Over 30 years, GFC has partnered with 1300 community-based organizations around the world that shift social norms, policies and practices, strengthening their capacity to catalyze lasting change and deepening the impact on the lives of children and young people.

At our Beyond Aid: Transformational Partnerships for Community-led Development webinar, four GFC partners shared real-world impacts of foreign aid reductions, how their organizations are addressing the situation, and changes they would like to see in the future.

We were joined by Kimberly Barrios, Co-Founder of Guatemalan youth-led organization Red de Jóvenes Artistas para la Justicia Social; Tania Kasian, Executive Director of Fulcrum, an LGBT rights organization in Ukraine; Emmy Zoomlamai Okello, Founder and Executive Director of Foundation for Inclusive Community Help (FICH) in Uganda; and Muhammad Shahzad Khan, Founding Director of the Chanan Development Association (CDA), a youth-led organisation promoting peacebuilding and the empowerment of young people in Pakistan.

It was a space for reflection and inspiration—a deep look into how community-led organizations are demonstrating what a more just, equitable and community-led model looks like, a way of driving real change, not embedded in short-term, transactional assumptions, but in deeper, transformational partnerships.

GFC is proud to be their trusted partner as they navigate this historic inflection point in global development.

Immediate challenges and unexpected ripple effects

Our panel outlined some of the most significant challenges they had seen.

Employment and agriculture projects in rural Guatemala have been directly affected. There are fears of an impending increase in attacks on gender justice and the wider repercussions on democracy.

In Ukraine, funding has evaporated for psychological support for young people experiencing mental health issues caused by the war with Russia. Hate crimes against vulnerable groups—including LGBT youth—are increasing.

Almost 70% of CDA’s resources for education, health and nutrition projects, and relief and rebuilding after the Pakistan floods in 2022, has been lost. Funding was also supporting social cohesion initiatives, initiatives for countering violent extremism and building and empowering marginalized populations.

In Uganda, there have been disruptions in access to HIV/Aids treatment and prevention, especially in rural areas, and many community-based organizations have been forced to scale down or even close up.

Indeed, organizations around the world have lost hundreds of key team members with deep community ties—jeopardizing long-term impact and trust that may take many years to rebuild.

Moving from challenge to opportunity

At the webinar, we talked about how community-based organizations globally have been advocating for changes to the system of global development financing. None of us wanted or expected those changes to happen with such thoughtlessness and cruelty, but we share a strong sense that with this crisis comes opportunity.

There is hope for a reimagining of how global cooperation for social change might work, with more appreciation for the power and sustainability of grassroots and youth-led organizations.

“Are we really headed towards a change in the complete paradigm of international cooperation to achieve community-led development?” Kimberly asked. “Is this the moment?”

To our panel, funding partnerships have often felt transactional, short-term and ill-suited to sparking durable, community-led change. While progress has been made in shifting power, decolonizing approaches and recognizing the importance of locally-led development, we agreed the Global North hasn’t managed anything like transformational change.

So, what would truly bring that change?

Our four leaders called for international support for community-based organizations, so trusted local entities can focus on strategy, not survival. It must be based on trusting relationships, deep understanding of local context and a recognition that flexibility is key as organizations adapt to change. Support must be sustained, so organizations can keep key team members, and the trust and progress earned in communities over many years.

Shahzad told us: “Community-led organizations develop long-lasting relationships built on mutual trust. Even if you find alternative resources, it will maybe take years for people to again trust the same organizations who have left them.”

Our partners urged philanthropy to stand in solidarity with civil society and make sure grassroots and youth leaders are front and center in responding to and reimagining what comes next.

Community-led development in practice

Emmy foresees a new kind of partnership, one “where grassroots organizations aren’t just implementers, but also partners and co-creators.”

“The people most affected are the ones shaping the solutions, discussing the challenges. The ideas and the leadership always come from the communities. There is an assumption that local means small or less capable. Local to us means the deepest and most lasting change.”

Shahzad believes this is the right time for resources to be directed to community-led development, through local and grassroots organizations.

“The communities are always going to be there. In a time of crisis, they’re not going to leave. They’re actually going to be more resilient and bring their own energy and effort and resources. Development is not done on a project-to-project basis. It’s a long-term commitment.”

“We have seen community-based organizations coming up together and making moves towards a transformational partnership.”

Final thoughts

These four leaders—and many others like them—demonstrate the key role that truly locally-led organizations aspire to play in reimagining how global development and philanthropy should work.

GFC and its partners have developed a way of working rooted in mutual trust, flexibility, and long-term systems change thinking that provides one useful model to inform what comes next.

We urge other funders to listen, adapt and recognize the urgency of this situation as expressed so powerfully by Kimberly, Tania, Emmy and Shahzad. We thank them for having the courage to share their perspectives and to those who came in solidarity to learn.

– You can watch the bilingual recording of the webinar or listen to the audio in English or Spanish. We’ve also shared additional resources on navigating funding cuts, including where to find support.