Building trust and flexible partnerships driven by local actors. Shilpa Alva interviewed.

In this week’s episode, we talk to Shilpa Alva about Surge for Water’s model of partnership with community led organisations to address the global water crisis. Shilpa speaks about the importance of building trust and elevating the voice of community led organisations.

Shilpa tells us about centering the social context and cultural norms of the communities they partner with to establish long term relationships. We also talk about maintaining an open dialogue with local partners and creating a flexible space for partnerships to change driven by the local partners’ vision.

We speak about partnership models that make space for a responsible exit strategy that generates long-term revenue for local organisations.

Shilpa is the founder and Executive Director of Surge for Water, a nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the cycle of poverty through access to safe water and sanitation solutions. Since its founding 15 years ago, Surge has impacted hundreds of thousands of lives across 12 countries. Shilpa’s journey didn’t start in the International Development World. After graduating from Johns Hopkins University with a Chemical Engineering degree, she joined the corporate world and earned her MBA from the University of Minnesota. After a successful corporate career, she made the choice to transition to running Surge full time.

If you’re interested to find out more about Shilpa’s work, take a look here:

• Surge for Water website
• Surge for Water LinkedIn
• Surge for Water Instagram
• Surge for Water Twitter
• Shilpa Alva LinkedIn 

Transcript

Kate: 0:00

Hello, I'm Professor Kate Bird, and I'd like to welcome you to this week's episode of the Power Shift Decolonising Development. In this week's episode, we talk to Shilpa Alva about Surge for Water's model of partnership with community led organisations to address the global water crisis. Shilpa speaks about the importance of building trust and elevating the voice of community led organisations. She tells us about centering the social context and cultural norms of the communities that they partner with to establish long term relationships. We also talk about maintaining an open dialogue with local partners and creating a flexible space for partnership to change, driven by the local partner's vision. We speak about partnership models that make space for a responsible exit strategy that generate long term revenue for local organisations. 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. Unfortunately, my co host, Dr. Nompilo Ndlovu, is unable to join us today. But I'd like to introduce you to Shilpa Alva. We're very excited to be talking to Shilpa today. She's the founder and executive director of Surge for Water, a non profit organisation dedicated to addressing the cycle of poverty through access to safe water and sanitation solutions. Since its founding 15 years ago, Surge has impacted on hundreds of thousands of lives across 12 countries. Shilpa's journey didn't start in the international development world. After graduating from John Hopkins University with a chemical engineering degree, she joined the corporate world and earned her MBA from the University of Minnesota. After a successful corporate career, she made the choice to transition into running Surge full time. For more on Shilpa and her work, and the work of Surge, click on the show notes below this episode. Now Shilpa, for our first question, could you tell the audience about the kind of work that you do at Surge?

Shilpa: 2:00

Yes, thank you for having me. I'm grateful for this opportunity and to talk about Surge's work and our model. So at Surge, we partner with community led organisations around the world. And we work with local leaders who run these organisations to develop and implement solutions that help solve the global water crisis. So we're looking at anything from water access and purification to toilets, primarily in schools and healthcare facilities. And then we also cover the hygiene space, which includes training, but also soap making and the maintenance of the water and sanitation solutions. And then the final piece of our work, which kind of enhances our woman centered, woman led model is the menstrual health education and resource provision. So working with adolescent girls primarily on the changes in their body, agency, different stigma and social taboos that they may be going through, as well as production of reusable pads and other materials that can help them through those periods. So, water, sanitation, hygiene, and menstrual health. We're currently active in three countries, Indonesia, Haiti and Uganda.

Kate: 3:09

Thank you so much, Shilpa. So that's a very holistic approach to water and sanitation. It's very interesting to hear that. And from a previous conversation that we've had, I know that you've got a very particular approach to working in partnerships as an organisation. Can you tell us more about that and particularly the role that Surge plays in these partnerships?

Shilpa: 3:27

Yeah, so it's been really intentional with the way we've designed this organisation that, you know, while we've worked in 12 countries and we're active in the three that we are in right now, that we are not Surge Indonesia, Surge for Water Haiti and Surge for Water Uganda. And yes, there's all the legal implications of setting up in those places, but that's not been the driver. The driver has been really understanding our role in this space and what we've discovered it or identified it to be is finding these amazing, beautifully run, powerfully run organisations. You know, Florence Ringe running her organisation POPOW in Uganda, or Pak Gatot and Ibu Anit running YLRA in Indonesia, Dr. Erol in Haiti, and they have these incredible visions for their own community. They're from these lands self described as forgotten land kind of area. It's very rural, very remote, and they understand their people. They understand, you know, the political environment, the business environment, the civil society around there. And we've been blessed or grateful to have met them along this journey and really help partner with them on their vision for what development looks like in the water sanitation space, in the WASH space, for what we're concerned with and that's been instrumental in our growth, how we work, everything that we do is based on these partnerships that first of all, trust is probably the biggest element of that, both ways. Like we have to trust them, but more so even they've got to trust us. Right. We've got their backs and we're not trying to come in and take over the organisations, there's many different aspects where the trust goes both ways, and then once that's established, because we have a strong foundation of trust with all our partners, it's really like meeting each other with as much equality and breaking down power structures, all of those kinds of things at the table in those conversations, and really letting them take the driving seat in the designing of what kind of water solutions do you want? Where should they be? Like, what kinds of technology should we bring in? And our role has been very much being their voice in fundraising conversations and in resource generation help because we have exposure to a much larger funding base. So elevating their stories, their voice, their agenda, and then also sharing best practices that we've learned in other parts of the world or in other areas. And giving them the choice of whether they want to implement that or not, so really being that liaison in many ways and really making sure that they're the center of their solutions and also driving it so that it's really centered around their communities and understanding those deep cultural and social nuances and there's so many layers and stories we can share and talk about, why this kind of work is being is important to do in this way.

Kate: 6:03

Thank you. So, I can see that particularly when working on sanitation, it's really important to understand social context and culture and norms and so on. And I've seen lots of projects where that kind of understanding hasn't been there, and long term maintenance hasn't been considered, and the projects ultimately have failed as a result. So you have, from what I understand, you have a long term relationship with these partners. You don't just parachute in and then parachute out again. Typically, how long do these partnerships continue? And when do you or your partners decide to bring them to a close? How does that process work?

Shilpa: 6:44

Yeah, so it varies. Currently the three partnerships we have, one is very new. We just started in Indonesia. So that's like three years old. We started in 2021. Our Haiti partnership is the longest. It's probably 12, 13 years. And it's interesting. There's an open dialogue with us and our partners. We're constantly talking about, are we adding value, what the situation is, what the need is. There's many layers, right? When you're thinking about this kind of work, we only want to be there from when we're adding value. So one of the partnerships that we did exit a few years ago was in the Dominican Republic. Because we helped our partner create a self sustaining model where they could generate revenue through the WASH initiatives, the water access and purification initiatives we had, and they no longer needed us. But we worked on that. We planned that, we strategised, we ensured when we left that they were in a good place to continue. And we also left an open door to come back if we needed to expand or do something in the Dominican Republic again, because it was a beautiful relationship, a strong relationship. But it ran its course and was no longer needed for multiple reasons. And we both came to that decision and we talked about it. And we transitioned out of that. Now, interestingly, in Uganda right now, we've been really successful. Our local partner is incredible, just does phenomenal work. And we've been noticing some of the two districts we work in there in Kaberamaido and Kalaki in rural Uganda, in the Northeastern part. We've been saturating a lot of the reach from a water perspective. And so we had this conversation actually end of last year, early this year with our local partner. They were like, hey, how about we move together into the next district, which is Amolatar, which is the next neighboring district in the northern part of the country. And that made sense. So right there, the partnership is now growing into something else. It's evolving, driven by the local partners vision. And we had some honest conversations where they really enjoy the partnership with us because of the freedom and the flexibility and the trust, because they're really driving the agenda. And then we're taking that information and giving it the loudest possible voice that it can get to bring the funding and to bring the resources in, their reputation has been growing within the country. On the national scale, they're getting access to funding for other work that they do beyond the water sanitation hygiene space so we've just seen that that currently doesn't have an end in sight, but also when we're thinking about exit, you ask a really good question because we also are very cognisant of the fact of not creating a dependency, right? So we also have in our strategic plan that when we're getting close to those exit times, what we did in the Dominican Republic, we want to replicate. We definitely want to leave with our partners some sort of revenue generation model. And the idea we have right now that we're planning for, we're not actively doing it because we're not there, we're not at that current stage with the existing partners we have, is all of our solutions right now, small percentage that's not in this category, are community based solutions versus it being household. And it takes a very different type of model to reach household water purification or water access in the places we're working in. We're of the belief that in order to access those hundreds and thousands of people within even the communities we serve with household solutions, you might need a market based solution, an enterprise solution. And we don't have the capacity right now, but that would be something cool to leave with the partners. Right? And then that brings them revenue, because now they're selling the water filters, they're selling the household toilets or the work involved with it. We can help set up that infrastructure because we've had that experience. And then that money continues to help them with the monitoring, the maintenance, the things that need to be done long after the well is drilled or the toilet is built. So that's our vision for future exits. We're in the depths of all these partnerships at the moment, so not in those active conversations.

Kate: 10:24

Thank you for explaining that. I know that responsible exit is something that people who are thinking about decolonising development from the INGO world are kind of wrestling with quite a lot, which is why I asked that particular question. But other things that international NGOs and other organisations thinking about decolonising development are thinking about is something that you touched on earlier in the conversation when you were talking about risk and the perception of risk between your country level partners and yourselves. And risk comes up a lot in conversations about effective and transparent partnerships. But so do things like reporting and the control of funding and evaluation and monitoring and the direction of reporting. And I just wonder if you could tell us a little bit about how your partnerships deal with those kind of knotty issues.

Shilpa: 11:20

Yeah, that continues to be a challenge because we also are not putting those metrics in place. A lot of times, we're receiving funds from foundations and donors that have their own monitoring and evaluation frameworks that we need to report to, right? And that's a much larger conversation about the whole space needs to change and have more trust in the people who know what's happening and how they're implementing, right? So sometimes, often, not even sometimes, we don't have choices because we're also recipients of funding and have to meet certain obligations. When we have those beautiful funding partners who are trusting us and trusting our model, and then we don't have to report in a certain way, that's when we are able to have the more fun conversations with our partners of like, hey, what do you want to measure? And it's actually quite interesting. Sometimes we've found that they'll come out with crazy number of metrics. This is a lot of work. We don't need this. Do you really need this many metrics? So even without putting in like the external view of this is all the stuff that we're asking for, in some situations, we've given our partners the choice of what do you want to record? It's been sometimes excessive, but then we can have these conversations of like, what do we really need? What can we support, or actually manage in terms of why are we monitoring this? And so those have been really great, collaborative conversations. And I think we will continue to work on that. And help develop those kinds of projects. And then the other thing that it's really what we've been trying to do, and this is, I think, and we've been shifting more and more in this direction, like we just had one of our largest grant applications for Indonesia that we had to submit about a month ago, and more money than we've ever raised from Indonesia. And the first thing that we did, even before applying for the grant, we were looking at the budget and the level was get on Zoom with our Indonesian partner and be like, how do you want to use this money, right? We knew it was a school initiative because that aligned with the grantors requirements. But public schools, private schools, elementary, secondary, or preschool, and why and what are these initiatives and what kinds of solutions you want to focus on and it was really beautiful and they helped with the entire structure of the staffing plan and we were able to work on those numbers together and it just feels really good to be partnering on that from the beginning versus here's the money and here's the requirements, please go implement. And having them along on that journey taught us so much in our role and, you know, representing them, but also that excitement, right? Now they're waiting as eagerly for this collaborative thing that we did together for this response, which should be coming this week. So that was a really cool approach. And then a lot of times we do get designated funding because that's still very much at least our space and the size of the org we are. So what we try to do in the designated funding is give our partners the full landscape. So even if we know from a cycle of funding perspective, we may not get to this project because of just basic practical cash flow management sort of things, we give them the whole scope, as soon as we have, we give them as much visibility of budgets, of numbers. And so they can also plan and they can design their workflow so we've been getting better and better I think. It's still a journey. Unfortunately, we're also dependent on cycles of funding, but I'd love to get to a space where we're designing everything. They're designing everything. And then we're just like going after that budget. But right now we're still working with the mix of them designing and their needs versus funding coming in that's pre designated and then working towards that. But yeah, our approach has always been share all the information, put it on the table and let them be part of this experience with us, the ups and the downs, the disappointments and the successes.

Kate: 14:45

It's really interesting. So what comes through from what you've just said is the value you give to transparency and what strikes me is how respectful that is of your partners, and you're actually giving them dignity in the partnership. And there's genuine space for local leadership. Localisation is talked about a lot. But the way that you are implementing these projects is actually enabling your partner organisations to genuinely lead on the design, the implementation, the monitoring, and so on, not just implementing a model that you've designed in some back room in wherever. But also something that strikes me is that you are still constrained by the ecosystem that you are part of and that a lot of change needs to happen upstream of you in order for you to implement more fully the form of partnership that you would like to. So I would like to ask you to reflect on the links that you see between the approach that you take in partnership, the way that you're working as Surge, and the decolonisation agenda, because that's how we're framing this conversation on this podcast. And I'd like you to think about why Surge has taken that approach rather than perhaps a more conventional one.

Shilpa: 16:04

Yeah. So, when I was exposed to and I started understanding that Surge is part of this international aid world, I'm not even sure if that's the right way to refer to it, but this world that we're part of is an extension of colonisation, right? I think it was, first of all, that understanding of, right, we're part of this, like whether we like it or not, when you're an international organisation working in a country that you don't belong in, what is your role? And really having this deep reflective process of why we exist and I didn't go through that, there's definitely that thinking that we did internally as an organisation, but very soon in that conversation, we went to our local partners and asked them questions too about our partnership, power dynamic structure and just educated myself a lot with thought leaders in this space and understanding, right? How the space is structured, these colonial systems of power, right, especially in frameworks of healthcare or water access, these things that are infrastructure that a lot of people need and how we act or don't act can perpetuate one way or the other. So understanding our role in it and that we could either continue with the conventional approach and have this minority led population leading stuff. And then if you really, it just seemed like it made sense for us, because the way we built our partnerships before I even knew this language, right, also just building trust. So that already existed and understanding this whole colonisation space and then the decolonisation lens of it, it seemed like, okay, we seem to already be on the path to be doing things the right way, but let's go even further, right? Let's look at the steps that we can take, are we truly community led and community driven? What does that mean? Are we using the right language? Like, how are we referring to the people who are benefiting, are they beneficiaries of program partners, so everything, like the language that goes into it, how are the solutions being implemented, how are we sharing budgets, what kinds of salaries are you paying? And so we went through this and we continue to go through it and I don't even see it as a choice, honestly, once you see, you can't unsee kind of thing. I don't see there being another option of the way to do this work. If we want to do it in the right way, in the respectful way, and in a way that doesn't perpetuate colonial structures. And I don't think by any means, we've got it absolutely right. I think we'll still evolve and learn because of constraints we have and also just learnings and unlearnings that we have to do, but to me, it's taking this whole space of decolonisation that can seem complex and seem like it costs a lot or be unapproachable for certain organisations, especially maybe if you're smaller and then recognising there's only one way to go forward here and that is to trust, to respect, to really minimise our power, to understand your role in this, minimise ego, all of these kinds of things. And continuing to check myself every day. I was in a conversation yesterday with the country director, my equal in Uganda and she asked the staffing question. And I responded emotionally with my thoughts on the question she asked and I was like, oh no, I shouldn't have done that because there's still inherent power in the way I'm sharing my opinion and then immediately after that I'm like Florence, but it's your decision, even though I know I shared quite emotionally what I thought. And then we had a conversation about it, but I realised I have to create that space too, right? In the end, I'm human. And I responded with my feelings right away and my thoughts on this question. But that has power in there, right? Because we are providing the funding for these salaries. And so if I'm saying I'm not in agreement, that is going to influence her decision. And I didn't want that, right? I really want it to be her decision. So those things constantly, when that happens, recognising it and trying to not do that again, recognising also you're human in the end and we just have to be better. And that's a process.

Kate: 19:31

Yeah, I absolutely agree. It's a process. And tomorrow's always another day and it's a matter of reflecting and learning. And I think if we can manage that kind of reflexivity, then we can all improve the work that we do and the way that we do it. So just sort of moving on, you as an organisation take a long time to build and maintain effective partnerships. You put a lot of effort into it and that comes across very clearly in the way that you talk about your partnerships. So you build these effective partnerships and you work to support community based activities. So you're very mindful about the way you do that. Staff in larger INGOs and in bilateral donors are put under a lot of pressure to keep administrative and transaction costs low. So do you think that the approach that you use can be scaled up and used in larger programs that are funded by these INGOs and bilateral donors? So benefiting more people, perhaps at the national level. You've been talking about working in two districts in Uganda and you're wanting to expand into another district, but for larger donors, perhaps they could have a nationwide program covering the whole of a country. But can that be done while maintaining the quality of partnerships in your opinion, or is there a kind of compromise and a muddling through that needs to be done?

Shilpa: 20:50

Yeah, so this is something we think about a lot. We grew 70 percent in revenue just this last year. And so that's what we're even looking at expansion and unfortunately in this iteration of expansion, it's the same partners. But of course we recognise that as more growth comes to us, if that's the journey we're on, we're going to keep adding new partners, right? So this is something we think about a lot. And as you ask this question, I think about it from multiple angles, right? One is what are the costs of doing things the way we are doing it? For me, it's actually more cost effective because you've got local actors, local activists and workers, leaders, every level leading the work in their own community, speaking their own tribal languages versus having someone come from a different city within that country or internationally, which is still happening quite a lot in our space. So really, when you're looking at large international bureaus, and many are still modeled this way where you have foreign people or even people educated in a different part of the country or regional area coming in, there's a huge cost there. So if the money was invested in a way that supported the capacity strengthening of the locals at that micro level, you're just creating more of this environment or self sustaining infrastructure that continues to do that. So that's one angle. I guess I don't subscribe to this cost model. I'd want to challenge that if ever anybody had the numbers. Cause obviously I don't know that model. We've always done it this way. And if we bring in external experts, we try to still go as local as possible. Like not bring in someone from another country, because there are reasons we would need to do that depending on the technology. So that's one aspect. And then as you think about, just look at how long our aid world has been around and it's not working and something's got to change. And to me, I think what's not been working needs to be broken down and we need to try something else. Like clearly the issues are not getting solved. And I have these heart to heart conversations with Florence Ringe in Uganda, and she'll say things like if all partnerships were like ours, there'd be no more poverty in Africa, right? She'll say these bold statements. And of course, we don't know if that's true. Because there's many, many, many layers, but she's also come from the world of working with large INGOs and recognising the differences and we've got to do something differently, right? So what we have been doing has not created enough of a change fast enough. When you're looking at Sustainable Development Goals and all of these kinds of things, something's got to change. And I feel like with the way the world is moving and the more knowledge we're getting, and we're looking into being anti racist and you're looking into the legacy of things that have been done centuries ago, decades ago, and things like that. We have to make harder decisions and be bolder and try different things because I don't think how it has been going has worked so to me, I feel like this is the right way to be doing stuff and I think even when you're talking about large organisations, you know, I've had conversations with large INGOs and they've said things like yeah, we've completely decentralised our structure and we've done this localisation thing. And then you ask more questions about what that means. You still have top down power, they've just put it in a regional office in East Africa or something like that. And so you're really asking where are you working? And where are you doing this stuff? And I don't know, I'm not satisfied with those responses yet because it has to be truly decentralised and truly localised. And then your final question about will the quality of partnerships change. And I think about going back to the trust conversation or risk or any of those things, I value the beauty and this love and this connection that we have in our partners. They're really part of my extended family. And of course, that's not going to be the case. It doesn't mean that just because we don't have that, there's other ways, right? There's maybe quantitative ways or other ways to build partnerships that don't have all of that warm, fuzzy feeling of oh, we're so close and we're in this together. So there is a compromise. I do think that quality of partnerships will change if you're doing this in a different way, but that's still okay. You can still achieve the same results, right? You can still have basic measurements in place to make sure the money is going to... it all comes under trust, right? It comes down to other pieces that need to be built, but there might be some of that strength of that partnership that's minimised, but that shouldn't deter against doing things the right way, where you're giving full agency and power to the locals to deliver their own solutions just because we feel uncomfortable because the partnership is not the same that it used to be in my first three to four partnerships. So that's what I'd like to believe. Of course, I think that would be a very hard journey as you go through that, right? And constant evolution for us as a person and as an organisation. But I think the experiences we've had so far and the lessons we've learned of how to identify partnerships and build them, I feel are quite easily replicated. Because they're based on certain values, right? it's a frame of how we did it. It's not just done. There was a lot of thought put into it and that part can be replicated.

Kate: 25:26

Okay, thank you so much. I'm thinking about another way in which the kind of quality of the work you do, can be expanded, scaled up, so that it meets the needs of a whole population, and that is through working with government. And I know from a previous conversation that your partner organisations liaised carefully with both their local and national governments. To what extent do you think that governments are able to adopt the approaches developed by your partners, and then spread the benefits more widely?

Shilpa: 26:01

So I think that governments partnering with us and adopting what we do or vice versa, if they have something that works, is instrumental to actually drive institutional larger level change. And I think it comes down to different factors, right? Governments change and as changes happen, you have different views. So, you have to deal with that. And the biggest thing that we've typically seen is budgetary restrictions, right? Because a lot of times you still need money to train and do these other practical aspects of the program. What I can say is because of the way we have worked and how closely we work with local governments that can influence national agendas because they're all part of larger meetings and larger districts form sub regions and sub regions go into the larger framework of the countries, and work through our local partners has been elevating. Uganda has been one of the longest, most holistic programming work that's active right now. Over there, our local partner is so closely tied in with the government that they have actually been elected, kind of chosen by the government to be the official like NGO that oversees WASH programming in those districts. And because of that, the neighboring governments of the district we're planning to expand into comes to them, comes to us to be like, please come work here as well. And they know the way we work, they see the quality of the work, they see the differences in the toilets that we've built versus the ones that the government has funding for, the care with the drills or all of those different elements. They've been able to see that and incorporate it. I'd say that may not have happened as formally, but definitely in the informal spaces. So I think the next step is we are growing and our partners grow with us, right? Because we were able to fund more and provide more resources and strengthen in their capacity. The next step that we think about is how do we help the government as well. And one of the initiatives that we're currently doing in Uganda, and we want to do this in Haiti and Indonesia as well, that we've started in Uganda, is we're partnering with another international NGO that's working on a huge government map, an initiative to map out basically every water source that exists in the country, but the government is not funding it. So they're partnering with all these different NGOs to be doing it at the district level. And it's all online, on the cloud, GPS enabled and would be a big step up from what currently is the system at the government level. And it's all these NGOs coming together that are funding this program, including us for the districts we work in, because I see that as a gift actually. And a continued way if you're really thinking about leaving something sustainable, it goes back to the exit conversation we had as well. We're not going to be there forever, but we can leave this amazing roadmap of all the water infrastructure there and the latest status on it. And through this program, also training government officials, and we're funding it for the districts we're in, they're trained on this collection and the continued maintenance of it way beyond even the water sources we've done. And if multiple organisations can do that, then the government owns these water sources, let's hand it over to them, and that's a very cool example of how you can enhance and even help with these initiatives knowing that there are budgetary constraints and there's other resource constraints and they were so happy to be part of it because it was funded and they gave us the resources and the people out there doing the work and things like that are how we're really trying to get some of the ways we work adopted at a national level starting with the districts we're in. I think I want to recognise too that, I mean, Haiti is a great example of this, right? Like sometimes when we're talking about helping things on like a national level to help more people, I also try to put on the lens and the hat or whatever you want to call it, of the culture and the people within the country. I think of our local partner in Haiti and how they work and they don't have this particular partner, at least, doesn't have this agenda of wanting to reach the whole country, right? They want to work in this small region and then that government wants to support their region. And I guess also just understanding our limitations and not trying to take on so much that it also becomes colonial in a way, right? Like you really have to also understand your limitations, your partner's limitations, your partner's vision, and then, how that feeds into the larger scheme of things.

Kate: 29:57

Thank you. That was a very comprehensive answer and I think it gave us a good picture of how you have a kind of two way relationship with the governments in the countries that you work with, brokered by your partners and led by your partners. That was very interesting. Shilpa, I'd like to really thank you for joining us on the podcast today and sharing your ideas and your insights. To finish up, I wonder if you can identify a practical step that our listeners and viewers can take to decolonise, localise, or shift power in their professional practice.

Shilpa: 30:29

Yeah. So I think that we did this or a charity or anybody else who's listening is running an NGO, regardless of the size, I think that the steps that we took would be something that I would recommend to others. The first thing is the fact that you're listening to this podcast and following this organisation in general is a good step because you're educating yourself, but I think just doing an inventory, right? Self reflection on the power structures within your organisation. And that's very practical, right? Like, how are you paying, where are decisions made, where are the budget conversations happening, are you doing strategic planning in a silo, right? You can think about the key elements of your organisation. How are you fundraising? Are you telling stories ethically? What kinds of language? All of this inventory, doing the self reflection of your own space and giving yourself that score hopefully with your board or your team, your trusted people internally. And then the next step that we did after we did that was going to all of our partners. And we did it in writing and I recognise even when we did it, that was a power imbalance and even asking those questions, right? Because we are funding them and you're asking questions where you want them to be very honest. And we had conversations after that, but I sent it to them. I had in writing asking questions about the power between us, what choices do they think they can make? What do they think is directed by us? And it was really great. Everyone responded almost immediately. They were excited to have the conversation and saying things like we never thought of this. I've never asked this before. And just discussing ways of yeah, we want to be better. And we want you to call us out and this really has to be the situation. Yeah, that self reflection and then with partners or even if you don't have a partnership model, and it's your own staff, the power dynamic between you and your country staff, right? What are those kinds of questions if you truly want to and believe in the model that truly localising is one of the biggest ways to decolonise. That worked for us and is working for us. And then I'd say the final step that we're still actively going through, which I highly recommend is to continue to check that ego and that power and understand that no matter what I'm saying or doing, that I still have this inherent power when we're working with our partners, recognising that in conversations, recognising that in the way we work and the way you show up in those countries in those meetings, and how do you continue to minimise that and allow for that true space for the locals to be leading and having full agency and power and control over the work that they're doing.

Kate: 32:46

Thank you Shilpa. Thank you for joining us today and for guiding us through and providing a deeper understanding of the partnerships that you have and the work that you do. Thank you very much.