Shift South is a space for research, learning, collaboration, and new ideas emerging from the Global South, starting with the SWANA and Sub-Saharan Africa regions, with the hope of expanding into a broader Global South network.
Shift South was born out of the conviction that the knowledge that shapes research, technology, policy, and development is heavily concentrated in the Global North and then brought to the Global South without meaningful contributions from local researchers, practitioners, and communities who have a much deeper understanding of their own realities.
We created Shift South because we believe this needs to change. We want to create more space for people in the Global South to have a meaningful seat at the table, to set the agenda, ask the questions that matter to them, produce and share knowledge, and shape the policies and technologies that affect their lives.
Our work brings together researchers, practitioners, activists, organizations, and communities to learn from each other, test ideas, assess useful technologies, share experiences, and produce work that is rooted in local contexts.
Gender and power are central to how we think and work. We adopt an inclusive approach inspired by intersectional feminism, where marginalized voices are heard, different forms of knowledge are valued, decision-making is decentralized, and access to opportunities is more equally distributed.
Shift South is very cognizant of the huge diversity within the Global South. Countries, communities, and people are different, and so are the challenges they face. We start from those differences and from the knowledge and experience that already exist within them.
Ultimately, we want to create a global movement that decentralizes knowledge production on technology and shifts decision-making power toward a more equitable model.
Vision
A future where people and communities across the Global South build collective power to shape the knowledge, technologies, and policies that affect their lives through stronger networks, solidarity, knowledge exchange, and collective knowledge production, and where gender and other forms of inequality do not determine whose voices are heard, whose knowledge counts, or who has access to opportunities and decision-making power.
Mission
Shift South connects researchers, practitioners, activists, organizations, and communities across the SWANA region and Sub-Saharan Africa to exchange knowledge, learn from one another, build collective power, and work together on issues of concern in the region. We create spaces for collaboration, support locally rooted research and knowledge production, and explore and assess technologies based on the lived realities of the communities that use them. Across our work, we apply an intersectional feminist lens to challenge structural inequalities that limit people’s decision-making power.
