"We hope to stimulate and deepen public debate on the role of INGOs to go beyond fixing the holes of the current broken system"

A new study explores how far the international NGO sector has come in decolonising its work on economic development.  

The report, commissioned by umbrella body Bond and written by economists Surbhi Kesar (SOAS) and Ingrid Kvangraven (King's College), provides a historical overview of economic development theory, the role of international NGOs (INGOs), and offers a framework for decolonising economic development by addressing its structural issues.

It finds that while many INGOs have focused on reforming their operations and relationships with communities, they have largely neglected the deeper structural drivers of poverty and inequality.

The report critiques the Eurocentric approach to development that dominates INGO work, highlighting how shared historical processes shape both development and underdevelopment globally and nationally.

It provides a framework or scale of how Eurocentric INGOs are in their approach and operations, with one being the most Eurocentric and five representing the closest to decolonisation.

Overall, the analysis finds that INGOs largely reinforce the Eurocentric development model, though a few are making important efforts to challenge global capital and exclusionary processes embedded within the process of economic development.

The authors suggest that INGOs could play a transformative role if they align much more with a decolonisation agenda.

They recommend that INGOs could support strengthening labour laws to open possibilities of increasing workers’ bargaining power, advocate for policy space in lower-income countries to increase social spending and provide support to local organisations and movements to bargain against big capital.

The authors call for INGOs to support certain groups that can be actors of radical change, rather than simply including them in their project or having them align their strategies with the strategies of INGOs.

While the report offers important insights, its findings cannot be generalised across the entire sector, as participation of INGOs in the research was voluntary and the researchers analysed the websites of 122 INGOs that are Bond members. 

Kesar and Kyangraven, the report's authors, said: "It’s time for the development sector to contend with the Eurocentric framework of the development project in which it is embedded. However, given that the interventions of the sector often take the shape of a “governance of the poor” in service of the status quo, the extent to which the sector can actually break from this framework remains uncertain." 

Sandra Martinsone, policy manager in sustainable economic development at Bond, said: "With this report, we hope to stimulate and deepen public debate on the role of INGOs to go beyond fixing the holes of the current broken system.

“The proposed framework is not a recipe for decolonising INGOs but a tool to critically question and rethink how we understand and approach development and challenge Eurocentric approaches to economic development in the majority world.

“This research will be relevant to INGOs beyond the UK and the broader international development community – think tanks, academia, policymakers, donors, finance institutions.”