Decolonising, Aid and Sharing Power
International development is at a turning point. Debates about decolonising aid, shifting power and changing international cooperation have gained renewed urgency.
They raise questions that are particularly important for Bangladesh: who sets development priorities, who controls resources, whose knowledge is valued and who is answerable to the people affected? For a country that has received external assistance since independence, these are not abstract questions.
They concern national choices, institutional strength and the kind of partnerships Bangladesh will need in the years ahead.
Foreign assistance has contributed to Bangladesh’s progress in infrastructure, education, health, agriculture, disaster preparedness and poverty reduction. Bilateral partners and institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank have financed projects, provided technical support and helped respond to emergencies. This contribution should be recognised. But aid relationships have not always been equal.
Donors have often influenced which problems receive attention, how programmes are designed, what costs are eligible and how success is measured. The issue is not whether Bangladesh should cooperate with development partners. It is whether cooperation allows the country and its people to exercise meaningful ownership.
The history of aid helps explain the debate. During the 1980s and 1990s, structural adjustment programmes promoted by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund encouraged privatisation, trade liberalisation and reductions in public spending across many developing countries.
Supporters argued that these reforms would restore economic stability and improve efficiency. Critics questioned their social costs and whether uniform prescriptions suited different national circumstances.
Where governments depended on external finance, rejecting policy conditions could be difficult. The lasting lesson is that financial assistance can influence public choices, even when decisions formally remain with national authorities.
Decolonising aid does not mean rejecting foreign expertise, finance or international solidarity. It means examining inherited assumptions and unequal relationships.
Knowledge produced in wealthy countries should not automatically be treated as more authoritative than experience developed by local researchers, public institutions, practitioners and communities.
A solution that works in one setting may fail elsewhere. Development policy must be informed by evidence and context, not by the prestige or location of the institution proposing it.
Bangladesh has considerable experience to contribute. Over five decades, its public institutions, universities, NGOs and community organisations have developed knowledge in microfinance, disaster response, public health, women’s economic participation and poverty reduction.
BRAC and many national and regional NGOs have built programmes around local realities and long-term relationships with communities. Their experience is relevant beyond Bangladesh. Yet many organisations remain dependent on short-term international grants, and their ability to plan is constrained by funding cycles and donor priorities.
This dependence has practical consequences. Smaller NGOs may spend substantial time meeting complex reporting requirements while having limited resources for research, staff development and long-term planning.
A project may end before local staff can be retained or successful activities can be sustained. When funding is tied to narrowly defined outputs, organisations may have little room to respond to emerging needs. These problems do not make accountability unnecessary. They show why requirements should be proportionate, transparent and designed with the organisations expected to meet them.
The international commitment to localisation was intended to address this imbalance. At the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, donors and aid agencies endorsed the Grand Bargain, which included an ambition to direct at least 25 per cent of humanitarian funding to local and national organisations as directly as possible. Yet implementation has lagged.
ODI reported that local and national organisations received only 3.6 per cent of international humanitarian funding directly in 2024. The figure concerns humanitarian funding, not all development assistance, but it illustrates the distance between public commitments and the flow of money.
Bangladesh’s NGO sector makes the distinction between localisation and local leadership clear. A Bangladeshi organisation may identify participants, conduct consultations, deliver services and monitor results, while an international agency retains control of the budget, programme design and relationship with the donor.
The local partner carries much of the operational responsibility but has limited authority to change priorities. This is not a full transfer of power. It is a different division of labour within the same unequal structure.
Locally led development requires local and national organisations to help define the problem, set priorities, prepare budgets and decide how activities should adapt when circumstances change.
Communities must also have a voice; national NGOs should not automatically be treated as representatives of every group. Women, people with disabilities, minority communities, young people and poorer households need practical ways to influence decisions, raise concerns and assess results.
Otherwise, power may move from an international organisation to a national institution without reaching the people development is meant to serve.
International NGOs have important roles to play in this transition. They bring technical knowledge, access to funding, humanitarian capacity and links to international networks. Their future contribution need not disappear, but their role can change.
Rather than controlling projects through layers of subcontracting, they can support local institutions with specialist advice, training, shared research and access to resources. They should be prepared to share decision-making authority and explain openly what proportion of a grant reaches local partners and what costs are retained by intermediaries.
Accountability must change alongside funding. Donors need reliable financial controls and evidence that resources are used properly. Governments and NGOs must meet those obligations. But accountability should not flow only upwards to funders. It should also run outwards to communities.
Consider a livelihood project that distributes livestock and provides training. A donor report may count animals delivered and people trained. Families may judge the project by whether veterinary services are available, feed is affordable, animals survive and products can be sold at a fair price.
Their assessment can reveal whether an intervention has improved livelihoods or merely completed its planned activities. Community feedback should therefore influence programme decisions, not simply appear as a paragraph in a final report.
For Bangladesh, stronger ownership also depends on domestic action. Government agencies need to coordinate external projects with national plans, publish clear information about aid commitments and results, and avoid creating parallel systems that disappear when funding ends.
Universities and research institutions should be involved in generating and evaluating evidence. Local NGOs need sound governance, transparent accounts and meaningful participation by the people they serve.
Donors cannot be expected to support local leadership if local institutions do not demonstrate integrity and competence; equally, local institutions cannot build capacity if funding arrangements leave them no room to invest.
Recent reductions in assistance by major donors have exposed the risks of dependence. Abrupt cuts can interrupt health, education, humanitarian and livelihood programmes, unsettle staff and weaken organisations that have built expertise over many years.
Diversifying partnerships may reduce reliance on any single donor, but replacing one source of finance with another does not automatically redistribute power. Bangladesh should assess all partnerships by their terms, transparency, contribution to national priorities and long-term effects, regardless of the country or institution providing the funds.
Nor should decolonising aid become an argument for governments to avoid scrutiny or for donors to withdraw from difficult contexts. National ownership is not the same as government ownership alone.
Independent civil society, local authorities, community groups and citizens all have legitimate roles. Public institutions must remain answerable to people, while external partners should respect national decision-making and uphold agreed standards. The objective is not to remove accountability but to make it mutual and meaningful.
International cooperation remains indispensable. Climate change, displacement, infectious disease, food insecurity and economic shocks cross borders. Bangladesh, highly exposed to climate risks and connected to regional and global labour markets, has strong reasons to work with other countries.
Cooperation on adaptation, technology, public health and safe migration can produce benefits that no country can secure alone. But effective cooperation requires trust, shared responsibility and respect for the knowledge and priorities of participating countries.
The practical agenda is clear. Donors should provide more predictable, flexible and longer-term funding, simplify procedures and publish information about where resources go. International NGOs should review partnership agreements, overheads and decision-making arrangements.
Bangladeshi organisations should strengthen governance, share learning and involve communities from the beginning. Government should improve coordination, domestic financing and public oversight. These changes will take time, but they can make assistance more useful and less vulnerable to shifting external priorities.
Bangladesh should not measure its development relationships only by the volume of money received or the number of projects completed. It should ask whether cooperation strengthens public institutions, develops local expertise, expands national choices and improves people’s lives after a project closes. The country’s experience gives it both a stake in this debate and knowledge to contribute to it.
The transition from aid recipient to an equal partner will not be achieved by rhetoric. It will depend on who makes decisions, who controls resources and whether communities have a genuine say in shaping their future.