A playbook for decolonising aid

Category: Strategy Design | Tool Type: Playbook

The global public health space is governed by written and unwritten rules. The rules are obvious to some but not all – they are often impenetrable, managed by global gatekeepers who set policies, govern outbreak response and make recommendations for countries to apply. 

There is a premise that permeates many institutions in the international aid space: that the solutions to solve the health challenges of low and middle income countries probably exist outside their borders and in the knowledge and know-how of foreign experts. 

Can we reimagine ways to create the conditions for the rules to be written by those impacted most? 

What if we could design a process that transferred the power and agency over health outcomes to the people who are affected most by them? What if we had the courage to look to them more systematically for the solutions? 

This playbook was born out of our experience designing the Call Far Change Kenya – a different way to run an innovation challenge (see case study). It doesn’t include all of the plays that it should, but it includes a mix of learnings, applications and inspiration on how to move this localisation agenda forward. It won’t tell us what play to run every time, but we hope it is a small contribution to solving some of the challenges that have been holding us back from achieving equitable global public health.