Transformation in the Aid and Development Sector- Decolonising Aid.

Author(s)
Centre for Humanitarian Leadership
Publication language
English
Pages
7pp
Date published
01 Jan 2022
Publisher
Centre for Humanitarian Leadership
Type
Research, reports and studies
Keywords
Accountability and Participation, Capacity development, Development & humanitarian aid, Humanitarian Principles, Poverty

Decolonising aid is a call from many humanitarian actors for a fundamental shift in power and resources, grown out of concerns that the current international aid system is part of a colonial construct that operates on Western terms and from Western points of view, perpetuating power imbalances between the global North and global South.1 The report Time to Decolonise Aid—which outlines the findings from a global study into the colonial legacy of the aid system—notes that while according to its original usage, ‘decolonisation’ refers to the process of a state withdrawing from a former colony, leaving it independent, practitioners point out that “the term has a secondary meaning, referring also to the process of deconstructing colonial ideologies regarding the superiority and privilege of Western thought and approaches.