True localisation means centring the voices, agency, and aspirations of communities themselves. This is a lesson to both local and international development and humanitarian practitioners. Credit: Michael Ali / Unsplash

By Angela Umoru-David
ABUJA, Nigeria, Jan 23 2026 (IPS)

For the last decade, many in the foreign aid sector have emphasised the need for localisation, and in the last 5 years, the calls have been louder than ever. I am one of such voices.

I believe that power should shift to local actors, who have a better understanding of local needs and culturally sensitive approaches to working in various communities. Late last year, while co-speaking on a panel about the future of the humanitarian sector, I heard a radical idea from international development professional Themrise Khan. She argued for the need to completely dismantle the humanitarian sector as it currently operates (note, the formal sector, and not humanitarianism itself).

This idea was reinforced when I read an opinion about how the ‘shifting of power’ we might see in the coming months/years, will be another form of neocolonialism as funds go directly to local entities… but with a caveat on what the funds should be used for, under the guise of the Global Goals or ‘allowable costs’.

This would restart a vicious cycle of political quid pro quo. Some people might argue that it is human nature for an entity to desire to influence how the funds they give are used. However, this negates the altruism that we all claim we subscribe to in the humanitarian world.

The idea of ‘shifting power’ only works if local professionals, in tandem with the communities they serve, also determine where the fund should go and what it should fund. Funding local actors directly while still dictating the purpose of the funds is simply a redesign of a system that has failed

My two cents? The idea of ‘shifting power’ only works if local professionals, in tandem with the communities they serve, also determine where the fund should go and what it should fund. Funding local actors directly while still dictating the purpose of the funds is simply a redesign of a system that has failed.

Communities should have the freedom to interpret the Global Goals within their local contexts, as some of their needs are not fully captured in the way the Global Goals are articulated. That is true power. Besides, many communities already have ancestral practices and traditional approaches to solving some of their needs. What they may lack is structure, access to the corridors of power, sufficient funding or contemporary systems for measuring success.

This brings me to another issue: redefining what success is.

The fact is that radical change is incremental. It is never the work of a sole organisation, and it definitely does not happen within a 12-month cycle.

When engaging with communities, we ought to recognise that even a shift in understanding is itself a significant change. While intangible, such changes are the bedrock of long-term impact. So, yes, we may have engaged 1000 people, but we cannot expect that harmful traditions that have endured for ages will suddenly end because of a few awareness sessions.

Our Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) metrics should focus on incremental change, such as increased understanding. This may be measured through shifts in language (how issues are described and understood) or in the adoption of new practices, even where harmful practices have not yet been fully phased out.

When success is viewed through such lenses, the pressure to provide a perfect scorecard eases; projects become more human-centred and make room for the complexity of human attitudes and decision-making. This is why we must invest in learning varied qualitative evaluation methods. Our current systems are skewed towards numbers alone, missing nuance and the real process of changemaking.

This shift also creates the proper canvas for storytelling as a tool for communicating impact. Stories show change over time in a way that remains with the audience.

This is not to say that numbers cannot achieve a similar result. Neither am I saying we should expunge numbers from MEL. Rather, stories capture our shared humanness.

They help people on opposite ends of the world see themselves in one another, and can be the reason someone chooses to click the donate button, gain a deeper understanding of an issue, or become an advocate for a cause far removed from their lived experience. While numbers show correlation, stories establish connection. This is why they are most powerful when used together.

In all of this- from project design to execution- humanitarian and development professionals need to adopt the role of facilitators.

For too long, we have spoken on behalf of communities, defining their needs and how they must be solved. While some of us have worked closely with these communities long enough to understand their realities, we must still create space for them to speak for themselves and self-advocate. The concept of localisation is not limited to foreign relations.

It also applies to us, the local actors. We must get as local as ‘local’ can get, and pass the microphone to the people who are most affected by the issues. Am I saying we cannot be advocates or design interventions based on past project performance? No. I am arguing that we become co-advocates.

Our data-gathering processes must be inclusive, and where we are working with evidence from past interventions, we must be humble enough to ask if the data is still valid: how much has changed? What should we do differently? How can we involve the community even more? Thus, in closing out a project, we must always leave a window open for continuous data collection.

Ultimately, true localisation means centring the voices, agency, and aspirations of communities themselves. This is a lesson to both local and international development and humanitarian practitioners.

As the world order shifts, there is an opportunity for the Global Majority to achieve lasting impact. We must commit and take actionable steps to ensure that communities are architects of their own development journeys. We have a great opportunity now. Let’s seize it!

The point of finding a partner is to achieve your strategic goals and ensure the sustainability of your organisation while contributing to another organisation. Credit: Pexels

By Angela Umoru-David
ABUJA, Nov 21 2024 (IPS)

It is an already established truth that building partnerships is one of the single most effective ways for African non-profits to attract funding and deepen their impact. So, as an addendum to this article by Tafadzwa and I, here is a guide to finding your match.

Indeed, choosing an organisation to collaborate with can be similar to deciding on a life partner. It does not require the same life commitment but a wrong partnership can significantly hurt your reputation with donors, the trust you have from the community(ies) and even the faith your team members have in you. In some situations, the consequences are not so dire. Perhaps, it may only sidetrack you, forcing you to forge into areas you probably did not intend, and making you lose time or put years of hard work at risk.

So, in broad strokes, how can you find the right partner for your work as an African civil society organisation (CSO) or nonprofit?

1. Put your House in Order: Organisations are often judged on the strength of their corporate governance. While the size of an organisation may influence how robust its processes and procedures are, what is paramount is that irrespective of the size, there is a system and culture of accountability and transparency. The most solid path towards establishing broad community partnerships that ensure long-term grassroots support revolve around legitimacy and structure, as evidenced in your policies, leadership composition, accountability measures and organisational culture. This may seem like an obvious point but African non-profits often start informally as a small initiative to address a problem in the community. Over time, that small initiative morphs into a registered non-governmental organisation, whose leadership is made up of close friends and family members. Even if this works to get the organisation operational, it does not work in the long term. At the barest minimum, every nonprofit should have a diverse and functional board of directors/trustees, well-articulated vision, values and objectives, strategic goals and action plans. These benchmarks help you streamline what kind of partner(s) you need, when you should approach them and how you want to collaborate with them.
2. Be Willing to Collaborate, not Compete: For too long, the funding pool in Africa has pit nonprofits against one another. However, to tap the benefits of partnerships, organisations must be willing to call a truce, and work together in an open, honest relationship. Yet, with so much distrust already being the marker of the nonprofit space, how do we move forward? It really begins with having a different mindset. If more organisations adopt the idea that collaboration, and not competition is the way forward then we will have made considerable progress. But this is not a perfect world and there will always be unscrupulous people so the next few points should give you some protection.
3. Find your Strategic Match: While certain collaborations may be short-term, all partnerships should be strategic (irrespective of time frame). This means that there should be congruence in values, approach to work, complementary (not necessarily exact) thematic areas of work and proven record of value. Before engaging with a prospective partner, it is important to consider what you can also offer the partnering organisation. What would be helpful is to have a predetermined checklist with some must-haves and a few criteria that might be flexible. This also means creating an internal standard for excellence that all prospective partners must abide by. This is why point (1) is too important. If you are not clear about who you are as an organisation or your needs, how will you recognise an organisation that matches your partner profile?
4. Start Small and Take it Slow: You can start from your circle, with organisations that align with your values and whose leadership you can vouch for to a certain degree. Even at that, do not be quick to commit to major projects or sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) without reading the fine print. You can also start with projects that may not require funding (because this often has higher stakes) but things like knowledge/data-sharing, staff exchanges etc. may be somewhere to begin. These low-hanging fruits help you get a feel of what kind of organisation you are dealing with. Lastly, it goes without saying that you request a ‘get-to-know-you’ meeting where you share your histories, policies and procedures with each other (yes, much like a first date) then you can go from there. It is important that you do not accept a partnership under duress and if the organisation refuses to honour this request, then it is possible that they are not the right match for you.
5. Be Diverse and Inclusive in your Search: Too often nonprofit organisations struggle to catch the attention of the more established entities, forgetting that there might be a host of other organisations doing impressive work and who might be reliable partners. It is advisable to cast a wide net. The fact that an organisation is small (or even smaller than yours) does not negate the value they could offer. You can also make an open call for partnerships, highlighting your interest area(s), what you bring to the table and an overview of the kind of organisation you want.

Ultimately, you should remember that the point of finding a partner is to achieve your strategic goals and ensure the sustainability of your organisation while contributing to another organisation. Approaching partnership-building from this perspective strengthens the network of non-profits across the Continent, helps us leverage our internal wealth of resources and weans us off our over-dependence on external funding.

Angela Umoru-David is a creative social impact advocate whose experience cuts across journalism, program design and corporate/development communications, and aims to capture a plurality of views that positively influence the African narrative

By embracing equitable partnerships, nonprofits can harness the collective strength of diverse stakeholders, ensuring that their work not only survives but thrives in an increasingly complex and interconnected world. Credit: Pexels

By Tafadzwa Munyaka and Angela Umoru-David
Sep 9 2024 (IPS)

In the landscape of African nonprofit organisations and indeed the world over, sustainability remains a cornerstone for enduring impact. However, continued funding is a pivotal aspect of sustainability.

While traditional fundraising methods such as events have their merits including immediate feedback, the evolving dynamics of global philanthropy and local development demand more innovative and resilient strategies.

This is where partnership-building comes in as an archetypal tool, poised not only to secure financial stability but also to foster collaborative growth and systemic change.

Partnerships build collaborations and the benefits are innumerable, inter alia, pooled resources to scaling impact and reach. They enable organisations to leverage each other’s strengths, resources, and networks.

The size of the global philanthropy ecosystem is estimated at 4 trillion USD, 4% of global GDP, yet only 0.2% is received by African nonprofits directly. The funding landscape is structured in a way that African organisations receive small short-timed grants which neither make the desired impact nor allow them to invest in internal systems

According to the MoFund Africa, “The size of the global philanthropy ecosystem is estimated at 4 trillion USD, 4% of global GDP, yet only 0.2% is received by African nonprofits directly. The funding landscape is structured in a way that African organisations receive small short-timed grants which neither make the desired impact nor allow them to invest in internal systems.”

Realising this makes the case for joining forces, noting that accessing funding, technology, and other expertise for African nonprofits would be unattainable or extremely difficult independently.

This collaborative advantage is crucial in addressing multifaceted issues that require a range of skills and approaches. In any case, these multi-stakeholder partnerships are essential for tackling complex issues such as climate change, education reform, the effects of armed conflict and economic development, which require coordinated efforts across various sectors.

Furthermore, partnerships encourage the sharing of best practices and innovative solutions, leading to more effective and efficient approaches to development challenges.

The Power of Partnerships

Many African nonprofits feel and know the power imbalance that exists in their spaces and sectors. However, the benefit of partnership-building lies in its collaborative nature with undertones of a desire to wrestle power back to them. After all, they are embedded in the communities and in most cases, have some of the most innovative development solutions to problems affecting them.

Scholarship abounds on the value of partnerships transcending mere financial transactions, aiming instead to establish symbiotic relationships where both parties benefit.

For African nonprofits just like any other in the world, this means engaging with a diverse array of partners including corporations, peer organisations, governments, international NGOs, and local communities. Each of these entities brings unique resources, expertise, and networks, which can be leveraged to achieve greater impact. In this light, the following are some of the benefits of partnership that we have experienced firsthand.

1. Diversifying revenue streams

We are told ad nauseam that one of the primary advantages of partnership-building is the diversification of revenue streams. Furthermore, it is said that reliance on a single source of funding is fraught with risks, particularly in volatile economic climates.

The answer, in line with this thinking, is that by cultivating a broad spectrum of partners African nonprofits can buffer against financial instability.

However, Kevin L. Brown’s thought provoking pieces are quite succinct with the powerful tagline, “be fundable and be findable!” This means ensuring that your nonprofit’s impact is well communicated consistently through a diverse range of channels. In this way, when opportunities for accessing funds arise, your track record will speak for you. Afterall, everyone wants to partner with a winning team.

2. Enhancing impact

The potential for enhancing impact is perhaps one of the most compelling arguments for partnership building. When diverse organisations come together, the potential to address complex issues increases manifold as each partner leverages on the other’s strengths.

For example, a local organisation in Zimbabwe partnered with an international organisation to build 2 school blocks in Silobela, a rural area in the Midlands province.

The community provided labour while the two organisations procured materials. Another example is seen in Nigeria where a nonprofit was able to partner with a social enterprise to provide water and sanitation facilities in a community, catering for a primary healthcare centre and a school simultaneously. Without this partnership, neither organisation would have been able to undertake the project alone.

3. Potential for systemic change

The saying that there is strength in numbers shines through in the social change sector and advocacy for development. Coalition and movement building are important for mounting pressure on government agencies for policy change, ramping up public support and influencing behaviour within communities.

Inversely, local organisations that choose to work alone in order to perhaps, monopolise funding or take credit for outcomes, end up doing themselves a disservice. The fact is that nonprofits are meant to be in the business of change, not maintain the status quo for funding sake!

Yet, social change is highly unlikely if there is a lone voice calling out on the streets. It is rare for one organisation to have enough reach to inspire action at the various levels that change may be needed. Multiple voices spreading the same message and exerting pressure on the powers that be is more likely to yield the needed or desired results.

4. Building Technical Strength

The ever-widening technological gap between the Global Minority and Global Majority can be bridged through partnerships. Too often, it is assumed that in the conversations around technology, African nations have to look to European countries or the United States for talent and technical capacity-building including skills transfer.

However, there are home-grown solutions that are addressing local issues and there is a plethora of African talent living on the continent that have become conversant with emerging technologies and innovative techniques. A valid example of this in Nigeria is where organisations like HumAngle, CJID, Connected Development and BudgIT with technical capacity in artificial intelligence, VR technology and other innovative tools have either launched fellowships to strengthen the capacity of other changemakers or worked with other local actors to deepen their impact.

Where We are Getting it Wrong

Partnership-building is not new to most development actors on the Continent. However, an observable trend is that some of these partnerships tend to be skewed in favour of the one who seemingly has financial muscle thereby making them tokenistic in outlook and deeds. Power imbalances in the development space are also local.

More often than not, we see the bigger names accessing large grants and deigning to ‘work with smaller organisations’ in a bid to reach the grassroots. In principle, this is good, but when carried out with an air of superiority, such partnerships become futile as the agency of the smaller organisation is hardly respected by the larger one.

There needs to be a shift in perspectives as connections with communities themselves is the prize and organisations should be willing to pursue equitable partnerships that preserve the dignity and agency of smaller entities.

This problematic perspective creates a labyrinth of gatekeepers and bureaucracy, and partnerships with such power imbalances end up being self-serving with perceptions and risks thought to be so great that handholding is required.

On the part of smaller organisations, partnership must come to mean more than funding. It should evolve to include in-kind resources, expertise and even time. Luckily, the funding space has evolved in recent times to also involve capacity-building (although these capacity-building endeavours are sometimes desensitised from the local context of the organisations) and more organisations are taking advantage of that.

This notwithstanding, the mindshift that must occur is one where local nonprofits begin leveraging peer learning. The way projects are designed, executed and even gaps can serve as great learning resources to bolster the technical capacity of local NGOs.

If such lessons are properly documented, partnering organisations can share them with one another, and go a step further to jointly publish such, providing rich insight on how to engage local communities, programmes that need to be boosted for greater impact and pitfalls to avoid.

In addition, joint thought leadership of this kind favourably positions the partners for funding and as implementing partners when opportunities arise. This will also help organisations to build horizontal relationships, and not only vertical ones, serving as a support to one another, and taking into consideration the firsthand understanding they have of one another’s challenges.

Establishing the Right Partnerships

There is no magic bullet to achieving this. As such, we believe an overview covering themes such as putting one’s house in order, willingness to collaborate as opposed to competing, finding strategic matches, and being diverse and inclusive in one’s search among others can yield good outcomes that result in sustainable win-win partnerships.

Conclusion

Ultimately, we need to change the lens through which we see partnership! Partnerships represent the bedrock upon which sustainable development can be built, and offer a pathway to greater impact, systemic change, and sustainability.

By embracing equitable partnerships, nonprofits can harness the collective strength of diverse stakeholders, ensuring that their work not only survives but thrives in an increasingly complex and interconnected world. It is time for a paradigm shift—one where competition gives way to collaboration and shared goals toward a future we all seek.

Angela Umoru-David is a creative social impact advocate whose experience cuts across journalism, program design and corporate/development communications, and aims to capture a plurality of views that positively influence the African narrative.

Tafadzwa Munyaka is a nonprofit/social change professional with crosscutting expertise in fundraising, program management, and child rights advocacy.

The longstanding methods of fundraising by African NGOs are shaped by unique challenges, often rooted in economic, political, and cultural factors as well as vestiges of colonialism.

By Tafadzwa Munyaka and Angela Umoru-David
NEW YORK / WASHINGTON DC, Dec 19 2023 (IPS)

Across Africa, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) bearing different monikers such as community-based organisations (CBOs), civil society organisations (CSOs) and nonprofits have long borne the duty of designing and implementing developmental interventions to address varying challenges.

The World Association of Non-governmental Organizations (WANGO) lists 4912 of such entities operating in the Continent, which is safe to say is only a fraction of the true number since many may not be registered on that platform. These non-state actors often rely on the goodwill of volunteers, individual donors, local grant-making bodies, international philanthropy and humanitarian aid to fund and facilitate their operations.

In the pursuit of sustainable development, we propose a shift that makes us look inwards at diaspora investments, local organising, and planned giving (including endowments) to provide African NGOs with the tools to navigate the historical challenges while securing long-term financial stability

As lofty as their mission or magnanimous as their benefactors might be, the sheer number begs the question of how sustainable their funding methods truly are.

As practitioners in the African development space, we have observed over the years that the longstanding methods of fundraising by African NGOs are shaped by unique challenges, often rooted in economic, political, and cultural factors as well as vestiges of colonialism. These factors breed an over-reliance on funding from outside the continent, mainly from Western donor countries and international development organisations.

Overview of the Current Funding Landscape

Philanthropy and humanitarian aid from the Global North constitute a large chunk of the funding that African NGOs depend on each year. More often than not, such funding comes with ‘strings attached’ like specifying the issues that the local organisations should focus on, the proportion of the funding that should go to areas of concern and rigorous reporting demands.

It is quite common for funding to be unceremoniously withdrawn when an organisation is termed non-compliant to donor requirements.

“The global flow of aid resources hinders the effectiveness and sustainability of local NGOs, as well as their ability to scale and build capacity”, writes Carlos Mureithi, Kenyan journalist. In addition, funding is usually routed through larger international non-profits while local ones only serve as ‘implementing partners’.

With such intermediaries in the picture, local NGOs are forced to work within the confines of their funding partner’s stipulations. While there have been recent calls for localisation and shifting agency to Africa-based organisations, the reverberations are yet to be felt across the NGO landscape in Africa.

Similarly, smaller nonprofit organisations are completely cut off from international funding because they lack the social credibility and popularity. This creates a cycle where only the most ‘visible’ local non-profits continually receive funding. The ‘invisible’ nonprofits are inadvertently dependent on local grant-making bodies (which are often implementing partners of international funders), individual donors in the communities they serve, self-funding and crowdfunding platforms.

A classic scenario is a case in the South-Eastern part of Zimbabwe. A particular district had been grappling with pervasive issues of child marriages, an alarming rate of teen pregnancies, and school dropouts. In 2019, this plight of vulnerable youths caught the attention of a UN agency who reached out to offer a helping hand.

However, there were differences of opinion on what the agency was willing to support and what the District termed to be the true need. Historically, the District had been marked by severe economic challenges stemming from periods of political instability and other socio-economic issues.

These challenges had created poverty and youth restiveness that left communities to grapple with the effects presenting themselves as students dropping out, child marriages and teen pregnancies exacerbated by inadequacies in healthcare and poor education systems. To the District leadership, tackling these effects was most urgent but the international donor agency wanted to fund birth registrations instead, which according to District records, were already at a 95% coverage and success rate.

While birth registration is crucial, the highlighted issues called for a more comprehensive and holistic approach. Therefore, local needs, while pressing, may be overshadowed by the specific preferences and guidelines set by external funders.

Of a truth, the historical dependence on external funding has been both a blessing and a curse. While it provides necessary resources, it sometimes restricts the flexibility of communities to address their challenges autonomously and radically.

Why the Existing Fundraising Model is not Sustainable

1 – Agenda-setting: The landscape of international funding for community development is often a double-edged sword. While financial support from international donors can be a lifeline for communities facing various drawbacks, the attached conditions for such funding sometimes lead to clashes of values.

This poses a significant problem to the existing model of fundraising, as communities may find themselves at a crossroads between meeting immediate needs through the funding provided and adhering to their core values and principles. The model also perpetuates an imbalance of power between international donors and local communities.

The power dynamics can hinder genuine, bi-lateral collaboration and may result in decisions that prioritise the donor’s interests over the community’s needs. The Big Brother syndrome is real. Furthermore, like in the story above, international donors may have specific agendas driven by global concerns, political leanings or their organisational mandates. These may not always align with the grassroots objectives of communities. For example, a donor might prioritise teaching people their rights, while the community seeks expansion of its immunisation program.

2 – Poverty: The fundraising status quo does little to transform systems, creates an over-dependence on foreign aid and perpetuates a cycle of poverty. On the flipside, small NGOs who are not on the radar of foreign donors rely on individual giving or are self-funded and this means that the resources only trickle in.

This limits the impact of projects and forces the staff to live on the barest minimum. In Nigeria, an ongoing jab at development workers is that the NGO staff’s standard of living is so below par that they should also be beneficiaries of their own projects (especially in livelihood and economic empowerment projects).

This is due to the high poverty and unemployment rates in most African cities. Even though the Continent has a long and rich history of local organising, most community members simply cannot afford to spare the little they have for altruistic purposes.

In the same vein, the high poverty levels breeds discontent towards the government and does not inspire many Africans to support the initiatives of local NGOs. It is a widespread notion that the citizens are already doing too much by spearheading the provision of basic amenities like electricity, pipe-borne water and roads. Therefore, the questions are, “Why should we keep doing so much? Why are NGOs forced to do the work that the government should be doing?” This high poverty rate and disillusionment often stops people from donating to NGOs around them.

How Can We Improve Fundraising in Africa?

Nonprofit fundraising in Africa has been marred by economic disparities, external dependencies, and changing political landscapes. In the pursuit of sustainable development, we propose a shift that makes us look inwards at diaspora investments, local organising, and planned giving (including endowments) to provide African NGOs with the tools to navigate the historical challenges while securing long-term financial stability.

1 – Planned giving: Also known as legacy or deferred giving, it is a unique and strategic approach to fundraising that focuses on securing long-term financial support for NGOs. It comprises several key components including bequests, charitable gift annuities, life insurance, or retirement plans.

Unlike traditional donations, planned giving involves arrangements made during a donor’s lifetime that will take effect at a future date. This form of philanthropy allows individuals to leave a lasting legacy, ensuring that their contributions continue to support a cause dear to their hearts even beyond their lifetime.

The well-heeled in our African communities can be encouraged to seriously consider planned giving as not only a strategic avenue for them as donors to create a lasting impact on the causes they care about but to leave a meaningful legacy that reflects their values and commitment to positive change.

We recognize that planned giving decisions are highly personal and influenced by individual circumstances. Nonetheless, in the dynamic landscape of African fundraising, securing sustainable funding is a perpetual challenge.

Planned giving, with its focus on long-term philanthropy, presents an impactful solution for these nonprofits if they began creating educative campaigns to draw attention to this form of philanthropy. We believe that this piece also creates an opportunity for the well-to-do to explore this possibility.

In the same vein, another beacon of financial stability and long-term sustainability for NGOs in Africa are endowments. An endowment in the context of nonprofit fundraising refers to a dedicated fund established by an organisation, typically through donations or other financial contributions, with the intention of maintaining and growing the principal amount over time.

In the context of the African Union Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want and achieving the mantra ‘African solutions to African problems’, endowments offer a strategic avenue for securing a reliable source of income, fostering autonomy and resilience. Endowments, just like planned giving initiatives, offer opportunities for sustained funding, allowing organisations to plan for the future and achieve lasting impact.

The continent boasts of a large array of individuals who have the capacity to provide endowments to causes that align with their interests. In an age of social status and obscene wealth being flaunted on social media, we ask, “How might this wealth be harnessed for long-term benefits in addressing community challenges?”

The continent also boasts of a large diaspora community that can be invited to partner with local organisations through endowments in service of pressing social and community needs.

2 – Diaspora investment: The United Nations reports that in 2022 diaspora remittances reached $100 billion, surpassing funds received through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Official Development Assistance (ODA).

This whopping sum is largely due to high poverty levels in the continent that compels family members who live abroad to send money back home but it shows two things– the resources collectively owned by Africans in the diaspora can make a huge difference and a strong culture of giving back already exists, so it could be structured and leveraged for a greater good.

We acknowledge that diaspora remittances are private (sent directly by immigrants to their families in Africa for personal/family use) but it still presents an exciting possibility of sustainable fundraising for local NGOs.

A Nigerian non-profit, Jela’s Development Initiatives employs this tactic through personal connections to Nigerians living abroad, and requests for recurring donations of $20 or £20, depending on the donor’s country of residence.

In Zimbabwe, Sisonke ZW Family Trust has some of their board members who live in the diaspora contributing varying amounts monthly with a minimum of $100 to support the organisation’s activities. While these have not yet yielded large scale results, with targeted campaigns and narrative change on giving, diaspora investment presents a unique way of channelling resources directly to the organisations that need them the most.

3 – Local organising: By nature, Africans are largely communal and this has resulted in many community members banding together to address societal injustice and developing local solutions.

This trait is one that can be organised and explored to fundraise for local non-profits. For example, in North-Central Nigeria, Vaccine Network for Disease Control mobilises female small business owners to ‘adopt’ a primary healthcare centre, where she makes a donation towards the facility, takes on responsibility to support the monitoring of that facility and holds it accountable in its service delivery.

The donations are not cumbersome to the women and it creates a local networked system of accountability and ownership. A similar initiative exists in Zimbabwe where the Citizen Initiative saw the construction of classroom blocks and ablution facilities in rural areas with citizens financing the projects.

These examples show that local organising works, even if it is on a small scale. However, if more grassroot NGOs adopted this methodology, involving community members in the identification of problems and design of local solutions, they would be more than willing to co-execute and monitor the success of such initiatives towards desired outcomes.

Too often, local NGOs are more concerned with catching the attention of the international funders that they neglect the advantage Africans have as a communal society and the power within that to secure lasting change.

Conclusion

Addressing the existing fundraising system in Africa and its linked challenges requires a multifaceted approach. By empowering local organisations, promoting cultural sensitivity, and advocating for supportive policies, we can pave the way for sustainable development that originates from within communities themselves.

While international funding undoubtedly plays a crucial role in community development and we are not advocating for throwing the baby with the bath water, we maintain that addressing the clash of values and power imbalance is paramount for the success and sustainability of projects.

We also recognize the effort of pan-African philanthropic organisations like the African Visionary Fund to democratise the funding space and abide by game-changing principles like multi-year funding and institutional capacity development but one organisation is definitely not enough to serve the needs of the Continent.

Such visionary approaches need to be duplicated by other indigenous philanthropic organisations. Thus, it is through collaborative efforts that we can build a more resilient and self-reliant future for Africa’s community-based initiatives. Ultimately, it is time to look inward and restructure how we give. The time is now.

Angela Umoru-David is a creative social impact advocate whose experience cuts across journalism, program design and corporate/development communications, and aims to capture a plurality of views that positively influence the African narrative.

Tafadzwa Munyaka is a nonprofit/social change professional with crosscutting expertise in fundraising, program management, and child rights advocacy.

Credit: Angela Umoru-David

By Angela Umoru-David
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 1 2023 (IPS)

Not all wars are fought on the battleground. The Cold War has taught us that certain wars could go on for decades, without overt violence. Perhaps, we are in the middle of another one with China as the new rival to the United States of America. This time, the ‘battlefield’ is Africa.

This Voice of America article speaks on how China is already outpacing the U.S. in its relations with the continent. New York Times cites loans provided by the Chinese government to several African nations and investments such as hospitals, transportation infrastructure and stadiums already dotting the African landscape.

Similarly, we all know of how the United States has heavily supported many countries in Africa through trade and in the fight against insurgency; putting boots on the ground, supplying top-grade artillery, training security agencies etc.

Why would nations so far removed make decisions for a whole continent? Why does Africa have to be a pawn in a scheme that it has no business with? Why is there even a conversation about strengthening relations with Africa on the basis of having an advantage over another nation?

There is no point in rehashing the dysfunctional relationship Africa has had with… hmmm, what’s the right term? The global north? Developed nations? Let’s just say ‘richer nations’.

Also, there is no need to debate how that wealth came to be. The point is that Africa has, for the longest time, depended on wealthier nations for humanitarian aid and oftentimes, this aid always comes with strings attached.

Recently, I was at an event organized by Devex where Congresswoman Sara Jacobs spoke on US-Africa relations. She made very valid points about how the United States has, over the years, used a carrot-stick approach with the continent, dangling humanitarian aid for alignment with the United States policies and ideologies and sanctions for derelictions (my words, not hers).

She highlighted the positive impact of some of these policies like the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which I had not heard of prior to her mentioning it but has yielded interesting returns for Nigeria and the U.S. She went on to caution against the U.S limiting diplomatic relations with Africa to a strategic competition to simply be one-up over China.

Then she said something that got me thinking really hard. She talked about the United States giving Africa agency. In fairness to her, I do not remember the full statement she made and her points of view were largely refreshing to hear but my mind went off on a tangent, pondering a question, “Will the USA ever really accept Africa’s agency, even when we do not agree with them?”

The truth is that Africa does not need any country or ‘superpower’ to give it agency. Absolutely not! Africa is made up of sovereign nations who already have agency and while these nations may not act like it as they go cap-in-hand seeking foreign aid, this is a fact.

All of this made me wonder if it was 1884-1885 all over again- the Berlin Conference that ended with the partitioning of Africa and rules for its conquest.

Why would nations so far removed make decisions for a whole continent? Why does Africa have to be a pawn in a scheme that it has no business with? Why is there even a conversation about strengthening relations with Africa on the basis of having an advantage over another nation?

The goal of this article is not to point accusatory fingers at the United States or China. After all, some of these humanitarian efforts have truly improved certain communities, albeit at a great cost. More so, as our people say, when you point one finger, the others point back at you. What have our leaders done to reposition the continent? How has the continent looked inward to build itself?

The questions abound but I believe this is the start. There are so many development organizations in Africa, but how many of them are thinking of systemic change rather than merely providing direct service?

Do not misunderstand me: direct service is important in bridging immediate gaps to improve the quality of life in various communities. Nonetheless, if we are going to initiate long-term change then we should be thinking of systems change, policy advocacy, looking at the big picture and laying the building blocks for posterity.

Irrespective of the sectors you may be working in- governance, health, education, environment etc.- as you provide services for the ‘now’, you must also have a bird’s eye view of how to improve your community for the long run and eliminate the factors that perpetuate the status quo.

With the expertise you have in your local context, you should be the one directing even international grantmakers on how best to engage communities. This is the concept of localization, that I wrote about here. This is why collaboration and coalition-building in the development space is important. Development work is not a competition even though grantmaking has made it seem that way.

Ultimately, Africa needs to stand up for itself. There is no one coming to save us. Otherwise, we will sit by, twiddle our thumbs and find ourselves back in 1884.

Angela Umoru-David is a creative social impact advocate whose experience cuts across journalism, program design and corporate/development communications, and aims to capture a plurality of views that positively influence the African narrative