La vigne qui a poussé dans l’adversité
Poursuivre son action au milieu d’un conflit violent exige des compétences, de la résilience et de la perspicacité. Pour les Palestiniens, les cent dernières années ont …
The grapevine that grew in adversity
Carrying on in the middle of violent conflict requires skill, resilience, and nous. For the Palestinians, the last 100 years have brought colonisation, expulsion, and military occupation, followed by a long and difficult search for self-determination and for coexistence with the nation they hold responsible for their suffering and loss.
The Alliance of Funds: Collaborative philanthropy under construction in Brazil
Although collaboration is an old practice among philanthropic organizations, the idea of “collaborative philanthropy” in Brazil is relatively new and is a concept still under construction. Here in Brazil, collaboration is creating new relationships in the field of philanthropy for social justice. It all started in 2021.
Planting the seeds for an emergent development system
At the Centre for Disaster Preparedness (CDP) in The Philippines, we have always dreamed of contributing to system change in development. But we were also conscious that persuading and encouraging those in the status quo will always be difficult as they wittingly or unwittingly contribute to perpetuating the system we seek to transform.
Colombia, here we come! Bogotá to host the 2023 #ShiftThePower Global Summit
We are excited to announce that the 2023 #ShiftThePower Summit will take place in Bogotá! The Colombian hosts for this global event, which will take …
A different way is possible: Re-imagining development in Mozambique
Working in civil society in Mozambique is a challenge. Not only is the country classed as repressed by the Civicus Monitor, but the northern province of Cabo Delgado has been subject to an armed insurgency since October 2017, claiming thousands of lives and displacing an estimated half of the province’s population.
Localization, decolonizing and #ShiftThePower; are we saying the same thing?
Many advocates of localization would prefer to ignore the issue of racism, hoping that it will go away or that localization can somehow reform the system without tackling the neo-colonial mindsets on which the current system is built.
Aid reformers have been talking to each other, it is time to talk to the public
The public in donor countries should be entrusted with more than this half story – their tax paying vested interests combined with a current propensity to engage in social change efforts should instead be leveraged.
A visual journey of shifting power: Dalia Association in Palestine
Background: Dalia believes in achieving holistic development. This means our community development approach focuses on the ecological, local economy, social and cultural dimensions. As a …
The birth of #ShiftThePower
The deliberate use of the hashtag #ShiftThePower was intended to provoke. Frustrations about the shortcomings of philanthropy and development aid are nothing new. However, it has always been very hard – and there have been few incentives – for those on the receiving end of aid to call out the practices and behaviours of funders and other big international players, let alone suggest that the power that they wield might be contributing to the problems that they are meant to be solving. In that sense, a truly global summit could provide a space to start such a conversation: if it was going to work, the elephant in the room – ‘the P-word’ – needed to be named loudly and incontrovertibly from the start.