I first understood what defunding actually meant while interviewing for my internship. It kept coming up, quite bluntly: there was little to no room for paid opportunities and competition among young professionals was only getting tougher.
That realization did not end with the hiring process. Once I entered the workplace, those same dynamics became even more visible. I joined an international affairs working group within a state institution, responsible for sustaining cooperation and identifying funding opportunities. From the beginning, the task was clear: to keep cooperation going and find resources at a time when commitments were weakening and money was simply not flowing.
When attending high-level meetings, this pattern became more nuanced. Each time gender, inequality, inclusion, and even disaggregated data were introduced into the conversation, the room was in turmoil. I remember a delegate questioning the need to include ‘anything beyond biology’ in data collection methodologies, referring to the inclusion of non-binary participants in questionnaires. This points to a backlash against inclusive frameworks and in favor of a restrictive understanding of gender.
It became clear that the retreat is not general, but selective.
Powerful states are still willing to cooperate, but not on certain issues or with certain regions and groups. The pullback is most evident in the areas of gender, sustainability, and development aid, particularly affecting vulnerable populations. The issue is not a rejection of cooperation itself, but of cooperation on these priorities.
But was it different before? Not quite. Official Development Assistance (ODA) was not well suited to address the very inequalities it sought to reduce. Instead, it has often been complicit in reproducing them, contributing to the direction we are now taking.
ODA operates through a hierarchy, where some are cast as experts and others as lacking. Authority typically sits with white, male, Global North actors, while racialized women, communities, and ecosystems in the Global South are positioned as passive recipients. Their knowledge is sidelined, and their realities simplified or ignored. This results in ‘one-size-fits-all’ models, projects designed with little understanding of what different populations and territories actually need, and what they are already doing to tackle their own obstacles. Local actors are not regarded as agents of change but as objects of intervention.
Now, if both the current moment and the previous system prove inadequate, what alternatives are possible?
In searching for answers, I turned to decolonial feminist thought, not only as a critique, but as a way of rethinking cooperation itself. This lens challenges the idea that knowledge flows in a single direction (from ‘developed’ to ‘developing’, from ‘donor’ to ‘beneficiary’) and instead reframes those long seen as ‘recipients’ as active producers of knowledge.
Take Colombia as an example, a country classified as ‘developing’ within ODA frameworks, yet one that has generated responses to its own challenges with relevance beyond its context, despite ongoing limitations in implementation and access:
- Colombia’s 2016 Peace Process proved that lived experience can serve as a useful source of knowledge. Rather than treating conflict as homogenous, the Process adopted a gendered and territorial approach, discerning that violence has been experienced unevenly across genders, regions, communities, and even generations, requiring differentiated measures. Importantly, victims were not positioned as passive beneficiaries, but were directly incorporated into the peace talks, their testimonies were indispensable insights, and their experiences informed both the agenda and the substantive content of the agreement.
- Institutional practice is evident in Bogotá’s Manzanas del Cuidado, which demonstrates how social realities can be translated into public policy. The initiative shifts care work from an individual and largely invisible responsibility to one that is formally recognized, reduced, and redistributed by the state. Building on sustained data collection, advocacy by feminist organizations and social movements, and favorable political windows of opportunity, care has been integrated into the city’s territorial planning and embedded within its social infrastructure.
- The decriminalization of abortion through the Constitutional Court’s ruling (C-055 of 2022) shows how legal change can emerge from sustained political struggle. The decision did not originate within the state alone, but was driven by years of organizing by feminist movements such as Causa Justa, which brought together activists, legal experts, and civil society. Through strategic litigation, public debate, and social mobilization, these actors challenged the use of criminal law to regulate abortion and shifted the terms of the discussion toward rights, bodily autonomy, and self-determination.
Highlighting this does not mean that countries can or should act in isolation. Financial resources, technical support, and international partnerships remain necessary, particularly in settings marked by structural inequality. But the terms under which they are offered should be transformed.
The examples above did not emerge in a vacuum, but were supported by international organizations, foundations, and transnational networks; external pressure played a critical role in enabling them. However, these actors supported rather than prescribed, engaged rather than imposed, allowing locally grounded knowledge, institutions, and movements to lead.
In other words, once it is acknowledged that ‘developing’ countries are not starting from a blank slate, but understand their own contexts, are capable of exerting pressure, and possess institutional mechanisms through which change can be pursued, cooperation shifts. When these capacities are taken seriously, cooperation becomes less about transferring solutions and more about engaging with processes already in motion.
As Joaquín Torres García’s América Invertida suggests, rethinking cooperation may be less about creating new models and more about changing our point of view; recognizing that what has long been positioned as peripheral may, in fact, be where the most relevant knowledge already resides.
Recommended reads to continue delving into these debates:
- Escobar, A. (1994). Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World.
- Princeton University Press; Cardoso, F. H., Faletto, E., & Urquidi, M. M. (1979). Dependency and Development in Latin America. University of California Press.
This Blog was written by Sara Soto, member of COFEM’s Advocacy and Policy Influencing Working Group.
