UN/LIKEMINDS

Rethinking innovation and transformational funding for community-led organizations in the Global South

Only 2% of global development funding goes directly to community-led organizations in the Global South. The median annual revenue of women’s rights organizations in South and Southeast Asia is USD24,000. For those based in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is half that.

We have been watering the leaves, but starving the roots in global development. The leaves, the individual short-term projects, have been receiving funding. But we have not systematically invested in the roots: the local organizations who are at the very heart of designing, implementing and sustaining these projects and programs.

With Unlikeminds, we explored together with community-led organizations from different regions and disciplines:

— What does innovation mean for organizations in resource-constraint contexts?

— How do we leverage innovation to shift power in the development sector?

— How do we shift from funding projects to funding system transformation?

— How do we shift the focus of innovation away from methods to mindsets and culture?

— How do we enable employees to proactively lead on innovation? What organizational systems and capabilities are needed to facilitate this?

The work resulted in strategic inputs for the community-led organizations involved and co-created open source toolkits.

Partners: YUWA Nepal, Youth Action Nepal, independent development experts in Kenya, India, Uganda and Nigeria

Funding: self-funded