Five lessons to change the global humanitarian sector
Working in the innovation team at Start Network for over five years has given me a privileged opportunity to observe the network and the wider humanitarian system. During that period, the thinking of Start Network has evolved.
Start Network has always recognised the problems of existing humanitarian structures — the challenges faced in meeting humanitarian need wherever and whenever it occurs, the challenges of doing so equitably and respecting the dignity of the people affected by crisis and the repeated abuses of power and resources that have blighted the system.
Over the last five years, Start Network and the wider sector has increasingly understood that this is fundamentally a systemic problem and therefore one which needs a systemic response. Specifically, the shift to a new era of humanitarian action needs to be one that moves away from the old, centrally controlled system to a new one that is distributed among local communities and includes shared control. In that light, I would like to share five things from my experience that I believe to be important in making this systemic shift.
- Power not capacity
It is often said or inferred that the barrier to moving to a locally run system is the ‘capacity’ of local actors to take it on. Hence multiple ‘capacity building’ / ‘capability strengthening’ / ‘organisational development’ programmes. This ignores the obvious point that the problems of the current system can often be attributed to the actors and power holders that currently dominate it. We therefore end up with a paradox in which old system actors who in many ways perpetuate the system’s problems continue to lead the ‘capacity building’ of new system actors.
We can see the obvious issue; that this approach tends to perpetuate the old system and therefore is at risk of replicating the same problems. Yet it is the existing capabilities of local actors that offer the promise of change — their relationships, proximity, presence, contextual knowledge, technical skills and trust to name a few. The barrier a new humanitarian system faces is not capacity therefore, but power and in particular, old system actors continuing to exercise top to bottom approaches which block local action thereby needing to be re-examined. Arbie Baguios of aid re-imagined suggests replacing the word ‘capacity’ with ‘space’ as a helpful exercise.
2. Technical solutions / old system
My colleague, Lillie Rosen, offered a very revealing piece of insight when she worked as part of the DEPP Innovation Labs team in Jordan. Their team asked a range of humanitarian assistance recipients to rank their views on different forms of assistance and then contrasted them with the views of humanitarian workers. Interestingly, whilst humanitarian workers ranked cash assistance, with its promise of choice, agency and power as the form of help most likely to offer dignity and equity, recipients ranked it lowest. This was because it threw into stark relief the wider problems of the humanitarian system — the way that people are selected to receive assistance, the way that they are treated by the system, the lack of transparency in decision making — the queues, the registration processes and the commodification. For me, this highlights one fundamental problem; simply bolting on new technical solutions to an existing, unfit system, whatever their promise. Only with systemic renewal can the benefit of new technology be realised. The rush to ‘colonise’ the cash assistance ‘market’ by various INGOs offers a good example of how the promise of the new gets tainted by the old.
3. Evidence for the new system
A question that frequently comes up in different forms is ‘What evidence do we have that the new system will work?’ or ‘Where is the evidence that local actors can do better?’ I think there are a couple of answers to this. On the one hand it’s a bit like asking for evidence of a garden growing in early spring; it’s pretty much everywhere if you choose to look for it, by spending time with local agencies. On the other hand, it’s an inherently problematic question — one that insinuates that the onus to demonstrate successful locally led action lies with those who are suppressed instead of this responsibility resting with the suppressor. The only way to demonstrate an unsuppressed system is for those in power to stop suppressing it. At the same time, we do have an abundance of evidence that the traditional approach doesn’t work, which should be imperative enough.
4. Solving with more of the same
Sometimes we seem to be in a self-sabotaging cycle. An example is the frequent sexual abuse and fraud scandals that have beset the humanitarian sector. If it is true that this abuse of power is enabled by structures of the humanitarian system that allow a concentration of power, often in the hands of outsiders, then challenging that power structure seems to offer a solution. Yet instead, the system has devised novel, external, accountability mechanisms to try to tackle these problems without necessarily addressing the root cause. I have been told by several of my colleagues in different countries that for many communities, these solutions may feel very alien — they may even displace cultural practices already in place that have helped keep communities safe for a long time. A colleague in Fiji tells me these mechanisms could make problems worse by eroding pre-existing trust. Yet these solutions, often with an approach based on standardised solutions, compliance and written policy, have rapidly become the expected norm. When a new scandal happens this ‘best practice’ gets updated and made more complex. The system, therefore, imports an inherently problematic power structure to local communities and then tries to solve emerging problems by importing other even more complex practices, which rapidly become the expected standard for international community of humanitarians. To solve problems, we need to use a different logic from the one that created them, which may involve going against standardised aid sector norms.
5. Collaborative magic
When my colleague Bhavya Srinivasan and I managed the DEPP Innovation Labs, we frequently tried to introduce practices to the labs that we felt would be helpful — innovation methodologies, reporting tools etc. Almost invariably, they fell flat despite our best efforts to transfer ownership. However, when we excluded ourselves and the different labs worked together to create tools and methods collaboratively, something different happened — the tools developed in ways that were more appropriate, ownership was inherent and the tools were more widely used. We discovered that our best role was often to get out of the way and to create space by preventing others from imposing external standards. This requires quite a lot of bravery from leaders, who often need to deflect status quo norms — going out on a limb to create the necessary space.
And finally — Amazing people
My final observation is that the humanitarian system is packed to the rafters with amazing, competent people. By working together we can change the confines of the system that binds us, but, this calls for significant courage from many — especially when it’s necessary to use their position to create space rather than imposing solutions or restrictions over others, who may be better placed to act.
This piece was written by Neil Townsend, Start Network’s former Head of Innovation, as a reflection of his lessons learned with Start Network as we strengthened innovative ways of working towards systems change in the humanitarian sector. Neil currently serves as Director at Moving Minds Alliance.
