Envisioning an alternative ecosystem for global development and humanitarianism – responses from community organizations from the Global South

Envisioning an Alternative Ecosystem for Global Development and Humanitarianism was published in September 2023 with the support of the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership, Australia. The goal of this concept paper was to try and devise a more tangible way of addressing global inequality and development beyond the oft-repeated, but vague calls and programmes for the “decolonization” and “localization” of aid and development and “shifting the power” from the Global North to the Global South.

The concept paper laid out a framework which:

1. Removed the distinctions between governments, donors, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), etc. to view all actors working in global development and humanitarianism as “State and Civil Society Entities” or SCSEs.
2. Removed “international” from the vocabulary and viewed all countries as equal and global in scale.
3. Removed the distinction between the so-called “Global North” and the “Global South” to move towards a more regional perspective.

The concept paper concluded by calling for a series of feedback loops and / or consultations with the following, in this order of importance:

1. National governments of the Global South.
2. Civil society organizations (CSOs) – both independent and coalition-based groups – in the Global South.
3. Multilateral and bilateral donors in the Global North.
4. Philanthropic and charitable donors in both the Global North and Global South.

Following this, the GFCF collaborated to support the author in realizing consultations with CSOs in the Global South – the second set of feedback loops in the priority list above. As a coalition of community philanthropy organizations in the Global South and founders of the #ShiftThePower movement, the GFCF was able to draw on its vast network to make introductions. This report summarizes those consultations.

Author: Themrise Khan

Published by: GFCF

Published: January 2025

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