Promoting Equity
a strategy for self-sustainability
More self-sustainability means having more autonomy and less reliance on external funding, expertise or decisions. It means having a larger capacity to choose and negotiate with other initiatives what’s best for your project and what’s not. It means an increasingly equitable participation, which will lead to development models that are more comprehensive and relevant for all, that is, more sustainable. Know more
A self-sustainability strategy used by several development initiatives is promoting conditions of equity so that everyone has the opportunity to engage in the solution of their problems and improve their quality of life on equal grounds.
To this end, many initiatives design strategies to reach, involve and empower people or communities that are traditionally discriminated against or underrepresented in the development field.
One such strategy is to offer humanitarian aid to people in conditions of poverty, vulnerability or marginalization. Projects that work with these groups –such as shelters, disaster relief or social justice organizations– are trying to create conditions that make development interventions relevant to more people and give everyone a chance to improve their quality of life on an equitable basis relative to more privileged groups.
Another way in which some development initiatives foster equity is by encouraging the participation and even leadership of members of communities who would otherwise be discriminated against or disregarded –perhaps a particular ethnic group, for instance, or maybe women or elders in communities where these groups are marginalized, and so on. After all, interventions with broad engagement under conditions of greater equity can bring everyone’s interests and needs together to achieve more comprehensive and systemic solutions that lead to significant changes and, in the long run, actually take root in communities. In addition, this strategy empowers vulnerable groups by giving them an active and important role in community life. In this way, an initiative may encourage (sometimes “nudge”) communities to accept these groups and overcome their differences through collaboration.
In any case, promoting equitable reception, participation and leadership helps development projects increase their self-sustainability because more participants with different points of view can bring more resources and knowledge to the table, diversifying the initiative’s sources of support.
There are many different ways to promote equity to make development initiatives more self-sustainable. Take a look at how these initiatives have done it!
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