If you want to support, vacate the space

After having worked for over three decades, mainly with international NGOs (INGOs) within India and elsewhere, and feeling disillusioned with the international aid architecture, I decided to return to India to establish Humanitarian Aid International (HAI), together with a few other like minded people. HAI aims to evolve on an Indian value system, resourced by Indians, including people of Indian origin, to work across India while also trying to complement the government’s efforts on South-South cooperation. The realisation came soon about how difficult it is for Indian NGOs to access even Indian funding as Indian fundraising space is largely controlled and accessed by country offices of INGOs, registered in India and calling themselves an Indian organisation. That compelled me to wonder: Are we in a new phase of colonialism?

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