"In theory, recipients of aid have the right to ask whether a project delivered on its promise. In practice, few do."
It comes from donor-backed foundations, bilateral programs, corporate social responsibility budgets, and international development agencies.
From the cooperatives of rural counties to the glass-walled innovation hubs of Nairobi, the rhythm is the same: funds arrive, projects form around them, and the underlying systems remain essentially unchanged.
We often tell this story as if it’s entirely about donor behaviour their shifting priorities, their risk appetites, their timelines.
But that’s only half the picture. The other half lies with us. It lies in the way counties, local organisations, and private ventures position themselves to catch the flow of money.
It lies in how we adapt to donor terms instead of defining our own and in how those adaptations, repeated over years, become habits that quietly shape our ambitions.
At the heart of this dynamic is a culture of saying “yes.” In theory, recipients of aid have the right to ask whether a project delivered on its promise. In practice, few do.
Whether you are a community cooperative, a startup in an accelerator, or a county department, the fear is the same: push too firmly on results, and you might lose the relationship and the funding that could follow.
Many recipients never see the original terms of a project or the data needed to track whether targets were met.
Without that information, questioning performance feels riskier than keeping quiet.
Layered over these assumptions is what might be called the “free money” mindset.
When external funding is framed as a gift, the giver decides the terms, and the receiver’s role is to be grateful.
The idea of saying no, even when the offer doesn’t fit, feels almost impolite.
Leaders worry that turning down one opportunity could mean losing access to future ones.
Over time, the habit sticks: accept the offer, thank the donor, adapt to their priorities, and deliver something that looks beneficial on paper.
Whether it changes anything becomes secondary. For politicians, the incentives are even more direct.
A donor-backed project is a quick, visible win, marked by a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a press release, and a concrete sign of progress to take back to voters.
Whether the project fits a larger economic strategy matters less.
The same logic applies in organisational settings: a new partnership with a global funder is a public relations asset, even if it pulls the institution away from its original mission.
In this climate, visibility often outweighs alignment.
The absence of clear, operational plans serves as a key factor in the acceptance of misaligned projects.
Without a shared roadmap, each offer is judged in isolation. Something feels better than nothing.
That’s how you end up with three separate donor-funded training programs for farmers in the same county, while no one invests in the cold storage facilities those farmers need to reach markets.
This phenomenon explains why startup ecosystems host multiple innovation competitions but often fail to provide the follow-on capital that the winners need to grow.
Without a plan, we accept whatever comes, and in doing so, we let funders decide the sequence of our development, one project at a time, on their themes, at their pace.
The cost of this short-term acceptance can be steep.
A donor might fund the construction of a rural clinic, but if there’s no budget to staff or equip it, the building quickly turns into a liability.
Worse, its presence can create the illusion that the health gap has been solved, making it harder to secure funding for mobile health teams or telemedicine services that might have served a higher number of people.
One ill-fitting project can block better solutions for years, not only through wasted resources but also by closing the political and donor appetite for alternatives.
Over time, operating in a donor-driven environment shapes our behaviour.
We learn to adapt to what is funded.
A women’s cooperative that knows fabric-spinning machinery would multiply their income, but would still apply for weaving training if every call for proposals in the past decade has been for “women’s traditional crafts.”
A startup founder who needs manufacturing capacity will reframe their challenge as “climate tech” if that’s the year’s donor buzzword.
Funding arrives, but the underlying problems remain unsolved.
Fragmentation makes the situation worse. Donors rarely face a single, organised counterpart.
In most sectors, dozens of small organisations compete for the same funding pool.
This competition strips away bargaining power. If one group declines a project, another will accept it.
Without strong federations or sector bodies, we cannot negotiate for the significant, long-term investments that would transform value chains or markets.
We must acknowledge that certain actors personally gain from maintaining the status quo.
Donor projects can bring per diems, procurement contracts, and public visibility.
A shift toward market-driven growth or infrastructure might serve the community better, but it could disrupt these personal benefits.
That creates a quiet incentive to maintain the status quo.
The programs we accept also shape our ambitions. Donor-backed initiatives are almost always designed for the median participant.
That makes sense if the goal is broad reach and easy reporting, but it omits the exceptional few who could leap ahead with more targeted support.
Without layered program designs, a broad base for the many, and an accelerated track for the ready, we normalise slow, low-risk progress as the only kind worth aiming for.
Donor signals also set our priorities. If this year’s focus is “climate-smart agriculture,” local organisations pivot to fit it.
Next year, the focus might shift to either “digital inclusion” or “skills for the future,” prompting another pivot.
This constant theme-chasing disrupts long-term progress and keeps us reactive rather than strategic.
Compounding the problem is the lack of credible local alternatives.
Government budgets are limited, and private investors tend to shy away from small or high-risk markets.
When donor projects dominate the market, it becomes difficult to reject even partial or poorly aligned offers.
The loop is simple: donors offer what suits their timelines and risk appetites; we accept because it’s easier, safer, or the only option; and both sides point to activity and call it progress.
Breaking the loop does not begin with donors; it starts with us.
It begins with governments, sector bodies, and organisations making their priorities clear and saying no when offers don’t fit.
It means pushing for designs that meet real needs, rather than whatever theme is currently in vogue.
It means building stronger collective bargaining, so funders must engage with entire sectors or value chains, not just individual players.
And it means developing our sources of funding so we are not trapped between accepting a misaligned project or getting nothing at all.
This is not about self-blame. It is about recognising where we still have room to move.
If we change our approach to the aid relationship by shifting from passive acceptance to active partnership, we also change what is contributed to the table.
This is the first step towards shaping development according to our terms.
This article was co-authored by Liesbeth Bakker of CASBI – Centre for Applied Sciences & Business Innovation
