Reimagining the role of the INGO through community building and shared learning. Nancy Kankam Kusi (WACSI) interviewed.
Mar 13, 2024Season 1Episode 30
Kate Bird
In this week’s episode, we speak to Nancy Kankam Kusi from West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) about their focus on advocacy, influencing, and facilitating an enabling environment for civil society organisations across West Africa and beyond.
Nancy talks to us about the importance of knowledge sharing on issues of decolonisation and localisation, and how WACSI facilitates spaces for fruitful discussions across the sector. The Decolonising Advisory Community at WACSI provides support to organisations in the Global South in decolonising their practice. They focus on community building and shared learning in order to come up with collective strategies to reimagine the role of INGOs and influence policy in the long term.
Nancy Kankam Kusi is Program Officer of Knowledge Management at the West African Civil Society Institute in Ghana. Nancy also leads a diverse team of civil society actors to initiate and implement international development programs that promote community philanthropy, shifting power and resources to the grassroots, localising and decolonising development initiatives in the Global South. She's also a member of the RINGO Project and the initiator of the Decolonising Advisory Community.
If you’re interested to find out more about Nancy’s work, take a look here:
In this week’s episode, we speak to Nancy Kankam Kusi from West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) about their focus on advocacy, influencing, and facilitating an enabling environment for civil society organisations across West Africa and beyond.
Nancy talks to us about the importance of knowledge sharing on issues of decolonisation and localisation, and how WACSI facilitates spaces for fruitful discussions across the sector. The Decolonising Advisory Community at WACSI provides support to organisations in the Global South in decolonising their practice. They focus on community building and shared learning in order to come up with collective strategies to reimagine the role of INGOs and influence policy in the long term.
Nancy Kankam Kusi is Program Officer of Knowledge Management at the West African Civil Society Institute in Ghana. Nancy also leads a diverse team of civil society actors to initiate and implement international development programs that promote community philanthropy, shifting power and resources to the grassroots, localising and decolonising development initiatives in the Global South. She's also a member of the RINGO Project and the initiator of the Decolonising Advisory Community.
If you’re interested to find out more about Nancy’s work, take a look here:
Hello, I'm Professor Kate Bird, and I'd like to introduce this episode of the Power Shift Decolonising Development. In today's session, I'm speaking to Nancy Kankam Kusi from WACSI, the West African Civil Society Institute, and I'm joined with my co host, Dr. Nompilo Ndlovu. So, in today's session, Nancy talks about WACSI and their work on strengthening civil society in West Africa and beyond, including their work with the Decolonising Advisory Community, which is a newly launched platform, and with RINGO, the Reimagining INGO group. There are strong messages from this episode on leading from the Majority World, on claiming space and building a decolonised development sector based on Majority World visions and capacities. And I think this episode partners well with the session by Kate Newman from INTRAC, which is episode 27 on decolonised consultancy. And also with Mavis Owusu Gyamfi, which is episode 20, and Mavis is from ACET in Ghana. And she talks about Africa led think tanks and Africa led partnerships. So, listen on for more. Welcome to the Power Shift Decolonising Development, the podcast series seeking to bring together thinkers, practitioners, and activists to share ideas, inspire change, and identify tools for practical action. I'm Professor Kate Bird, a socio economist and director of the Development Hub. Today's co host is Dr. Nompilo Ndlovu. Over to you, Nompilo.
Nompilo:
I am Dr. Nompilo Ndlovu. I am a Zimbabwean living and working in South Africa. I'm an oral historian who applies gender frameworks to my work with communities in Africa. Recent work has included involvement in a mixed method study on poverty dynamics in Zimbabwe, where I led the work on gender and marginalisation. My PhD focused on mass violence, memory and local transitional justice in post colonial Zimbabwe. Back to you, Kate.
Kate:
Thanks, Nompilo. So today we're very excited to be talking to Nancy Kankam Kusi, a Program Officer of knowledge management at the West African Civil Society Institute in Ghana. Nancy also leads a diverse team of civil society actors to initiate and implement international development programs that promote community philanthropy, shifting power and resources to the grassroots, localising and decolonising development initiatives in the Global South. She's a member also of the RINGO Project and the initiator of Decolonising Advisory Community. For more on Nancy and the work of WACSI, please click on the show notes below this episode. Now Nancy, I'm very interested to hear about WACSI and the role that WACSI is playing in civil society in Ghana and beyond. Can you tell us more about that?
Nancy:
Yes, sure. Thank you very much, Kate. And it's nice to be on this platform to have this conversation with you and your audience. So, about WACSI, WACSI is a capacity strengthening institute. So, like you said, we are based in Ghana and we started operating in 2007. Our work is basically to strengthen the sector in West Africa and also beyond, by looking at the structures, the systems, the environments, the resources, including capacities that the sector needs to be able to thrive and do their work. So, our role is more of playing a facilitating role, connecting and coordination role where we work with both organic and inorganic civil societies to give them institutional capacities, the technical skills, and technological skills that they need to do their work. We are also very interested in building knowledge capacities and repository of knowledge on civil society and the work that civil society does in the sector. And most importantly, we are very keen in influencing and advocating for an enabled environment for the global civil society work. So that's what WACSI does, and that's the role that we play in the civil society sector.
Kate:
Thank you so much for explaining that. Could you tell me, do you work beyond Ghana, or are you focused simply in Ghana?
Nancy:
So, we work beyond Ghana. Like our name is West Africa, so our primary target is West Africa civil society organisations, but because of the scope of the work that we do, we go beyond West Africa and look at the entire sector.
Kate:
Thank you so much. And I know that WACSI has been working on the decolonisation agenda for some time. Can you tell us a little bit more about WACSI's work in this area?
Nancy:
Yes, yes. So, under our work around advocacy, influencing, and seeking for an enabling environment of the civil society, the work on decolonisation and its other related issues like localisation, shifts the power, civic space really stands out for us and we focus more on these areas. So we work in this field in several angles. So one aspect is we do a lot of research, knowledge sharing around the field of decolonisation to build more knowledge on the issue and also to build capacities of people who want to know more about decolonisation and what we do. So we've had key research work. One of our research publications that we've published is on decolonisation of aid. Where we are looking at the perspective from Francophone sector. So we're looking at what does Francophone civil society organisation see decolonisation to be like. We've had other publications around localisation, decolonisation, shift the power, these three issues in West Africa. And what does it mean to civil society? So we've had a lot of research around these areas, including the research that we do around this topic under the RINGO initiative. So we build a lot of knowledge on decolonisation and to promote the decolonisation agenda. Then we also spearhead a lot of conversations, having difficult conversations about a subject matter because this is an emerging issue that requires a lot of conversations with different actors. So we have webinars, we have conferences and knowledge sharing platforms where we speak more about the topic, we speak more about the issue, and how do we navigate through that and how do we work around that. So recently, one of our novel initiatives under our work on decolonisation agenda, which is, we see it as a bigger umbrella for our enabling environment work for shifting power is the work on the Decolonising Advisory Community which came out of the RINGO project that we are doing.
Kate:
Great. Thank you so much. I'll pass over to Nompilo for the next question.
Nompilo:
Okay. I am pleased you've already started speaking to it, but expanding on your last point, could you tell us more about the Decolonising Advisory Committee, which was launched in January this year? What is it and what do you hope to achieve?
Nancy:
Okay, so, the Decolonising Advisory Community, so the name is a community that we are trying to set up or to create. The idea, like I said early on, came out of the first phase of the RINGO Project, where we were looking at finding innovations, alternatives and solutions to different ways that we can work for an equitable sector that we hope to achieve. So it was one of the innovations. The idea originally came from the Executive Director of Peace Direct, Dylan Mathews. He brought up this initiative on the need for us to create an advisory community of experts, advisors on decolonisation, and it came out on the need for us to respond to some of the issues that have been coming up in regarding to decolonisation agenda, in the aspect of paradigm shift around colonial and traditional way of doing development in the areas of capacity where knowledge is, and the imbalance in the sector of who has knowledge and who can give knowledge to who in the sector. So a number of INGOs were known to have been interested to really decolonise their practices and work. They were very keen on going through this journey to decolonise their work. But what we find out was that most of them were finding it difficult or were struggling to know who to start with, how to start, who to talk to, and they were navigating these challenges within themselves, also within the Northern civil society sector. So the Decolonising Advisory Community tries to create the platform to let the sector knows that there is knowledge, there is expertise, there is a lot of capacity in the South that can support us in this decolonisation journey. That can be a hand holding journey for INGOs who want to go through this route of decolonising their practices. So we are creating a community of advisors. We are creating a community of, I would say, consultants, a community of experts, a community of people with knowledge, with capacity, who are in the South or have lived experience of how the South work and work with local national organisations and are available to provide these kind of services to organisations, to INGOs, to funders who are struggling to journey through this or who are available and looking for consultant services and looking for support services and looking for advisory services to be able to decolonise their practices and policies. So it's just a community that we are building and beyond just building the community as a community, we are very interested in shared learning and also supporting ourselves. So there is also that platform for you to join the community and have the opportunity to connect with other advisors, other consultants in other parts of the world to create a space of peer learning, shared learning, and then we will have the opportunity to build our own capacity in this domain. So together we are going to help in decolonising the work. So it's a collaborative space, it's a peer learning space, it's a space of a community of advisors, consultants, but it's also a space for INGOs to find a refuge, to find a solution, to find an avenue for them to connect with advisors, to know who to reach out to and to help get support to decolonise their work. So, that's what we've created and we've set up this platform to be the working space for us to engage. So you can visit decolonisingadvisoryplatform.Net and join as a member and let's use that space to build a community for us to decolonise the work that we are doing.
Nompilo:
Okay, I can see you're quite passionate about this and I hope it's growing in traction. Can I just ask an additional question on the community? Am I correct in assuming that it's a community in the Global South? You kept saying it's a community in the South or it's quite global. So far your community in terms of shifting the power dynamics has people representing all different parts of the world?
Nancy:
Yes. So it's a global community, but we are more interested in Southern experts to join the community. Yes, but the community is a global community.
Nompilo:
Okay. Okay. No, that's fine. Thank you for clarifying it. I kept hearing you Southern experts. So I wondered if it was open and it was actually quite an inclusive space. Okay. All right. Nancy, you have highlighted that WACSI is a member of RINGO Reimagining International NGOs. Can you tell us a bit about that initiative? Because I see WACSI's doing several things simultaneously.
Nancy:
Yes. Okay. So, RINGO is one of the bigger umbrella initiative that we are doing that came up with a number of innovations. Like I mentioned, the Decolonising Advisory Community is a member of it. So it's basically a system change initiative that we started somewhere in 2021 with a group of experts and consultants across the world. And the idea is that we are using this initiative to transform the global civil society and the focus is on the INGOs. Because we believe that INGOs are one prominent actor in the global sector. So we focusing more on the INGOs in this domain. And what we are doing is that we believe the prominent role of the INGOs, but then also we've also come to realise that the current model that the INGO is working in has not been working and it's no longer fit for purpose. So there is a need for us to reimagining how the INGO works in terms of the structure, their power, their positioning, and the role that they are playing in the entire global civil society. So we are looking at in what ways can we work differently as a international non government organisation? That's why the name is Reimagining INGOs, because the focus is to look at the INGOs. How do we reimagine our role, our position, our structure, our models and ways of working? So, the first phase I keep talking about the first phase that we came up with some innovations. So we started with the first two years and we were looking at different options, different solutions, different innovative ways that we can propose to the INGO sector for that equitable balanced system that we want for that power to be shifted. So we had about six different innovations that include participatory grants making, models, it includes issues around language. How do we use language in the development sector, it includes issues on how do we untie the aid sector so that the funding and aid can go directly to local national organisations who are championing and leading a lot of effort in development work that we are doing. It includes the work that ADESO is doing on the pledge where I NGOs have signed on and have identified some issues that they pledged that they would like to change the way that they are doing and it includes issues on risk and accountability, difficult conversation around risks and accountability. And how do we navigate risks when we want to shift power to local national organisation? And all these innovations have been hosted by different organisations. So WACSI is hosting the Decolonising Advisory Community, we have Norsaac and Transform Trade hosting the participatory grants making. We have the Uganda National Governance Forum in Uganda, hosting the Language Innovation. Adeso is leading on the Pledge for Change. The RCRC is also leading on the risks and accountability. And the Global Fund for Community Foundation is leading on aid. So we have a lot of global allies working with RINGO. And a huge community of friends, families, communities, allies of RINGO who are supporting us to champion this initiative. So that's what we've been doing for the last two years. But recently, as we moved to the second phase, what we are doing now from last year is that with the innovation in place, there is one critical aspect that we have to look at that is looking at the influences in the sector. So the current face of RINGO is more of focusing on influencing the influences. That's how we call it. So we are actually looking at the INGO boards who are very instrumental in making decisions regarding policies and practices of the INGO sector. And we're also looking at the funder community, both the private foundation, the bilaterals, that are also very keen in terms of the work that the sector does. So we've created action pods for these separate groups. So we have an action pod for INGO boards, an action pod for funders, that is more of a peer learning space to bring board members together to navigate through what are the difficult issues that we are struggling with at the board level? What are the things that we need to change at the board level in terms of the funders? What are the things we are struggling with? What are the things we need to change? How do we change it? What are the options? What are the strategies? And the idea is that at the end of this phase, we're hoping that we get board members and some folks of the funders change some policies and some of the practices that govern the work of the INGOs at large. So that is what we are currently doing in the second phase of RINGO, and it's becoming very interesting.
Nompilo:
Next question. Where can I sign up? Go for it, Kate.
Kate:
Yeah, it's very interesting. I was just wondering if I could pitch in Nompilo and Nancy, because this all sounds so interesting, and I was just wondering two things, really. One is whether WACSI has heard of the work that INTRAC are doing to decolonise international consultancy because it sounds as though you are almost working on two sides of the same coin. So that's one thing in terms of, are you collaborating on this? And the other thing is I'm quite sure that our listeners are going to want to follow up on the many different avenues that you've identified here. And I just want to remind our listeners and viewers at this point that they should have a look at the show notes below this episode because we're going to make sure that the show notes point people in all the many directions that you've just raised. But just going back to the question about INTRAC and rethinking international consultancy, could you just outline the relationship that you have with INTRAC or if you have one?
Nancy:
Yes, we do have a close relationship with INTRAC. I think INTRAC and WACSI's work are always hand in hand, so we collaborate a lot on many fronts and INTRAC is a key supporter of the Decolonising Advisory Community platform, including Adeso because Adeso has a consultancy work on decolonising advisory services that is also collaborating with us to create community. So we are not working in isolation. We are working together. So INTRAC, Adeso, WACSI, Peace Direct and other key actors in the sector are co working with us in creating this platform. And we also working with INTRAC in different angles in relations to the work on consultancy services and engaging with how do we work with consultants to facilitate shared learning. Most of our work, it's closely connected, so we engage a lot with INTRAC.
Kate:
Thank you so much. Back to you, Nompilo.
Nompilo:
Yeah, this is actually amazing. And I'm really pleased to see just the collaborative and global networks that WACSI is part of, and believe it will actually be very impactful work. I was Intrigued by the INGO pledge, and I'm going to follow up on that to see how it catches traction over time. And really, really like that focus on policy in your phase two, just also means that at this point, not only are we reimagining INGOs, we also start giving ideas that can also influence policy because then it also sets a longer term trend for change in the future. That's wonderful. My last question, Nancy. Thank you for sharing your ideas with us today. As we close, can you identify a practical step that our listeners and viewers can take to support decolonisation and shifting power, whether they are members of the engaged general public or work in the development sector.
Nancy:
Okay, so I'll share just three things, three ideas. So the first one is that we are inviting all Southern actors. If you are anywhere in the Global South and you have lived in this sector, you've worked in this sector, you are working with local national organisation or your social movement and you have a wealth of experience available to support, drive the decolonisation agenda, we are inviting you to join the community, that's the Decolonising Advisory Community, because that is a space for you to really use your knowledge, your expertise to really impact organisations and make transformation happen. So we are inviting you to join that community. So that's my first idea. The second thing is also to INGOs to fund this, to organisations who are in the sector, who are now starting the journey to work on the way that they can decolonise their work. So, know that knowledge and capacity do not only lie in the North. We are now finding different ways to dismantling where knowledge sits, where capacity is, who give knowledge, who give capacity. So there is a wealth of knowledge, experience and capacity in the South that we need to all co embrace to work together. So we should open up. That's what I would like to say. We should open up. We shouldn't be restricted. We should trust and open up and identify and find and connect with a lot of knowledge, expertise and experiences that the Global South has to offer INGOs, funders as we journey to shift the power and also decolonise our work. And lastly, I'm also a researcher, so I will not really say anything without talking about documenting knowledge and sharing our knowledge, because it's very important. Most of the times, we have a lot of knowledge, we have a lot of experiences, and we are not sharing. The work on decolonising is a journey. It's not going to be fixed, today, tomorrow, next year, or in the next three years. But then we can facilitate that long term impact if we keep on documenting the different innovations, the different indigenous ways, the different practices that is available, and it works. That's people can use to also start changing the way that they work. So I would really advocate for us to put a lot of energy and emphasis on documenting our experiences, documenting our knowledge, documenting all the things that we know are working in the sector, in your organisation. If you've tested a model and it's working well is the opportunity for you to capture these and document and share so that we have a repository of something to build on, to learn from, and also to shift power across the Global South. Thank you.
Nompilo:
What does one say after that? The enthusiasm is infectious and it's really inspiring work. Kate, do you have anything to say to close us off?
Kate:
No, I would just like to thank Nancy and thank WACSI for the work that they're doing. I think this is great. And as Nompilo has already said, what I find particularly encouraging is that you're building alliances and you're building connections and you're creating a platform for not just Southern activists, but professionals who are wanting to take forwards the shift the power movement into practical ways of supporting the decolonisation process. And you're looking at really practical ways of supporting INGOs and others to shift their practice. So, I'm very interested in what you're doing and I'm going to make sure that the show notes for this episode signpost people very clearly so that they can follow up on the practical steps that you and WACSI are doing. So I'd just like to thank you for your work.
Nancy:
Thank you so much for this platform to be able to share. It's very important, and I think once we're able to connect with different spaces like this to share we're able to send a message far and get more people, more collaborators, more alliance to work with us. Because sometimes you may be working with a lot of alliance, but there are others that are also there that could be attracted by some platforms like this and a podcast like this. So thank you Development Hub for setting this up, it's a very beautiful space, a very educative space. And I love the wealth of knowledge that you are documenting through this podcast to support the work that we are doing in the development sector.
Kate:
Thank you so much. And I'd encourage our listeners and viewers to have a look at our online resources as well, because with every person who we speak to, we get their recommended readings and we're pulling them together as a resource list. So do take a look at that if you haven't done already. So thanks again, Nancy, and thank you for joining me as co host, Nompilo, and bye for now.