Disrupting and democratising development: community philanthropy as theory and practice

Localisation Agenda, Shift the Power and African Philanthropic Models in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal

“…In this regard, people help each other by sharing resources for the common good (see for example, Doan, 2019;Hodgson, 2020).…”

“…With growing debates and contestations surrounding the current humanitarian system and its underpinnings (see for example, Roepstorff, 2020;Pincock et al, 2021), actors within the development ecosystem are becoming increasingly interested in knowing the opportunities, challenges and best practices on the relationship between donors, INGOs and local civil society organisations (CSOs), and the most effective ways to enhance the localisation agenda to ensure that resources and power flow directly to local and national CSOs in the Global South. In doing so, the aim is to put the 'local actors' at the centre of development work (Hodgson, 2020;Al-Abdeh and Patel, 2019).…”

“…Directly related with the localisation agenda, the recent years have seen an increasing emphasis on the need to reform aid system's structure, culture and practices particularly with regards to challenging and changing existing power dynamics (Knight, 2019;Bond, 2021;Hodgson, 2020). This has led to critical voices demanding that development be done differently (see for example, Honig and Gulrajani, 2018).…”

“…This has led to critical voices demanding that development be done differently (see for example, Honig and Gulrajani, 2018). For this reason, #ShiftThePower campaign which seeks to challenge and reform the practices of development aid and institutional philanthropy by advocating for a ''more equitable people-based development'' has been gaining momentum since 2016 (Knight, 2019:5;Hodgson, 2020;Bond, 2021:4). The hashtag #ShiftThePower emerged out of the Global Summit on Community Philanthropy organised by the Global Fund for Community Foundations in Johannesburg in December 2016 .…”

“…This summit brought together about 350 representatives from community foundations, grassroots grantmakers, women's fund, environmental funds and other kinds of community development foundations in more than 60 countries to explore pathways of promoting more equitable people-led development. This involves transferring power from ''top-down system of development and philanthropy'' to local communities and institutions to drive their own development processes (Hodgson, 2018;Hodgson, 2020).…”