On a multi-directional flow of knowledge
“It is going to be a very painful transition. Power is never given willingly, you have to take it.” – Degan Ali
In development cooperation, we have to stop searching for that one holy grail. Increasingly, there is talk about “scaling up” development approaches. It refers to finding one approach or method that works and replicating it to solve issues across the globe. Of course, we should build on what works much more than we have been doing. However, scaling up assumes that if we just figure it out, then it’ll all work out.
It seems as though the discussion around scaling up is about growth for the sake of growth. In the sense of “let’s just show what numbers we can reach” but doesn’t that contradict all the efforts we have around localisation, rethinking the aid system and participatory approaches?
What counts as success?
In the first part of this series “Development Knowledge Matters”, I provided a brief introduction to the challenges the development sector faces and initial inspiration for what can change. I describe the raison d’être for development as one key dominating factor to think about is whether the goal is for the sector to change. The question is, why are we engaging in development cooperation and what constitutes success?
In one of the #OnWhatMatters episodes – a conversation led by Martín Abregú for Ford Foundation – Degan Ali sparks an important conversation. She asks, “As organisations working in international development, what are our measures of success? Are we better because we’re bigger and working in more countries?” One key question this lays bare is: for whom are we successful? In the episode she goes on to describe how the current system is stuck and says, “Why are the countries still poor? It’s not by accident, it’s by design.”
Similar to the success metrics we currently consider as guiding our development and aid efforts, the argument that needs to be emphasised is that we need a systems approach for the required change.
As Lau Schulpen writes, the newly elected Dutch coalition recently introduced severe cuts to the budget for development cooperation for the Netherlands. With the shift towards the right that we are seeing across Europe, starkly highlighted by the European elections last week, the development sector should be prepared to stem the development needs in ways that are more efficient and can achieve more impact, despite less available budget. This might seem like a contraction at first and one may wonder why it even matters.
For one, the field holds the immense opportunity for global connection and interaction. If we think about the core of development cooperation, it is to think about how we can cooperate together for a better world for all. Not that it is altruistic currently, but there is a win-win here to learn, connect and engage in a true multi-directional flow of knowledge. Secondly, it concerns us all. The world is interconnected and so are its issues. Climate change, stability, health and hunger. These issues are interconnected and stem from the way we operate in a global system. They, eventually, will affect us all.
The development field provides a unique and profound platform to listen to what is out there. Through its mandate, we have access to communities across the globe to connect them to one another and learn from one another.
In her episode, Degan Ali further says: “Imagine a situation where a country like Ghana becomes a donor to a crisis in Louisiana.” It is shocking to think that this is actually not something imaginable right now but I would argue that this should not even be the goal. Yes, we want a system in which everyone can be a donor, and everyone a recipient in times of need – equal power relationships. However, it goes beyond that. There is so much to learn from Ghana as a country and its different communities. It’s just time to start listening and to realise, for the sake of humanity, that a rising tide lifts all boats.
So, the perhaps unpopular opinion here is that the development cuts the sector is experiencing are an opportunity to make sure we rethink its funding strategy to become more independent and sustainable, becoming more efficient, while improving quality.
Scaling up success
“I remember that in 2008, when I was Rwandan Ambassador to Germany, telling people that we had banned plastic bags in Rwanda. Germans were surprised and asked why they don’t learn from our experience. I answered that they must ask themselves. It is up to you to be ready to learn from us.” - Ambassador Christine Nkulikiyinka.
In a beautiful example, Ambassador Christine Nkulikiyinka, CEO of the Rwanda Cooperation Initiative tells of restorative justice in Rwanda in a conversation around multidirectional learning in international development led by Katharina Lobeck’s GIZ knowledge and learning team. She tells of an old local way of resolving conflict, the Gacaca Court, which helped bring justice and closure to communities that proved an effective and efficient way to deal with an immense number of prisoners thought to be impossible.
She illustrates it well in saying, “The concept of home-grown initiatives is very important in this context. We believe that every country has lots of ancient, very valuable practices that can be built on. We always portray Africa as being poor and rural, but we want to show a new face of Africa. We want to break with preconceived ideas and misconceptions about development in Africa.”
Writing this blog led me to think about how we can scale up the change needed for this sector. Just like with technical approaches, we need to replicate what works and avoid what does not. However, the pursuit of “scaling up” should never be just about that. To uproot deeply ingrained patterns, it ought to be a mutual learning trajectory that continuously evolves and adapts to new knowledge and local circumstances. It is actually about continuous learning, rather than scaling up the “one truth”.
Where do we go from here?
Researching for this piece to collect interesting initiatives I thought to myself, “If I see one more hashtag about what needs to change, I will lose it.” #ShiftThePower #PledgeForChange #OnWhatMatters #DoingDevelopmentDifferently #RINGO and the list goes on. Inside my head a voice is screaming, “JUST DO IT.”
For decades we’ve been writing and reading the same articles and now more recently, we are seeing more and more hashtags. As Matt Andrews, Leni Wild and Marta Foresti write in Foreign Policy published over nine years ago: “It’s time to build on development’s positives rather than singing an old and sad song about its failure.” The link to their manifesto surprisingly still works which led me to think that some of these movements may stick around.
This series is about positive changes in the sector, and this paragraph may come off more as a rant but it is not. As I’ve gone through the process of being exposed to all these different movements, I've realised something. I had a call this week with Sajad Sepehri, and we were speaking about how knowledge is actually internalised and taken up. One aspect of how we learn is by being repetitively exposed to bite-sized pieces of knowledge. By this wave of hashtags, we may have just managed to slowly but surely start the process of internalising the change.
So, I say: FOLLOW THEM ALL and then be bold enough to follow through.
Then if you have to invent another hashtag, be like the H&S Davidson Trust (HSDT) and put your money where your mouth is by setting up what they call “four positive pathways grants” which are four grants directly funding the way forward. And have a look at the Open Letter by KM4Dev, RealKM, and K4DP to include multiple knowledges in our work towards sustainable development.
Development Matters // Knowledge Matters.
Sarah Abdelatif is a social entrepreneur in organisational learning and international development and the Co-founder of Propel – a team who built a solution to democratise knowledge and transform learning for NGOs and INGOs to accelerate the needed systems change.