{"id":2690,"date":"2026-10-06T09:47:49","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T07:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/?p=2690"},"modified":"2026-10-06T09:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T07:49:16","slug":"decolonising-grant-funded-development-consortia-some-reflections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/?p=2690","title":{"rendered":"Decolonising Grant-Funded Development Consortia: Some Reflections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Kibui Edwin Rwigi<\/em> \/ Second<\/em> post in a mini-series on large grant-funded research centres<\/em>: read the first one here<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 2019, I sat across the table from an older African professor \u2014 a well accomplished intellectual, the quintessential renaissance man: poet, philosopher, scholar-activist. “How is decolonisation different from what my generation was doing through post-colonial work?” he asked, after I had too exuberantly recounted work I had been part of in a North-South research consortium with a Dutch university as lead partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Ours was one of roughly eight projects funded by the Dutch Research Council to test the assumptions of a Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs policy framework \u2014 one outlining a new strategy for tackling the causes of poverty and inequality in the Global South. In our eyes, and in our hearts, I wager, the ethos of the whole set-up was decolonial in outlook; from consortium structure, roles and resource distribution to the very epistemology of our methods (you can read about it here<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprisingly, I struggled to convincingly distinguish decolonisation from post-coloniality to my professor friend \u2013 a distinction I still grapple with. I have since come to think of post-colonial thought as broadly representing a period \u2014 roughly the 1960s to the 1980s \u2014 and as largely diagnostic of the vestiges of the European imperial project in the Global South. Decolonisation, on the other hand, I have taken to represent something more therapeutic and prophylactic: acts of resistance against empire and its various manifestations, whether symbolic or otherwise; acts of repair, restoration, and reparation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What neither of us could have anticipated that day was the currency decolonisation would come to enjoy in a post-pandemic world. In the intervening years, I have been part of two reflective reviews on decolonisation: one with the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), a major six-year FCDO<\/a>-funded research collaboration spanning 12 African cities (which you can read about here<\/a>), and one commissioned by the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), a pan-African organisation centrally involved in the continent’s global health agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A concept\u2019s place in the sun<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Every so often, concepts and terms from academia escape the confines of the ivory tower or scholar-activist communities and find lives of their own in everyday parlance. These concepts, carrying specific disciplinary and theoretical traditions, are run through a milling process that strips them of their bran of nuance and context. This simplification is precisely what allows them to spread. Stripped down, these concepts offer vocabulary for experiences that segments of the general public may recognise but may not have been able to quite pin down \u2014 until the right word lands in collective consciousness and something clicks. Bourdieu’s social capital, Dawkins’s meme, Crenshaw’s intersectionality, and terms like gaslighting, imposter syndrome, and micro-aggression all come to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social media is proving to be particularly adept at transmitting academic concepts, and arguably at democratising them. Decolonisation, it would now appear, has its place in the sun, for better or worse.  As is to be expected, the word has also been (mis)appropriated in the ever-widening lexicon of buzz-fuzz-word-laden development-speak<\/a> . It doesn’t help that there is no consensus, even within academia, on what decolonisation means<\/a> or should focus on<\/a>. The word has become both vague and ambiguous in industry usage, so variation in how it is envisaged in practice is inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Operationalising decolonisation in grant-funded consortia<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It goes without saying that the very character of development work and the broader ODA architecture have been shaped by a colonial past<\/a> and an enduring neoliberal present<\/a>. Whether or not a North-South consortium explicitly adopts a decolonial outlook, partnerships will inevitably run into questions that touch on (de)coloniality in some form. Admittedly, no single project can resolve the big structural concerns of decolonisation: the political, economic, cultural, and epistemic sovereignty of global majority peoples. But every consortium must reckon, one way or another, with how it structures partnerships, sets its agenda, distributes power and resources, owns knowledge, and navigates accountability to its partners, its funders, and the people its work is meant to benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For partnerships that choose to take on a decolonisation agenda, developing a working definition of what this agenda will entail within the confines of a funded and time-bound project will go a long way \u2013 the sooner it is done the better. The goal is not to arrive at the most comprehensive or politically progressive or ambitious definition of decolonisation, but to agree on what is reasonably within the scope of your work. This is not an argument for keeping the status quo or losing sight of the vision of brave new futures and possibilities; it is an argument for clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That clarity matters because consortium members will bring varied definitions, assumptions, biases even, and expectations to the conversation. This is especially true in inter- and multidisciplinary collaborations. Researchers working across, say economics, global health, urban anthropology, and so on, may have very different levels of familiarity and comfort with a decolonisation agenda, and those differences need to be surfaced early rather than papered over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the two assessments I have conducted, I have had some interviewees explicitly distance themselves from the decolonisation agenda, question its relevance, or simply not want to be associated with it. Notably, these were rarely people from traditionally critical disciplines, and they were often in the minority. And yet the same interviewees would go on to describe, often vividly, their frustrations with North-South collaborations over matters that sit squarely within the decolonisation agenda. The incongruence almost always came down to a misunderstanding of what decolonisation actually entails. I have had someone tell me, for example, “Science can’t be colonised. Science is about filling gaps in knowledge,” before they went on to articulate pointed concerns about data sovereignty and extractive research practices in Africa, or what they called “helicopter science.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, North-South consortia involve many moving parts, with partners bringing distinct energies and approaches to a project. In large projects, management challenges are not only bound to occur but tend to also be more complex and compounded. The point is not to accept that offence will be caused in partnership, but rather to anticipate what one can learn from what one could not have foreseen, and put mechanisms in place to remedy harm and mitigate future recurrence. Clarity on a project’s decolonisation agenda, alongside relevant management frameworks, goes a long way in providing appropriate channels and language for articulating grievances between implementing partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some challenges may genuinely intersect with decolonial concerns, without this clarity, projects risk misreading ordinary programming difficulties through the prism of coloniality. For example, I recall a relatively large collaborative project where a partner felt that the donor, a Global North funding agency, exercised undue influence over the project’s agenda, leaving little room for implementing partners to contribute. This was interpreted as an expression of coloniality, though the challenge was arguably more programmatic than colonial. Given the sheer scope of the consortium, project management was admittedly always playing catch-up with the many issues that arose. In this instance, there were evident disparities in awareness of critical project matters, especially those settled during the bidding and early stages. Some implementing partners had been onboarded at different points in the project, and not all shared the same understanding of what had already been agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A collaboratively defined and openly held decolonial agenda helps partners discern when a grievance reflects more fundamental concerns and when it reflects simpler workflow or management failures. The distinction matters: framing a management failing in colonial terms carries significant implications for partners’ relationships and for the broader working of a consortium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naming, politics and the limits of the word<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It is also worth noting that the very act of adopting a definition or naming something as (de)colonial in nature, is a political act, even when done for pragmatic, project-scoped reasons. To name is to make visible; to withhold a name is to render invisible. This brings to mind a conversation with an interviewee affiliated with a large London-based charity. Their organisation had decided to pivot toward the less charged framing of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) rather than decolonisation, in their efforts to build a fairer and more just internal culture and broader world. They would explain this by saying they feared that \u201cthe conversations around decolonisation leave people feeling bad about things, rather than giving them the motivation to want to work on something or solve a problem.\u201d In another conversation, a Dutch interviewee described the taboo around openly describing one’s work as decolonial at their institution, for fear of appearing too partisan in an increasingly polarised Global North.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of this is easy, and there are no universal templates. Decolonisation in grant-funded consortia is not a box to tick or a policy to append to a proposal. It is an ongoing, relational, and politically charged practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of the approach taken \u2013 decolonisation, equity, or localisation \u2013 there is broad recognition that development work calls for a more compassionate, just, equitable, sincere, and non-extractive way of working. Even without consensus on definitions, from my experience in the sector and in conducting reviews, one thing is for sure. The decolonisation agenda has helped open conversations about what has been, what is, and what can be done. It therefore becomes an invitation. An invitation to humbly hold multiple forms of tension in partnerships: the comparative privilege one carries relative to others, the discomfort of learning and unlearning ways of working, the diverse and unique needs of partners, and the challenges and joys of inter-cultural communication and relations \u2013 all of which cut across geographies and racial identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kibui Edwin Rwigi<\/strong> is Postgraduate Researcher at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image<\/strong>: RUINS<\/a> on Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:<\/strong> This article gives the views of the author, not the position of the EADI Debating Development Blog or the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kibui Edwin Rwigi \/ Second post in a mini-series on large grant-funded research centres: read the first one here) In November 2019, I sat across the table from an older African professor \u2014 a well accomplished intellectual, the quintessential renaissance man: poet, philosopher, scholar-activist. “How is decolonisation different from what my generation was doing … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Decolonising Grant-Funded Development Consortia: Some Reflections”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"In November 2019, I sat across the table from an older African professor \u2014 a well accomplished intellectual, the quintessential renaissance man","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Decolonising Grant-Funded Development Consortia: Some Reflections","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[28,62],"class_list":["post-2690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinionpieces","tag-decoloniality","tag-development-studies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/papI3v-Ho","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Chisel-broad.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2690"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2695,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions\/2695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}