This groundbreaking study, commissioned and published by WACSI, tackled donor fatigue and advocates for community-led development solutions. Through an emphasis on participatory approaches, the findings encouraged donors and civil society to collaborate more effectively, fostering trust and shared ownership in development initiatives, which is crucial for developing sustainable solutions.
The growing economic gap between countries in the
global south and global north has dominated international
relations and diplomacy for a long time. This gap has led
to constant capital inflows and investment from the global
north to the global south, including Africa, intended to
Reduce the gap. However, there is evidence that over the
last 50 years, development aid has done little in changing
the destinies of many African states, only very few Least
Developed Countries (LDC) have graduated out of the
status. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been given
to African governments in the form of grants. In addition,
Even more billions were lent to these same governments.
Yet the state of development in Africa is not significantly
better today. Per capita incomes, for most African
countries, is either stagnant or declining. This suggests
some extent that there is more to the African challenge
than just responding with money as this is not likely to
Turn things around. Therefore, the global community is
challenged to try something different to produce different
results.
In general, opponents of the way that development aid
programmes have operated argue that aid to Africa has
made the poor poorer and growth slower. This insidious
aid culture has left African countries debt-laden, inflation, more vulnerable to the vagaries of the currency
markets and unattractive to higher-quality investment.
Therefore, any attempt to improve the effectiveness
of aid thus lies in a complete rethinking of not just the
policy agendas associated with aid but in the nature of
the relationship between donors and recipients .
The ineffectiveness of development aid (Omotola, and
Saliu, 2009) has also led to a sense of development
fatigue where funders, beneficiary, and intermediary
organisations, civil society organisations (CSOs) especially,
are largely dissatisfied with the outcomes and impact of
development interventions. In response to this, there
continues to be attempts to improve the impact and
effectiveness of development aid, with a specific focus
on design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of
programs.
A recurring challenge that continues to be amplified
over time is the asymmetry of power between donor,
beneficiaries’ communities and implementing civil society
organizations. These issues have been a key driver of the
failure or low effectiveness of development interventions,
which have spurred debates, and ideas about innovative
ways to shift power to communities. There are common
principles which transcend all the approaches towards a
power shift: flexibility, inclusivity, diversity, respect, and
participation.
Participatory approaches in various development sectors
– health, education, philanthropy, governance, among
others—have increasingly been explored and tested by
various civil society organisations in the global south and
there are instances of failures and successes (O’Cathain
et al., 2019). From the existing participatory methods ,
community development supported by the deliberate
measures to cultivate local philanthropy appears to
be the more holistic one, grounded in principles of
empowerment, human rights, inclusion, social justice,
self-determination, and collective action (Kenny, 2007).
