Written by Florence Kayemba (SDN), Ese Emerhi (TrustAfrica), and Charles Kojo Vandyck (WACSI)
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In March 2021, the World Communities Forum brought together organizations working with local communities to reflect on the past year and how Covid-19 has impacted the work that they do. TrustAfrica hosted a breakout session on “Community as a Response: Communities Organizing for their Development” on Day 1 of the virtual conference to tease out what are the enablers in supporting local communities in self-organizing for their development. The breakout session was facilitated by development practitioners and community leaders Ese Emerhi (TrustAfrica – Nigeria), Florence Kayemba (Stakeholders Democracy Network – Nigeria), and Charles Kojo Vandyck (West Africa Civil Society Institute – Ghana).
This follow-up article elevates key recommendations offered during the breakout session, by first giving some context on the challenges faced by local communities (often in conflict) and centering the article on factors that have enabled communities to respond to development challenges, including what priority interventions donors should invest in to support community actors to build resilience when responding to power dynamics within the broken aid system in the Global South.[…]