I come from Malawi, where communities often face significant development challenges, but they also possess resources that are rarely recognised or adequately invested in. These resources are not always financial. They include local knowledge, relationships, volunteerism, land, skills, social networks, faith groups, young people, local businesses—and even football.

Through Rise for Phoka Community Foundation, I have seen how powerful these resources can be when communities are given the opportunity to mobilise them.

At one point, we used a football match as a fundraising platform. Football is deeply loved in our communities, so rather than treating it simply as entertainment, we turned it into an opportunity for people to contribute towards a community development cause. What struck me was not only the money that was raised. It was the sense of ownership that came with it. People were not simply waiting for a donor to arrive and solve a problem. They were participating in solving it themselves.

That experience changed how I think about development.

The problem with the current aid system is not that international aid is unnecessary. It is that the system too often places power, resources and decision-making too far away from the people who are supposed to benefit from them.

Local organisations are often closest to communities and understand their realities, but they can struggle to access flexible and meaningful funding. Meanwhile, significant resources can flow through layers of international organisations, consultants and intermediaries before reaching the communities themselves.

If I were reinventing aid from scratch, I would change this.

I would move from a model that largely looks like:

Donor → International organisation → Local implementer → Community

towards something closer to:

Community → Local organisation → Partners → Shared investment.

This does not mean international organisations and donors no longer have a role. They absolutely do. International solidarity remains important, particularly in countries facing deep structural challenges. But their role should increasingly be to provide capital, knowledge, connections and solidarity while allowing local actors to lead decisions about what matters in their own communities.

I also believe we need to stop measuring local organisations only by how well they can implement externally designed projects. We should invest in their ability to mobilise resources locally and build sustainable community institutions.

For example, imagine funding that helps a community organisation establish local fundraising systems, develop social enterprises, build relationships with local businesses, strengthen volunteer networks and create mechanisms for community philanthropy. That kind of support could make external funding a catalyst for sustainability rather than a permanent dependency.

This is particularly important in places like Malawi, where communities are often described in terms of what they lack. We need to change that narrative.

Our communities may lack money, but they do not lack assets.

They have people. They have ideas. They have relationships. They have skills. They have culture. They have solidarity. They have young people who want to contribute. They have local institutions that people trust.

And sometimes, they have a football match.

The question is whether the aid system is designed to recognise these assets—or whether it continues to look for solutions from outside.

The future of aid, in my view, should be less about doing development for communities and more about investing with communities.

Aid should strengthen local leadership, local institutions and local resource mobilisation. It should give communities greater control over decisions and resources. And it should recognise that sustainability is not achieved simply when a donor-funded project ends; sustainability begins when communities develop the confidence, capacity and systems to continue solving problems themselves.

For me, the future is not a world without aid.

It is a world where aid is more locally rooted, flexible, participatory and catalytic.

A world where international resources meet local knowledge.

Where donors become partners rather than owners.

Where local organisations are trusted not merely to deliver projects, but to shape them.

And where communities are recognised not as passive recipients of development, but as co-investors in their own future.

That is the kind of aid system I would like to see.