The Problem with Partnerships – EPISODE 4 – “Nothing about us without us” – Transcript

Ishani: we live in a world which has been designed in a certain way, we live in a world which is quite obviously designed for a very able bodied, ci-het white man.

When the Global North is deciding on what the agenda is going to be, these realities are never taken into consideration.

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Raaval Bains: Welcome to the Problem with Partnerships, a Building Peace podcast series from Peace Direct. I’m Raaval Singh Bains, your host for this series delving into the structural racism, and history of colonialism, that undermine the international development sector.

A sector that fundamentally tries to do good, but must reckon with its own harms. We’re also drawing on Transforming Partnerships in International Cooperation – a guide to help individuals, organisations, funders and policymakers working on both sides of Global North-South partnerships to develop relationships and practices that are sustainable, responsible, and resist neocolonialism.

In this episode, we're focusing on inclusivity — what it really means, and how it plays out in global spaces, including conversations about decolonisation, where voices from the Global South and marginalised communities are often sidelined.

The title from this episode quotes a motto used by disabled communities for decades, calling for their inclusion in discussions and decision-making spaces about them. A simple ask, really. Don’t make decisions about me, or affecting me, without me. Unfortunately, that motto still needs to be used, because organisations have been slow in putting inclusion into practice.

Inclusion is a huge topic. Most organisations today likely have some form of diversity, equity, and inclusion policy in place – often referred to as DEI. You might have come across variations of this acronym, like J.E.D.I. , which adds ‘justice,’ or D.E.I.A, which adds 'access.'

While HR departments frequently use DEI-informed hiring practices to reduce bias, these internal measures often serve as a mere sticking plaster over a far deeper systemic wound.

Gunjan Veda: Absolutely, I mean, I think we see this in our spaces that we work in every single day, right? So, we have in our workspaces, we all talk about DEI, for instance, right? And we all have these, you know, we work in the nonprofit sector in the development sector. So ideally, there should be no discrimination. Yet how many of our organisations are able to employ people in global functions? Right? In senior positions who do not speak English, or French, or Spanish, if you're Latin South America, how many of us are taking people who do not have those fancy degrees?

Raaval: That’s Gunjan Veda, Global Secretary and Executive Director of The Movement for Community-Led Development, a global consortium of more than 2000 local and community based organisations.

She highlights the stark realities many organisations face regarding truly inclusive practices. As she elaborates, the structures we have in place can unintentionally reinforce discrimination.

Gunjan Veda: How many of our organisations, if we look at our organisation structures, how many of them actually include people with disabilities? And the thing is that it's not something that we consciously do, right? That's the tragedy of it. But the way our job descriptions are written, the way our advertisements go out, even where our advertisements and the language in which they go out. Of course, we are discriminating. Of course, if it's an advertisement in English on LinkedIn, how will somebody who has no access to LinkedIn and doesn't speak English even get to know about it? And even if they know about it, how would they ever have the confidence to apply for the job and come to an interview and say, ‘You know what, I only speak Kiswahili. You guys work in Kenya and eastern Africa, I think you need somebody in your staff who speaks Kiswahili, you should hire me’. It’s not going to happen, because systematically, we have made all of those people believe you're not good enough.

And so what happens, I have colleagues in the movement who tell me, from small organisations, all over, you know, in Uganda, in Nigeria, in Beni and all these places who do fabulous, fabulous work, and yet, we're constantly in training mode. Or we're constantly looking to get more degrees. And continuous learning is fantastic. We all want to- I want to enrol for five other degree programmes, one part of it, I think, is still the imposter syndrome, among other things, but the other part of it is they genuinely feel the need those to be able to compete on an equal footing. Right? And so these systems exist in these minute ways all over.

Or events, we hold global events, what is the language of those events? And I'm talking about language, because it's the most basic thing, if you can’t understand what is being said, how will you participate? So that’s why to me language, which is so basic is the most important thing. We are at a day and age where we're talking about AI and robots taking over most of our functions, and we still haven't been able to find a way for people to be able to communicate across languages. And that still remains a major barrier.

Or we will be like, great, we will hold a meeting but you know, there was the meeting is going to be held in New York, or the meeting is going to be held in Copenhagen or in Stockholm. Well, how many people from the Majority World have passports, even if they get passports how are they going to get visas? We've seen in so many instances, whether it's COP, whether it's any big event, Majority World organisations, professionals who do fabulous work, who are recognised as role models, are denied visas. So, do you know that that discrimination is it's so built into every aspect of the system that we don't even realise. Well, you can fund people to come, great, most people don't even offer funding, which is the first thing - how do you expect they will have the funding to come? But even if you fund them to come, how are they going to get the visa? Well, how about we have the meeting then in a Majority World location?

Raaval: Thank you, Gunjan, for highlighting the complexities of this issue. It’s sobering to realise that even within sectors dedicated to positive change, systemic barriers still exist, often unintentionally reinforcing exclusion.

Now, as we delve deeper into these dynamics, it’s crucial to recognise that these embedded forms of discrimination have far-reaching implications, especially in humanitarian and peacebuilding efforts.

Next, we turn our attention to Dr Véronique Barbelet, who is an independent humanitarian policy researcher and a Research Associate with the Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian Policy Group.

Véronique will shed light on how discrimination can disrupt humanitarian responses and the importance of recognising marginalised voices in these critical conversations.

Véronique: When you're a small number, in a large humanitarian crisis, you tend to be forgotten. And it becomes it seemed to be through the research to be very overwhelming for humanitarian responders to take into account these smaller group population groups, and what was interesting when we were asking, know, what will you do with older people? How do you make sure that older people's specific needs are catered for in this in this humanitarian response? A lot of humanitarians said, ‘Look, we have to look at gender, and then we have to look at children. And now you're asking us to look at older people, it's just not possible. It’s too much.’ And that became quite interesting, because, for me, it raised the question of okay, so you humanitarians we're supposed to be saving lives, but whose lives are we saving, if we're only saving the lives of those that are visible to us, those that are accessible to us, and those that are in large numbers?

So what happens to all the small population groups, or those that may have an identity factor that would lead them to have certain barriers to access humanitarian action? They're not even visible? So that led us to kind of thinking, Okay, let's do something to research further, this issue of inclusion, exclusion in humanitarian action and think a little bit further about that claim that a lot of humanitarians make, that they’re needs based that do not exclude and do not discriminate. And actually, we found lots of really, really interesting evidence and data that said that this is really a critical part of the work that humanitarian actors should do to think about those that are invisible or invisiblised or discriminated against or marginalised.

Raaval: Beyond her research expertise – this is a topic that also affects Veronique personally.

Veronique : I grew up with type one diabetes and I do see and suffer myself from ableism especially in the sector, where people you know, they will asked me things like, oh, but you know, you've never worked really in a field location or in a deep field location. And I'm like, if only I was allowed to, because the reason I'm not is just because often organisations don't want to take the risk to have me in a different location. It's not a choice. It's something that was imposed onto me.

Raaval: Now, shifting gears to Jamie Hagen, a lecturer and associate professor in Global Politics at the University of Manchester, and part of the Critical Global Politics research cluster. She is also the founding co-director of the Centre for Gender in Politics.

Jamie highlights the critical intersection of gender and LGBTQIA+ issues in our sector.

Jamie: I'll start with the inclusivity one, which I think to be fair is where most organisations are in terms of their interest, let alone, I guess, if we want to use the word capacity. Everyone has a sexual orientation, and everyone has a gender identity, and talking about sexuality and LGBTQ issues is actually for everyone. It isn't just for LGBTQI people, right. And also, there's the reality that this is a strong part of the feminist movement history that's just not been talked about.

So there is archival work that can be done to sort of bring out this dimension of the work that some organisations have already been doing. And so I think there's something about really just taking the time to revisit what work people are doing on gender and maybe honouring the role that I think, especially lesbian feminists, and many, especially women's organisations have played.

But then there’s the queering, in the sense of thinking differently about hierarchies and gender. And, unfortunately, I mean, I wish it didn't take the horrifically violent anti-gender movement right now, anti-gender ideology unsettling and really upending, for example, the Colombian peace process, but we could also certainly look in many different contexts, including the US right now and the UK, to see just how much energy and space these conversations are taking.

I was having a conversation with a friend here in Belfast, and, you know, even just getting access to education about reproductive health care is, it's a top issue that that families are having, parents are having in their own communities, you know, right now. So this isn't something that I think for a long time, it's been treated as something queering. And thinking about these questions as something that would be a nice to have, and something that's later, and unfortunately, because of the violence, not just against LGBTQ people, but really against, especially those with marginalised genders, and really women in general, it's become really quite centre-stage.

And so I think the case has been made by I guess we could say the alt-right, but really by those who do not want people to have bodily autonomy, women and gender minorities in particular, about why it matters. But also, to me, I'm very motivated by you know, honouring the feminist history that that is really helping us to understand what social justice is, what gender justice is. And also that like, it is actually all of our jobs to understand and care about gender identity and sexual orientation, because it's just, it's something that impacts everyone. I think it is really quite remarkable how patriarchy works, that people maybe don't even recognise that it is something that is impacting them on a daily basis, right.

Raaval: When we consider inclusivity, we must understand that the conversation surrounding gender and sexuality impacts everyone, irrespective of their identity. Jamie highlights the ways neocolonialism shows up in this particular area.

Jamie: You can't really have any of these conversations about decolonising partnerships without I think, really looking at border regimes first and foremost. But and in the context of the work I do, certainly the colonial violences, as we've talked about, about the policing of gender, and sexuality, which I think right now, the reports that exist have been a lot about like over there. But actually, the work that I talk about and write about the most is how much that's happening within women's peacebuilding organisations, within the I would say, predominantly, the US and UK. That's where I've worked, but could talk a bit about how that's come up in the work in Colombia as well.

I think, as soon as you start insisting that there should be like lesbian women that are part of a project on women in many contexts, in the Global South, there will be an argument about there aren't experts that we could work with. I mean, quite boldly from large, large organisations that I would have certainly expected better from. And I think that that kind of aligns with the fourth point I would mention, which is the Do No Harm principle actually causing further marginalisation and harm.

But I do think it's remarkable in the different either consultations, or, you know, guidance that's offered, the way that do no harm, I think can be a really I think about it in the case of sexual and gender based violence, which is because so much of women peace and security is focused on that it's in some ways, it's like the entry point, if we're going to talk about LGBTQ people like okay, can we at least recognise transphobia and homophobia as a part of this?

But then this Do No Harm principle comes into the conversation about kind of like, well, wouldn't it cause more harm to actually be asking these questions, which I think again, erases that, of course, there's queer and trans people who are already asking those questions who are living in that community who are advocating for their queer and trans community, that that I think the do no harm in that instance, can really shut it down.

Right now. I'm with María Susana Peralta Ramón, Anupama Ranawana who's with Christian Aid, María Susana Peralta Ramón is with Colombia Diversa. We're working on this toolkit about queering women peace and security in practice. I think for organisations that don't have the expertise, I think modelling the language that you're still that you're not even just trans and queer, inclusive, but like affirming, and like, here's work that we value, and we want to lift this up, and let's interview someone who is doing the work. The visibility of having that on your website, actually matters quite a lot. I say that as someone who can find very few partners, and women's peacebuilding organisations that like have anything about LGBTQ people, let alone like specifically about queer women. And so like, yes, there's a danger, there is a danger of simply putting it on the website. Right. But I say, I make the point about ways to model it is to it's I think there's, as we've been talking about, I think there's there's a real value and actually the vulnerability of the shortcoming, like say, Yeah, we haven't done this, but it needs to be done. Here's someone doing it. And I think even having some sort of commitment in a mission, or the accountability to queer and trans people, as part of the work you're doing, that in and of itself is, to me quite a big shift.

I haven't, I don't see a lot of organisations even kind of doing like that beginning work, right. There's a lot more work on, as I've said, like looking at vulnerabilities. Okay. I mean, you can even look in your own office, like having some commitment, like in house, it's like if they like, I feel like there's so much in house that can be done that will help address the second question, because actually, the short answer is literally just ask the partners who are working with what model of what language they want you to use. So that's, you know, Susanna was like, we use LGBTQ women and SOGIESC issues, period, you know, it's a sentence and like, it's gonna be different. It's complex, because maybe you have multiple partners, then you have to have a conversation about it.

In a sense decolonizing sexuality is a large project. Absolutely right. But if the work is to lift up existing work, then I think we see how I have seen quite often how language becomes. For me, it feels like an excuse. But I do think it's a hurdle. I think that people who do not have experience working with LGBTQ issues, and are not queer, rather than necessarily finding those partners recognizing that gap, seeing that as something to then become educated about as you would anything else. To me, like, that's how I like as you would are, and I think partially because of the way that we're seeing this, like, it's only been magnified, by the way the anti-gender movement has been making these claims about what's natural and normal.

I mean, look, being cisgender, and being heterosexual is not normal. It's just something that because of the it's a white supremacy and colonialism that has led to this sort of default, right.

So I do think that if organizations believed that as part of their mission and their approach, then we wouldn't be having to justify why it is, you know, that this question of imposing Western views when we have so much evidence that there's queer communities, and all of these spaces where people were doing these, you know, funded initiatives? Right.

So I think it is really about who are you justifying this to? Right? Like, it's certainly not to the queer communities in the spaces where you're working, right. I mean, so that to me, I think it is about listening to and modeling that the partners you're working with, and yeah, I mean, just as it is, with feminism, people have very different definitions and will have different acronyms they want to use. I'm not saying that's not complex, but in a sense of like, literally, it's a definition in your report, and you model the work they're doing and you lift that up.

Raaval: Next up – Ishani Ida Cordeiro, the Advocacy & Accountability Manager at Women Enabled International. Ishani takes us through Global South representation and the relevance of inclusion across multiple intersecting identities, starting from the beginning of her career.

Ishani: One of the things that we realised in doing that work was that these spaces are often extremely extractive they, they often demand voices of activists on the ground, especially from the Global South be represented. But a, they don't provide any support for that representation. And b, it's all about ensuring that these voices are not ensuring is a broad word, but it's all about sort of having these voices be represented, but never bringing that information back to the community at all. And I think that's, like, that's what drew me to this, to this way of working is ensuring that, while it's important that voices, community voices from the Global South be heard, and a lot of these policy advocacy, Global North spaces, but also how can information, discussions, you know, other sort of policy stuff that is coming out of these spaces, how is it that we can bring it back to the community and ensure like, a circle of information, a circle of work, and not just an extractive way of working, and that is what sort of drew me to this work.

I work in disability, and essentially with women, girls and gender diverse people with disabilities and when we say gender diverse, we mean queer people, we mean trans people, sort of, you know the entire group.

When you mentioned, like new colonial attitudes and how this Global South Global North divided and how that actually impacts work that I do, and the communities that I work with, I think, two things that I would, or that immediately come to mind are the way funding works, and around who sets the agenda, so who thinks, you know, what is important and what is not important. And they're also interconnected, but I want to sort of speak about the setting the agenda piece first and then talk about funding.

And I think one of the things that are sort of that one needs to recognise in the work that we do is why there are certain issues when it comes to disability, and especially with the groups that we work with, meaning the identities that we work with, so there are certain things that are common across the Global North Global South when it comes to issues of disability, but then there are certain realities that are so specific to the Global South, which cannot be denied.

And when we talk about multiple intersecting identities that is one of the things and when you when you started your question, that was the first thing, even you recognised that there are these sort of multiple identities we have, and it's so important to root all of the work that we do, and the issues that we work on within those identities, and those realities, and those identities also, remember, remembering that those identities don't exist in a siloes, right, I might be a woman, and a woman of colour. And those are two different identities which intersect. But I'm also a person who's living in a Global South country with certain socio political realities with certain economic and cultural realities, and all of those ideas, all of those sort of intersect with each other. So and they all, they all sort of have their own challenges. And they all have their privileges. Also, not to not to sort of deny that, you know, not to say just because I'm a woman of colour from Global South doesn't mean that I don't have my own privileges. But so coming back to what I was saying, I just that just sort of went all over the place for a second. But coming back to what I was saying is that, so one of the challenges is that the when the Global North is deciding on what the agenda is going to be, these realities are never taken into consideration, what say violence, for example, could look like, what access to SRHR could look like, is very different and Global North versus Global, South, you know, is, is sort of what, what access and accessibility means the Global North is very different from the Global South. Just to give you an example, for a person with disability to be able to access public space, in a lot of Global North countries, that issue is just around accessibility. You know, it's around ensuring that public spaces have physical accessibility. And this is a broad example I'm giving you but just to sort of situate what I'm saying, but in the Global South, issues around access and accessibility to public spaces for women or queer people with disabilities is way more than looking at just physical access to space because it's looking at do women have access to public spaces to begin with, you know, the all of the social context within which queer people or trans people can or cannot access public spaces.

There are like economic constraints around it. There are political constraints around- I come from I come from India, you know, accessing political accessing public spaces is hugely political in a country like India. And and how does one navigate all of those realities? Is is is complicated. And if you're looking at somebody setting the agenda for you and somebody telling you this is what you need to focus on when you're talking about disability, and you cannot focus on this particular piece, it doesn't work. And it's also, I mean, I was also talking about funding, and it's so connected to funding as well. Because funders donors, that's I feel like that's a whole different, you can have like a whole hour-long conversation just on challenges around that. But I mean, a lot of the funders are based in the Global North, their company, that's where the money is coming from, you can't deny that and then there is like, power equations and that that need to be navigated there is financial equations on that that need to be navigated.

But, again, you know, like, we've had so many challenges with the communities that we work with, especially them saying that, I mean two things, primarily a) when donors come in and say that this is what you need to work in and this is how we need to do this piece of work. And they start designing work for, or designing projects for the communities they are funding, rather than having the communities design it themselves. And b) is and this is generally for funders, but specifically we've seen in our experience with Global North funders, is a lot of the way funding structures in terms of applications etc, are designed, are so ableist in nature, that it's pretty much impossible for organisations with disability to be able to access those at all. And furthermore, difficult for organisations with disabilities that are not registered, a lot of organisations with disabilities are not registered under Global South because of X number of challenges that come with that. So how does funding work? How are funding structures responding to realities of communities, especially? marginalised communities, such as disability in the Global South is also something that needs to be understood, recognised and addressed.

Just to give you context, so there are there would be in a lot of countries that we work in a largely how, and this is sort of, I'm also giving you like a very broad overview of it, but how a lot of it works is that you'll have like, national networks of disabilities, which are like, which would be representative of a lot of smaller we call it DPOs disabled people's organisations. So there'll be like smaller disabled people's organisations, which could be registered, not registered. But however, those were just to sort of give you a top-down structure. So you will have these networks that work and a lot of these networks end up being registered. And then what happens is that when and if now that's a whole different how funding comes in for a lot of this work is another challenge. But when and if funding does come, it often comes to the larger network, right? And the networks then decide how the funding is going to be disseminated.

And this is not necessarily how it always works, but this is like one of the most common ways it works across different countries and regions that we’ve worked in. The challenge comes that a lot of smaller disability organisations might not have the capacity to be able to register. And they might not want to register because in a lot of countries registration also comes with a lot of additional financial restrictions and challenges. A lot of countries in Asia have that and more and more policies are now coming up where, like India has that Indonesia has that there are like, you know, Myanmar has that you have countries with certain restrictions. And it becomes that much more difficult if you're also an organisation with multiple intersectional, doing like multiple intersectional work. So like queer people with disabilities, you can't register, like East Africa, you can't register your organisation, if you're a queer person with a few, you know, you're running a good organisation that’s working on queer rights and disability intersectionally.

So there are like a lot of challenges in registering. So a lot of times, sometimes they don't, organisations choose not to register. But also sometimes they don't have the capacity to be able to register. A lot of times processes of registration are so complicated that and so able-istic in nature that a lot of people are not able to register. And also to sort of recognise when we talk about disability, we're not not just talking about physical disability, we're also talking about mental disability, psychosocial disabilities, learning disabilities, we're talking about neuro-divergence, we're also talking about a whole gamut of disabilities, and the challenges that come with all of these disabilities.

So that's one of the reasons why they don't register. What ends up happening is that within these larger networks, or these larger umbrella networks, where a lot of the funding comes, because there is such limited funding for disability, if within these larger networks, there are groups that do want to focus on their own particular intersectional issues. So say, for example, within the larger network, if women with disabilities want to focus on the intersections of gender and disability, or young people with disability want to focus on the intersection of, you know, youth and disability, it becomes extremely like it becomes highly challenging for them, because you have a tiny amount of funding, and then to extract from that funding to then, you know, do like, further deepened intersectional work just leads to dynamics within movements within the national movement, which gets extremely complicated. And a lot of these complications are essentially just guided by donors and funders, because of the way they choose to fund. So if you're choosing not to fund and it's not difficult just to say it's not difficult to fund non-registered organisations that are funders in the Global South who are doing that. So it's obviously possible now that it's not possible. But as funders if you choose not to explore those spaces of funding, and you choose to fund certain groups and not fund certain groups, any dynamics that result in your choices or funding is on you, then.

Raaval: As we hear Ishani’s powerful insights about the realities faced by communities in the Global South, it’s essential to draw a connection to what Jamie shared earlier. Both highlight the urgent need for inclusive practices that centre marginalised voices – whether it’s about ensuring that queer and trans identities are acknowledged in conversations around gender or understanding how funding structures often overlook the specific needs of diverse communities.

So – let’s look ahead at the recommendations.

Ishani: My primary recommendation would be around centring the voices of marginalised communities, and I work with disability so I'm going to use disability as an example here to say that. But not only, it's also I recognise while saying this, that ‘centring the voices’ is very donor language to use, and, and I sort of recognise that when I say it, but also to say that there are ways to do it, which doesn't necessarily require, which doesn't necessarily mean that you have to use like a donor led strategy on it.

But when we talk about centring voices, how are we reaching out to the voices that we want to centre, I think would be my primary sort of way to go about it. You know, like we have, if you're not making spaces, and this could be any, when I say spaces, I mean very broadly, it could be If your own sort of office that we're talking about or your own organisation that you're talking about, but it could also be like advocacy spaces or all of these, but if you want to look at decentralising power, if you want to look at what the decentralisation of power looks like, you need to make spaces accessible. For those who you want to have access to those spaces, I don't know if that that came out correctly. But, to sort of to have Global South activists, to have communities and constituencies from the Global South, to have women, queer, trans people, young people with disabilities, be part of spaces where to be able to dismantle power to be able to distribute power to be able to deconstruct power, it becomes the responsibility of those in power to ensure that those spaces are accessible. And when I say those spaces are accessible, I mean, ensure that people with disabilities can get to those spaces, there are sign language interpreters in those spaces, you have closed captioning in those spaces, you have funding for activists to be able to access those spaces, you know, you have you provide you ensure that you listen to what they have to say, just stop talking and start listening to what is being said. And yeah, essentially, it's essentially that and then it also sort of trans- it also sort of then goes back to how is it that you're reaching out to and who you're who is it that you're reaching out to, and how you're reaching out. You know, something that I'd said earlier is that while there are power structures within Global North Global South, there are power structures within you know, within Global South, also that needs to be recognised that that needs to be dismantled. And, you know, like, we talked about caste, you talk about class, for example, these are power structures that also exist within Global South that need to be dismantled. And, like, that's the only way that you're going to ensure that whatever you're talking about, like about decolonisation, about power is actually put into action.

Jamie: my recommendation is almost always to find the feminists. And I do think there's a lot of urging people to like tell their stories, and I think there's a lot of value in that. I don't think people owe people their stories, but I do think there's still this even missing imagination about you know, yeah, trans peace. So I think there's, there's a real opportunity and need for writing that down and sharing that because I do think people are hungry to know a bit more about like, what queer and trans peace looks like. I will say, I am happy to receive emails and also share connect people. And I genuinely mean that so people, I think networking, through feminist and queer community is the most important thing you can do.

Not all LGBTQ organizations and CSOs are like, good. Right. I think that's one of the big things that's like, I mean, in terms of things to unpack, and things to talk about more that like don't get talked about, there is kind of this default comparison of like, if you're working on queer rights, you're probably a different organisation than some of these others that are, wanting to do some LGBTQ inclusion, but having that complexity, that not all organisations that are that are doing women's rights, and LGBTQ rights are built equally, which is why I do urge, like, find the feminist, find the people with this commitment to like, you know, I do think, radical inclusivity and looking beyond, like to having the vulnerable, challenging conversations. And, and, yeah, you are an expert. I mean, that's the thing. I mean, absolutely. You're an expert, you're an expert, as someone to share your own understanding about what trans pieces Absolutely, like you, I think, actually trusting and knowing that and then finding the community to be in to, like, to take that seriously. Because it's actually on the, the community of, of, I think those in the peace and security community to get it together to recognize that expertise, and I see that as like, that's something I take very seriously in terms of, there's a lot of a lot that needs to be decolonised to take queer and trans people seriously as experts, especially people who are queer and trans folks from the Global South, who, as you said, the imagination of who these people, who queer and trans leaders are, is very limited. So please join us.

Raaval: I hope those recommendations resonate with you – please sit with them, and consider how you can put them into action in your work or your activism.

And please do keep tuning in for the rest of the series, as we continue to explore the elements that make a partnership equitable, sustainable, and most importantly, fair. Next time, we’ll be tackling some tough questions: why it’s so hard to decolonise, why change is so slow, and why good intentions aren’t enough.

For now, it’s been a pleasure to host you on The Problem with Partnerships. Take care.