This is the Work: reimagining policy and advocacy
The international development sector has seen increased conversations around anti-racism, racial justice, decolonising aid, and locally-led development. However, policy and advocacy professionals are often not engaged or fully involved in these discussions, despite their significant influence in shaping decisions. This can create a barrier between decision-makers and communities in low and middle-income countries with lived experience.
The Advocacy Team, Bond and Peace Direct are building on existing work and that of others to address racism and decolonise the system. Over the past year, we’ve engaged UK policy and advocacy professionals, along with decision-makers, in open reflections on the challenges, opportunities, and their roles in driving change.
This work has resulted in the co-creation of three resources, This is the Work:
- A guide to support the application of anti-racist & decolonial approaches to policy and advocacy in international development by setting a problem statement; Defining the key terms; a new framework for implementing these approaches
- A summary of joint findings from Bond and Peace Direct engagements: a series of interviews with diaspora & Low and Middle Income Country (LMIC) perspectives; a survey about the barriers faced by policy and advocacy staff; and a roundtable held between NGOs and political figures with diverse perspectives.
- FAQs: Practical resource to help when responding to some of the common arguments against adopting an anti-racist or decolonial approach to policy and advocacy, to achieve shared understanding.
In this webinar we discuss:
- Why and how we made the resources
- Why it is important to raise awareness of this area of work
- How organisations can mainstream the resources in their work.
The intended audience for this webinar was policy and advocacy professionals and senior leaders across functions.
We hope you find it useful and engage in taking this effort forward using the resources.
