the slave castles are found, and having studied my own Chieftancy systems, I look at the kind of conversation and negotiation that would have happened between colonial masters and the chiefs of my village. And in that conversation, I can just feel in my body the place of power, symbolized by the language that was spoken, the uniforms that were worn, the guns that were in slave castles. All of those things that just do not allow equal and just negotiations. So, let's hold that as the paradigm that existed in colonial times. Today, when we talk about decolonising our partnerships, we recognise that we have to undo some of those things of the past, and we're talking about things that have gone on for at least four centuries, right? And so, the moment we begin to talk about decolonising partnership, we're saying, how can this partnership be equal? How can this partnership be just? How can this partnership be respectful?

So decolonising partnerships already begins to reinstate these core principles as the way of way of engagement. Now, I think in the development sector, when we talk about decolonising partnership, we're immediately talking about, you know, the humanitarian response, aid and development generally, and therefore peacebuilding as far as our work is concerned. I think then we say, how do we do a kind of peacebuilding that is driven by mutual responsibility? How do we do peacebuilding that is driven by the quest for equity and equality? How do we do peacebuilding that is that would enable justice to prevail. And for me, I think these are the foundations of decolonising partnerships. This is what will lead us to then look at who do we fund? How do we fund them? What are the terms of funding? These are the things that in a decolonised partnership will determine who sits at the table, who makes the decision, who convenes the meetings, what is on the agenda and who implements the outcome.

Dylan: I think Ruby and Prince Charles covered that eloquently. I think it's really important to link the issue of power to the issue of sort of colonial attitudes and practices. I think there's a lot of really buzz words, buzz terms that are floating around the sector right now, and one of them is shifting power, and we are absolutely supportive of the efforts that are being taken to shift power to local actors and local communities. There are some donors and policy makers that are trying to avoid using uncomfortable language, or issues that they feel uncomfortable about, such as structural racism or colonial, neocolonial attitudes, and actually say that power shifting can happen without an acknowledgement of those deeper seated problems. I think they're inextricably linked. You can't have true power shifting if you're not actually acknowledging some of the problematic attitudes that the Global North have held for decades, for centuries, right? So we do need to make sure that we don't end up with a sanitised version of what decolonise means. You know, the term is being used so regularly now and in so many spaces that it's at risk of losing its radical and provocative sort of transformational edge, because people are afraid of acknowledging that actually, this means that we have deep seated problems in terms of how we see the other see other communities, talk about other communities, how we regard our own expertise as being superior, for example, over the communities that we are trying to help.

So we have to start linking those power imbalances with the colonial attitudes that still, you know, are so pervasive in the system right now, and that's going to cause discomfort. And of course, most people will tell you, if it's not, if you're not feeling discomfort, you're not doing it right. You know there has to be some level of discomfort here, because we are talking about imagining an entirely new way of international cooperation, or a new way of doing things, a new way of seeing things, and that only comes through, I think, shaking ourselves out of our own complacency and our own, I guess, our own comfort zone.

But as Prince Charles and Ruby said, it's a responsibility that we all have because both in the Global North and the Global South. Because we've heard time and time again that some of those colonial attitudes and practices and structural racism becomes internalised. So Global South actors also embody that, because that's what they've heard for the last 20, 30, 50, 100 plus years. So actually we all have a responsibility to work at this.

Raaval: Without that discomfort, without this, this challenging decolonisation is not going to be a process that's going to be successful. What examples of power imbalances have you seen or experienced in partnerships? [38:42]

Prince Charles: I had reason to ask so whose idea was decolonisation in the first place? I mean, if the person who colonised, or the party who colonised, or the people who colonised, driving the conversation of decolonisation, then it's probably it's probably a cosmetic dress, and it's probably changing apparels and same, the same person.

From experience I can tell you that what we've had in the past and what we seem to still have despite the conversation around decolonisation is something I refer to as White Saviourism. When you say you want to empower local leadership, it means that you have the power. You've extinguished local knowledge, you've removed local traditions, you've removed local practices, or at best, they've been often undervalued or simply ignored, like I said, you've removed it totally.

Before now, we had our own identity. I mean, we still fought. There were still conflicts. But again, did we have peacebuilding structures, peacebuilding settings? Did we have a system that helped us in resolving our conflicts? Yes, we did.

It’s been for me personally, how do we shake this colonial attitudes? How do we evolve or go back to attitudes or activities that will challenge with the aim to dismantle? I use that word intentionally dismantle colonial attitudes, because if you don't dismantle it, it's already been built. You have to change the stereotypes.

Ruby: I want to respond to your question about where, where do we see power imbalances? I want to respond to that with in two in, you know, two concrete examples. One is in the area of knowledge systems, epistemology.

Those who were deemed inferior, and truth be told in very well documented, seen not to be human beings, their knowledge systems, their ways of doing, were also seen as inappropriate. And so what was civilization? It was something that did not include your local languages. I speak about five or so of my local languages that when I set out to go to school and to work internationally, it was always English and French.

And so we teach our children that. It goes beyond language, as I said, to knowledge systems, whose knowledge is valuable, what means of communication is valuable. And so all through your career and through your life, you hear comments, you get feedback that says this is inappropriate. You don't speak right, you don't say it right, you don't have the right language. We see this in development. This is power over because at any given time, one way of doing is prioritised.

I'll give you an example with our own local partners. I met a partner in a country randomly, after we've gotten comfortable. She shares some examples of her work. She told an amazing, impactful story. My response to hear was, I have never seen this in the reports you submit to us.

And she her response to me was, Oh, I did not know that you want stories like that, because it's not in the template. It didn't look sanitized. And you know that for me was a wake up call, but also commitment for Peace Direct, especially to do this differently. What are the ways in which we can enable our partners to harness all of what they are and not feel compartmentalised and fragmented? Because that's what the colonial has been, that is power in operation, some something powerful that tells you that you are inadequate.

The second one is related, and it's convening power. I think, in the development sector that you know, I think we underestimate the power of the convener. And in a lot of our local languages and proverbs, they tell you that you know the one who invites you has power over the food you eat, the water you drink, because people are welcome with food and water, right? You take that to development work, and it's the same thing: that convener determines what's on the agenda, and that convener determines where the conversation starts and where it ends, what kind of chair you sit on. So convening is another area of power imbalance that I think we do need to pay attention to.

Raaval: Even when you're speaking, you're highlighting the relationships and the connections between colonialism and the world we live in today, and the partnerships that we see today in 2024 in terms of the ways in which we value knowledge and the ways in which we value ways of being and ways of doing.

So then, in terms of kind of moving forwards and dismantling these colonial attitudes and creating new ones. Trust and collaboration between the local peacebuilder and the international partner are essential. So, Dylan, I think I would be very interested to hear, as a CEO of Global North organisation, that's Peace Direct, in your opinion, what are, what are the ways which we can build trust and collaboration between the local peacebuilder and international partners?

Dylan: I think it first starts with education. Self-education. I think we can't assume that other people can educate us. We have to teach ourselves some of the history about our own sector and our ways of thinking and our ways of doing and our ways of being. So I think before we even getting into the practicalities of how we might establish different types of relationships and build different types of partnerships, we need to start with some basics. Examine your own attitudes, examine your own journey. Examine your own practice. Look at it through the lens of racial justice and a pattern of history repeating itself. Look at your own career and how you might have benefitted from the unequal and inequitable power that's in the system right now.

I've had, I had a fascinating conversation when we first released our Time to Decolonise Aid report with some EU officials who you could almost see a light bulb. Just come on. When they were talking about this, they said, Wow, we've just realized that, you know, as young 20 somethings, we were in Brussels and we were posted overseas, and we knew nothing about the context, and yet we were suddenly the program manager, managing local staff who were 20, 30, years older than us, with much more experience, but we were the young, white, sort of Brussels-based experts who were posted over to these delegations and they could see how they benefited from that system. So I think that self-education and self-awareness is really, really important because you can't, you can't expect someone to do it for you.

When we talked to the activists around the world, around what they wanted. They wanted, really just to get down to some basic principles and values, and those values, I think, don't feel like rocket science, because they aren't. But actually, I think what's fascinating about all of this is that they seem to be fiendishly difficult to implement and to enact. So when we talk, and Prince Charles mentioned this at the beginning, mutuality or respect, the other two, I think, were trust and humility, right? So, the four foundational values that came up time and time again when we talked to local actors around the world. If you were to ask anyone you know, would you hope that your partnerships were based on those? I think no one would disagree. No one would dispute those. So why is it so difficult? It's difficult because we are just so it's so embedded in the ways that we work right now that we ignore those values. We talk about delivery, we talk about value for money, we talk about speed, we talk about outputs. We talk almost in a sort of commercialised mentality about sort of just delivery, to the point it becomes almost like a commercial contract. Whether it is or not, is sort of irrelevant. And so we need to strip some of that back and say, this is about this is relational. At its heart, this is relational. This is not technical. This is not a conveyor belt. This is about human relationships. So let's make sure that those human relationships are based on trust and respect. And let's make sure that we communicate in that way and we think based on those sort of values. And that's deep sort of inner work that we need to do. And it might be clunky at first, because I think the whole sector is designed in a way that doesn't allow that to happen. Doesn't allow those values to flourish. There's a sort of disabling environment, actually, for the right type of values to emerge.

We must remind ourselves, all the people listening to this and all the people in sector, they do care. They care deeply. That's why they came into this sector. And yet, in trying to enter the sector and become professionalized, or become, you know, adhere to these standards, we've stripped away the sort of core of what this is all about, sort of human relationships and being in support of and in solidarity with others.

So I think that we've just, let's get back to some, some basic principles there and start practicing that in in communication. Of course, there's so many other things that we can do when we think about those four values, but I would start there.

Raaval: So I guess there's bringing about, bringing the human into our relationships and into our partnerships, as opposed to the transactional.

Prince Charles: African writer Chinua Achebe said something about the hunter and the lion, and he said, until the lion starts to tell his or her story, we're forced to listen to the hunter. Nobody hears the part of the Lion. I've over the years, when people say communication is crucial, I always ask people, are you listening to me? Is one part of it, if you're listening to me, are you comprehending what I'm saying?

So how do we have a communication of complex ideas, for example, in a language that is not mine? I mean, that's you tear out humanity from that conversation, that communication element. As much as you want to communicate, you've de-emphasized all the, all, what I would refer to as all the power-aware approaches, because you're the one calling the shots.

At the heart of trust, respect, humanity, humility, mutuality itself is understanding this context as this words, this vocabulary, from where the locals are sitting. For example, for me, as a practitioner, I want to see that you're paying attention to my perspectives. You're not just listening to it. It's it's not just my perspective. It’s do you understand my perspective?

The communication mechanism itself, and Ruby spoke extensively on the language barriers, you know, sometimes even in the reportage, even in execution of some of these initiatives, some of the contexts, the systemology, the isms of the development sector itself, has developed along that power imbalance.

While I was in the US, running my doctoral programme, I had reasons to sit down with some of my supervisors, and I said to them, if my research was new, if my research was innovative, creative and exploring something that hasn't been done before? Where do I get where do I get reference from? How do I have a referral point when it is, when it's totally new? Do you don't you think we should start to look at it from a perspective where there could be doctoral dissertations, where you don't have quotations, because there are no quotations. Can I be an authority myself? And one of the professors is laughing and saying to me, but you know, we've always done it like this. It's always been like this. There must be that literature review. But what happens if there's no literature to be reviewed? What happens if this is the first literature in itself, you know. So we must be able to again, go back again to ask those very uncomfortable questions. If people are comfortable discussing decolonisation, then we're probably not decolonising. If we're not ready to put local, local vocabularies in the conversation, if we're discussing initiatives in Africa and Nigeria.

Raaval: We've spoken a bit today around communication and our relationships with our partners, and how we can kind of develop more trust and collaboration, kind of humanizing the relationship, as opposed to having a transactional relationship. But I was interested, just to pose this question, just to the group, about other kinds of practical steps to help decolonising partnerships. Is it all just communication focused, or is there other areas in which, in a partnership, in which we can focus our attention on as well as communication?

Dylan: I'd like to make a very concrete suggestion Raaval, to any funders that are out there or INGOs, I think funding practices is a very obvious manifestation of the dysfunctions in the system the funding practices right now, and most funding is is designed, I think, very in a very formulaic way. And I'll crudely simplify it now, a funder or an INGO will say, we want to do a piece of work, they will, they will identify what they want to do. So I want to improve education in this particular area of this country, and I would like to do it this way. They'll then open a call for proposals, which already then determines the kind of outputs that they want and on, possibly also even the methodology. Sometimes they will leave the methodology to the applicant, but sometimes it will also include the methodology. They will then ask for calls for proposals, but giving very, very short time frames, which in effect make it impossible for local organisations to apply, because they don't even get notice of the of these calls for proposals, so only those in the know gets to respond. So it then goes to the usual suspects who are already plugged in to where these calls for proposals come out. They already have a machinery in place to churn out the appropriate proposal, which uses the right language, and those proposals are then reviewed by a panel of people who tend not necessarily to be from the countries where they're trying to support, but self-appointed experts in a particular area. And the funding that goes to those organisations.

Now, the so many parts of that are wrong in terms of who decided that that was the right approach to take, in terms of the methodology, where they communicate, the time frame that they gave and who ends up getting the funding? Imagine if you just opened up and said, as a funder or an INGO, we have an interest in and of course, it is absolutely legitimate, by the way, for a funder on ingo to say we have an interest in something, you don't have to be- decolonised partnerships or decolonised funding doesn't mean that you can't actually say that you have an interest in a particular area work. So, let's say it's education in Plateau State. We have an interest in education in Plateau State. We would love to hear from organisations who are in trying to improve the lives of primary school children and their educational outcomes, but leave no boundaries on that.

So in other words, no methodology, very long periods in which those local organisations can create an idea and share it in their own language or share it in their own format. That doesn't happen right now. By and large, this is, I don't know many donors that do that, or INGOs. It's very, very prescribed. It's very, very specific to conform to a particular way of working.

So I think that funding can be radically reimagined to really ensure that those who actually have lived experience are in those communities, who know the children, who know their children's lives, could actually apply and participate. But we would need to change our understanding of who you know, which knowledge we're basing our calls for proposals on what we understand for impact, what we understand about different approaches which language gets used for applying. And of course, we've talked about language a lot in this in this conversation. So I think that the current setup right now is probably 50 years out of date. I think we should have had a new way of funding international cooperation or international development or peacebuilding. We should have had that decades ago, and we haven't. So this is my challenge to anyone listening to think about their own ways in which they agree funding or manage funding processes, whether you're an intermediary or funder or an INGO.

Ruby: One of the things that our decolonising partnership work is also trying to highlight, is funding for what. I think we need to, again, go back to some basic question, when people think they are funding to help someone who is so much in need, there is something wrong with it, because it goes back to that power dynamic they talk about. But if you understand your funding as a mutual responsibility to fix a world in which most likely your government policies and or foreign policies have enabled to dysfunction, then you have a different attitude to it, you know. And then when you put in these restrictions, you ask yourself, do you want to enable change and impact to happen, or do you want us to go through another project?

We desperately need to sit with the discomfort of decolonisation. And I say that to mean that too many organisations want to rush to do some cosmetic changes without understanding what has caused the system we are in. And as you would hear organisations like Peace Direct talk about continuously, this is a system, systemic issue, and it cannot have piecemeal solutions. And we have tinkered with this system for too many decades. You know, as Dylan said, what we're dealing with is 50 years out of date, and I think we need to recognise how much work is required to fix that. So let's, let's allow ourselves to sit with that. I think the excuses are too much. The debate, the disagreements are useless, to say the least, because what we hear on the push back on organisations that are leading this is somewhat well, they are in the Global North, and they're doing it. Oh, well, but why? Who is leading it? Who is speaking it? Well, guess what? There is so much work to be done that all organisations the Global North and Global South need to be part of it.

We do need to transform the relationship between the so-called international organisations and local organisations or funders and and so-called recipients of funding. We need to change the mindset that somebody is giving and somebody is receiving, we need to get to the point where we see mutual responsibility for the problems in the world, that your funding is doing your part to the problem, and so it's not so much about a local organisation accounting to you. At the very least, there is multi-dimensional accountability, because they have accountability to their local systems, as they do have for as they do have for the countries or funders who may have taken taxpayers money. We are learning partners. One is not superior over the other.

Raaval: But why is the momentum we're seeing this conversation happening now, and where do you see it going in the future.

Prince Charles: The fact that this is happening means that we need to engage. We need to engage and continuously reflect, learning about colonial history. There are two kinds of learning.

The colonialist needs to understand his own history, and like Ruby put it, the damage that he or she has done, you know, and sensitive as it may be. You are giving, but you're not necessarily giving to repair someone else damage you're given to repair what's your damage either way or either way around. So there needs to be a continuous education and training so that that history on both parties is eventually understood, its impact on current development practices.

For the global north, it's important that they are submerged in being aware of local customs. It's very important. Local customs, local languages, social norms. How do they operate? Because even in 2024 we still have we still have country directors, country reps that come in for these INGOs, who are fresh graduates from Ivy League schools in the US or the UK. They've done all theories about conflict, but they've never seen one conflict. They don't even know anything about the conflict, but they're the ones who's bossing everybody around, and already there's a sensitivity to those who work with them, not to give their best, even though the problem, seemingly is theirs. So there's that mischievous circle that someone needs to it's like kind of a bubble that someone needs to deactivate, and it's going to be painful. It's gonna be painful. I will say this to the INGOs. If you're gonna shift from your comfort zone, it's gonna be painful. You know, you have to do things you haven't done in ways that you probably don't even believe in.

We’re asking that you try these new methods and I mean if you’ve done this 50, 60, 70 years and this is where we are, should someone not be strong enough to say let’s try this new way of doing things.

Raaval: Heading into the unknown is uncomfortable, but it's the only way we're going to achieve any kind of progress. Thank you very much for this dynamic, thought-provoking conversation. We have Ruby Quantson Davis, Dr Prince Charles Dickson and Dylan Mathews.

I hope you enjoyed hearing from those speakers, who shared, what I think are some great lessons for all of us about reflecting on our own power and positionality, listening to local perspectives, and valuing the full humanity of the people we work with.

Look out for our next episode, where we’ll be talking about the issue of mindsets, which we’ve touched on today, in much more depth. I hope you’ll listen in, and join us on our journey to decolonise partnerships. In the meantime, check the shownotes for some recommended reading, including all the links to the reports we’ve mentioned today.

It’s been a pleasure to host you on The Problem with Partnerships. Take care.