The process of setting organisational and programmatic objectives is an interesting area to engage with when it comes to decolonising our work. It allows us to understand and confront the systems and practices of making decisions, that affect the flow of money, the design and implementation of our projects, and the ways we work more generally.  

Often, strategy designs are made by one group of people – power holders in an organisation. These may be senior leadership, older or more experienced people, funders, etc. These power holders, especially in larger organisations, may not represent the people they work with or their needs and priorities. There’s an interesting opportunity to bring in participatory and inclusive approaches to the design and decision-making processes, enabling our strategies to reflect realities and needs.

This top-down approach to strategic objective setting can perpetuate colonial power dynamics, where a group of power holders dictates the system within which we work, and others are expected to adapt to it. It can also lead to a disconnect between the objectives of the project and the actual needs of the community, resulting in initiatives that are less effective and less sustainable.

A decolonial approach to strategic objective setting starts with being inclusive, and by shifting the power dynamics to ensure that local voices are at the centre of the decision-making process. This not only creates space for meaningful participation from community members, local staff, and others directly impacted by the project – but if done well, it can be a meaningful approach to empowerment.

One way to do this is by involving local communities in the initial needs assessment process, where they can articulate their own priorities and aspirations. This input should then be used to inform the co-development of strategic objectives, done in partnership with local partners and people. In this way, strategies will be grounded in local realities and are more likely to resonate with the community.

In addition to involving local communities, it is also important to create mechanisms for ongoing feedback and adaptation. This ensures the strategy is flexible and responsive to changing circumstances and new insights. By regularly revisiting and revising objectives based on feedback from the community, there’s a greater chance that projects remain relevant and effective over time.

Another approach is to expand the group of voices involved in the decision-making process. This goes beyond tokenistic inclusion of local staff and community members; it ensures that they have real influence over the direction of the project. This can look like joint sensemaking of the findings above, shared ownership of different elements of the project, and ongoing decision-making during the project cycle.

It also means actively seeking out and amplifying the voices of marginalised groups, such as women, young people, and indigenous people, who are often excluded from decision-making processes and the project design as a whole.

In practice, this might involve developing participatory monitoring and evaluation frameworks that allow communities to define what success looks like for them and to track progress towards those goals. It also means being open to different ways of knowing and understanding and recognising that quantitative data is not the only valid form of evidence.

It’s about more than just adjusting the language or focus of development projects; it requires a fundamental shift in how objectives are determined and who gets to set them.