FROM SURVIVAL TO SOVEREIGNTY

Over the span of 20+ years working in global development, based out of Nairobi Kenya, I have witnessed the many ebbs and flows of our development and humanitarian system.

 When I started, my perception was that, we were in a time of purity (of course I was a naive youth activist at the time and so I could have been wrong-but this was what I felt), where the mission was singular and urgent: poverty eradication. We toiled hard because we were up against raw hardship. We were not even talking about money, education, or health back then. As a young person, I remember the sense of urgency, as I was involved in grassroots community mobilisation, that our societies just needed to survive. Food, shelter, clothing-basic human rights were at stake.

Over the years, the development sector has traveled quite a journey, to mention but a few:

• We have weathered rural-urban migration, which left critical communities without manpower to fight poverty on the ground.

• We lived through the brain drain, when our brightest minds sought greener pastures abroad.

• We battled wave after wave of health crises including malaria, cholera, and the devastating HIV/AIDS pandemic, not discounting all other diseases-physical and mental that have since come to our intense awareness.

• We started to reckon with economic instability, spiralling debt, and the need for global economic policy reform.

• Good governance became central to the conversation, as did the “youth bulge” and the urgent call for gender equality.

• We learned, sometimes too late, how reactive we have been on climate change and its effects.

• We re-discovered the power of community-driven development and the need to shift power in real, tangible ways.

• We debated the value of proximity, and what it means in different contexts.

• We were reminded, once again during COVID-19, of the inequities in global systems and how far down the totem pole Africa still sits.

 Even now, we are in the midst of a catalytic shift, (I refuse to see this as a crisis). The funding landscape is evolving rapidly. Ideas once discussed in theory are now being tested in practice-the notions of diversifying funding sources, local resource mobilisation, financial resilience amongst others. And yet, I believe we are also coming full circle, back to the drawing board, asking:

Where will Africa get its support from?

At the ongoing Africa Xchange Forum in Nairobi, one statement hit home:

“Development assistance is important-but it is not necessary.”

This is not denial. It is a call to reimagine.

 In this moment of redefinition, we are reminded by another panelist, that:

• Africa is rich in something the world deeply needs: young, creative, and innovative talent.

• Our mineral wealth and natural resources have long been exploited—we must now reclaim our agency.

• And above all, we have resilience.

So, as the global north world rewrites its priorities, can we in the global majority world do the same? 

• Can we learn from our past and share scalable hacks across the continent?

• Can we identify true allies- within and beyond- who will meet us on our terms?

• Can we heal from the weight of exploitative systems and reimagine new ways of working that reflect: Credibility, Transparency and accountability, Mutual respect - for our communities, for those who fund this work, and for each other, at the very least

 We must remember, we are not starting from scratch. We are building from strength. And this time, may we do so with clarity, courage, and conviction-on African terms.

 Warande Advisory Centre will be convening communities of practice around these critical issues in the coming weeks and months. We will keep you posted on what we put into motion, so we never find ourselves in this space of artificial turbulence again.