By Anna Prykhodko
All views expressed in this piece are my own.
During the Grand rendez-vous des États généraux québécois de la solidarité internationale — a Montreal-based event on international cooperation that I attended with my colleagues from Avocats sans frontières Canada (ASFC) — a workshop stood out to me. The speaker who led it invited participants to identify colonial patterns in the international cooperation sector and propose practices to address them.1
The presentation began with the following question: Why do international cooperation organizations tend to focus on countries in Latin America and Africa, specifically former exploitation colonies?
The initial reasoning in the room was that these regions are perceived as less affluent and more in need of humanitarian aid. Multiple participants, however, challenged this framing, explaining that it risks reinforcing a harmful dynamic, one where humanitarian aid is treated as a charitable favor granted by a “superior” party to an “inferior” one. These comments prompted a broader discussion about how international cooperation can unintentionally reproduce the very hierarchies it seeks to dismantle.
The speaker then briefly traced the historical evolution of international cooperation, noting that many organizations have struggled to provide meaningful or lasting support because they failed to listen to local needs or adapt to local contexts. He proposed a shift in mindset: international cooperation should be understood as a bilateral process rather than a unilateral one. As such, both parties contribute and benefit from each others’ resources, knowledge, and perspectives.
This idea resonated with me given that ASFC’s approach, which revolves around subsidiarity—a concept that I explored in my previous blog post—seems to align with decolonial practices mentioned in that workshop. Rather than imposing solutions, ASFC works alongside local partners, supporting and amplifying their efforts.
Despite this alignment, I found that ASFC doesn’t claim to engage in ‘’decolonial’’ practices. The influence of colonialism on international cooperation wasn’t mentioned much in our training either. This absence of direct language made me wonder: if their practices seemingly reflect decolonial international cooperation practices, why not name them as such?
I recognize that my perspective is limited given that I didn’t interact much with ASFC’s local partners and only spent three months with the organization. But the silence around this terminology stood out. Is this quietness part of a larger strategy I fail to grasp? Could publicly qualifying their practices as decolonial carry political implications that might affect ASFC’s legal credibility or relationships with institutional partners?
Nonetheless, ASFC shares their organizational positions on reproductive and sexual rights, gender-based violence, human trafficking— it is hard to imagine them avoiding taking a political stance. Further, ASFC’s legal interventions reflect choices about whose rights to defend, which voices to amplify, and which injustices to confront. In that sense, their work is inherently political.
Perhaps the absence of decolonial language is a way of navigating the complexity of international partnerships. ASFC’s decision to focus on practice rather than terminology might reflect a desire to build trust, and remain adaptable across diverse legal and cultural landscapes.
Yet, there is value in explicitly naming things. Naming clarifies intent. It opens space for dialogue. It can foster institutional trust. Silence can leave room for ambiguity, especially for those trying to understand deeper motivations behind international cooperation work.
Ultimately, this workshop has reminded me that international cooperation is not just about providing support, navigating different cultural landscapes and listening to on the ground needs. It’s also about building relationships rooted in mutual respect and shared purpose.
- The workshop, called ”La décolonisation des pratiques en coopération internationale”, was led by Jean Baptiste Ndiaye from the organization Éduconnexion. ↩︎