While preparing to speak at an online discussion on decolonising the aid sector, I searched Google Translate for a corresponding word for 'decolonisation’ in my native language of Urdu. I couldn’t find one. In many other languages, from Arabic to Spanish, only a loanword exists. It’s just one example of how the discussion on decolonisation rarely centres the colonised.
Decolonisation is fast becoming a buzzword for those who are critically examining the practices and objectives of the international aid industry along with many other sectors. It is seen as the way to “shift” the narratives of development aid from powerful aid agencies and international non-governmental organisations, to those they claim to work with in the Global South.
But the discussion around the decolonisation of aid practices is, in reality, extremely one-sided and Western-centric. It rarely includes the perspectives of those in the Global South. Many of us in the South do not agree with or relate to this terminology. In fact, we see it as a further imposition of a white saviour complex, with the powerful West once again deciding what is good for us and how this must be done.
