Sahel: The world is waiting for pictures of starving children

When I see the dynamics of the "international aid", I get thoroughly disgusted at times.

Take the Sahel hunger crisis: Less than a year ago, the international humanitarian community got heavily criticized for their lack of advanced warnings, and preventive responses in the Somalia drought crisis.

While the first clear signals of a major drought in the Horn of Africa came as early as August 2010, it was not until a year later, in July 2011, that the international community reacted. The relief efforts mainly started after the UN officially declared a famine in southern Somalia, and the drought – finally – hit the international press.
Way too late for an adequate response though, states the post-factum Oxfam/Save the Children report. With disastrous consequences: Of the 13 million people at risk, an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people died. More half of them were children under five, according to the same report.

I would not necessarily agree with all findings in the Oxfam report, but it was clear that "something did not work". According to me, it was not a lack of early warning signals, and not a lack of response from the humanitarian organisations. Nor was it a lack appeals for funding. It was a lack of response from the international community to provide sufficient funding to avoid a food security crisis to turn into a full-scale famine.

Anyways, in fall 2011, the humanitarian organisations humbly bowed their heads, screamed "Mea Culpa" and put ash on their forehead. "We will do better", they promised.

Of course, we did not have to wait long... A few months later, the Sahel drought hit, and this time, the humanitarians did everything according to the books: early warning signals of drought detected (tick), clear assessments (tick), clear targeting (tick), funding alerts issued (tick), media alerted (tick).

Result: already deep into the hunger crisis, the drought appeal for the Sahel is only 39% funded - check out this updated financial reporting for the common appeal (Source: OCHA). Individual sector such as education and human rights only have pledged funding covering 7% and 5% respectively.

Why? Why do donors not come forward with sufficient funding? According to me, the answer is simple: There is a dire lack of pictures from starving children. Misery sells. And people in the aid business know that nothing sells as well as the picture of a starving child on the breast of crying, underfed, exhausted mother. With a dry desert landscape in the background. Insert dead cattle corpses if possible.

There have not been sufficient pictures of starving children in the Sahel, thus funding does not arrive, thus the needs can not be fulfilled, thus people will die, thus awful pictures will come, thus people will get angry, thus donors will donate.

And once again, we will have put a plaster on a wooden leg. Just in time to prepare for the next drought famine in East Africa again. L'histoire se repète.

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Looking for a job as an aidworker? Here is a good start!

Ever since I wrote the post on "How to become an aidworker", I get mail from people asking for advice. Most struggle with getting into "the system", which is indeed the hardest part: "getting through that solid iron gate".

Part of the problem is that people don't know where to look for vacancies. Job announcements in the aid and nonprofit sector are spread in many different places. I tried to change that, and built an aggregator. AidJobs collecting job vacancies in the international aid sector, the humanitarian and development field as well as in the nonprofit area.

The job offers range from part time volunteering to internships, consultancies, and staff employment. About half of the jobs are for local positions (mostly in the US and Europe), half are international  positions (mostly in Africa, Asia and South America).

To really get started, I also list offers for online volunteers: volunteering work you can do from your home, for a few hours per week - a great way to help out many nonprofits, to get additional experience, give something back to society, and also to get "a foot in the door" of the nonprofit world.

AidJobs also features a map, with the locations of the latest job offers.

You can follow the updates via @AidJobs on Twitter, and via the AidJobs Facebook page. I also publish a daily digest.

Since I started the site a week ago, 1,700 positions were collected, from development specialists in Haiti, to social media internships in New York, a human rights consultancy in Argentina and a camp manager in South Sudan.

Enjoy!

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Another drought. Is the development failing?

When I started working in the Horn of Africa, in the mid 90's, my first emergency was a drought operation. Between 1900 and now, the region had more than 18 famine periods. This year, we have another one. And I am sure - unless we change things drastically - there will be another drought emergency a few years from now.

As an aidworker, I always worked in emergencies. Droughts, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, were my daily work... Some of these calamities are hard to anticipate, leave alone mitigate. But other, climate change related emergencies, are. At least partially. The question is: "Are we doing enough?".

My answer is: NO. According to me, both the humanitarian community neither the donors put enough emphasize on agricultural development, which -to me- is the core of climate change mitigation for farmers in many parts of the world.

In the past year, I travelled through Kenya, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana and India, interviewing a dozen farmer communities on climate change. I recorded their views on the current state, their wishes, their fears, and condensed it in about 30 videos (the videos you can watch here, some of the stories, you can read here). The problems differed from region to region, and so do the possible solutions.

What got to me is not only the struggles of the farmers themselves, but also the social implications of the failing agriculture in many parts of the world. In Kenya, most of the men went off to work in the cities, leaving the women to farm, and to raise their families. In Burkina Faso, whole villages migrated due to repeated failing crops. In India none of the people I spoke to, saw farming as a viable way to make a living anymore. All but one family saw the future for their kids as getting a "proper" job, somewhere in a remote city. Where will that leave us, ten-twenty years from now? Farming is the basis of many developing countries. No farming, no food, as simple as that. But even more importantly, without proper targeted agricultural development, farmers will even have it harder in the years to come. Already many live on the edge of survival. It does not take much to push them over the edge. As what happens in the Horn of Africa, this year once again.

And yet, it does not take much. Locally adapted solutions make a big change. Be it a dam, constructing low walls to avoid water running off and taking the top soil with it, planting trees to avoid erosion, micro-dosing fertilizer,.... Or wider solutions in breeding crop varieties, better adapted to the changing environment.

But little is invested in agricultural development. I broke a bone before on how cutting agricultural development, is like digging our own grave. The most frustrating part, for me, is to see how the budgets for aid emergencies, like the current drought in East Africa, beats that of agricultural development in the same area, by a ton. How everyone is beating the press drums once a drought hits a region again, but the same drums kept silent for the years before that. How the press is all over the current drought, but hardly made any room to show sustainable solutions, in the past. Everyone cries foul now over the drought, but hardly anyone was interested in the same region, in the past. And still, the impact of the current drought could have been avoided. But we failed to do so. The humanitarian community failed, the press failed, the public interest failed,...

Emergency aid relief is a plaster on a wooden leg. Sure, we have to help the people dying of famine right now, but our interest will fade out once the peak of the emergency is over.

And that gets to me.


More posts about agricultural development on The Road

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Aid-y-Wood: Celebrities' Good Intentions Are Not Good Enough

Next to Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood, we also have Aid-y-wood: the way that celebrities throw money at humanitarian causes.

Here is one. Read in the New York Times:

("Raising Malawi",.. ) A high-profile charitable foundation set up to build a school for impoverished girls in Malawi, founded by the singer Madonna and fellow devotees of a prominent Jewish mysticism movement, has collapsed after spending $3.8 million on a project that never came to fruition.(...)

Madonna has lent her name, reputation and $11 million of her money to the organization. (...)

(...) the plans to build a $15 million school for about 400 girls in the poor southeastern African country of 15 million (...) have been officially abandoned.(...)

(...) an examination found that $3.8 million had been spent on the school that will now not be built, with much of the money going to architects, design and salaries and, in one case, two cars for employees who had not even been hired yet.(...)

(Source)

So they planned to build a $15 million boarding school for 400 girls in Malawi, hey?
That is about 10% of the annual budget for the Malawi Ministry of Education.. catering for 8.1 million kids.

Celebrities lending their name, voice or face to make publicity for a good cause is one thing. It all starts to go wrong when they decide to "do it themselves".

"Good intentions" are really not enough. Good aid is complexer than just "giving something". And the more you give wrong, the more adverse the impact you might have.

It also takes a turn for worse if some hawks "assist" the Aid-y-Wood's efforts in development and rip the charity off. The aid world as such, but certainly the celebrity charities, are such a fertile soil for con-men: Loads of money with no clue, what more do you want? The good feeling of giving, the good feeling of "hey at least we tried" even if all goes wrong, and the forgiveness of "Well, at least you tried.." gets them off the hook.

UPDATE:
Eight workers at Madonna's Malawi charity are suing the U.S. pop star for unfair dismissal and non-payment of their benefits. (Source) - Another thing celebrities underestimate: "Be ready to get ripped off. If is not a question of "if", but of "how much".


Picture courtesy Mark Richards via Social Earth

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Wanted: humanitarians with a conscience- About the small steps from UNICEF to NESTLE, from PEPSICO to WHO

Within the humanitarian world, there has always been a debate about the professional profile of development or aid workers. While the world often has an image of aidworkers resembling "the long-haired hippie singing 'We are the world' with a bunch of black kids on our knees, wearing hand-knitted goat-wool socks", many of us agree that the profile of a humanitarian should be different. Rather than "Good Intentions-only" we often look for "professionals", people who can bring an aid organisation to a operational level comparable to the commercial sector.

But somewhere there is a trade-off. We can not only hire shark-like business people, "to cut our overhead and bring more aid for less money", as often this would conflict with our humanitarian mandate. Simple example: We might buy those schoolbooks at 50% of the price, but those are made in sweat shops.
Understand the dilemma?

So, the ideal profile of a humanitarian, in my book, is a "professional with a conscience".

While my ideals stand, I can only validate them up to a certain point. Beyond that, "humanitarian executives" will, more often than not, be career politicians or even mere business people...

According to an interesting article in India Today, quoted below, Ann Veneman -the ex-chief of UNICEF- might be one of those. Switching from the UN agency mandated for child nutrition, promoting breast feeding, to joining the board of Nestle.

Nestle being the very same company which has been heavily critized for its low-faith/low-ethics campaigns luring women in the developing countries into to powder milk for babies... Nestle is the very same company which has been accused by UNICEF of using commercial methods below WHO standards.

As I said, an interesting article:

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has just released a glossy report on the state of the world's children. Senior officials of the UN body made the right noises about children, the need to improve their nutritional status and so on, at media dos in several important capitals across the globe.

At a similar occasion a couple of years ago, Ann Veneman - who was Executive Director of the agency till April 2010 - had articulated Unicef's position on how exclusive breastfeeding for toddlers is critical to combat hunger and promote child survival. Post-retirement the UN official has undergone a change of mind.

She will now be on the board of a company which has been accused of subverting efforts to promote breastfeeding by flouting laws in order to market its formula foods. Yes, Veneman is joining the Board of Directors of Switzerland-based food giant - Nestle.

Veneman's transition from advocating nutrition and health to the board room of a multinational food company has been rather smooth, but has shocked health advocates all over.

It is nothing short of a coup for the food industry which is increasingly under attack for promoting unhealthy snacking and eating habits among children.

Veneman has had an 'illustrious' past.

In 2005, when she was appointed to the top post in Unicef, not everyone was comfortable because of her past connections with agrobusiness as secretary of agriculture in the Bush Administration.

"Veneman's promotion by the Bush Administration - Unicef is traditionally headed by an American - was greeted with concerns by some grassroots activists because of her good relations with big business and her limited experience in child welfare issues", medical journal The Lancet had noted in 2006.

While at the UN body, Veneman consciously emphasised the use of ready-to-use foods as a strategy to counter malnutrition.

As per her own admission made a few months before her term ended, " Unicef has significantly contributed to accelerating the use of ready-to-use therapeutic foods for treatment of acute malnutrition, with Unicef purchases of the product increasing from 100 metric tons in 2003 to over 11,000 metric tons in 2008". Veneman's appointment is part of the trend which has seen junk food makers trying to position themselves as marketers of healthy and nutritious foods.

A few years back PepsiCo appointed Derek Yach, former Executive Director of non- communicable diseases at the World Health Organisation (WHO), as its head of health and nutrition policies.

Yach frequently writes or coauthors review articles and comments in medical journals, pushing the industry point of view.

Such articles are then cited to influence policy makers.

PepsiCo got the head of cardiovascular diseases at Centre for Disease Control (CDC) - a US government arm - to head its own division on heart health. By appointing people connected with top health bodies, these companies want to portray themselves as part of the solution and not problem, and also want to influence policy making in health and nutrition.

At this rate, the day is not far off when junk food makers will position themselves as 'health and nutrition research' outfits and start dictating national health policies. (Source)

And there is loads more we can say about the positioning of junk food and junk drinks companies within the humanitarian organisations... Right? Right?


H/T to I.T. having the courage to tweet this link...

Cartoon courtesy Polyp.org and Speechless - The Book

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Aidwork? Or did you mean Paid Work?

Google is funny. I Googled "aidwork" and they asked if I meant "paid work"...?

Is Google suggesting I should go for a decent job?

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So you wanna join the Peace Corps?

Ah those idealic youngsters. Where would humour be without them?

"You don't know how to farm. You have never been on a farm."
Hilarious.

Discovered via Chasing Carla and AidBlogs

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Pakistan: I wished I was wrong - Part I

Remember, I predicted that despite all the humanitarian trumpet-ing that "Pakistan was the biggest humanitarian emergency ever seen", funding would not be forthcoming? Simply because the main donor countries would not step forward, and the world sentiment is not particularly filled with loved for anything happening in countries filled with mosques?

Guess what.

Of the 460 million USD humanitarian appeal, only 307 million is funded to date.

Oxfam cries foul. And so does the latest hired humanitarian employee, Ms Amos. Who also happens to be the new UN Emergency Relief Coordinator. According to her, in the past two weeks, only $20 million USD was received on the half a billion appeal. Twenty-million in two weeks. For a natural disaster? If that does not prove a point, nothing will.

As goes with natural disasters: if the money does not arrive one month after, forget about it. It is out of the news. Press, people, and donors have moved on.

The next time I will write about Pakistan, the post title will be "Pakistan: I wished I was wrong - Part II". It will to about my second prediction on Pakistan. The first killing of an aidworker since the crisis.

I wish I am proven wrong on this one.

I am telling you, to survive in the aid world, you really need a harness of cynism.


Picture courtesy REUTERS/Athar Hussain

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Give up, bail out or continue running?

Just read this on Itinerant and Indigent, one of the aidblogs I following. Phil, an aidworker in Afghanistan, writes about his struggle to continue believing in the "Cause". The "raison d'être" of an aidworker:

Why do we keep trying here? I am less and less sure that we achieve anything. I know, I know now that this work is not about us feeling good, or developing our CVs. And I am not an aid junkie, living on the high of the emergency, the thrill of saving lives. But I would like to see permanent progress here in some form, in my lifetime. I am less convinced that will happen, or at least less convinced that there is much I can do to expedite it.

It seems I follow a God of lost causes. I am not sure how I feel about that. As Nathan says, ‘I have joined the long defeat’.

I wonder how many of the long term aidworkers have this struggle. How many years does it take before we let our shoulders hang down, or bail out, or stop caring, or continue running with our eyes closed, or invent the famous "signs of improvement"..

How many years have we been in Afghanistan? In Pakistan? In Ethiopia? Niger? DRC?

Add on top of the lack of progress, the security risks every single aidworker runs in some of these places, and you wonder...

I think the only way to cope in the longer run is to check out for a while and come back with new hope. In a different country. Another project. And for the rest, continue holding on, in the faith that humanity is basically good.


PS: If you know where the picture is taken, I guess you can call yourself an "ancien"... Start counting the days The Doubt will come.

PPS: Phil.. Hang in there, buddy!

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Haiti: The complexity of aid

..Looking at different sides of the need for aid and the effects of aid..

Video discovered via Global Envision

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I Am an Aid Worker. And a Woman. Help!

This is a post I wrote three years ago. It seems the subject is still ever so close to the hearts of many, so I brought it onto the foreground again.
There are several excellent insights people posted in the comments. I'm interested to hear your point of view.

In the previous post, Shylock explored, in a ironical, cynical, self-criticizing way, what personal future we, aid workers have. We wonder the earth, gradually getting used to travel all the time, often in harsh places, and very often in search of a thrill. Gradually we get addicted to it all.
But is there life after this.. after this life of a gypsy? Do we become gypsy disasters after years of behaving like a disaster gypsy, roaming from one emergency to the next?

No matter how much we chuckle reading the previous post, in the end, it is not funny. Far from it. Many humanitarian workers have a problem to find 'a life after this'.. But it is even more sad to realize how few actually "have a life even now"... Even now, many forget, or at least compromise, their personal life because of their addiction. The addiction to the horizon, to the adrenaline.

And now I want to you stop for a moment, no matter what you are doing. What I am going to tell you, is very close to my heart...

No matter how you twist and turn it. The professional world is still a man's world. This world in general is still a man's world. It has been for hundreds of centuries. From the time men dragged women into their cages by their hair, we have come a long way, but we are not there yet. "There" being "offering equal chances, and equal opportunities to women".

Here is how I see it. (and don't forget I am a man, and no matter how hard I try, I will always be a man, even if I try to look at things from a woman's perspective):

I look around me, and see people -men and women- alike, with loads of personal challenges through the work they do... But then I look again, and see that in most management functions in this business - the humanitarian world -, men hold the key functions (and most of them come from the first world, but let's leave that aside for a moment). I look once more, and see most administrative support positions are filled by women. Many women in this business are strong, well educated, hard working people. Many of them are young, full of energy, inspiration and aspirations. The new generation of women have been encouraged (and enabled) by their parents to get a good education. They are ambitious to develop themselves personally and professionally. Many of these young women whizz through their twenties like a breeze, and some climb up (if all goes well), the professional ladder.
All of a sudden they find themselves in their mid thirties, somewhere in the professional chain and ask "hey where is my personal life gone to?". And that is where the challenges start.

If all goes well, they find a partner. If all goes well. As we - men - are not always too happy to live with a partner who has a demanding career. Even fewer like it when that career takes 'our woman' away on duty travel. Heaven forbids that 'her career' would even have her live far away from us, in some dark and remote humanitarian crisis area.

"If all goes well" they find a partner, as too often at their mid thirties, what men are "available" on the "partner market"? Those coming out of their first long relationship, and not looking for something long term. The 'celibataires eternelles' or 'commito-fobes'. Those who have not made up their mind what the hell they want. The 'players'. And those already in a relationship. Or those who have failed in relationships so far.. (and all of that is a whole different discussion which I would love to have over a glass of Prosecco).

So "if all goes well", a partner is found. And then? "A career" you say? In this world where, no matter what, a woman is still supposed to not only bare the children, but also spend most of her time raising them? Where a woman is still supposed to do most of the household stuff? [if you are a man, think about it... If you don't agree with me, think again... Who spends most of the time with the kids, working for/in the house? You or your partner?].

So, what then? Most women are the ones making the compromise then.. Either give up their career, or work part time, etc...
If they don't, the juggle of kids, house, husband and career becomes a full time challenge.

The other evening, I went with E. over all the women we knew. And we tried to flag those we thought had found a good balance between kids, house, husband and career. And are successful in all. We found one. One woman out of the dozens of women we know, we found one.

That is a sad observation. And even more sad, when we realized that lady does not work in the humanitarian "business".

So, all you ladies out there. And specifically those of you in the humanitarian world! In my "The Dudettes" short story I tried (in my cynical and ironical way) pay a tribute to you all. But come and have your say too. Am I seeing things in a too dark, negative way? Am I seeing things too much from a "male" perspective? You tell me.

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Pakistan floods: Wishing I was wrong

A few days ago, I -once more- climbed onto my soapbox and proclaimed my eternal wisdom on the Pakistan flood emergency as if the Holy Truth Was Installed Upon Me by The Powers Above. Hallelujah..!

For all those involved in the emergency, I honestly wished I was wrong. But unfortunately, I am watching it all unroll as I predicted.

I claimed funding for the Pakistan emergency would probably not be forthcoming due to a lack of interest from the West... and here is a clip from yesterday's papers:

The global aid response to the Pakistan floods has so far been much less generous than to other recent natural disasters — despite the soaring numbers of people affected (...)

Reasons include the relatively low death toll of 1,500, the slow onset of the flooding compared with more immediate and dramatic earthquakes or tsunamis, and a global "donor fatigue" — or at least a Pakistan fatigue. (Ed: I would only accept the last explanation)

Ten days after the Kashmir quake, donors gave or pledged $292 million, according to the aid group Oxfam. The Jan. 12 disaster in Haiti led to pledges nearing $1 billion within the first 10 days.
For Pakistan, the international community gave or pledged $150 million after the flooding began in earnest in late July (...) (Full)

A detailed updated status of the consolidated pledges to the Pakistan humanitarian appeal, you find here.


And on staff security, all warning lights are on:

The Pakistani Taliban has urged the government not to accept any foreign aid for victims of the worst flooding in the country's history.

Spokesman Azam Tariq told an Associated Press reporter Tuesday that the Taliban would themselves provide money if the government stopped accepting international help.

"Pakistan should reject this aid to maintain sovereignty and independence," Tariq said. (Full)

Last year, the Taliban issued a similar statement one week before aidworkers were bombed in their Peshawar hotel.


Edited picture based on original by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images, discovered via The Boston Globe's second "The Big Picture" series on the floods and The Horizon

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How to make shit smell good

Once upon a time, a red box was delivered to a large aid agency. The courier was a bit confused because of the lack of a clear addressee. It only had the street and the city on it. But as it bore the logo from a big donor to the aid community, he delivered it at the agency's front gate.

After a while, it ended up on the desk of the "Director Donor Relations, Press Relations and other Public Stuff". He was a bit surprised. "Hmmm.. a big red box, what do we do with this. Can't throw it away as it apparently came from a donor", he thought as his trained marketing mind started on a roll. "And red... hmm.. Communism.. Not much I can do with that. But wait. Wait a second...".

He immediately called in his whole team and presented The Box: "This green box here, will be the center of our new fundraiser and awareness efforts..", he started. Immediately some eyebrows were raised, but as trained PR professionals, nobody said a thing: If it was to be a green box, green it would be. Even if everyone knew it was red, and wondered "WTF ?". The trick was to sit, look, but not see. Have your mind wonder off somewhere else. Nod when everyone else is nodding, smile when everyone else was smiling... That is the trick of a PR professional.

The PR team immediately went to work. Took pictures of the box. Photoshopped it until it was green. They pasted their agency's CEO (who had not been in the office for two years and moved off to the Bahamas, but nobody was to know) standing next to the green box. Several well known actresses and actors, which are always part of their PR conglomerate, were also photoshopped in it.

The "PR content" team had a bigger challenge... "What can we tell about a red, euh, a green box?", they brainstormed. "It is green. Which is good. Green is good. Green is in. Green is Eco-stuff. It is a box.... represents mystery,... like development is a mystery. No, wrong, like.. Many poor's needs are a mystery.. Better. Like.. euh, many problems in the developing world are a mystery. Good. Think further. Green. Islam.. Good. Green is Islam, but only Islam knows that... Will not piss of the Americans which will think of Eco stuff. What more..? "Empty the box"... no "Join the box".. Better... "Join the Box". "Wrap the world in green paper of change"... Work on that.. Mmm.., "Green Trap, Change Wrap", no. More."The Green Wrap" Right... Green, the colour of change. Al will like it. The Iranian people will too. Shit, for all we know, the Taliban might like it!" It went on for hours. It was clear all PR staff, who were seconded for three months from big PR companies, as a collective tax writeoff, knew their marketing stuff.

Then it went to the operations department, the finance department, the risk analysis department (who indicated that green was also the colour of the election protests in Iran, but all wiped it off the table as "nobody cared about that Iran shit anymore"), the IT department (who distributed green mousepads) and even the catering people (who wore green caps for two months). The security department suggested to scan to box as nobody had opened it. And there was an awkward smell coming from it.. But they got orders from "up above" to keep their hands off.

In short, it took less than two months to prepare the campaign, and to present it at the next "General Government Meeting". They got the nod from the Americans and the Brits, which was good enough to roll out the campaign globally. None of the other donors were important anyway.
Neither the US nor UK knew what it was all about trusted the organisation to know what they were doing. It was also as a trouble-free way to empty their budget before the year's end. Otherwise questions were asked. And by nodding, they stepped up as a major donor, so they'd see their logo on all PR material. "Donation from the American and British People". Solid deal, man. Solid deal..
Some rumour that the US and UK representative to the General Government Meeting had been drinking the night before, and were actually dozing off. Which would explain their enthusiastic nodding at the proposal. But that is just a rumour of course.

The Green Box was put in a huge display case, stuck on a massive rotating pole with flickering lights and all, in front of the agencies' office. It even dwarfed the McDonald's sign right next to it. McDonald being one of the main private donors to the agency, did protest every so slightly. But they were quickly reminded that Burger King was just around the corner and waiting... Indeed, the main private donors: McDonald's, Bayer, Shell and Bureau for the Promotion of Tourism in West-Agriculturia (which later turned out to be a tax outlet for the Albanese Mafia, but that is another story), all supported the idea and made small green boxes for change collection in their offices and outlets. "Change for Green".

In one of the roll-out meetings that followed, some staff did question the content of the Green Box. One even opposed the idea, but the cold stares she got, had her sit down and be quiet. After all, nobody wants to be a lone tree. They catch a lot of wind. And she had only a temporary employment contract, so 'not extended due to funding limitations' was easy.

Once this initial opposition was dealt with, all went very fast. Everyone was enthusiastic. Directors pitched in their support, as they knew the Green Box campaign had a huge budget. They all wanted a piece of the pie. Staff stepped up to be the "Champion of the Green Box". There was a competition to collect the most money from family. Kids had a worldwide "Green Box" painting competition, you name it,...

The press had a ball. They pitched everything from "Turning Development Green", "The Green movement: turning evolution into revolution". "The Largest Green Aid Campaign Ever"... Millions, Billions, it did not matter, figures were thrown. Everyone loved the hype. I mean apart from Putin having the flu and the Americans invading North Korea, it was a slow news month.
Even Foxnews feature something. "Large Green box, center to Obama Tax Evasion" in which they proved through extensive investigative journalism, that the box was sent straight from Obama's office, and contained money left over from his election campaign...

Three years later, the Green Box campaign was declared a success. It went in the books as a school example how to to strategize for a good fundraiser, how to motivate staff for your causes, how to rally donor support.
In the next government meeting, the UK and US reps gave an enthusiastic nod on the final evaluation report, and approved funding for the next project.

So, everyone was happy. Loads of money went around. And they even helped some poor along the way. Not many, as their 10% declared overhead cost, did not include 50% staff cost, and 20% transport cost, 10% security cost, plus the agreed 10% miscellaneous cost.

It did not matter. Everyone was happy. With the funding generated, the organisation survived another year. There were no scandals, so donors were happy. And does it not feel good to help the Poor of the World.

Oh and the box? It was delivered to the wrong address. It was supposed to go to the recycling company next door, and contained 300 dead AAA batteries.


Question to be asked:
How many green boxes exist in the aidworld? How many times are we all sitting in a meeting, enthusiastically nodding at eachother, although we all know the proposal is shit, the product is shit, the purpose is shit, but it does not feel right to ask questions or to oppose. How many times are senseless things done, because "donors want it", because politics want it, simply because the boss wants it? Do we leave enough room for critical thinking and opposition? How many times are we sucked up as part of this massive dynamic which includes all the "wins-wins", and where it is almost impossible to stand up in the stream and say "Is this really what we should be doing?". There is no reward in opposition, after all. Loser!

A Wise Friend told me not long ago, that in the Aid World failure, incompetency, "half-half" are much more common and accepted than in the Commercial World. I think I will start to believe that.

Picture slightly modified from a find on Words, Pictures, Humor

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Military and aid

I receive a lot of press releases from NGOs and agencies lately, which I publish on The NonProfit Press

Yesterday, I received an offer from a PR company distributing video and images for the US military. They asked if I'd be interested in using some of their material.

My answer was rather short.

Thanks for the offer, but I have to decline. The involvement of the US military in humanitarian aid in the recent years has severely damaged the image of neutrality and impartiality of aidworkers, and as such greatly contributed to the targeting of aidworkers by terrorists.

Specifically for the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, I deplore the way the US has tried to integrate a humanitarian response as part of their plans to attack a foreign sovereign country, bringing down the threshold of engaging in military interventions abroad.

I am a fervent supporter of the segregation between military and humanitarian roles.

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Pakistan floods - Unpopular thoughts by an aidworker on the sideline

Watching the images on TV, and reading the reports, it is impossible to stay untouched by the misery caused by the massive Pakistani monsoon floods.

As an aidworker watching (for the moment), from the sideline, I have three thoughts that might make me unpopular in the aid community:

1. Last year's Pakistani Swat emergency was hugely underfunded, which, according to me, showed a donor fatigue towards South-Central Asia and Pakistan in particular. It also showed a political unwillingness from "the West" to assist Pakistan, other than the "minimum needed".
   Unless some of the main donors take the lead and come up with big bucks now, the 2010 flooding will go into history as the worst international humanitarian response failure ever. Caused by lack of funding.
   And time is of crucial importance, as it always is for natural disasters: the response needs to be massive and immediate, as three months down the line, the accute need (and the majority of life saving actions) is no longer there.
   ...Leaving alone that anyone would still hick up money for a natural disaster three months after the facts.
   
   
2. As of yesterday, I see press reports popping up with cries like affected people may outnumber the tsunami, 2005 Pakistan and 2010 Haiti earthquake combined. And the worst disaster in the UN's history. Both phrases were uttered by aid agencies, and not invented but eagerly picked up by the paparazzi... Reporters have been waiting for some exciting news stories in these slow summer months now that the Gulf oil spill is over.
   I would urge caution in using tabloid catch phrases like "the biggest ever"... Love is a drug. So are disaster figures, and crying foul. Like a drug, it is addictive, and numbs your senses on the longer term.
   Soon we won't raise a penny's donation anymore unless if the affected population is over the 20 million, and unless we make appeals over 1 billion (to get 100 million)...
   There has been a clear tendency to exaggerate figures in the past years. And the donors have happily played the PR game: Just as the aid community, donors have come out with billions and billions worth of pledges. Remember the billions promised for the Afghanistan rebuild? And the multi billions pledged as a response to the global food crisis. All pledges which never materialized, but were pitched at the press at the time. A press which eagerly took it over as "shock and awe"-reporting. A PR win-win for all those involved, but unfortunately as they sing in Italian: "Parole, parole!"
   This is what happens when aidwork reporting is taken over by tabloids.
   
   
3. And most importantly. A subject very close to my heart. Staff security...
   A wise man once told me: "You can no longer reduce the threat, so reduce the risk": we have gone beyond the point where we can reduce the external threat of terrorist attacks on aidworkers, so we should confine to reducing the risk. And the more aidworkers sent into a high risk environment, the higher the risk. Simple as that.
   Now that every single self respecting NGO, UN agency, nonprofit organisation will be scrambling to show its face and "plant the flag" in Pakistan, we should not forget: In the past year, the aid community has been directly targeted by bold terrorist acts several times: In March 2009, seven WorldVision staff died in an attack on their office. Mercy Corps had their staff abducted and in June 9 2009, the bombing of the Pearl Continental in Peshawar, destroyed the hotel where most aidworkers stayed. The bombing of WFP's office in Islamabad, on October 5 2009, left five dead and several wounded.
   The Taliban has made no secret in targeting aidworkers in the whole region. A point made clear in this weekend's killing of 10 aidworkers in Afghanistan.
   Every single relief agency should hold back on the impulse to "pump in as many people as they can" to respond to the emergency.
   As a matter of fact, many support functions (finance, administration, procurement, reporting, mapping, etc etc) can be done in a remote support base, keeping the strict minimum of people in harm's way. In an emergency, more than half of the people needed on the ground can work remotely. And probably they would work more effectively too!
   I suggest for every single person any organisation sends in, the question is asked: "Do we really need this person to be there, on the ground?".

I think it is appropriate at this point to repeat the disclaimer at the bottom of this blog: "This blog expresses my personal opinions, and not those of my current or past employers."


Picture courtesy Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images, discovered via The Boston Globe's "The Big Picture" series on the floods

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You've been an aidworker for too long (5)

You've been an aidworker for too long...

..if your memory is indexed refering to the different humanitarian emergencies:

- "My oldest daughter was born the year after Angola"
- "I got married three years before Bosnia"
- "Just after the Tsunami, my parents finished building their new house"
- "I bought that car the third month after the start of Rwanda"
- "My brother started his company the year before the Iraq war"

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Aid: The road to hell is paved with good intentions

Seriously. Humanitarian aid is complex. Seriously complex. And open for ab-use, miss-use,.. and wrong-use. As an aidworker, I am standing in the midst of it all, often shaking my head in disbelief. Part of me gets cynical and sarcastic at times. Specifically when it concerns something that starts with good intentions. But then the road to hell is paved with good intentions: It is not because you mean "well", that you do "well".

Yesterday I got really cynical. I aired some of it on Twitter, suggesting a number of initiatives which I meant as sarcastic jokes, only to find out some of those stupid suggestions had actually been implemented. Seriously.
I also found fellow aidworker/blogger "Tales from the Hood" wrote about the same subject, Twitter-tagging it "#SWEDOW" - or "Stuff WE DOn't Want".

Let me just list the initiatives I meant as a joke yesterday (mostly inspired by 1millionshirts), with after-thoughts between "[ ]":

• I will start 1millionFlipflops.org where people can donate their old flipflops to Africa [This one is for real]
• 1millionToothbrushes.org for old toothbrushes... I mean dental hygiene in Africa is a real must
• 1millionCondoms.org to ship used... ah.. no, that won't work
• 1millionShades.org ... donate your old shades for a good cause. ! On top of that, they might look cool too! [This one actually does that]
• 1millionKhalashikovs.org will donate old weaponry to the Armies of Africa, as stability is a real must
• 1millionSunBlock.org ... I mean the sun must be a real bitch in Africa, right?
• 1millionAssessmentReports.org -- so that the NGOs can do a free pick for any kind of assessment reports, and not spend time doing their own
• 1millionDonorReports.org - so you don't have to make your own donor reports at the end of your project... we will auto-generate it for you.
• 1millionUsedTires.org -- send your used car tires to poor Africans today!!!
• 1millionWipers.org : ship those old windshield wiper, in preparation of the rainy season... shipping cost: $120 a pair. yeah
  >> at this point fellow aid-fanatic @Katrinskaya intervened and pointed to her excellent post #1millionsextoys for Africa. Yeah!
• 1millionFreeContainers.org -- to ship all that useless stuff to the poor kids in Africa
• Don't burry your granny with her set! 1millionFalseTeeth.org can use them!
• 1millionLessonsLearned.org (as we will never learn, and the lessons are always the same: "read the previous lessons learned")
• 1millionPropaneBurners.org - how many of us don't have old propane stoves from our camping days stowed in our garage? They can use them in Africa!
• 1millionPETbottles.org - I mean those poor poor people going to the well everyday. How to store water? We will airfreight them used PET bottles...!
• 1millionFamilyPictures.org -- so they can see what they miss... (dah.. that is real scarcastic... stop it!)
• 1millionHairExtensions.org -- why throw away your hair, while in poor Africa, they have to buy extensions? [This one comes close. Not for Africa but for the Gulf Oil Spill]
• 1millionDates.org on "Date for Africa Day" signed agreement with 1millionInflatableDolls.org and 1millionDildos.org [You ain't gonna believe this: Date For Change. Quote: Your money goes to charity. The first time a guy sends a message it costs at least $1 and that money, once again, goes to charity. And the best part is... we can raise millions with your help]
• 1millionUNjobs.org aims to fund an extra 1 million UN employees in an effort to exterminate unemployment in Africa

And while I was at it, I also found ways to get rid of your 1millionOldBras...

Picture courtesy CordAid

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Haiti aidworkers... This Is Your Life

Many people have asked what life is like for aidworkers in Haiti, knowing many of the offices were destroyed, and people lost their houses or apartments.

Here is a snapshot:

This is your office complex- LogBase:




This is your neighbourhood- Camp Charly:




Your wash room at Camp Charly:




And this is your home- about 8x8 feet:




Pictures via Shot from the Hip

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Staff security - about being a pain in the ass

Have been involved in most humanitarian emergencies since I started this job, back in 1994, with a break of the last four years when I took a sabbatical, and worked for three years in our headquarters.

For eight years, I lead an intervention team, which went into any humanitarian emergency operation way before anyone else was allowed in, as we had to install the technical infrastructure ensuring the safety of the other staff.

As a manager, I have always taken the responsibility for the safety and well-being of my staff seriously. No matter what the rules, procedures and regulations were, I have always put the mark higher for my own staff. I have publicly questioned existing rules where I found them lacking. I have opened many a can of worms where I felt "the system" was inadequate to deal with safety. I have taken difficult decisions which did not always make me popular. Sometimes amongst the staff involved, sometimes amongst management. Over the years, I earned the reputation of being a pain in the ass.

Let me get the record straight: I *am* a pain in the ass. I would not like to be my own supervisor, as I am very difficult to be managed. But I have always found pride in the fact that - taking away my un-orthodox ways of working - people deep down inside realize at one point or the other, that I was right.

Now that, once more, I am leading a team in an emergency operation, many past experiences come back to me. Including the feeling of "these people must think I am a pain in the ass". Particularly concerning staff safety.

All too many times, as managers, people think of staff safety in the context of the political situations. In context of cost to implement the security measure. In context of the operational impact, when implementing strict security rules. But in all of this complexity, some questions continuously come back to me:
Would Pero still be alive if I had spoken up more openly about the obvious insecurity in West-Timor? Would Magda still be alive if I had spoken up more openly about the obvious decreased security in Baghdad?

Since those days, I leave no stone unturned unless if I can say to myself "I did all I could".

That does not make me very popular. But I don't care. I have to live with my conscience. Staff safety and security is not a responsibility of "a system", but also for each individual manager. And they should take that responsibility personal.

Picture courtesy AnneMarie VanDenBerg

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I am off to the Haiti emergency

Haiti: thousands of people did not survive the earthquake. Two million people will require food assistance.
Over the past days, many people from our organisation have already left to strengthen the team we had already on the ground in Haiti, and to set up the support operations in the Dominican Republic.

I don't often write about the humanitarian work I actually do, in an attempt to isolate my work from my blog. This, I can say: Tuesday morning, I am off on a plane to the Dominican Republic to help set up and manage the support operation in Haiti's neighbouring country. It will be the main food and humanitarian supply pipeline for the months to come.

I got the advanced warning on Friday morning, got confirmation in the afternoon, and received further instructions over the weekend. On Monday, I will pull in all the information I need, and Tuesday early morning I am on a plane.

Initially, I will be gone for two months, but I am not sure for how long I will stay. Two days gave me time to say goodbye to my loved ones, and to prepare myself. "Leaving on a jet plane" can not be more appropriate.

I will be posting updates as much as I can.

Picture courtesy WFP/Alejandro Lopez Chicheri

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