‘When it clicked’ is a series of personal stories from people working in ‘international development’ who are challenging its dominant narratives.

As part of The Rules ‘Story of Poverty’ campaign we are challenging the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and their claims that 1) that poverty has been halved since 1990, and 2) that because of this progress, poverty can be eradicated “in all its forms, everywhere” by 2030. In other words, everything’s basically headed in the right direction and we just need to do more of the same to finish the job.

See our full narrative strategy for the campaign here: http://therulesblog.wpengine.com/hacking-the-sdg-discourse/

We recognise that there will be a lot of people working within the UN and NGO community who may feel uncomfortable about the SDGs, but also under a lot of pressure to conform and worried about challenging such a dominant narrative within their own organisation.

For many of us in /The Rules community there was a point in our lives where we too started to question the stories we were being told about neoliberalism, capitalism, patriarchy, race, gender and international development.

Being ‘outside of the mainstream narrative’ on poverty/development can be quite a lonely and isolating experience so we’d love to be able to foster a sense of solidarity and understanding with ‘When it clicked’ – a series of stories from people working within the international development sector who want to share their experience of challenging the dominant narrative around poverty and development, how it felt and why it’s important to question.

Whether you’ve found yourself asking the same questions, felt uncomfortable about challenging the narrative, or are looking to start a career in the development sector and are avidly following the progress of the SDGs, you might find that these stories resonate with you.

Read them all here.

If you have a story you want to share, please get in touch.