Living decoloniality, practical examples of decolonial
re-existence through the aid sector, a podcast by Carla Vitantonio,
with the support of the Center for Humanitarian Leadership.

Welcome back to Living Decoloniality. I am Carla Vitantonio and the sounds and noises you hear in the background
are from the city where I live and work Havana, Cuba.
The interview of today is recorded in a slightly different way than usual
because my connection allowed me to have on Zoom my two guests for today.
So this interview is contrary to all others the recording of a live interview.
Today with me I have two women, two persons, Susan and Bethlehem.
You met in a very specific place, that is the WASH Agenda for Change
and actually the experience that you both have done in the WASH Agenda for Change
is the topic of our conversation. But before you, we go to this.
Please, could you introduce yourself for our audience?
Hi again, I am Bethlehem. Mengistu I am African.
I’m also a black woman from Africa.
And I have been working in the development space for quite some time.
I’m very passionate about equality and social justice
and that has been a thread that has emerged across the various roles of played
within the development space.
A majority of my experience today has been in water sanitation and hygiene
because it’s an area that is quite tangible.
And I like working in that space because you could easily explain to a seven-year-old
the value of your work. Everybody needs water and everybody needs toilets.
I’m Susan Davis. I’m a white American woman.
I’m based in Alexandria, Virginia, in the United States,
which interestingly for this call was a British colony on Native American lands.
I’m an author and activist and advocate for effective development,
which has taken different forms throughout the years.
I’ve worked with small, medium and large INGOs.
I’ve been a USAID contractor and I worked for a while with a family foundation.
And for a while, I started my own social enterprise focused on avoiding failure
in water sanitation and hygiene.
Thank you very much, both. And you met through the WASH agenda for change.
And this goes to the direction of our usual second question.
Where did you meet coloniality?
With the WASH agenda for change, which is a global collaboration focused on SDG6,
which is achieving water and sanitation for everyone by 2030.
This global collaboration at the time that I joined was an organization
that encompassed 14 members, almost all of which were INGOs.
Almost all of them had headquarters in America or Europe.
But we had a small budget. It was mostly spent on learning events in Europe or America
for the headquarters level folks.
So that turned out to be a lot of white people in a room talking about what should happen in other countries.
When I started thinking about incremental things like the language that we used for learning events,
the languages for the website for our actual events for our materials.
And we started shifting that. We started thinking about who is doing the work and what do they need to do that.
And that was not in America or Europe. That was in countries and usually the global south.
So we recognized that the steering committee as well was made up of people from the global north.
And so we started thinking about what does that look like.
And so we started thinking about the different ways that we used the language that we used for the community.
And so we started thinking about the different ways that the community played out in just the structure and the systems and the languages that we used.
When I joined it was the steering committee was made up of people from the INGO headquarters.
And so it was one member, one person per member organization. So it was 14 people.
And then over time as we shifted and we started realizing like the people who are doing the work have so much to share and so much more, they should have much more influence over each other.
Right. They can talk to each other about how this works and what it’s like and why it’s important.
And as we went through the bylaws, we said what if we had people from the countries where the work is happening on the steering committee of this global collaboration.
And it sounds easy. Now looking back, but it was it was hard, you know, some of the members said, well, what happens to me? Where does my influence go if I’m not on this?
So we kind of met in the middle, we will have somebody from headquarters for each member and somebody from the country collaborations.
And so we changed it from a steering committee to a  general assembly.
And that’s about the time that I left. So I’m so curious how that’s actually playing out and whether it is decolonization or if it’s still just an interim step.
Thank you, Susan. Actually, before we started this interview, you shared with me a moment that was for the WASH agenda for change and for you
an eye opener. Can you share with our listeners what this is about?
I was hired. They were looking for somebody who was based in the same places as where one of the host organizations with base. So again, US or Europe. But it turned out I had this office.
I worked with one other person in a we work office and I was on the phone all day long with people in other countries.
It didn’t really need to be in Washington, DC. And when COVID hit, we were all working from home and we recognized that our learning events could be all online.
And this was the early days of zoom. And we had a learning event that was supposed to be in person in London, for example. And we shifted it all online.
And that meant that people from all over the world could be speakers, rather than just the people who pick up the visas and the plane tickets to Europe.
And one of the really cool things is that showed that role, my role did not need to be in DC or London. And I was very excited when they hired Betty.
And it also showed very clearly that organizing a meeting in a place located in the so-called global north is creating a useless barrier for the majority of your members.
That’s correct. One of the really cool things we learned about zoom was that you can do translation or interpretation online.
And so that perception that we can’t bring somebody who speaks Spanish to an English only event that was gone because it was pretty inexpensive.
And Alec and I actually put together a blog. I don’t know if it’s still up there, but here’s how to do it.
Here’s how to find interpreters. Here’s how to set up the zoom channel. So even the language piece was was really critical to identify that doesn’t need to be a barrier.
Thank you Susan. So what you’re telling me is that while working with the WASH agenda for change, you met.
And you had a lot of work to do in the community.
To being more transparent, to changing the governance. And what I understand is that this is where Bethlehem enters our conversation.
And also where we start addressing really our third question, that is, what did you do in front of this, which where and are your practices of decoloniality?
So it’s, it’s, yeah, it was an interim step, but it was a step in the right direction and part of the work that has taken place is for further reinforcing this shift.
So there was a shift at the governance level around the inclusion of certain voices in various layers of the organization at the executive committee member, executive committee level, as you mentioned also the general assembly.
And since then there have been other parts that were needed to further reinforce this, which is introducing a new membership recruitment or review process and the new membership and recruitment process, which is around inviting new joiner store communities, primarily reliant on country collaborations, nominating and verifying whoever comes into the space.
And this is quite important because their nomination and their sign off is essentially aligned to bringing them into like the decision making and the shaping of who we are becoming slowly and who we are shifting away from.
So there is an element of reinforcing the strategic shifts that has taken place.
And so far, I think when looking at the overall shift, I would say, these are kind of early days steps towards, you know, early days steps and localization and the smart, the totality of realizing decoloniality.
And I say this because you know, with the revision process and the introduction of the new governance framework, a shift in narrative was influenced like you said our executive is now or executive, which is equivalent to a board is now inclusive of Southern voices.
And so is our general assembly and also have a global strategy with all about enabling countries and nationally led collective actions. So a lot of our strategic intent is quite enabling, but there’s there are a number of barriers
For instance, it’s important to recognize that while our members from the country collaborations consists of individuals from the global south, they’re still representing international NGOs.
So in most of the cases, the Southern voice is filtered by Northern influence. So that’s very important to kind of understand that nuance and linked to where we are financially and the centralization of power with the resources and what the resources come from, which is still headquarters, which is still donors from the global north.
So it’s, you know, there is recognition that truly, you know, decolonizing requires, you know, authentically, deconstructing kind of the financial architecture, which is quite complex.
But still, you know, it’s important to recognize that language matters and your narrative matters. And this has brought a shift for agenda for change that has made it a more inclusive and a more diverse space where priority setting is now…
It has a more prominent kind of recognition for subsidiarity because we’re working on systems change and that’s all about nationally led systems change that’s key to sustainability.
So there is that but we’re realizing that there are certain hiccups.
And it’s, it’s, you know, we have ideas on, you know, how do we kind of, you know, continue to learn and change this and some of the important changes can be including national civil society organizations and governments in our national collaboration.
So it’s beyond the usual suspects of international non-governmental organizations. So localization starts from within and it happens at all levels.
It could be something like rotating the convening power that our normative members have. A lot of the national agenda for changes are led by and convened by the country directors of the international and governmental organizations.
This has given it an element of kind of robust thought leadership and championing, but for thinking about localization, you know, we need to think about sharing that convening power.
So all those things are important for sustainable systems impact and there are opportunities we’re looking at and there are good practices.
We’re already seeing progress from countries like Ghana, Ethiopia and Cambodia where our country collaborators have included national voices national civil society and government.
So I think we’ve made progress, but we still have ways to go.
Another interesting element, I think I should share around you’re asking me, how is this playing out is, you know, just availing the space for the southern voice to be part of the global space is not enough.
It’s not enough because newcomers in this space need to be supported to be able to fully engage, you know, fully engage, meaning fully and contribute in a way that is sensible and influential.
You know, we have to realize that there is a cultural distance between, you know, being a country director and having this space to be part of a board at global level.
There is a cultural distance, which requires a different level of political acumen. The language is different, the way decisions are made is different and understanding what’s said and what is not said  how things are done, how power works.
All things are very nuanced and you can’t learn these things in school, but it’s not enough to say the space has been availed. We have to equip people and coach to be able to kind of bring out an influential voice because the content and the experience is there, but they’re unspoken nuances.
And if you’re not aware of this and not well equipped to navigate within that space, you’ll still be excluded. You’ll still be excluded while being part of that space. I may not have the power to influence. And, you know, the power remains with the usual suspects.
So that’s a key observation I had because I also sit in the exec and, you know, one key realization is, you know, inclusion needs to be complemented to the upskilling and coaching on power dynamics and the politics of change.
Offline, Susan was mentioning that you, Betty, have engaged in something very interesting, exactly focused on this idea that, including is not enough, would you share with our listeners a little bit of this.
So we started up a mentorship program and the mentorship program is largely, well, it’s entirely targeting young, young women who are looking to get into water sanitation and hygiene as a career.
So they may be junior kind of early career women and we matched them up with senior women within water sanitation, hygiene and the intent of the program is to level the playing field.
The water sanitation hygiene sector is highly male dominated in a lot of our countries. And I think you can also see that at the global level as well.
It’s, you know, by the mere fact that a lot of people that come into the WASH space come with a science technology or engineering background, they end up being a lot of men.
So we’re trying to position the WASH sector as being attractive for diversity and also employability.
So we match senior women with junior women and we have them engage over a period of six months where they exchange tips, they exchange skills, advice, ideas on being able to enter our sector, but also being able to navigate and also over time elevate onto decision making roles.
It’s, you know, mentorship is is a very key area that is, is not readily available, especially for women. I think men have the option to network in a variety of ways and they get to access advice and tips around growth and career progression from various spaces.
But for women, it’s quite different. I mean, I could look at my own kind of career progression to date. I did not have an organized and opportune mentoring platform to learn from.
I had to cultivate my own like sister circle. I had to look for women who are very , you know And I had to actually identify, you know, kind of allies along the way and curated conversation so that I can gain from their experience.
So we’re trying to, yeah, essentially, how do you make it easier for those who are coming after you and then how do you make it so that the, the, the WASH space has diversity and the richness of various ideas because that also factors into the equality agenda because we’re trying to make it less homogeneous, make the sector less homogeneous because depending on who generates the ideas, the solutions are also in line with whoever generates the ideas.
And that links you back to where the resources come from. So we’re trying to really kind of make it more equitable, more inclusive, and our targeting for the mentorship is largely global south.
That’s one of the things that we are trying to do. And I do believe it might be our own small contribution to tackling multiple SDGs because gender equality can enable or derail all the SDGs.
And it’s very key to delivering holistic development. Thank you both. It was such a learning for me today. And I think that one thing that you said is really important to me and perhaps to our listeners.
So the fact that a culture of whiteness and a culture of coloniality is naturalized in many of the way our systems are built.
It’s important to say openly that we change the rules, but we have to change the mind. And this is something many of our other guests said, but what does it mean?
What does it mean that we change the mind? And you found one trigger and I very much agree it is not enough to give space.
It’s also important to support people in using this space and maybe also to support the others, the usual suspects, to learn a new way to use this space.
So it’s not the newcomer that needs to necessarily adapt because otherwise we’re kind of saying, so let you embody also again a new culture of whiteness.
So thank you very much. Thank you both, Susan and Bethlehem. It was really a pleasure and a honor for me to have you here today and to our listeners.
You listened to living decoloniality. Practical examples of decolonial re-existence through the aid sector
I am Carla Vitantonio and you can reach me through my Spotify and speaker channels or through my Instagram Carla Vitantonio.
This podcast was deliberately recorded with minimum technical equipment trying to preserve as much as possible the feelings and intentions of those who participated.
If you liked it, please subscribe and share it through your network, leaving the coloniality was produced in partnership with the center for humanitarian leadership.
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