Irecently met a white person who was starting an organization to improve something in the so-called “developing” world. It was a social occasion, but I deeply regret that I didn’t ask questions like, “Why you? Why now? Why not support some of the many excellent initiatives out there being led by people in Liberia or Pakistan or Guatemala or wherever in the world it is you feel moved to support?”
After two decades of working in international development, I’ve come to believe that the sector replicates the very structures of injustice we claim to be tackling. That’s why I, a privileged middle-class white woman, organized an online conference last month titled, “Healing Solidarity: Re-Imagining International Development” that attracted over 1,500 people. I wanted to create a space for conversations about issues like decolonizing development, and where my peers could find sustenance and support.
One of the key issues we discussed was the lack of racial diversity in our sector. Women’s rights and philanthropy expert Pontso Mafethe spoke about how difficult it was for her, a black African woman, to find employment in U.K.’s development sector (the country’s nonprofit sector is over 90 percent white). Mafethe believes that limited diversity means the sector is not an attractive place for communities of color, and that their absence is reflected in the way decisions are made, what projects get supported and funded, and the ways of working that are most valued.
She wasn’t the only speaker in the conference who challenged the role of white people in development. Fredrick Ouko, a social entrepreneur based in Kenya, spoke about volunteers he had worked with who subsequently overstated the importance of their presence. I asked if he thought there was any role for volunteers who travel to the global south, and he said that the main thing these trips can offer is an opportunity to build relationships and to learn from each other — but that people on short visits weren’t going to change anything.
We are so steeped in the unspoken assumptions that white people know better, are more trustworthy, and have altruistic motivations, that many of our systems and processes are built around them. And we do far too little to question these biases.
SSo how do we start to do things differently? How can we acknowledge our personal and collective privilege?
For me personally, working in development has meant understanding my own family history and my complicity with empire in the U.K., the country of my birth. It’s also meant understanding that I am the product of an unfair system that has created gross inequity in the world.
A good place to start is examining our recruitment and compensation structures. Some organizations have taken steps like moving their headquarters to the global south and being deliberate in their hiring strategies. These shifts are a good start, but we have to be aware of the extent to which international NGOs can also divert attention and resources from community-driven work, and to think about ways we can make space for more disparate voices to lead and to be heard.
In one recent example shared with me, which was by no means unusual, the local head of an NGO was paid 19 times less than the foreign head of an INGO, for their work on the same project, living in the same city. This inequitable distribution of resources reflects the unconscious bias in our sector about whose voices and opinions matter most.
Recruitment reflects many of these same biases. Ten years ago, when I was applying for jobs, my then husband mentioned that perhaps I wasn’t getting interviews because I was using his surname, which didn’t sound like a white name. His comment reminded me that his lived experience as a black African living in the U.K. differed greatly from my own; racism was a pervasive obstacle to everything in his life.
AAt the online conference, I asked another speaker, Angela Bruce-Raeburn, whether she felt there was a role for white people like me in international development. Her answer: “Yes, but I need you to be prepared to challenge a status quo…to create spaces for voices to be heard that are not your own.”
It’s clear to me that the international development sector must change — and yet I still hear conversations where white people refute the idea that race matters. They provide examples that buck these trends, of non-white people in positions of power. But for me, the exceptions only serve to prove the rule — and the data speak for themselves. A 2017 report by the Charity Commission, a charity watchdog for England and Wales, found that “white, older men dominate leadership roles in most British charities, which are missing out on fresh skills and ideas to better assist the people they support.”
So if you are a privileged white person reading this: please think twice before starting a new international development organization. The very fact that you have such faith in your idea may be a manifestation of your white privilege. Cultures which give preference to whiteness have bred you to think you know best, to assume your idea matters, and that poor people should be grateful for your benevolence.
There are plenty of good ideas out there by plenty of people working tirelessly in their own communities who just need resources and support. So if you really want to make a difference, consider finding and supporting them.
If we want to begin to right the wrongs of centuries of white supremacy, we are going to have to get humble and listen. We are going to have to become people willing to step out of the way and lend our support to the more effective channelling of resources. We can start this by getting into the habit of asking, where am I needed and where can I be most useful? Ask your non-white friends and colleagues: How do you think I can be useful in overturning this system? What approaches to addressing poverty and inequity do you think are most effective?
You might think you are already doing this but almost all of us could do better (as my conversation at a recent social occasion reminded me). Being an effective white person committed to overturning white supremacy and making the world a fairer place isn’t something you achieve just by “signing up for it.” We have to be ready to do the hard work of doing things differently each and every day. You can choose to act differently, each and every day, wherever you currently work. This is how you will make a difference.
