Decolonising Development

The meaning of decolonisation is highly contested. As The Salvation Army International Development UK (SAID UK), we understand and are approaching decolonisation as a journey to interrogating and transforming the institutional and structural legacies of colonialism. Working within the international development/aid sector, this involves critically examining what we do, how we work, and how we engage with our partners in a sector that many see as a contemporary form of colonialism.

The idea behind decolonisation itself is not new. Many organisations have used terms such as localisation, collaboration, shifting the power etc. But the reality is that structures and ways of working do not necessarily reflect these ideas. This quickly becomes clear when we ask questions like ‘Who has the “power”?’ ‘Who has the money?’ ‘Who has the “expert knowledge”?’

COVID-19 has proved to be the wake-up call to decolonise international development practice to a more sustainable and equitable model of working with partners and participants. Travel restrictions have transformed our partnerships, providing an opportunity to correct power imbalances, to re-establish relationships of trust and to support our international partners at gaining the skills that they consider they need.

Alongside COVID-19, the resurgence of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement has brought to the fore the issues of racism, oppression and colonisation across all institutions and levels of society including within international development/aid practice. It has highlighted that a ‘colonial mind-set pervades so much of the aid system: one that values the ideas, skills, resources and actions of people in the North more than the ideas, skills, resources and actions of people in the South’.

Considering this, the SAID UK team has committed to taking a learning journey on decolonisation together. Quoting Nikki Sanchez, an indigenous scholar, for us this means ‘giving up social and economic power that disempowers, appropriates, and invisibilises others; dismantling racist and anti-black structures; dismantling the patriarchy; finding out how we benefit from the history of colonisation and activating strategies that allow us to use our privilege to dismantle that; and building and joining communities that work together to build more equitable and sustainable futures’.

Our first, but crucial, step in this long and tough journey has been to reflect individually and as a team on our position and privilege (race, gender, class, sexual orientation, mental wellness, physical ability). It is not about guilt, but about acknowledging and confronting societal and institutional oppression and discrimination that exists and how we benefit from said oppression. To quote Nikki Sanchez again, ‘This history is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.’