Tom Paulson over at Humanosphere makes an interesting argument that philanthropy-charity-aid-humanity is on the threshold of something… new, something different. Read the article. It’s compelling, but it leaves us with an un-answered question: what’s coming?
Matthew Bishop and Michael Green attempt to tell us in their co-authored article in the Huffington Post. Read the article. While I positively loathe the term “philanthrocapitalism”, and absolutely do not agree that corporate dogooding will save the world or even necessarily change the world for the better (both are frequently claimed), I agree with many of the predictions by Bishop and Green. They hit the main points in my opinion and give us at least a partial glimpse of the future.
The word is out: “aid” accomplishes far less, and at far greater a cost than everyone thought. The arena is packed with slathering competitors of all stripes, each stridently proclaiming their own awesomeness by defining their own self-interest in terms of the supposed needs of the poor. Moreover, aid in public consciousness is essentially entertainment – a reality drama that anyone can be part of whether they send $20, spend two weeks building a church in Mexico, or start their own non-profit. The genuine good that aid does do is fleeting, contingent, fragile, often despite the distracted inefficiency of the organizations that implement it.
Fairly or unfairly (both, actually) aid workers and aid organizations no longer occupy the position of good grace we once did in public opinion. Our real expertise is being questioned (typically by those not competent to understand real answers when given), and we’re being called out in those areas where we’ve been faking it. For the moment the vast majority – by which I mean practically all – of the journalistic expose and ordinary citizen outrage about aid is misplaced. They’re missing the point for now, but they’ll connect the dots eventually.
Whether one sees it as a good or a bad thing, there is a general movement within the industry to professionalize the aid sector. Right now the discussion is basically bogging down over issues like whether it will be, say, Harvard or Tufts University who “owns” the right to accredit aid organizations and license aid workers to practice, or whether the aid industry will somehow continue to be self-accrediting and self-licensing but to a higher standard. But it’s all largely a discussion about how and within which parameters to professionalize the aid sector, and distinctly not a discussion about whether or not professionalizing is a good idea.
Putting it all together (and there are plenty more articles out there), it’s safe to assume, as Paulson suggests, that we are in time of great change. I don’t know exactly when the penny will drop, but the clock is winding down. I don’t mean to sound alarmist, but we are very quickly coming to the point where “business as usual” will simply no longer be an option for the aid industry.
So what does it mean?
I think it means at least three things:
1) We need fundamental innovations to the ways in which we think about and conceive aid. So-called “innovations” in the aid sector have more or less mirrored innovations in various technical industries. The automotive industry, for example, has not experienced a fundamental innovation since it came into existence. Sure, we have much nicer cars now than when Henry Ford built the first Model A, but a car is still a car: it has three or four rubber wheels which roll on the ground, directly powered by some kind of on-board engine or motor. No one has innovated a powered personal transportation machine for mass production that significantly challenges this formula.
And aid is the same way.
We tweak and fiddle, but sixty years later we still haven’t really gotten that basically the menage a trois is not working. Aid effectiveness, any hope of sustainability, and even the slightest glimmer of possibility for true local ownership and empowerment all directly hinge on whether or not we successfully find a way through or past the menage a trois.
And if we don’t…
2) We have to face and deal with the distinct possibility that NGOs are or may soon be irrelevant. Paul Currion explains here. He writes,
“A child of their time, INGOs clearly filled a niche in the international system, particularly as a counter to a post-war foreign policy based on military-industrial interests. Yet INGOs were based on assumptions shared by that same establishment, and took on forms that were familiar with that establishment. The fundamental problem for INGOs – as for governments and corporations – is that the world is changing in ways which are increasingly difficult to manage for these old forms.
The worst case scenario for INGOs is that they find themselves filling in where government has failed, providing alternatives that are not alternatives at all but simply poor substitutes for the old system; or find themselves filling gaps where corporations have proved unable or unwilling to extend their reach, creating pseudo-markets which are largely unsustainable. Where these scenarios come to pass, INGOs will twist themselves into new shapes not in order to challenge the systems which lead to these governance and market failures, but to prop them up instead.”
3) We have to change prevailing assumptions about the directionality of aid. It is quite simply no longer the case (if it even ever was) that there is a modern, technologically advanced, “developed” world who bequeathed it’s benevolent assistance to the dark masses of the not-modern, low-tech, not-developed world. It is a reality that aid assistance can literally come from anywhere, to anywhere. Perhaps we in the United States will have the hardest time swallowing this pill, but I really do see the day coming when foreign aid workers, perhaps from countries that I’ve been deployed to in the past, will come to my country to help.
It is one thing to say academically that we all have something to learn from others. It’s another to let oneself be taught by those others.
As I think about it right now, maybe this more than anything other single thing – the notion that we’re all in this together and can all receive help from each other – has the potential to make aid better.
Paul C
/ January 29, 2012I agree with everything written here, especially all the guff written by that “Paul Currion” (clearly a pseudonym).
One last thought: it is people like Tom Paulson, Matthew Bishop and I that will become irrelevant, and frankly it’s about time.
One other last thought: wouldn’t it be nice if foreign aid workers usually didn’t have to go in any direction, because we’d actually built local resilience?
solemu
/ January 29, 2012Great piece, as usual, J! I was missing your posts. Good deep analysis for a Sunday afternoon reading
Tom Murphy (@viewfromthecave)
/ February 3, 2012Caveat: This is a quick thought
It seems that the water sector is quite guilty of what Paul brings up in number 2. By building water points it lets the government ignore WASH almost entirely and provides little opportunity for market solutions (though not impossible if thinking of point of use filters and so on). Ultimately, it is a sector that is completely necessary but should die off soon. The question is to what extent what is being done ensures that communities can access clean water over the long term.
I will not venture to guess the answer.
Note: The same can apply to food and goods, just thought of water since it is so sexy these days with all the celebrities and whatnot.
Bonnie Koenig
/ February 3, 2012Change is definitely coming. One thought: if, “The word is out: “aid” accomplishes far less, and at far greater a cost than everyone thought,” it may be time to experiment with some new terminology to help lead our thinking and this transition. Perhaps “AidSpeak” for example can be re-titled at some point
T
/ February 9, 2012J. – Thanks. Nice post, as always. You have a knack for pointing out how depressing this is in a positive manner. We’ll get there.
Tom – I know that you realize this already, but I don’t think any sector is as simple as you put it… isn’t that why any “aid sector” exists in the first place (and shouldn’t exist at all)?
Anne Sellers
/ February 18, 2012Let’s discuss this. Is it innovation or invention needed?
I’m going to stick with the automobile analogy. There have been tons of innovations in the automobile industry, but all focused in some way on the motorized, four-wheeled vehicle, the primary invention. Think of all of the innovations: mass production,efficient mass production (a la Japanese model), a switch from metal to plastic materials, radically improved safety features, differences in power sources, a shift from mechanized to computerized systems, and of course the initial rendering of the car into huge, high capacity carriers or micro vehicles. That’s all innovation. For new invention, see the motorcycle, or, more obviously, the airplane.
In our work, the international NGO is the primary invention. The menage a trois (one group pays, another delivers and another benefits), with foreigners working in a country to do-good, fill gaps left by government or industry, and otherwise attempt to save lives or catalyze change–that is the basic invention. The difference between this invention and the missionary invention that preceeded it is like the difference between a motorcycle and a car–a motorcycle and car both serve as vehicles of transportation, and they are made of many of the same materials, but they are produced differently, priced differently, attract different drivers and require different liscenses.
There have been innovations in the international NGO model. These include changes to the way they are funded (e.g. government, private individuals, corporations, foundations, social networks), changes to their processes (e.g. DME processes), changes in their activities (e.g. increased focus on empowerment and sustainable action), and changes in their composition (e.g. far fewer North American and Western European staff.)
Some of the more radical innovations challenge the fundamental model of the international NGO and its non-profit financial/legal structure, i.e. the one group pays-another delivers-another benefits structure. I am referring here to social enterprises–either non-profits that operate like businesses and the B (benefit) corporations or flexible purpose corporations that are for-profits with a profit plus social benefit purpose recognized by law. These might well be a new invention.
Thoughts?
J.
/ February 20, 2012This are my personal opinions, and I know that many in the conversation disagree with me…
But…
In my option what you call “innovations” are, in fact, tweaks to an existing machine. They’re not what I’d call ‘fundamental innovations.’ Morphing a ‘traditional NGO’ into a ‘social enterprise’ is like building a hybrid car, in my view. It doesn’t challenge the prevailing assumptions about how liberal D.C. and Seattle citizens get themselves from point A to point B. It just helps them feel a wee bit less guilty about driving rather than riding a bicycle or taking public transit.
Call me cynical and/or paranoid, but I think that you’re presuming a more generally benign and more actively altruistic role being played by Corporations and National Governments than is the case in fact.
paulcurrion
/ February 20, 2012Neither invention or innovation is needed. A complete revolution is what is needed to drive power relationships away from the existing post-colonial model into something that is both more sustainable and more just. Anything else is just re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. In transport terms, the equivalent would be the shift from petrol-powered private transport to electric-powered public transport; needless to say, both of these revolutions are rejected as unrealistic and unacceptable by the main beneficiaries of the existing system, i.e. us.
Shotgun Shack
/ February 21, 2012I totally agree with you Paul.
Anne Sellers
/ February 21, 2012Maybe we’re talking semantics here, but the adaptations to the NGO model that I mentioned above are innovations…maybe not sufficient, but innovations nonetheless. In addition, the social enterprise model is different–perhaps different enough to be considered a new invention (the motorcycle vs. the car) or a fundamental innovation. What makes the social enterprise fundamentally different is its departure (where this occurs) from the ménage a trois. There are customers as a source of revenue rather than donors and beneficiaries as two ever separate groups. I’m not talking here about CSR for big companies. I’m talking about business/financial models where social good is pursued without donations. For the most part, I’ve only seen this model operate at a small scale, but I proffer that it is a categorically different model worthy of the title of fundamental innovation.
What do our colleagues think?
paulcurrion
/ February 21, 2012I’d agree that it’s an innovative model. The obvious problem is that a model that is so completely part of the system is unlikely to change that system. Framing social goods as enterprise goals requires internalizing the logic of the market, when it’s the market that has caused a number of the problems rather than solving them. Note that when I talk about the market, I’m not talking about “capitalism”, I’m talking about the specific implementation of capitalism at the global level (and in some cases at national levels). Social enterprise can’t really address that, although personally I like that operating model, while remaining aware that social enterprise is unlikely to scale.
Bonnie Koenig
/ February 21, 2012This is a really interesting discussion. I wonder if we can get beyond semantics if we think about the kind of conditions we think need to be in place to bring about the kind of transformative system wide change many of us believe is needed. For example, 1) We can work all we want in countries doing ‘good things’ (through innovation, social enterprise, etc…) but until political leaders and structures allow for stability and enlightened policies, their populations (and development work) is going to be at the mercy of policies and wars that can change everything over night. So what if we strategized to get more people who have the credibility to ‘talk truth to power’ in positions where they can be influential? Here’s one example: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/science/charm-offensive-is-unaids-chiefs-strategy.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=HIV-AIDS&st=cse 2) And what kind of aid are we looking for? Can we reverse engineer it? This article re: China’s approach is interesting. Not that it necessarily lays out any kind of blueprint but perhaps it can help to push our thinking. How many Western governments put an emphasis on infrastructure building? China in Africa http://the-diplomat.com/2012/02/18/why-china-succeeds-in-africa/ Just some food for thought….
paulcurrion
/ February 22, 2012Bonnie, it worries me when you say “until political leaders and structures allow for stability and enlightened policies, their populations (and development work) is going to be at the mercy of policies and wars that can change everything over night” for two reasons. The first reason is that it’s not clear where the source of the “enlightened policies” that will lead to “stability” lies, and I get the feeling it probably lies in the historical mode of development economics that has consistently failed to either predict or promote the development pathways of industrialising countries. The second reason is that suggesting that populations are “at the mercy” of devious leaders and imperfect structures is classic good guy / bad guy reasoning that denies those very populations their own agency.
I’m not sure whether “what kind of aid are we looking for?” is the right question to ask. Surely the question should be: “what kind of aid are they looking for?”
Bonnie Koenig
/ February 24, 2012Thanks, Paul, for your comments. I don’t think we are really that far apart. Yes, the “we” having policy discussions should include those who are being impacted, and yes the role of funding infrastructure is complicated. My comments were designed to help push our collective thinking a bit more about what development might look like in a totally different model, and more importantly what practical strategies might help to move us in that direction. It may be too complex a discussion , though, for blog comments.
Paul C
/ February 26, 2012I agree that it’s too complex a discussion for blog comments!
I should probably lay out my stall: I would like to see the postwar political project of “development” consigned to the dustbin of history. I think it’s demonstrably failed to deliver on its initial theory of change, and that the theory of change itself is generally discredited. I fully recognise that there has been more than one theory of change in the sector, but I think they all suffer from the same problem of being grown in the soil of the postwar political consensus. The short version is: we don’t need a new model of development, we need another type of process entirely that I believe is emerging slowly due to factors entirely outside the control of the usual development actors.
I can’t describe precisely what that new thing is, but the point is that it’s growing in a new soil: a soil in which the dominance of the rich industrial countries of the twentieth century can no longer be taken for granted, in which communications networks are changing social dynamics and amplifying human capabilities good and bad, in which some basic assumptions of the economics profession are being interrogated harder than at any time since Marx first put pen to paper. Most importantly, I think the new thing emphasises the network rather than the hierarchy, although it is a continual struggle between the two forms.
It is my most profound hope that this slowly-emerging process renders me as a privileged product of that postwar consensus largely irrelevant. What if the answer is not to put people of credibility in positions of power, but to change the very structure that those positions of power rest upon? Given my personal background, I’m part of and a product of that structure, and once I recognise that, I have a choice: I can either wait around for the structure to disappear from under my feet, or climb down and help to dismantle it. In that context, when I said that the real question is “what kind of aid do they want?” what I meant was: I’m not sure that *their* policy discussions are any of *our* business.
Wow, that was a longer answer than originally planned.
Paul C
/ February 22, 2012“How many Western governments put an emphasis on infrastructure building?”
All western governments used to put an emphasis on infrastructure building, until they realised that building infrastructure without ensuring maintenance only lead to lots of crumbling infrastructure.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that infrastructure is used by governments as a means of control, not of empowerment, which can be seen most clearly in the development of transport networks.
Landlockedandproud
/ March 2, 2012Perhaps one way in which an innovation can be made is to shift the focus from the ‘developing’ countries themselves and more onto the structural issues which affect their economies? It may not be as sexy to say that you are a ‘development worker’ because you spend your time lobbying the EU to restructure its subsidy system, or to reduce import tariffs on processed goods than to say you give out microfinance loans, but isn’t it ultimately more effective because it’s attacking a root problem rather than a symptom?
I don’t agree with some who would place total responsibility at the foot of the more powerful countries, there are also of course structural problems within developing countries themselves. But the focus is so much on ‘development’ and ‘change’ in other countries, rather than those same things within our own countries. Yet within our increasingly globalised world, and with the post-colonial hangover of unequal power structures, our actions and laws within our own countries greatly affect the reality of other countries. Development is currently set aside in a separate sphere, as if the only way in which our actions affect other countries is through development, as if that’s it, we’re just trying to do good. But that is complete bs as we all know.
Maybe the big INGOs don’t see it as their mandate to address these issues, but ultimately if we are to have a holistic view of poverty reduction it cannot be a one-sided approach. As new donors come in and enter the fray it would be so fantastic if we can move away from this ‘development as us being superman and saving the world woo hoo!’ paradigm and more into ‘development as us examining how our actions affect other people and how the quality of life across the globe can be improved, within whatever direction people want that to be’.
Stephen Jones
/ March 3, 2012I think that’s a nice summary of one of the key issues (the La Vidaid Loca blog made the same point with Venn diagrams: http://lavidaidloca.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/the-circles-of-life/). A thought experiment: what would happen if all the Westerners currently working in development or humanitarian aid quit those jobs one day and said, “Actually we’re going to devote our energy and ideas to trying to change the policies of govts and companies from our own countries” – thinking more along the lines of CGD’s Commitment to Development Index, where aid is just one component of many possible influences. Obviously some INGOs do already work on these things but it’s a minor part of the money/effort compared to their importance.