Has anything changed?
Today marks three years since George Floyd was killed by police officers in Minnesota, United States, propelling the Black Lives Matter movement. It also sparked a racial reckoning that extended to the world of development, which has always had fraught power dynamics between donors and the people they’re “helping,” especially in light of the move to shift power from big international players to local organizations on the ground.

“I’m hopeful because the racial reckoning launched by the murder of George Floyd was not just a passing moment; conversations on racial justice and what it means in int’l development continue to be meaningful and robust,” Paul Weisenfeld, executive vice president of international development at RTI International, tells us via email.

“At the same time, we all have to realize that diversifying the composition of our organizations, especially at the leadership level, has a long way to go,” adds Weisenfeld, who is part of CREED, or the Coalition for Racial & Ethnic Equity in Development.

Indira Kaur Ahluwalia, founder and co-chair of CREED, said the organization understands “the need to take collective responsibility to build racial and ethnic equity (REE) to address gaps that could no longer be invisible under our watch.”

“While we had a terrible moment three years ago that sparked motivation, the sustainability of the REE movement is fundamental to our organizations’ morale and effectiveness, our programmatic efficacies, our locally led development goals, and social and economic progress,” she writes to us.

At Devex, we’ve spent these last three years covering efforts to decolonize aid and diversify the sector, so I picked out a selection of articles that you might find interesting.