Tag Archives: good aid

Tom Sawyer

18 Nov

Almost through the Tales From the Hood rock ‘n’ roll marathon…

Here’s the fifth tune in the playlist:


A modern day warrior

mean, mean stride

Today’s Tom Sawyer

mean, mean pride

I once asked rhetorically whether or not aid blogging matters. Now I’m telling you straight up:

It matters. It matters a lot.

The conversation about what international development and aid are, what makes them effective, how they should be done, and what they’re capable of accomplishing is dominated by simplistic, happy, and  occasionally even plain dishonest messaging about how this NGO or that is eradicating hunger or making poverty history.

It’s not that I or anyone else wants to be known as “negative” or “cynical.” But right now independent blogs like the ones in my extended blog roll are the only place where you can consistently count on an unfiltered alternative to the meticulously crafted stories that you get from branded NGO websites, blogs, and published reports. Or, similarly, to those usually too-long, over-edited, jargon-intensive and generally LAMEified summaries coming out of those famous life-saving high-level workshops and forums where intelligentsia and aristocracy gather to discuss “the bottom of the pyramid.” No, it’s not that we want to be negative or angry or cynical as a matter of principle. It’s not that everything said within the hallowed halls of the HRI-affiliates is wrong or inaccurate or suspect, or that everything said on aid blogs is spot on. But vibrant, diverse discussion adds value by definition and is a good thing as a matter of principle.

The whole blogging thing may seem too messy, too emotive, too unfocused for you. The aid blogosphere may feel like and maybe even be so much opinion, conjecture, hearsay, assuming facts not in evidence. It may annoy you, all the cynicism and negativity. It may make you plain angry.  You may hope and pray for the day when this reality will change, but until the aid industry gets past its own dogma and NGOs get past their fears of internal diversity of thought, these blogs do matter.

Oh, and before you condescendingly wonder how I can ever find the time, or go on about how you’re too busy working to waste time blogging, let me just say: everyone finds the time for what they think is important. Some of you follow sports or collect stamps. Some of us blog.

Though his mind is not for rent

don’t put him down as arrogant

His reserve, a quiet defense

Riding out the day’s events…

I get it. The real world is about give and take, about compromise, about finding middle ground. Fair enough.

In my day-to-day work I am committed to finding those workable compromises – without compromising the bottom lines of what makes good aid good aid; to engaging in the give-and-take in a collegial way. At any given time there are multiple, contingent and competing realities. I do get this. I am not naïve. I get that humanitarian work, at least as we know it now, requires the architecture of an organization behind it, and that both the work and the organization(s) require resources in order to continue existing, and that those resources have to come from somewhere.

But let’s just be very clear:  This all as may be, the way things currently are in the aid industry is not the way that they should be. The natural tendency of the industry is not toward good aid.  The political economy of this industry just wants to favor someone other than the poor. And left alone, that’s what it will do. All of which means, in my opinion, that no matter where any of us sits in the humanitarian industry, whether we’re on the front line handing out food parcels to disaster survivors, or buried deep in the bowels of HQ, managing spreadsheets and sending life-saving emails, it is our job – every single one of us – to be steering our spheres of influence in the direction of “the way things should be.”

Yes, I understand that at the level of individual inter-departmental or inter-agency transactions we have to cut deals and compromise. But in all areas and at all levels of our industry right now the status quo is simply not good enough.

I don’t care who you are, if you work for or are in some other way affiliate yourself with an NGO of any size, if you claim for yourself the title of humanitarian, then it is your job to move the needle towards the way things should be.

What you say about his company

Is what you say about society

Catch the mist, catch the myth

Catch the mystery, catch the drift

Maybe you think that all of us aid bloggers are just a bunch of stuck-up elitists hiding behind our computers, out of touch with how the real world works? (Well, you’re wrong about me hiding behind my computer. I get out in it on a regular basis.) But I am an elitist, absolutely. I see no reason to compromise on the principles of good aid. Maybe my views create an inconvenience for you. Maybe you don’t like what I have to say or how I say it.

Maybe you think my tone is too harsh or (heaven forbid) snarky. Okay, fair enough – I sometimes shout into the void here. I don’t mind admitting that after a day or a week or a month of playing all nice, whether in in-house strategery or coordination meetings in the field, I need a space where I can crank the volume up to 11.

But this doesn’t make me wrong.

No his mind is not for rent

To any god or government

Always hopeful, yet discontent

He knows changes aren’t permanent

But change is…

We all have our own intellectual lives that extend beyond the logos on our namecards. Mission statements are words. Organizations, like their taglines, come and go. But the humanitarian imperative remains.

Discontent with the way things are in the industry is not the same as disloyalty to an organization, and different still from unwillingness to perform. Most real aid workers that I know would rather spend a few rounds of cynical, self-deprecating pub-based reflection than go to a company pep-rally. Seriously, the sports metaphors and high-fiving leave us cold. But that doesn’t mean we’re not on board with the program.

Discontent? Sure, we have some of that. But if we weren’t at least a little bit hopeful, we wouldn’t be here.

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Patience

15 Nov

This weeks it’s the Tales From the Hood rock ‘n’ roll marathon.

Here’s the second tune in the playlist:

This one’s easy: I think that we are all far too anxious to declare aid successes or failures far too soon.

Who knew that Axel Rose would have the answer?

Said woman take it slow
It’ll work itself out fine
All we need is just a little patience
Said sugar make it slow
And we’ll come together fine
All we need is just a little patience
Patience, patience, patience
Ooh, oh, yeah…

I really like Jacqualine Novogratz’s description of “patient capital.” (read her interview on Social Edge). As I analyze it, she’s basically talking about two age-old “good aid” ideas kind of rolled into one.

1)      Look at aid outcomes in the terms of those we’re intending to help (“the poor”).

2)      Take the time that’s needed.

We’re talking about peoples lives and, importantly, their ways of life, here. How quickly does change happen in your organization? At your institution? In your family? Yeah? It doesn’t happen quickly in “the field”, either.

This stuff takes time. Yes, I get that donor funding cycles and life-of-project realities mean that we have to try to talk about results before they’re all the way ripe or describe progress that can’t really be measured yet. But as humanitarian aid practitioners, it’s our job to see past funding cycles. The rhythms of change in the communities where we work are not based on annual congressional statements, the European Commission’s budgeting process, or when the tax year ends for that wealthy area businessman who’s been a “strong supporter” for a long time.

Sure, aid is not perfect. And sure there’s room for improvement. But it works better than you think. But you have to give it time.

Just have a little patience.

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Humanitarian Aid 101: #4 – Accept that some good ideas cannot be implemented.

15 Aug

If I was to ever teach an intro-level course in humanitarian principles and action, it would go something like this:

Lesson #4. Accept that some good ideas cannot be implemented

This was a difficult one for me to get my head around, back in the day. Truth be told, even now there are still moments when I have to step back and reconcile myself to this basic reality of humanitarian relief and development: Very often even very good, logical, technologically sound ideas just cannot be implemented.

Why? There are at least three overlapping reasons:

Many good ideas aren’t. The most common mistake made by both amateurs and seasoned veterans alike is to mistake for a “good idea” what is, in fact, a totally dumbass idea.

How do you know what is a good idea and what isn’t? Well, you know what has been tried before, and what has worked in the past versus what has not. You don’t assume that you know more than you actually do. Contrary to good ol’ fashioned down-home common sense theory, good ideas in humanitarian relief and development do not come out of thin air. Humanitarian work is a profession which requires specific knowledge, skills and experience to get right. I know that it annoys some of you to hear this, but it is still true.

Theory v. Practice. What looks great on paper very often does not work in the real world. What flows perfectly in the sanitized order of a logframe matrix, or what makes infinite sense in the variable-less sanctuary of a classroom very often falls flat in the multi-layered, textured chaos of “the field.” It doesn’t go much deeper than that.

I have seen basically well-planned, well-resourced programs fall flat for reasons that I could never in my wildest dreams have imagined. I have seen programs fail out in the field under circumstances that were too strange to be even good fiction. Seriously, some days you can”t make up the situations that happen out in the field. There are a million contingencies that even the most well-designed program cannot deal with. You can’t plan for everything. Simple as that.

Disaster survivors (“the poor” in development programs) very often prefer the “lesser” option. Sometimes their reasons make sense to us, and sometimes they do not.

I have seen people drink brown river water, rather than use a purification technology that would have worked beautifully and almost certainly reduced mortality and morbidity. Why didn’t they go for the NGO solution? Because it was too complicated to use. In their minds, the cost of following precise, complicated steps outweighed the cost of possibly getting sick.

Or I have seen people who would rather farm their barren patch of ground for whatever they can get out of it than drop everything in order to risk starting up something else in a new place. Or people who would rather be an overworked, underpaid employee in a sweatshop and have some kind of job security, than throw everything they have into a small or micro- enterprise. Or who would rather eat contaminated and/or low quality food that was familiar than eat pure and/or high quality food that was unfamiliar.

Sometimes people want those old-school blue tarps instead of a high-tech geodesic dome tent. Sometimes they want flip-flops instead of proper shoes. Sometimes they would rather walk half a kilometer for water than only 100 meters. Some families would rather live in poverty with eight children than live in less poverty with only three.

Sometimes there are reasons for these choices that “make sense” to us – those tarps can be used for a lot of things beside just shelter, those tents, not so much. But sometimes there is no perceptible “real” reason, and the reasons given by the people themselves make no obvious sense whatsoever.

* * *

As humanitarian workers we very often see it as our job to be agents of change, however variously we may understand what that means both theoretically and in practice. It is very often our job to go into situations that very obviously need to change and recommend practical action to affect those obviously needed changes. Moreover, it is often our job to stand firm in the face of local resistance to the changes that we recommend. Sometimes we have to badger and pester and cajole and offer incentive. Sometimes local partners try out our suggestions just to indulge us because they think we’re cool or funny or because having us around breaks up the monotony. Or maybe they try out our ideas just to get rid of us. Sometime, if we feel strongly enough about the issue, we may us whatever power we have to bludgeon an idea through.

At the end of the day, though, this all has be about those we say we’re trying to help. If it doesn’t work for them, then it doesn’t work.

As true humanitarians, this is perhaps our biggest and most important challenge: The challenge of knowing when to push, cajole, pester, or leverage our local relationships in order to make things happen “for good” in the communities where we work… and also knowing when, on the other hand, to simply let go. It challenges our knowledge and skill, it challenges our maturity, it challenges our wisdom. It forces us to make this really not about us, but about them – and maybe this is the biggest challenge of all for humanitarian workers.

Many, many excellent ideas simply cannot be implemented.

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