Organizational development is a discipline that needs to become more central to the practice of the development sector as a whole, not just a small professional enclave.

A local sovereign organisation is an authentic expression of the will and voice of its own constituents. While it may accept funding to provide services, it is not a surrogate vehicle for the projects of another agency’s purpose.

Sovereignty is both a quality to be developed and a right to be respected and defended. It is a particularly powerful concept when applied to organisation, suggesting authentic qualities, describing a home-grown resilience, an inside-out identity, the idea of an organisation being the expression of the free will of its own constituents.