Recently we were inspired by a set of graphic images on www.adamacoulibaly.com which highlight the shifts that need to be made as we strive to decolonise our thinking and approach. We have used these to describe and assess how we work and to highlight areas which we still need to address.
Our Mindset
Much of our thinking and approach is informed and guided by the mission and values of the Institute of Cultural Affairs (see our earlier blog) which was set up out of concern that the “human factor” was receiving little or no attention in development work and that decisions were often being made on others’ behalf, based more on economic and political considerations. ICA’s stance and approach [1] builds on what is there, puts decision making into the hands of community members and supports people to take charge of their own development. In this way they redefined development in a way that gave agency to the communities that ICA was working with, working in solidarity with them as people, not instruments or objects to be manipulated or metrics in an evaluation report.
“When a mission from the Swedish Cooperative Centre (which was supporting ICA Kenya programmes at the time) visited Kenya in 1982, Hans Hedlund noted “‘We were told that plans and schedules were normally only kept in the particular villages where the ICA was working, rather contrary to the conventional development projects, where project documents would rarely leave the confines of the head office” [2]
This practice reflected the belief that the plans and the information really belonged to the community. It was their project and their development. What ICA contributed, as facilitators and catalysts, was the process. ICA’s Technology of Participation (ToP) now reflects this approach and gives facilitators a set of practical methods to use.
In this context, Village Volunteers was set up in 1985, initially to support local volunteers to supplement their modest stipends and enable them to keep working in the villages of Kenya. Then, since 2007, broadening the remit to strengthen ICAs and other aligned organisations in Africa.
How we work with Power Imbalances
We recognise that there is often an imbalance of power in many of the relationships within international development. We seek to counter this by:
- Seeing the ICAs and aligned organisations as genuine partners. We seek to build open and trusted relationships with them, seeing them and working with them as equals and seeking their engagement in shaping the programme.
- Being open with them as to where accountability lies. Accountability flows in many directions- to the sponsors for the money they donate; to the ICA:UK Board who have oversight of all the charity’s activities (and who are themselves accountable to the UK charity and company regulators); to the partners for proper use of the funds and administration of the scheme; and ultimately to the communities that our partners serve- seeing greater efficiency and effectiveness in the support they receive.
- Requiring only enough information to satisfy the accountabilities we have. We do not ask for highly detailed documents- proposals need to set out the justification, what is planned and how much it will cost; Reports (which we usually turn into case stories and publicise (see Village Volunteers) should focus on what was done, how the money was used and any immediate effects. In the longer term we also assess impact (e.g. VV Impact Assessment Report )
- Not having an agenda on what we will fund. The main parameters for the funding (strengthening local organisations and/or testing and embedding new elements in work with communities) were agreed with partners. The proposals we receive from our partners have to meet those criteria but otherwise are based on their own and the community’s assessment of what is needed.
- Currently decisions about who receives funding are made in the UK, based on criteria shaped by ICA:UK and our African partners. This is primarily because we receive more applications than we can fund. We want to explore setting up an African Board to make these decisions, thus reducing the role of UK volunteers but still keeping in mind the various accountabilities involved.
Building on What is There
Ultimately the aim of Village Volunteers is to see a sustainable development “eco-system”, shaped by communities, supported by sovereign local organisations with local consultants available if necessary.
“Sovereignty [should be seen] as a right of autonomous self-reliance, of local ownership, of decision-making from a stance of consciousness and free-choice, not subject to the will and whims of those outside who may seek to control or exploit.
….when applied to organisation, suggesting the same authentic qualities, describing a home-grown resilience, an inside-out identity, the idea of an organisation being the expression of the free will of its own constituents.” [3]
Holding this vision in mind we:
- Encourage the use of local trainers and consultants if external facilitation, research, training or advice is needed. All the impact assessments we funded, for example, were carried out by local consultants (e.g. in Kenya, Uganda, Benin)
- Offer support to partners when we invite proposals from them. We use a two-step process- when funding is available, partners are invited to submit one-page summaries of the project(s) they need funding for. These summaries are then assessed by the ICA:UK International Working Group members and the selected partner invited to submit a full proposal. It is during this stage that we offer support to our partners, helping them to think through and articulate what they want to do and ensuring there is a clear logic running through the proposal (linking the need, the objectives, the activities and the budget). Such support helps improve the quality of the proposal but also helps develop partners’ capacity in proposal-writing. Recent examples of such support include proposals from Support for Community Response (Kenya) and from ICA Cote d’Ivoire, both of which went through a series of iterations before reaching the final version.
- Encourage our partners to network with each other, build relationships with others and link to aligned sources of experience and knowledge. Community development is becoming more complex, with demands from community members becoming more diverse, to the point where it is unlikely that any one agency will be able to meet all those needs.
Giving People Voice
This is an area we need to give more attention to. As a small programme within a small charity in the UK, our voice does not carry significant weight in the international development sector (unless we join with others in networks like Bond or the Small International Development Charities Network). We are rarely asked to speak on behalf of others, and our general approach would be to refer any such requests to the relevant partner(s) for a response. Our facilitative approach and use of participatory methods also helps- encouraging partners to find their voices and articulate their wants and needs, but still we could do more to support this.
Part of the reason for this not being a priority is our own history- ICA has been living and promoting a participatory way of working for many decades. While such an approach is more accepted now, in the 1970s and 1980s it often attracted unwanted attention from those in power, who perceived it as threat. ICAs responded by deliberately maintaining a low profile, keeping themselves and the communities where they worked “under the radar” and relying on the protection brought by being part of an international organisation. This cautious approach became even more established after 1988, when all ICA’s branches became independent, and when they lost the protection brought by being part of an international body.
Such a landscape began changing in the 1990s and 2000s and this has meant that now many ICAs have formed good relationships with local and/or national governments, but equally there are still threats as some countries introduce more stringent criteria for the registration of non-government organisations, especially those funded from overseas. Thus there often remains a tendency to keep a low profile, to focus on the community and to regard those in positions of authority as opponents rather than potential champions. A challenge for us to address…
Next Steps
We will continue to pay attention to all of these principles as we develop Village Volunteers further. The system of exploitation and subjugation that is colonialism has no place in today’s world and dismantling it and its legacy is neither quick or straightforward. We can only do our best. Will you support us? You can read more and sign up at Village Volunteers or email Jonathan Dudding at jdudding40@gmail.com
[1] For a fuller account of ICA’s Organisational Wisdom, see Terry Bergdall (2015) An Introduction to the Organizational Wisdom of ICA: Principles, Values, and Perspectives
[2] Hedlund, H. (2009) From mission to profession: a narrative of the Institute of Cultural Affairs. In (eds) Hagberg, S. and C. Widmark C (2009) Ethnographic practice and public aid, methods and meanings in development cooperation. Edita Vastra Aros: Sweden.
[3] Doug Reeler (2008) “Sovereign Local Organisations and Social Movements – holding rightful power”