The Power Shift: Decolonising Development

In this week’s episode, Sarah Rose introduces us to USAID’s approach to localisation as one of the biggest funding partners amongst bilateral donors. Sarah emphasises the importance of gathering the entire global development community in order to rethink roles and reform practices for localisation to be effective. Sarah talks us through USAID’s journey towards localisation, their time-bound measur...

In this week’s episode, Heather Grady from Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisors (RPA) and Tanya Beer , an independent consultant, present the Shifting Systems Initiative Evaluation. The evaluation explores what systems change means to the philanthropic and funding sector, and evaluates the contribution of the Shifting Systems Initiative to the sector. Our discussion examines systems change practical...

In this week’s episode, Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi from African Centre for Economic Transformation ( ACET ) de-centres the focus on racism and colonialism, and instead brings attention to the range of power dynamics present in the development and humanitarian ecosystems, including gender, class, and the historical origins of certain organisations. Mavis discusses the institutional sustainability of Global...

In this week’s episode, Maya Hasan, founder of the Fearless Project , talks us through her Shifting Power Accelerator program. Maya approaches decolonisation from her personal experience as a ‘third culture’ individual straddling multiple identities and growing up and working across the Global South and Global North, which have facilitated her integration of an intersectional approach into her wor...

In this week’s episode, Dylan Mathews talks us through Peace Direct ’s journey as a Global North-based peacebuilding organisation. He reflects on the pivotal moment in which Peace Direct spoke to local partners and began to actively question how structural racism is embedded into the sector. Dylan contends that there is a need for both organisations and individuals in the Global North to acknowled...

Lena Bheeroo (Bond) introduces us to Bond’s Anti-racism and Decolonising Framework and the wider work she’s done in tackling racism across organisations in the development sector. Lena highlights the importance of bringing in people working at all organisational levels as part of a collective effort. Lena outlines how Bond’s framework maps out the process of addressing racism from a personal and p...

In this week’s episode, Priyanthi Fernando (IWRAW Asia Pacific) tells us about her ‘disruptive’ approach to the development sector by continuously asserting Global South perspectives to the work being carried out. We discuss the embedded double standards when activists and practitioners from the Global South get invited to attend events organised by elites from the Global North - but how practitio...

In this week’s episode, Dev Hub founder Kate Bird talks to us about power, money and accountability in international development. Kate delves into what it means to hold and exercise power and links the control of money to decision-making power. Recalling John Gaventa’s ‘visible’ and ‘hidden’ power, Kate delves into power as being dynamic, contextual and historical, and why this is relevant in the...

In this week’s episode, Arbie Baguios talks us through the Anti-Racist and Decolonial Framework he has developed with Start Network, which finds that racism and colonialism are based on structural superiority. Arbie dives into how to actually tackle racism and coloniality as a systemic or structural issue and tells us about how he supports organisations in helping them recognise how they produce r...

In this week’s episode, we speak to CREA ’s Piyumi Samaraweera about CREA’s position as one of few organisations led in and by the Global South. Piyumi describes how CREA approaches its intersectional feminist values to generate South-South learning through its Institutes across India, South Asia and East Africa. This conversation allows us to move away from the conventional centering of the Globa...

In this episode, Disha Sughand from Womankind Worldwide talks us through her organisation’s anti-racism pledge and what this means for decolonisation. Disha delves into the ways in which anti-racism and localisation should be approached from a reflective and thoughtful place. Disha emphasises interrogating processes across an organisation’s structure in order to think through how they can be simpl...

In this week’s episode, we invite Steve Murigi back on to the podcast to have a more in-depth conversation about localising funding. Steve identifies localisation as the principal mechanism through which to shift power, and provides us with practical tools to ensure that localisation is effective. He states that localising priority setting and development strategy (what is done with development fu...

In this week’s episode, Steve Murigi explores the power dynamics in international development practice which are inherently racialised and often go unchallenged, particularly in the leadership of field projects in the Global South. Steve speaks about the need to reframe decolonization as a mindset in order to move away from the ‘us vs them’ mentality. The conversation then shifted towards the issu...

In Episode #9 of the Power Shift: Decolonising Development , Prof Kate Bird and Charmaine McCaulay, founders of this podcast series, reflect on what they have learned from the past eight episodes. Kate speaks on White fragility and ‘best White-ism’ within the development industry, and how she’s engaged in self-reflection regarding her role in the industry as a White woman. Charmaine brings up the...

Episode #8 of The Power Shift: Decolonising Development explores the processes of racialisation inherent in international development, with a focus on critical reflexivity and praxis. Kamna Patel explores this from their personal and professional perspective of living and working in the UK, evidencing how politics of difference and processes of Othering have constructed the basis for international...

In Episode #7 of The Power Shift: Decolonising Development , Dr Eyob Balcha Gebremariam, scholar activist specialising in decolonial African development, joins Kate Bird and Charmaine McCauley to discuss the politics of knowledge production, Eurocentrism, the metaphysical Empire and pluriversality. Eyob leaves listeners an important message about epistemic diversity and the power of acknowledging...

In Episode #6 of The Power Shift: Decolonising Development , Emilie Tant, who leads work in strategic communications and policy around gender, discusses the links between feminism, decolonisation and climate change. Drawing on their experience of living, working and organising in Santiago (Chile), Emilie reflects on how feminist movements in the majority world are often 10 to 20 years ahead in thi...

In Episode #5 of The Power Shift: Decolonising Development , Dr Nompilo Ndlovu describes how Zimbabwe's written history so often distorts the reality as understood by Black Zimbabweans and recorded in poems, songs and oral histories. She explores how Eurocentric understandings of Zimbabwe have been consolidated in written histories of the country, which trump lived experience. She describes h...

The demand for land reform in South Africa is linked to the unmended repercussions of South Africa's brutal history of a settler economy and apartheid and is seen by some as linked to nationalism, national identity and righting the wrongs of the past. Episode #4 of The Power Shift: Decolonising Development explores the land debate in South Africa and its links to national identity, nationalis...

In Episode #3 of The Power Shift: Decolonising Development , Amiera Sawas, Chief Research and Engagement Officer of Climate Outreach discusses links between racism, orientalism and coloniality in the environmental and climate change sector. Amiera describes how people of colour are commonly excluded from leadership roles and how the priorities of communities at the ‘front line’ of the climate cris...

In this episode Charmaine McCaulay, lead facilitator of the ground-breaking training programme ' Racism in Real Time ' interviews Prof Kate Bird, Senior Research Associate with ODI and Director of The Development Hub . This episode explores what in Kate's background made her want to work on decolonisation and her hopes for the podcast series. Kate explores the legitimacy of an elite...

In this first episode of 'The Power Shift: Decolonising Development' co-hosts Charmaine McCaulay, Director of Kokoro Therapy and lead facilitator of the ground-breaking ‘ Racism in Real Time ’ training programme, and Prof Kate Bird, Senior Research Associate, ODI and Director of The Development Hub, talk about what drew them to work together on the decolonisation agenda. Charmaine outlin...

Prof Kate Bird introduces The Development Hub's new podcast series The Power Shift: Decolonising Development , and outlines key themes including what development is, how development is funded, whose knowledge counts and how the majority world is regarded (the white gaze). The series will bring together practitioners, activists and thinkers to share ideas around how the development sector can...