What the GIFE Congress made us reflect on deconcentrating power, knowledge and wealth
What does it mean to deconcentrate power, knowledge and riches in a country marked by historical inequalities? This was the provocation that crossed the 13th GIFE Congress, held in Fortaleza, from 7 to 9 April. A call that guided the stage, circulated through the corridors, and permeated ears and exchanges between different territories, experiences and voices.
The very bigger movement was present at the meeting and felt the strength of this question. Below we organized the main reflections we brought in the luggage - grouped in the three pillars that structured the motto of the event.
DECONCENT POWER: Who speaks, who represents, who decides?
The question is uncomfortable, but fundamental to be addressed: who decides what is relevant? In a field crossed by asymmetrical relationships between those who do and who receive, this is a point of tension that needs to be faced.
In the opening plenary, Átila Roque, director of the Ford Foundation in Brazil, reinforced the founding democratic dimension of philanthropy and the urgency of revisiting the 1988 social pact to reactivate its foundations in times of fragility of basic rights.
In the same vein, Giovanni Harvey, executive director of the Baobá Fund, warned of what he called “recreational philanthropy”: actions that respond more to the emotional needs of those who donate than to the realities of those who live the social challenges. A warning that private social investment is not limited to the logic of retribution, but faces its contradictions seriously.
And there is another important layer: who has the power to define the image that is built on the other? To authorize narratives? These questions also emerged in communication and active listening debates. To deconcentrate power, after all, is to open real space for shared decisions, invite to the stage and divide the microphone.
DECONCENT KNOWLEDGE: Listen as a learning practice
Plurality in Congress - from community leaders to representatives of large institutes, from peripheral communicators to indigenous intellectuals - made it evident that knowledge is plural by definition.
Professor Gersem Baniwa reminded us that knowledge, for many indigenous peoples, is neither individual nor exclusively human - he belongs to territory, ancestry, nature. In this sense, to deconcentrate knowledge is to recognize that there is no hierarchy between the forms of knowledge and that each territory carries knowledge that does not fit in reports or ready -made models.
This perspective was central to the plenary mediated by Carola Matarazzo, MBM's executive director, about listening to the territory as a vector of social transformation. The dialogue connected different knowledge by gathering Mariana Neubern (Tide Setubal Foundation), Joaquim Melo (Banco Palmas), Kaká Werá (Tapuia Indigenous Educator) and Benilda Brito (Nzinga - Black Women Collective), and showed how listening can be method of action and learning. With empathy, balance and responsibility, it is possible to coocize ways with the territories, not for them.
The discussions reinforced a central question: who is recognized as a holder of knowing? In a country where peripheral voices still advocate its legitimacy, philanthropy needs to commit to the actual decentralization of knowledge production and circulation.
Deconcentrate wealth: give up, redistribute, repair
The opening speech of the US philanthropist Abigail Disney was one of the most blunt of Congress. Defender of the taxation of great fortunes, she stated that "tribute is redistribution and social justice" and, in an interview with Folha de S.Paulo, caused: "We need to stop idolizing the rich."
For her, deconcentrating wealth requires giving up power. And here is one of the most sensitive points of philanthropy: it is sustained precisely by structures that somehow benefited from concentration. How to tense this contradiction with honesty?
DECONCENT RICART, THERE IS NOT FINANCE PROJECTS OR DONATES. It is redistributing resources in a structured way, with listening, intentionality and commitment to social justice. It involves recognizing privileges, reviewing decision models and adopting bold postures.
As you hear through the corridors of the Event Center: It's time to go beyond philanthropy that "drives ice". It is necessary to support strategies that face the structural causes of inequalities - with systemic vision and articulated action.
The GIFE Congress provoked us, took us from the comfort zone and brought us back to work with sharper questions. How do we continue to deconcentrate? How do we guarantee that listening, power and feature walk together? We come back with the certainty that transformation only happens when there is real sharing - of decisions, knowledge, visions and paths.
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