Untying Aid: An Open Letter to SIDA

There is wide­spread agree­ment that shift­ing pow­er and resources in the inter­na­tion­al sys­tem to Major­i­ty World/Global South civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions (CSOs) is nec­es­sary to cre­ate a more equi­table civ­il soci­ety. How­ev­er, Minor­i­ty World/Global North fund­ing for civ­il soci­ety is most­ly chan­nelled to INGOs from their own coun­tries.

A new report by the #Shift­The­P­ow­er move­ment – Too South­ern To Be Fund­ed: The Fund­ing Bias Against the Glob­al South  – has revealed that cur­rent­ly more than 90% of all OECD DAC mem­ber coun­tries’ civ­il soci­ety sup­port goes to CSOs from their own coun­tries and oth­er Minor­i­ty World/Global North CSOs – and less than 10% goes to CSOs in coun­tries in the Major­i­ty World/Global South.

The Swedish Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion Agency (Sida) recent­ly announced its plans to open its NGO fund­ing to glob­al com­pe­ti­tion. This marks an oppor­tu­ni­ty for Sida to gen­uine­ly trans­form the land­scape of glob­al NGO fund­ing for the bet­ter.

Along with allies from across glob­al civ­il soci­ety, we issued an open let­ter to Sida to high­light the oppor­tu­ni­ties and to offer rec­om­men­da­tions fol­low­ing their announce­ment to end ‘tied aid’:

• Fund­ing CSOS in the Major­i­ty World direct­ly
• Pro­vid­ing mul­ti-year and unre­strict­ed fund­ing
• Remov­ing unnec­es­sary com­pli­ance process­es

Read the full letter below:

Mr Johan Fors­sell
Min­is­ter for Swedish Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion

Mr Jakob Gran­it
Direc­tor-Gen­er­al
Swedish Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion Agency

17th April 2024

Dear Mr Fors­sell and Mr Gran­it

We are writ­ing to you as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of some of the largest net­works of civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions and activists in the world, with a major­i­ty of our mem­bers in the Major­i­ty World/Global South. Sig­na­to­ries of this let­ter also include allies in the Glob­al North/Minority World.

We are unit­ed by our com­mit­ment to shift­ing pow­er and resources in the inter­na­tion­al sys­tem to Major­i­ty World/Global South civ­il soci­ety actors. We are also unit­ed in our efforts to tack­le the sys­temic and struc­tur­al bar­ri­ers and dis­crim­i­na­tion that civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions in the Major­i­ty World/Global South face by donors, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, INGOs and agen­cies main­ly based in the Minor­i­ty World/Global North.

We write to you now in response to the announce­ment by Sida that it plans to open its NGO fund­ing to glob­al com­pe­ti­tion and will be ter­mi­nat­ing all exist­ing con­tracts with Swedish part­ners by the end of the year.

We wel­come the prin­ci­ple of remov­ing one of the most entrenched bar­ri­ers to fund­ing for civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions in the Major­i­ty World/Global South. As you are no doubt aware, while it is rarely acknowl­edged, Glob­al North fund­ing for civ­il soci­ety is most­ly chan­nelled to INGOs from their own coun­tries. Accord­ing to a report that will short­ly be released by the #Shift­The­P­ow­er move­ment, around 90% of all fund­ing from OECD DAC coun­tries for civ­il soci­ety efforts is chan­nelled to organ­i­sa­tions from their own coun­tries. We believe that this is not only uneth­i­cal but also hyp­o­crit­i­cal. It is a form of unof­fi­cial tied aid that runs counter to the spir­it of recent state­ments to improve the qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of fund­ing to civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions in the Major­i­ty World/Global South. With all the talk of sup­port­ing local­ly led devel­op­ment, human­i­tar­i­an and peace­build­ing efforts, the truth is that the rich­est donors in the world still pre­fer to fund organ­i­sa­tions from their own respec­tive coun­tries.

Against this back­drop, Sida’s deci­sion to open up fund­ing to organ­i­sa­tions not based in Swe­den could be an impor­tant step in the right direc­tion, and we sup­port its poten­tial to spark wider change in aid and devel­op­ment financ­ing. Stronger local civ­il soci­eties are vital­ly impor­tant to uphold and pro­tect civic space.

We also hope that this deci­sion is a first step towards a gen­uine­ly trans­formed fund­ing land­scape for civ­il soci­ety glob­al­ly. For the deci­sion to be mean­ing­ful, we ask that you con­sid­er the fol­low­ing:

1. Fund CSOs in the Major­i­ty World/Global South direct­ly.

CSOs want to estab­lish direct rela­tion­ships with fun­ders, rather than sim­ply being the recip­i­ents of sup­port chan­nelled through INGO inter­me­di­aries. Direct fund­ing is not just a mat­ter of equi­ty, trust, effi­cien­cy or dig­ni­ty. CSOs in the Major­i­ty World/Global South have the skills and knowl­edge to best decide how to lift their com­mu­ni­ties out of pover­ty, tack­le human rights abus­es and achieve the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals. We under­stand that large scale direct fund­ing might take time and we acknowl­edge the use­ful role that inter­me­di­aries can play. How­ev­er we ask that you explore exist­ing resourc­ing mod­els and approach­es such as sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ty phil­an­thropy, prox­i­mate funds, civ­il soci­ety sup­port hubs and CSO net­works.

2. Pro­vide mul­ti year and unre­strict­ed fund­ing.

If you believe that the mis­sion of the CSO aligns with Sida’s strate­gic pri­or­i­ties, please fund their core work, and don’t ask them to devel­op short term projects that meet your pre-defined notion of suc­cess or pri­or­i­ties. We need to move away from trans­ac­tion­al, com­mer­cial-style sub-con­tract­ing and instead work towards gen­uine­ly equi­table and trans­for­ma­tion­al part­ner­ships based on trust.

3. Remove oner­ous and unnec­es­sary due dili­gence and com­pli­ance process­es.

Such process­es cre­ate bar­ri­ers exclud­ing most civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions from even apply­ing for fund­ing. Account­abil­i­ty for tax­pay­ers mon­ey can be achieved with­out impos­ing such a heavy bureau­crat­ic bur­den on resource-poor CSOs. If Sida opens its fund­ing to non-Swedish organ­i­sa­tions while retain­ing the same lev­el of com­pli­ance and due dili­gence, includ­ing audit thresh­olds, CSOs from the Major­i­ty World/Global South will either not be able to apply for fund­ing or will be sad­dled with exces­sive require­ments that could hin­der their abil­i­ty to deliv­er their mis­sion. We ask Sida to change its rules so that it can be bold and coura­geous in its approach to sup­port­ing civ­il soci­ety and explore how to scale and sus­tain gen­uine­ly local­ly led solu­tions. And we ask that open­ing up fund­ing to glob­al com­pe­ti­tion is not used as a ‘tro­jan horse’ to allow pri­vate con­trac­tors to take fund­ing that should be pro­tect­ed for civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions.

We would also draw your atten­tion to an open let­ter that was sent to USAID Admin­is­tra­tor Saman­tha Pow­er in Octo­ber 2022. That let­ter, authored by some of the same sig­na­to­ries to this let­ter, and which was signed by 1,289 CSOs, includ­ed the fol­low­ing five rec­om­men­da­tions, which we believe are rel­e­vant to Sida as it devel­ops its new CSO strat­e­gy.

1. Speak direct­ly with us.
2. Ensure fund­ing reach­es many, diverse, and tru­ly local organ­i­sa­tions.
3. Invest in local civ­il soci­ety coor­di­na­tion mech­a­nisms.
4. Invest in insti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing of local civ­il soci­ety.
5. Sim­pli­fy fund­ing man­age­ment.

Final­ly, while we appre­ci­ate Sida’s com­mit­ment to extend­ing fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to non-Swedish organ­i­sa­tions, we express deep con­cern over the neg­a­tive reper­cus­sions of abrupt­ly can­celling exist­ing grant agree­ments which will have a detri­men­tal impact on already- agreed pro­grammes of work between Swedish organ­i­sa­tions and their part­ners. Uphold­ing good donor prac­tices is essen­tial to safe­guard­ing the integri­ty of our col­lec­tive work. Can­celling agree­ments with min­i­mal notice under­mines the prin­ci­ples of ‘Do no Harm’, as well as being con­trary to recent com­mit­ments such as the OECD Rec­om­men­da­tion on Enabling Civ­il Soci­ety and the Donor State­ment on Sup­port­ing Local­ly Led Devel­op­ment.

As Sida embarks on devel­op­ing its new civ­il soci­ety strat­e­gy, we call upon you to con­sid­er these rec­om­men­da­tions seri­ous­ly. We stand ready and will­ing to engage with Sida on any of these points and wel­come the oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss this let­ter with you in the com­ing weeks.

Yours sin­cere­ly,

Gun­jan Veda
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Move­ment for Com­mu­ni­ty Led Devel­op­ment

Hibak Kalfan
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, NEAR

Nana Afadz­inu
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, West Africa Civ­il Soci­ety Insti­tute

Jen­ny Hodg­son
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Glob­al Fund for Com­mu­ni­ty Foundations/#ShiftThePower

Deb­o­rah Doane
Co-con­venor, RINGO Project/Partner, Rights CoLab

Dylan Math­ews
Chief Exec­u­tive, Peace Direct

Graph­ic cour­tesy of Free­dom Stu­dio