Grassroots Leadership in Practice: Comparative Regional Perspectives
Author: Dr. Anna Neya Kazanskaia
Publisher: NEYA Global Publishing
Article | NEYA Global Journal of Non-Profit Studies
Year: 2025
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-5669-1676
DOI: https://doi.org/10.64357/neya-gjnps-grsrldemplcvc-05
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About the Article
This article examines how grassroots leadership manifests across diverse regional contexts—Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and the Global North—highlighting shared principles of relational trust, community embeddedness, and cultural legitimacy. Through comparative case studies, it shows how community health workers, women’s collectives, Indigenous movements, and migrant organizations embody leadership rooted in solidarity, advocacy, and collective agency. Each context reveals distinct challenges: donor dependency in Africa, caste and gender hierarchies in South Asia, repression of Indigenous activism in Latin America, and legal or linguistic exclusion in migrant networks. Despite these differences, the study identifies core cross-regional functions—mobilization, cultural brokerage, and empowerment—as the foundation of effective grassroots leadership. The analysis concludes that grassroots leadership is not simply local adaptation but a global democratic practice essential for legitimacy, sustainability, and justice in non-profit and development work.
Key Topics
- Comparative grassroots leadership
- Community health workers
- Women’s collectives and self-help groups
- Indigenous movements and buen vivir
- Migrant organizations and advocacy
- Legitimacy and empowerment
Suggested Citation
Kazanskaia, A. N. (2025). Grassroots Leadership in Practice: Comparative Regional Perspectives. NEYA Global Journal of Non-Profit Studies. NEYA Global Publishing. https://doi.org/10.64357/neya-gjnps-grsrldemplcvc-05
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