Let’s stop using the term “beneficiary” in global development and philanthropic work, and let’s stop asking local organizations to spend hours of their time gathering details to satisfy our expectations of ‘beneficiary metrics’. Why? 🫴🏽 The word ‘beneficiary’ implies a benevolent giver of charity, and a passive recipient. The concept erases the agency, insights, leadership, … Continue reading
What is the role of philanthropy in the context of massive cuts to foreign aid in the US and elsewhere? In this article in Alliance Magazine, my colleagues, Nina Blackwell and Priya Dhanani, and I offer five guiding principles for philanthropy’s role in the context of the USAID shutdown and other cuts to overseas development … Continue reading
I’m honoured to let you all know that this recently published book, White Saviorism in International Development, includes a chapter co-authored by my colleague Shama Dossa and myself. The chapter agues that the principles and practices of evaluation are tools for the White gaze, and perpetuate neo-colonial and racist aspects of global development. Here is … Continue reading
I am proud to share this peer-reviewed article I co-authored alongside Susan Wilkinson-Maposa, and my colleagues who are CBO leaders: Mary Kabati, Prosper Ndaiga, Saeed Wame and Moses Zulu. In this piece, we discussed the community-based organisation (CBO) leader and practitioner perspective on social change and partnering. Through surveys, interviews, and convenings involving CBOs from … Continue reading
“Modern charity has largely failed to produce real, lasting change.” In Alliance Magazine, I explored how the framework of charity has failed to achieve lasting, systemic change or a shift towards equality despite the good intentions of funders and the billions of dollars that have been spent. I explore how solidarity offers a different framework, … Continue reading
I was thrilled to join the Participatory Grantmaking Community for a conversation about the tensions of fundraising for participatory grantmaking (PGM) along with Paul-Gilbert Colletaz from the Red Umbrella Fund and Yodit Tesfamariam from Camden Giving. We started the conversation with some guiding tensions about whether it matters where the money for participatory grantmaking comes … Continue reading
As I was completing my doctoral dissertation on ready schools in Pakistan a couple of years ago, I was intrigued by the in-depth conversations I had with so many parents and teachers about what education and knowledge meant to them, and how it fit within their values and worldviews. So, I was thrilled when I … Continue reading
Note: My colleague Hasina Ebrahim from South Africa invited me to review her insightful book as it was being published in late 2016. I was honoured to have the opportunity to review it and comment on its contribution to the field. Hasina Banu Ebrahim’s book, Early Childhood Education for Muslim Children: Rationales and Practices in South Africa (2017), is … Continue reading
In late February, my family landed at the small Mwanza airport in Tanzania. With our luggage and our toddler, Z, hoisted on my hip, we climbed down the airplane stairs and onto the shuttle bus that would take us to the terminal. The shuttle bus was packed and I remember feeling slightly disappointed that … Continue reading
Edit [August 2019] – I want clarify that I did not come up with the term ‘Majority World’. From what I understand, the term was coined and introduced by Shahidul Alam, and I would like to acknowledge and appreciate him for bringing this term into the discourse over a decade ago. You can read more … Continue reading
Sadaf Shallwani 