‘It’s about solidarity, not charity’: the Oxfam chief seeking to decolonise the aid sector

Oxfam staff in Ethiopia. The charity aims to spend more of its money on the ground, and allow more decision making by local groups and communities. Photograph: Aimee Brown/Oxfam

The outdated, elite-dominated international charity sector needs to hand over the money and power to those in the global south for whom aid is intended, says the head of Oxfam GB, Halima Begum.

The current aid system is broken, Begum says, and can only be fixed by decolonising, shifting the centre of control away from rich countries with colonial legacies to the developing countries.