Nothing Normal About the New World: A Vision for Post-COVID International Development

Abstract

COVID-19 has exposed many fault lines in international development. As international staff were repatriated, the need to support communities with basics such as sanitation and hygiene once again fell to local organisations, who are often underfunded, in part because of the international development funding structures that are stacked against them. We argue that these structures lead to tokenistic partnerships, intervention design driven by short-term trends rather than the needs of communities, and ecological damage to the detriment of the very communities we claim to support. We argue that international development must take this opportunity to become more cognisant of and accountable for our carbon footprint, to develop new ways to support those organisations most closely linked to the communities they serve, to engage with the wider politics that has brought us to this point, and to commit to a future that redresses the inequalities of the past.