ActionAid, the prominent development charity, is undergoing a significant transformation in its approach to child sponsorship programmes. Taahra Ghazi and Hannah Bond, the newly appointed co-chief executives of ActionAid UK, have signalled a shift away from the controversial child sponsorship scheme launched in 1972, towards a more holistic, community-driven model that emphasises long-term grassroots funding and solidarity.
The child sponsorship model, which allows donors to handpick children in poor countries to support, has long been criticised for its racialised and paternalistic undertones. Ghazi acknowledges that the current system reflects “a different time” and that the majority of ActionAid’s supporters are “relatively well-off people and many of them are white.” She recognises the transactional and paternalistic nature of this relationship, where donors effectively “choose a picture of a brown or black child” to support.
In a bid to “decolonise” the organisation’s work, ActionAid is embarking on a transformation process that will reshape its funding models and procurement practices. The goal is to ensure that the organisation’s activities are “shaped by community voices and respond to the realities they face today,” as Bond explains.
One key aspect of this shift is the plan to establish a fund specifically for women’s rights groups that are under attack due to the global anti-rights movement. This aligns with ActionAid’s vision of becoming a “feminist, anti-racist organisation” that focuses on fundraising through partnerships with civil society groups.
Additionally, the charity aims to provide long-term funding to grassroots organisations, giving those on the ground more power over how the money is spent. This marks a departure from the traditional child sponsorship model, which has been criticised for its focus on individual children rather than addressing systemic issues.
Themrise Khan, an independent researcher on the aid sector, has called for the practice of marketing mostly African children to a Western audience to be abandoned altogether, as it is “highly problematic and racist in its overtones and screams ‘white saviourism’.” She argues that the responsibility should lie with nation-states in providing education, welfare systems, and healthcare, rather than relying on individual donors to “sponsor a poor African/Asian child.”
ActionAid’s transformation is a significant step towards decolonising the aid sector and shifting the narrative from one of sympathy to one of solidarity and partnership with global movements. As Bond states, “The world is in a bad place, and we have a really important role as a global federation in pushing back on the levels of injustice that are happening all over the world.”
