The recent cuts to aid budgets by the US and other rich governments has stirred significant discussion about the future of international development and aid. Oxfam is doing important work to bring attention to the vital role that aid plays in saving lives and in providing basic services and protection for some of the most marginalized populations. Oxfam has long maintained that the provision of aid by donor countries is not an act of charity, but a tool for global redistribution and a matter of justice and solidarity.

At the same time, Oxfam has not hesitated to point out some of the serious problems with the aid system. These include its colonial roots and governance structures that allow rich countries and global North institutions to hold onto power and resources, which among others are outlined in Oxfam International’s recent briefing paper on aid.

As our colleague, Dr. Late Lawson-Lartego, recently wrote, at a time when the future of aid and international solidarity are at risk, we must explore additional pathways for development finance – ones that could help shape a new, transformative vision for aid. In this blog, we explore mutual aid as a form of local and global redistribution grounded in building solidarity and justice and examine the lessons it can offer for re-imagining the aid and development sector.

What is Mutual Aid? Collective Approaches in Solidarity and Justice 

In the 2020 book ‘Mutual Aid: Building Solidary During This Crisis (and the next)’, community activist and researcher, Dean Spade defines mutual aid as collective political participation to meet community needs that existing power structures are not meeting. Mutual aid is distinct from charity as it is not just the provision of services or resources to communities and individuals in need. Rather, mutual aid is political as it is grounded in creating shared understandings of the systemic and historical forms of marginalization and exploitation that create the conditions where people do not have what they need, not just that they are “less fortunate.”  In this way, mutual aid takes a solidarity-based, political approach by mobilizing people and building movements that seek to address immediate needs and confront structural injustices. 

Mutual aid is channeled through community-based horizonal networks that are transparent, participatory, and have shared decision-making to transfer resources, including money, time, services, or goods, to meet the immediate needs or demands of communities. They can often exist in spaces where institutional or state actors have failed to meet community needs. Mutual aid networks have a long history in the US, with examples in the Black and immigrant communities dating back to the late 18th century, including the Free African Society 1787, Chinese immigrant family associations in San Francisco in the late 1800s, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, and during the COVID-19 pandemic. These networks are not unique to the US; examples exist globally, including LGBTQI+ collectives in East Africa and mutual aid housing cooperatives in Uruguay.

Mutual aid networks are primarily supported by individuals within the community, members of the diaspora, and in some instances, local philanthropists. Technology is revolutionizing some mutual aid networks by enabling transnational connections and allowing financial donations to be made through online crowdfunding campaigns, social media and other calls for public support.

Building Solidarity and Community, from Humanitarian Crises to Tackling Inequality

The ongoing experience of mutual aid networks in Sudan’s crisis highlights the potential for localized mutual aid to not only be effective in complex contexts, but also the importance of having those directly impacted lead the response in their own communities rather than being passive ‘aid recipients’. Since the civil war began in April 2023, youth led and neighborhood-based groups, known as Emergency Response Rooms (ERR), have been reaching millions, uplifting community needs and demands while building solidarity. They are running communal kitchens; supporting survivors of sexual violence; and creating community education spaces for children amongst other initiatives. ERR volunteers say they are motivated by a shared sense of mutuality and social accountability. The scale and scope of the ERR are rooted in preexisting community organizing efforts (e.g., the neighborhood-based Resistance and Service Committees, formed during 2019 uprising, that mobilized for democratic reforms and filing unmet public service needs) and longstanding social traditions of collective action, including Sudan’s cultural tradition of Nafeer.

Mutual aid can also play a vital role in building long-term well-being. For example, mutual aid is a critical component of “solidarity economy” approaches to tackling poverty and inequality, which focus on building community power through building and strengthening relational ties, workers’ power and self-management, grassroots-democracy, and ecological wellbeing. For example, the Uruguayan Federation of Housing Cooperatives for Mutual Aid Housing Cooperatives (FUCVAM), founded through workers’ struggles, utilizes mutual aid and state support (won through mass movements) to ensure the realization of the right to housing.

The Interplay between Mutual Aid and Development and Humanitarian Aid 

The horizontal and locally grounded nature of mutual aid networks is in contrast to the more top-down, vertical nature of the aid system where formal aid actors (e.g. bi-lateral donors, the UN, and INGOs) have the power to decide where aid goes and how much aid is distributed. This leads to unequal power dynamics between the “recipients” and those working to provide the support and can create a model of reliance rather than empowerment.

Some institutional aid actors including bilateral donors have recently provided funds to mutual aid networks. While formal aid investment could help networks to scale up their reach and operational capacity, navigating how and if mutual aid should interact with international aid institutions is complex and contested. Below we examine three core principles of mutual aid that are critical to re-imagining aid, and the potential tensions that may arise as consequence this interaction.

1. Solidarity and community. The institutional support of formal aid actors could dilute solidarity and community power by pushing networks to deliver assistance according to the rules and norms of the international aid system. This can also weaken the power of communities to voice their own demands and needs.
2. Collective decision making and transparency. Large-scale institutional support could lead to mutual aid networks to shift from their horizontal community-based structures to become vertical, professional, and depoliticized institutions, co-opted into the bureaucracy of international aid actors.
3. Justice and social accountability. Mutual aid is often, in part, a response to the absence of state and institutional actors while calling out systemic inequalities. Institutional support for mutual aid networks should not be a pathway for institutional actors (private and public) to sidestep their responsibilities and commitments to international cooperation.

While mutual aid networks cannot and should not replace the responsibilities of formal institutional actors and states, these three principles of mutual aid offer valuable lessons to aid practitioners and policymakers as they grapple with re-imaging the aid sector and explore alternative models of aid distribution.