Strategic developments in Stem van Afrika: Shifting the Power is Learning by Doing

For as long as development cooperation has existed, it has been driven by top-down decision-making: plans conceived in the West, implemented in the Global South.

Increasingly organizations recognize that decisions made remotely often fail to align sufficiently with the reality of local communities. In response, a new approach is emerging in which power, resources, and decision-making shift to the people who are making the change on the ground. When decision-making is made locally, local actors gain not only control but also responsibilities. Communities are no longer seen as recipients of aid, but as co-owners of choices, priorities, and results.

Within the Stem van Afrika Foundation, we asked ourselves a fundamental question: if we believe in local voices, why are we still making the decisions? The idea arose within the board to transfer decision-making power regarding grants and ultimately the capital of the foundation to the Global South.

Getting ready

The Stem van Afrika board is not acting rashly in this matter. To understand what sixty years of financial support from Stem van Afrika has yielded, the board decided to commission an extensive external study. A call was issued for this, for which 8 African agencies submitted bids. Ultimately, the choice fell on i-Media (Zimbabwe). They asked more than 25 community radio stations, which have received funding from Stem van Afrika over the past fifteen years, about their experiences with SvA; how SvA’s contributions have helped them and what this should look like in the future.

The results of this research were discussed with stakeholders in Africa. Bob van der Winden and Rosien Herweijer participated in a meeting with about twenty partners and other stakeholders during a two-day workshop in Nairobi. In addition to the workshop participants, they also spoke with various other people working in the field.

The conclusions of the external evaluation and the official response of the board to that external evaluation are available on the SvA website.

Starting the Shift

Supported by the outcome of this report and the feedback from the participants of the workshop in Nairobi, the SvA board decided to ask four women – all with extensive track records in community media – to investigate what a potential ‘shifting of power’ might look like. At this moment (summer 2026), we are in the middle of this research/design process, in which the East African team is investigating how this process could unfold. A Rapid Needs Assessment has been conducted to determine the needs of women involved in

community radio in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and the Eastern Congo, and work is underway towards a first round of small donations in early 2027, whereby the decision-making power will no longer reside in the Netherlands. In a subsequent phase, it will be examined whether and in what way governance and administrative decision-making can be further shifted.

Documenting the process

To properly document this learning-by-doing process, the SvA board has decided to produce a short documentary examining the pros and cons and looking at how the team in Africa is handling the opportunity to give substance to this localization trajectory.

The video aims to show that letting go of the way things have been done for sixty years, ensuring a safe transfer guaranteeing that capital is used properly, and other issues are raising questions and at times even doubts among current and former foundation board members. And the perspective of the team in Africa is also covered. A rare glimpse into what development cooperation looks like when power is truly shared.

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