If the development sector is serious about decolonisation, it must stop confusing optics with real, transformational change, argues Awssan Kamal.
Over the past decade, the humanitarian and development sector pledged to decolonise itself. Shamed by its colonial roots and inequities, international NGOs began reshaping their leadership profiles, relocating global roles from traditional Northern centres to Nairobi, Amman, or Johannesburg. Global South leaders were hired into positions once held almost exclusively in places like London, Geneva, or Washington. It was framed as progress, a move to shift power, diversify decision-making, and build a more just and representative sector.
But what if we got it wrong?
Not in principle: but in practice!
As INGOs now face deep funding cuts and strategic contractions, many of the very leaders championed as symbols of reform are being laid off, demoted, or quietly edged out. Structures are recentralising. Regional offices are shuttering. And some of the same organisations that once touted “shifting the centre of gravity” are back to business as usual – this time with fewer Southern voices in the room.
‘The system cannot have it both ways. It cannot demand the credibility of lived experience without relinquishing the control that keeps such experience marginal.’
The system, it seems, is retreating. And those brought in to help transform it are being left behind.
For many Global South leaders, these global roles came with enormous pressure. They were asked to fix broken systems while operating within those very systems under resourced, under-connected, and often without the institutional power their Northern counterparts and predecessors enjoyed. They were expected to lead global programmes, policy platforms, or governance processes from afar, without the budgets, networks, or political capital that came with being embedded in Northern centres of influence.
In doing so, many were pulled away from their regional ecosystems: the very spaces where their leadership had once been deeply rooted. They built global teams, cultivated cross-border relationships, and carried the weight of representation. But when the sector began to contract, these roles are sometimes among the first to go. Not because of performance, but because they were never structurally protected in the first place. It’s a harsh irony: leaders who were held up as symbols of change have become some of the most expendable in a time of crisis.
Where are the decisions really made?
Let us be blunt: much of what passed for “decolonisation” was in fact superficial tinkering. Jobs were moved not power. People were showcased not supported. The sector adopted the language of transformation, but clung tightly to the purse strings, the risk registers, and the real decision-making levers.
What was promised as a shift in gravity often amounted to a cost-saving measure wrapped in progressive rhetoric. We watched as radical leadership was invited in, only to be bound by bureaucracies that refused to budge. Meanwhile, lived experience was quietly repackaged as “added value” rather than expertise in its own right.
And here lies a deeper rot: lived experience is not a branding tool. Diaspora and Southern leaders are not there to humanise board meetings or tick equity boxes. Their contributions analytical, political, technical must be paid for, not politely borrowed. Otherwise, the very people once marginalised by the sector are again instrumentalised, this time in the name of “decolonisation.”
Diaspora leaders, too, are caught in the crosshairs. Positioned between contexts, fluent in multiple systems, they have long been expected to “bridge” gaps. But what’s often demanded is not bridging but bending. Their insights are welcome until they challenge dominant paradigms. Their leadership is celebrated until it disrupts comfort. They are expected to bring proximity, but not too much politics; insight, but not too much influence.
The result? A cycle of imposter syndrome, marginalisation, and burnout. The system cannot have it both ways. It cannot demand the credibility of lived experience without relinquishing the control that keeps such experience marginal.
To be clear, Global South and diaspora leadership did change the conversation. They brought moral clarity, contextual sharpness, and new models of collective leadership. They reframed old debates, demanded new alliances, and made the sector uncomfortable in the best possible way.
Real change is so much more than redeployment of staff
But without structural change, those gains were fragile. The costs – personal, political, and institutional – have too often fallen on those who were promised transformation but were instead handed expectation without support.
If the development sector is serious about decolonisation, it must stop confusing optics with power. It must recognise that meaningful change is not an add-on. It’s a budget line. It’s a governance reform. It’s a redistribution of authority, not a redeployment of staff.
And above all, it must stop weaponising identity. The lived experience of Global Majority leaders, diaspora professionals, and people from conflict-affected contexts must be recognised not as “nice to have” but as indispensable. Their leadership must be supported, materially, institutionally, and politically.
Because let’s be clear: decolonisation is not a metaphor, and it’s certainly not a job title. It’s a reckoning. And it’s long overdue.
Awssan Kamal is Conflict & Fragility Lead at Oxfam GB. He writes here in a personal capacity. This blog is adapted from a post on his personal LinkedIn.