OVERVIEW
Background
Since 2020, efforts to reform the aid and development sector have been growing in number and strength, despite having existed in spaces of resistance in the Global South/ Global Majority world for many, many decades. This is finally beginning to lead to a shift in the sector, where conversations about racism, power, and neo-colonialism can be had in mainstream spaces. But one of the biggest barriers remains: who is holding actors with the most power and money accountable for their efforts to shift that power? This tool is designed to encourage deep reflection in organisations that identify as Global North funders, primarily bilateral (governmental) and philanthropic organisations (as well as NGOs that also act as funders).
Existing commitments
In July 2021, Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance was adopted by the DAC. It covers three pillars related to enabling civil society, including a recommendation on “increasing the availability and accessibility of direct, flexible, and predictable support including core and/or programme-based support, to enhance their financial independence, sustainability, and local ownership.” Subsequently, in December 2022, a wide range of OECD DAC bilateral donors and private foundations signed a Donor Statement on Supporting Locally Led Development, committing to:
- Shift and share power.
- Work to channel high quality funding as directly as possible to local actors
- Publicly advocate for locally led development
This tool uses these commitments as an anchor for greater accountability from funders to the people and communities they seek to serve, as called for in the Stand with Civil Society campaign, launched in May 2025. It also draws insights from Voices from the South surveys conducted as part of the RINGO project.
Who the tool is designed for?
This tool is designed to support Global North funding organisations in a process of self-assessment regarding how they wield power in relation to the Global South stakeholders they engage with, whether as partners, implementing agents, grantees, co-funders, or in any other type of role. The tool can also be used by Southern actors, networks and organisations in their continued advocacy efforts to hold Northern funders to account, as well as to assess funders against the various dimensions. While the tool is designed to be applied to all funders, we do recognise that there are different challenges baked into the system – whether you are a bilateral donor, a philanthropic foundation, or an NGO that has a funding component. Looked at from a power lens, we are hoping that this tool is translatable to these different contexts because the issues are the same, even if they manifest in different ways.
Guiding framework – types of power
The driving question behind this tool is: Who wields power over whom, and what are the effects of this? There are many definitions of power. The one we have chosen for purposes of this tool examines both the negative – visible, hidden and invisible power – and positive aspects of power. More details can be found in Just Power: A Guide for Activists and Changemakers, JASS Power Guide, 2024.
Negative/Dominating power - Power Over
Dimensions of power:
- Visible power: state and formal political power exercised through laws, rules, courts, institutions, policies, decision-making and the enforcement of rules.
- Hidden power: organised interests – both legal and illicit – that work behind the scenes to influence and control decisions, resources, media, and policing to advance and protect their interests.
- Invisible power: the internalised power of beliefs, social norms, and culture to shape people’s worldview and sense of what is ‘right’ or ‘normal’, together with the strategic manipulation of those beliefs to legitimise certain political ideas and actions, including violence.
Positive/Transformational power
Dimensions of power:
- Power within … to dream, believe in oneself, hope, create and solve problems. Without it, we do not speak out and step up. Sometimes we believe this is the most unstoppable form of power.
- Power with … finding common ground with others, building solidarity on reciprocity and love, knowing, and respecting differences, and working together for a common purpose and ideals.
- Power to … make change, change lives, and make a difference in the world one step at a time; even the power to think, imagine, be silent, and resist the status quo.
- Power for … the combined vision, values and demands that orient our work and hold the seeds of the world we seek to create.
Added value: This tool has been designed in response to calls from across the development and social change sectors both for greater accountability in the short-term and for deeper, more meaningful changes in the medium to long-term. There are a growing number of tools, measurement frameworks and indices that focus on related themes (many of which only target Northern INGOs), and we have reviewed each of these carefully to ensure that we are not duplicating what already exists. This tool focuses specifically on power, in all its negative dimensions. Recognising, naming and shifting negative ‘power over’ is often very nebulous and difficult to measure or assess, precisely because it is intangible. But most of us know it when we see it or experience it. This tool offers some questions which we hope can make visible what transformed power relations could look like across several key dimensions. The funder report card focuses specifically on the practices adopted by Northern funders in relation to Southern organisations and communities – it does not focus on ways in which funders operate internally, as this has been covered by existing tools and frameworks. The report card has also been designed as a self-assessment tool that can feed into other frameworks, or indeed be used in conjunction with existing tools and frameworks (for a full list of indicators from a range of other tools, see here).
Dimensions: Activists campaigning for a more equitable and decolonised global development sector know first-hand that values and behaviours, as well as structural changes, are just as important as institutional policies or practices. The funder report card thus seeks to shed light on each of these areas. Based on interviews and consultation sessions held since 2020, the following dimensions emerged as priority areas for Southern civil society actors – i.e. this is where inequitable power relations between them and funders frequently manifest and are felt deeply. Roughly in sequential order, these are:
- Framing and choice of issues: Who decides which problems will be addressed in a given area or community? Is there mutual agreement on the structural causes of the problems?
- Funding decisions: How are the overarching strategy and goals for the programme determined?
- Delivery: Who has the power to decide once funding flows have started, and is there flexibility to adapt?
- Financial flows: What is the quantity and quality of funding flowing to Southern organisations and affected communities?
- Monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning: Who decides on how change or impact is measured and who is held accountable for decisions?
Overview of the tool: The tool contains three sections, with the second being the most in-depth and that will require the most time to complete. Sections one and three are, however, equally important when it comes to reflecting on your journey so far and solidifying specific commitments that your organisation will take forward as a result of using this tool.
