Trailer: The Problem with Partnerships

How do you drive change in a world of chaos - when grants are vanishing, institutional funding is drying up, and philanthropic organisations are struggling to continue backing local actors? This is the first of two special bonus episodes on decolonising philanthropy in the face of funding cuts. You’ll hear from Peace Direct staff, reflecting on the consultation we held on decolonising philanthropy, the impact of international funding cuts, and how funders could be stepping up to meet this moment. We'll be back soon with more voices from across the sector. Decolonising Philanthropy (2025): https://www.peacedirect.org/decolonising-philanthropy/  Open letter, Stand With Civil Society: https://www.standwithcivilsociety.org/  Time to Decolonise Aid (2021): https://www.peacedirect.org/time-to-decolonise-aid/  Speaker biographies: Enrica Lorusso: As Senior Research Officer at Peace Direct, Enrica is responsible for leading and managing research projects, as well as coordinating with other teams within Peace Direct on research opportunities. Sam Crocker: As Programme Development Manager at Peace Direct, Sam is responsible for liaising with institutions and trusts and foundations to secure funding for Peace Direct and our partners.  Dylan Mathews: Dylan Mathews is CEO of Peace Direct having joined the organisation in 2015. His commitment to supporting local organisations in the global south spans almost twenty years, during which time he has worked for a range of peacebuilding, international development and humanitarian organisations.  Our thanks to the Decolonising Wealth Project for supporting this research, to Freedom Studio for our logo, and to Louise Morris for editing and production.The host for this episode is Jasmine Kato-Naughton, Communications Officer at Peace Direct.

We’re wrapping up The Problem with Partnerships series with a question at the core of our work: what is a decolonised partnership? Hear from all the experts from the series, plus a new guest from Peace Direct’s programmes team.Continue your decolonisation journey:Transforming Partnerships, a guide by Peace Direct to help organisations in the Global North and South to build better partnerships: https://www.peacedirect.org/transforming-partnerships/.A guide to the nine roles that intermediaries can play in international cooperation: https://www.peacedirect.org/the-nine-roles-that-intermediaries-can-play-in-international-cooperation/ Too Southern To Be Funded: The Funding Bias Against the Global South: https://www.peacedirect.org/too-southern-to-be-funded/.“This is the Work,” a set of resources to decolonise policy and advocacy approaches, co-developed by Peace Direct, Bond NGO, and The Advocacy Team:  Race, Power & Peacebuilding was written to explore and to understand how racism manifests itself in the peacebuilding sector: https://www.peacedirect.org/race-power-and-peacebuilding/.  Decolonize! What does it mean? from Oxfam: https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/decolonize-what-does-it-mean-621456/. Decolonisation Resources: Reading List from The Development Hub: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dl_RTK1aHbvSXxYZUjR1zF1p2NAQLEE6/view.Localisation and decolonization – a Peace Direct resource exploring the nuances of each concept, examining the problematic mixing of the terms, and outlining how we can change systems in a tangible way: https://www.peacedirect.org/localisation-and-decolonisation/ Speaker biographies:Raaval Singh Bains: Research Officer at Peace Direct on secondment to decolonise Peace Direct’s approaches internally and externally.Dr Véronique Barbelet: an independent humanitarian policy researcher and a Research Associate with the Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian Policy Group. Dr Jamie Hagen: founding co-director of the Centre for Gender in Politics.Ishani Ida Cordeiro: Advocacy & Accountability Manager at Women Enabled International.Nicoline Nwenushi Wazeh: Founder of Pathways for Women’s Empowerment and Development.Chernor Bah: Minister of Information and Civic Education in Sierra Leone and the Co-founder of Purposeful, a feminist hub for girls’ activism, rooted in Africa and working all around the world.Jennifer Pobi-Browne: an International Programmes Manager at Peace Direct. Jennifer is responsible for supporting the International Programmes team in their day to day work with partners, and for coordinating our atrocity prevention work. She has over 10 years experience working in human rights, with a particular focus on the rights of women, children and young people in Latin America. Before joining the Peace Direct team, she was Programmes Manager for an NGO working in Colombia, supporting local partners to build safer communities through youth advocacy, psychosocial support and rights education. 

What makes decolonisation so difficult for the humanitarian, development and peacebuilding system? Why is change taking so long? These are the pressing, difficult questions we tackle in the penultimate episode of The Problem with Partnerships. Our guests explore the limitations of good intentions and discuss the complexity of shifting power dynamics to foster genuine partnerships based on respect and dignity.ShownotesUse the action pack from this episode: https://www.peacedirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/TPWP-Action-pack-Episode-5-Good-intentions-arent-enough.pdf.Transforming Partnerships guide: https://www.peacedirect.org/transforming-partnerships/Gunjan references Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, by Mahzarin R. Banaji, Anthony G. Greenwald.The nine roles that intermediaries can play in international cooperation: https://www.peacedirect.org/the-nine-roles-that-intermediaries-can-play-in-international-cooperation/ Too Southern To Be Funded: The Funding Bias Against the Global South: https://www.peacedirect.org/too-southern-to-be-funded/.  Speaker biographies: Dr Véronique Barbelet. Veronique is an independent humanitarian policy researcher and a Research Associate with the Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian Policy Group.Gunjan Veda: Gunjan’s the Executive Director of the Movement for Community-Led Development, or MCLD. It’s a network that works to shift power so that low-income communities can achieve their own visions and goals. Chernor Bah: Chernor recently became the Minister of Information and Civic Education in Sierra Leone. He’s also the Co-founder of Purposeful, a feminist hub for girls’ activism, rooted in Africa and working all around the world. Purposeful’s mission is to ensure that girl activists and their allies have access to the resources, networks, and platforms they need to power their activism and remake the world for themselves.Ishani Ida Cordeiro: Ishani is the Advocacy & Accountability Manager at Women Enabled International. She is a gender rights activist and human rights lawyer from India. 

In this episode, we're focusing on inclusivity — what it really means, and how it plays out in global spaces, including conversations about decolonisation, where voices from the Global South and marginalised communities are often sidelined.Shownotes:Download your action pack to put inclusion into practice: https://www.peacedirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Action-pack-Episode-4-Nothing-about-us-without-us.pdf.Learn more from Inclusion and exclusion in humanitarian action: findings from a three-year study: https://odi.org/en/publications/inclusion-and-exclusion-in-humanitarian-action-findings-from-a-three-year-study/.Learn How to Organise International Events and Convenings: https://www.peacedirect.org/how-to-organise-international-events-and-convenings/.Discover the Queering the Women, Peace and Security Agenda toolkit: https://www.qub.ac.uk/research-centres/centre-for-gender-in-politics/PolicyBriefs/Toolkit/.Speaker biographies:Gunjan Veda (she/her) - Global Secretary and Executive Director of The Movement for Community-Led Development, a global consortium of more than 2000 local and community based organisations.Dr Véronique Barbelet (she/her) - independent humanitarian policy researcher and a Research Associate with the Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian Policy Group.Dr Jamie Hagen (she/her) - lecturer and associate professor in Global Politics at the University of Manchester, and part of the Critical Global Politics research cluster. She is also the founding co-director of the Centre for Gender in Politics.Ishani Ida Cordeiro (she/her) - Advocacy & Accountability Manager at Women Enabled International. 

Trust and respect are fundamental to healthy relationships. So why are they missing from partnerships in international cooperation? In this episode, our guests share powerful insights on how international organizations’ lack of trust in local leaders results in ineffective interventions, while respect-based flexibility can lead to greater impact.Shownotes:Use this action pack to help you put these lessons into practice: https://www.peacedirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/TPWP-Action-pack-Episode-3-Respect-Local-Experts.pdf Other resources:Transforming Partnerships in International Cooperation (2023): https://www.peacedirect.org/transforming-partnerships/.‘Help us fund peace differently’, Peace Direct: https://www.peacedirect-impact.org/#help-us-fund-peace-differently What makes $1,000 more valuable than $100,000? Read the blog: https://humanityunited.org/perspectives/a-reflection-on-the-importance-of-unrestricted-funding/. Learn from 3 of Peace Direct's funders about how they changed their practices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-1_uTde85QSpeaker bios:Nicoline Nwenushi Wazeh is a gender and development specialist, jurist, human rights defender and civil society activist in Cameroon. She is also the CEO and founder of Pathways for Women’s Empowerment and Development. Gunjan Veda is the Executive Director of the Movement for Community-Led Development, or MCLD. It’s a network that works to shift power so that low-income communities can achieve their own visions and goals.Dr Véronique Barbelet is an independent humanitarian policy researcher and a Research Associate with the Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian Policy Group.

In this episode, our host Raaval Singh Bains is joined by Chernor Bah and Gunjan Veda, two experts and activists whose work is rooted in the Global South. They highlight the problems with common attitudes in our sector, and vital work needed to decolonise our minds. They emphasise the ways local activists and communities can reclaim power and the ways Global North power-holders must shift their thinking.Shownotes:Put the lessons from this episode into action now with our action pack: https://www.peacedirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Action-pack-Episode-2-It-starts-in-your-mind-2.pdf Download the transcript: https://www.peacedirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/PD-TPWP-Ep2-Mindsets-transcript.pdfSpeaker biographies:Gunjan Veda: Gunjan’s the Executive Director of the Movement for Community-Led Development, or MCLD. It’s a network that works to shift power so that low-income communities can achieve their own visions and goals.  Chernor Bah: Chernor recently became the Minister of Information and Civic Education in Sierra Leone. He’s also the Co-founder of Purposeful, a feminist hub for girls’ activism, rooted in Africa and working all around the world. Purposeful’s mission is to ensure that girl activists and their allies have access to the resources, networks, and platforms they need to power their activism and remake the world for themselves. Raaval Singh Bains: As Research Officer at Peace Direct, Raaval is responsible for supporting Peace Direct’s research work on Decolonising the System. He facilitates online Platform4Dialogue discussions, conducts qualitative data analysis and drafts research reports. His work currently focuses on the “Decolonising Peacebuilding Practice” research project as well as supporting on the “Local Voices for Peace” and USAID funded “Stopping As Success” projects. Raaval has previously worked on research projects that advocate for the decolonisation of secondary school education in the UK.

In the first episode of The Problem with Partnerships, we go back to basics, exploring the journey to decolonise international development and the foundational values of transformative partnerships.Shownotes:Transforming Partnerships in International Cooperation (2023): https://www.peacedirect.org/transforming-partnerships/Time to Decolonise Aid (2021): https://www.peacedirect.org/time-to-decolonise-aid/Race, Power and Peacebuilding (2022): https://www.peacedirect.org/race-power-and-peacebuilding/ “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” ― Chinua AchebeSpeaker biographies:Raaval Singh Bains: As Research Officer at Peace Direct, Raaval is responsible for supporting Peace Direct’s research work on Decolonising the System. He facilitates online Platform4Dialogue discussions, conducts qualitative data analysis and drafts research reports. His work currently focuses on the “Decolonising Peacebuilding Practice” research project as well as supporting on the “Local Voices for Peace” and USAID funded “Stopping As Success” projects. Raaval has previously worked on research projects that advocate for the decolonisation of secondary school education in the U.K.Dylan Mathews: Dylan is CEO of Peace Direct, having joined the organisation in 2015. His commitment to supporting local organisations in the Global South spans almost 20 years, during which time he has worked for a range of peacebuilding, international development and humanitarian organisations. While working for the peacebuilding think tank Oxford Research Group, he authored ‘War Prevention Works’ which profiled the role of non-state actors in conflict prevention and resolution – a publication that helped launch Peace Direct in 2004. He is the editor of ‘Working with Conflict 2’ a practical toolkit for local peacebuilders, published in 2020. Dylan is also the Vice Chair of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, a global peacebuilding network based in Washington DC.Ruby Quantson Davis: Ruby is the Senior Learning and Impact Advisor at Peace Direct. She has almost 20 years of global experience on public policy, research and advocacy, deliberate conversations, community engagement and institutional development. She has worked extensively within Africa and the South Pacific, as well as in Israel and the United States, where she uses innovative ways of reflecting, learning, documenting and sharing knowledge.Dr Prince Charles Dickson: Prince Charles is a peace practitioner and Policy Analyst with decades of experience in media, public policy, psychology and development practice based on Plateau State, Nigeria. Dr Prince Charles is currently team lead for the Nigerian-based Tattaaunawa Roundtable Initiative (TRICentre), a non-profit, non-partisan and non-allied community-centred organisation that brings people together and connects people of all ages and backgrounds to bridge the gaps in the community needs. 

Stay tuned for The Problem with Partnerships, a new series from Peace Direct