Localisation that has implementation mechanisms, not only buzzwords

Why this is hard.

Most localisation commitments are real in intention and thin in mechanism. The test is straightforward and rarely applied: what proportion of funding reaches local organisations as unrestricted or core support, who decides what gets funded, whose risk appetite governs the partnership, who owns the data, who is named on the publication, and what happens in the working language of the people most affected.

We assess those mechanisms and design the arrangements that change them. This is uncomfortable work, because shifting power means someone holds less of it, and partnership frameworks that avoid saying so tend to preserve the existing distribution while describing a different one.

Language is central here rather than adjacent. Which languages a partnership operates in determines who can participate substantively, who must work in a second language, and whose knowledge is treated as evidence.

Decolonisation goes beyond increasing local participation or transferring selected responsibilities. It asks how colonial histories continue to shape whose knowledge is recognised, which institutions set priorities, who controls resources and data, and whose approaches are treated as authoritative. We help organisations translate that analysis into practical changes in research, partnerships, governance and everyday practice, without treating decolonisation as a checklist or a status an organisation can simply claim.