Recent NGO collapse prompts anger as Kenya funds sent to UK

A United Kingdom NGO that collapsed last year — leaving around 50 U.K. and Kenyan staffers out of work within days — did not provide severance pay to its East Africa teams, even though more than £107,000 was held in its Kenyan bank accounts at the time, newly released liquidation documents show. Former staff of Development Initiatives claim the money had been intended for the organization’s Africa operations but was instead transferred to the United Kingdom by liquidators as part of the insolvency process. The research and analysis group, based in Bristol, England, announced in October 2024 that it was “ceasing operations” due to “ongoing financial pressures,” following significant losses the previous year and the end of several major contracts, as Devex reported at the time. But a recent public LinkedIn post by former staff member Bill Anderson has raised further questions about how the shutdown affected Development Initiatives’ East Africa team, which had been central to its localization strategy. In the post, Anderson, who formerly served as DI’s data and innovation lead and is still listed on the organization’s archived website, wrote that U.K. employees received statutory redundancy but “our colleagues in East Africa … received zero compensation,” describing them as “left destitute.” He also alleged that over £100,000 in DI’s Nairobi accounts — money that he said was “rightfully deposited there for East African operations” — was subject to “repatriation” attempts by U.K. liquidators in order to cover insolvency costs. Anderson, who now works as a freelance data governance specialist and is currently working on a data mapping project for Research ICT Africa, also argued that DI’s collapse was not primarily caused by the tightening funding environment but by what he described as “financial mismanagement or lack of financial oversight.” He wrote that the charity “did NOT go bust as a result of the financial squeeze on northern development organisations.” Another former DI staff member, Martha Getachew Bekele — now director and cofounder of Development Transformations, the organization formed by much of DI’s former Africa team — also commented publicly on the post, describing what she called the “painfully personal” inequities experienced by the team in the region. She wrote that she was informed of the closure “one hour before” the organization-wide meeting where the news was announced and told that African staff would not receive that month’s salary. Bekele, who was based in Ethiopia as DI’s former delivery, quality, and impact lead for Africa, said that after six years at DI, she was advised there would be “no severance pay,” while “UK counterparts would be compensated” by the British government. She added that the liquidators’ subsequent request for creditors to approve £100,000 in fees was “a final reminder of that colonial instinct that never died,” noting that the total amount proposed for all African staff represented “not even 20% of what they are paying themselves.” Other former staff also expressed long-standing frustrations about the organization’s treatment of its Africa office. One ex-DI research analyst, who left the organization in 2014, commented on the post that the shutdown “showed everyone what they’d always thought of Africa and the Africa office,” adding that it left him “ashamed” and that the closure reflected deeper inequities in the wider development sector, where senior local staff are often paid less than international counterparts. A statutory report issued by the joint liquidators, S&W Partners LLP, confirms that DI held three bank accounts at Absa Bank in Nairobi – in Kenyan shillings, U.S. dollars, and sterling — which together contained £107,740 at the time of liquidation. These funds were transferred to the U.K. liquidation estate on Jan. 22, 2025, following instructions from Kenyan lawyers acting for the liquidators. The report notes that DI’s directors had asked the bank to freeze the accounts shortly before the liquidation began in November 2024. After carrying out a tracing exercise to determine whether the money represented restricted funding, the liquidators concluded that the accounts were too commingled to allocate and therefore treated the balance as part of the liquidation estate. The same report shows that 13 staff members in Kenya and Uganda had their contracts terminated on Oct. 23, 2024. They received a salary payment for the month of October, but no redundancy pay, notice pay, or other entitlements, which were treated as unsecured creditor claims. Because DI’s Africa operations were legally branches of the U.K. entity, those employees “are not entitled to have recourse to the UK National Insurance Fund,” the liquidators wrote. A former DI employee, speaking on background, told Devex that the organization had been “on a sincere and determined path” to shift leadership and decision-making to its African team. “There was a real sense of us moving in that direction, but the organisation ran out of time,” they said. Financial pressures were visible early, they added, noting that DI had expanded significantly in 2021-22 and then struggled to sustain that growth amid a tightening funding environment. “The previous expansion couldn’t be sustained with the available revenue streams,” the former employee said. In relation to staff treatment, they confirmed that employees in Kenya and Uganda were paid in full for October 2024, but said redundancy pay and other entitlements were governed by local statutory frameworks rather than the U.K. system. “People were employed on contracts where they were based, so statutory redundancy depended on the position in those countries,” they said. The liquidators’ report corroborates that Africa-based staff were paid through October, with eight employees subsequently submitting claims for holiday pay owed, listed in the liquidation as unsecured creditor claims, which the report indicates are unlikely to be paid. The former employee emphasized that DI’s experience reflected broader pressures affecting mid-sized NGOs. “Nothing about DI’s experience was unique,” they said. “Other organisations hit the same challenges. It’s a very difficult period for the sector.” They added that “everybody involved felt desperately sad at the way the organisation finished.” The liquidators’ report also highlights issues relating to DI’s internal financial information, describing the organization’s records as “potentially incomplete” and saying they “cannot be fully relied upon.” Creditors raised concerns over whether restricted donor funds had been used appropriately, prompting the liquidators to investigate a possible breach of trust, although that inquiry was later discontinued. The liquidators have recorded £121,108 in time costs during the first year of the liquidation and estimate that total costs will exceed the remaining value of the estate. S&W Partners LLP, the joint liquidators, said in a statement to Devex that DI “had been in deficit since 2022,” attributing the collapse in part to “the difficult funding environment in the post pandemic period” and to delayed funding in October 2024 that left the organization without sufficient cash to continue trading. They said DIPR was a U.K. company subject to U.K. insolvency legislation, under which “any property of the company, including the assets of overseas branches, falls within this UK insolvency process,” and that creditor claims were being handled accordingly. The liquidators added that Africa-based staff were made redundant by the directors on Oct. 23, 2024, and that African management “took the decision to pay the wages for staff … for the month of October.” They confirmed they have now provided creditors with an update report and that “it is now for the creditors (which includes all global employees)” to approve or reject their remuneration proposal. Former board members and senior staff at DI were also approached for comment, but offered no response.