Road from Bogotá
On December 5-7 2023, the #ShiftThePower Summit took place in Bogotá, Colombia. This Summit, organised by the Global Fund for Community Foundations, brought together 700 people from different parts of the world to strengthen their collective efforts in re-imagining and reshaping the international funding system. The #ShiftThePower movement, which has its origins in the Global Summit for Community Philanthropy in 2016, seeks to tip the balance of power towards local people by advancing new ways of “doing development” that centre dignity, equity and trust and recognise the resources and inherent power of communities.
Dutch perspective
Inspired by this movement, many conversations about the need to address systemic power imbalances and decolonise international cooperation have taken place in the Netherlands over the past years, leading to several practical initiatives both at the sector and organisational levels. Yet, we must ask ourselves: are we doing enough to fundamentally change the system of international cooperation?
Join us
Partos and Wilde Ganzen warmly invite senior leadership of Partos members, as well as other organisations, to join us in an open and bold conversation to jointly reflect on the future of Dutch organisations and our role in bringing about a more equitable system of international cooperation, centering communities and their aspirations, abilities and resources.
This meeting is part of a series of “weaving conversations” around the Summit and is organised to connect the dots between the #ShiftThePower movement and the Dutch sector of international cooperation. We will be joined by Jenny Hodgson, Executive Director of the Global Fund for Community Foundations, and hear from other people who attended the Summit. In addition, the findings of a recent academic research will be presented (conducted by universities from Ghana, Uganda, the UK and the Netherlands and supported by Partos), which has explored what actions are being taken to shift power, by whom, and to what effect.