Decolonising Development: Whose Voice, Whose Agenda? Online conference

The conference builds on research and current debates that critically assess the growing faith in multi-stakeholder development partnerships to achieve the SDGs. Research undertaken amongst CGD members and INTRAC and the Task Team on CSO Development Effectiveness and Enabling Environment in diverse development contexts exposes the complex power dynamics and contradictions often inherent in multi-stakeholder initiatives.

The research raises fundamental questions of why we ‘do’ development’; who decides what development is; what types of development we are arguably feeling forced into promoting; and what type of development we want to see.

We feel it is time to widen the debate and bring together a diverse group of participants from development practice, policy and research to discuss these issues in a safe space and identify innovative strategies for ‘doing development differently’. We anticipate that a key output from the conference will be a high-profile publication.

The conference will be organised around three interlinked themes:

• Power, voice and inclusion
• Accountability, evidence and impact
• Partnership and capacity-building

During the conference key contributors will lead two-hour sessions, posting initial short think pieces to stimulate dynamic discussion among the participants around each theme.

Discussion has started on the pre-conference blog.

Register your interest in this online conference by email to Dr Lata Narayanaswamy and Alyson Brody.