108. Elephant in the room

[Lars Peter Nissen] (0:49 - 4:46)

This week my guests on Trumanitarian are Sofía Sprechmann-Sinedo who until recently was the Secretary General of CARE International and Amitabh Behar who is the Executive Director of Oxfam International.

We recorded this episode in Doha where we were all participating in the Center for Humanitarian Leadership conference that took place a couple of weeks ago and where Amitabh and Sofía also participated in a meeting on the Pledge for Change, a change initiative that Sofía was one of the co-founders of. In the past couple of episodes on this show we have explored how different kinds of mutual aid organizations, the White Helmets from Syria and the emergency response rooms from Sudan, serve crisis affected populations. However, it's also important that we examine business as usual, that we look at the incumbents, the large organizations, and see how they're changing and adapting and addressing some of the issues that are facing them to fit into the humanitarian paradigm of the future.

And that's really what this week's episode is about, how can the big INGOs change and deal with some of the problems that are associated with their current business model. We taped this episode immediately after a panel where Amitabh and Sofía, together with other representatives from large INGOs, had spoken about their efforts to transform their organizations, where they were getting traction and where they felt stuck. A clear theme of the panel was that the business model underpinning their organizations made change very difficult and the frustration with this came out rather clearly on the panel.

So, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to sideline Amitabh and Sofía after the discussion and get them to come on the show and talk about the real prospect for change. Can INGOs renew themselves and address the fundamental issues facing them or are they, so to speak, the proverbial elephant in the room? Once you've listened to this episode, please make some noise.

We need to have a robust conversation about where we go with the humanitarian sector from here and your voice is really important. You can find us on LinkedIn and BlueSky and we really appreciate hearing from you. Also, TRUE Humanitarian is produced by volunteers and we rely on contributions from our listeners to cover the costs we have with producing and hosting the show.

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But as always for us, the most important thing is that you enjoy the conversation. So, Sofía Sprechman and Amitabh Bihar, welcome to TRUE Humanitarian. Thank you.

Thank you so much. We're sitting here in Doha, in the margins of the Center for Humanitarian Leadership Conference that is taking place here and we've had two fantastic days listening to colleagues from all over the world. And the two of you are here because you are the co-chairs of something called the Pledge for Change and we're going to unpack what that is and what that does for the humanitarian sector.

Sofía, you are the former Secretary General of CARE International. Amitabh, you are the current Executive Director of Oxfam International. So, you really are some of the heavyweights in the sector.

You've had very, very senior positions as INGOs. So, for me, it's really interesting to hear that you have taken an initiative called the Pledge for Change. And Sofía, can you tell us what is that?

Where does that come from?

[Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] (4:46 - 6:13)

Yes, of course. And thank you for the opportunity to talk about it at this very moment of time. So, the Pledge for Change, actually, its full name is the Pledge for Change on Decolonizing Aid.

A pledge is a promise. It's a promise that 13 INGOs signed three years ago. It was elaborated over a period of time about decolonizing international NGOs.

And it contains basically three areas of promise. One is on equitable partnerships, and that is to promote deep and equitable partnerships with those INGOs work with, with the broader sector as well, across the sector. The second area of the promise is ethical storytelling and authentic storytelling.

And that's actually a difference, for example, to the Grand Bargain, which the Grand Bargain talks about partnership, but not about the stories and the comms, the communications of INGOs. And it's about decolonizing those communications. And the third area is about influencing the broader system of aid and the ecosystem and attempting to shape it into a different direction.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (6:13 - 6:43)

And of course, I think the whole theme for this conference we had has been, how do we leverage this moment to move forward in changing a sector that I think we all agree has very recognized problems. Amitabh, when we just had a panel discussion, you said we had three options. We could die badly, we could die well, or we could transform ourselves as INGOs.

And so what is it in the pledge that will transform Oxfam?

[Amitabh Behar] (6:45 - 7:44)

I think as Sofía said, that the pledge is coming together of international NGOs who are committed to decolonizing themselves. They have recognized that the trajectory that we have had over the decades is both out of sync with the realities of the external world and also out of sync with our own core value frameworks. So from that perspective, this is a moment of us coming together, nudging each other, holding each other accountable, learning from each other, but then delivering on the promise of decolonization.

And that's why I think it's an interesting mix of creating a space, a platform, but also with fairly tangible ways of tracking our journey and holding us accountable towards the journey of decolonization.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (7:45 - 8:51)

What I found really interesting in the panel was that you were four very, very senior colleagues in this sector, some of the most experienced, I think most committed, most principled, smartest people we have in the sector. And the energy I got from all of you during the panel was that you somehow felt stuck in a sense. You recognize that you are working with partnerships.

You gave different examples of how you do that. You talked about how you try to transform the narrative you spin out of your organizations and the advocacy work you're doing. But the feeling I got from you was it was heavy and that you talked about the administrative burden, the systems.

And so my question is, are you focusing on the right things here? If you do a panel where we talk about how the plats will change the world, and you basically spend a lot of time talking about the things you can't change, but then they don't seem to be the three things you're focused on, how does the plats change the way we work?

Well, it's a very good observation. And thank you for that. I do think, first of all, the plats is a recognition that the sector has deep colonial roots.

So even looking the problem into the face is part of this. And these are the dialogues we have been having, recognizing how the sector has really had an incredibly difficult time to shake this all off. And what you're seeing is still probably we are in the middle of attempting to shake it off.

And it's not so easy. There are all these obstacles. And I do think it is now a moment of a tectonic shift or an eight quake.

So this is also a moment in which we can even do and must do a deeper soul-searching about what it is meant to do and what we may not have done well. And there's many reasons. And we could list them all here.

And you have had many guests that have listed the many problems the sector suffers. It is about its colonial patriarchal roots, about deeply embedded racism and white saviorism in the sector. But it has also had obstacles that the sector itself has created for itself, right?

There is some that come from its own birth, if you will, as a sector. But then there's some. And I think this is a moment where we must deeply reflect about what is it that we want to hold on to, because it's valuable.

And what is the core of it, which is about humanity, about humanitarianism in the best sense and of its values of solidarity? And what is it that we must absolutely shake off? And the problem here is because we're so embedded often in these deep bureaucracies and the system and the overall aid ecosystem, that it's not so easy to kind of pull your head above water, see what should survive, what should just sink in the bottom of the sea, because we don't need it anymore.

And that distinction in the middle of a hurricane, as we're experiencing, is not the easiest. But I think the chips are falling in the right place. And partly and very importantly so, because it is the partners that are here in the room in Doha that, and that's also a uniqueness of the Pledge for Change.

It's not only the signatories, the 13 signatories. It is, it has 40 Global South organizations as observers to the change in behaviors of these INGOs. And that's also quite unique, that are pushing INGOs, I think, in the right direction and saying, this is not good enough.

And maybe that's why you also sense the tension in the room, because it is obviously not good enough. We must stretch our imagination, go further. And this is the moment.

If this is not the moment, what will it be? A moment in which the world really needs critically civil society engagement from the global North and South, from all, from right to left. I mean, from all directions, if we are going to make a dent on inequality and on poverty.

Sofía just said, there are things you want to hold on to for dear life, and there are things you just want to get rid of. What is that for Oxfam? What do you want to hold on to and what do you want to lose?

Coming back to your previous question as well, you know, I would say that, A, you're looking at the panel. The panel conversation was trying to touch only one part of the pledge. Then the second is the pledge itself.

And then you're looking at the INGOs doing many other things to try and achieve the goal of decolonization, building the organization around more feminist principles. So what I would say is, you know, to first to recognize that an entity like Oxfam is not a homogenous entity. So there are varying levels of success in some pieces and significant failures in other pieces.

And it also varies according to the different regions. So if you come to Kenya, and I live in Nairobi, so you're most welcome to come and visit us there.

I'll take you up on that.

Yeah, do that. Do that. Yes.

I think we have done an excellent job in localization, or as Sofía prefers calling it, locally led humanitarian work. So we actually do not have a humanitarian team now, whatever work we have is now part of the locally led coalition on humanitarian responses. So there we have been extremely successful.

But in some parts, we continue with the old ways of working.

So why was it possible in Kenya?

Yeah, so the contexts are different. It depends on the local civil society. I must also say it depends on the local leadership.

It also depends on how are we, and that's the larger point that I want to come to, is that there's a larger ecosystem that you engage with. And in that, I think the possibilities are both really present of transformation. You know, who's supporting?

Who's your financial supporter for that initiative? Are they willing to go that extra mile in ensuring that your attempts to decolonize are accompanied? So they're going to be varying levels of successes.

But coming back to what we would want to hold on to and what we drop, I think that we have a very strong voice which emerges from our local roots, but being globally connected. So I think that's something very critical. And we are in many ways contributing significantly to say debates on inequality globally.

And we are proud of that. But let me also underscore that it is not research which is done sitting either at Oxford or sitting at The Hague. It is research which is built by the Oxfam Confederation working in 80 countries.

However, on the other hand, I do feel that we still have money largely being controlled by a smaller part of the organization. And that needs to be reformed. We are working on it, but that needs to change significantly.

It has then ties with the larger aid system. How does the aid system function? And that's where I think, you know, this is a moment of change.

We must seize it and let some of these things drown. And build afresh.

May I build on that? Because I think it's a moment that actually requires courage. A lot of courage, which clearly organizations in the global South and the global majority world have shown and we have exemplified in this conference.

When, for example, in this morning's panel from Syria, the White Helmets, where the representative was also describing how 10% of their staff died, you know, in the last few years. So this is a moment where I feel it requires courage from all of us. From all of us in a way that maybe INGOs have not been used to.

Because what we are seeing now in the world, and if I may say in the global North in terms of the huge changes we are confronted with, with authoritarianism, right-wing extremism, taking hold of a large part of the world. It actually requires true courage to enact that everywhere in the world, you know. And it is demanded from each and every one of us in a very unique way.

Now, this is where I think, and you mentioned, Amitabh earlier, that I don't like calling it localization, but locally led. Because localization suggests this term that it is about localizing what INGOs have done and just transferring it as a little package as it was done before for someone else to do now. You know, locally.

Localizing. That's why locally led is my preferred term, because it should be. And that's what we heard this morning in this conference about solutions which are locally grown, not localized, but locally grown.

But where INGOs can play a role is about precisely connecting them in solidarity, also being inspired by them to actually address the underlying causes of poverty that reside in the global north. Because let's face it, if poverty, inequality are not an accident, humanitarian emergencies are not an accident most of the time, unless it's an earthquake. But most of the time, it's driven by climate change.

It's driven by conflict most of the time. Therefore, you know, and we know that some of the causes of these disasters actually reside in the global north. And I said on the panel, and let me repeat it here, which is, you know, if the world would be a country, it would be the most unequal country in the world.

So it's not only about finding solutions which are valid nationally or locally. It's about addressing the in-between inequality between countries of the global north and south, because that's where most of the problem reside. And many INGOs have offices in DC, in London, in Paris, in Berlin, and they can address the underlying causes of poverty that reside there in multinationals, in all the vectors that drive poverty and inequality in this world.

So in trade, in debt, and there's so much to do. We actually need all hands on deck right now. We must unite a civil society, understand each and every role well, rather than trying to replace each other and really be united in confronting the big evil that is out there in the world.

I couldn't agree more. We can't have a zero-sum game between the local and the global. And I mean, there needs to be a synergy and a shared value and a collaboration if we are to be successful.

At the same time, you don't come just from any organization. You have both led one of the big five, Oxfam, CARE, and you speak of courage, so maybe I'd like to ask you, because it comes with a lot of constraints to sit in the hot seat. You no longer sit in the hot seat.

So what is it you can say now that you couldn't say half a year ago?

That's a very, very good question. I won't ask you. Well, I must say, it's quite interesting to be right now in this moment of time.

I'm actually, if I may say, first of all, I'm quite grateful that I'm right now, if I would still be with CARE or any other INGO, I would probably be focusing on letting a lot of colleagues go. And we have seen that across the sector. And I just feel now the opportunity, and it's hard to use this word opportunity when so many colleagues also are losing their jobs.

It's really tough too. It doesn't come easily out of my mouth. It really doesn't.

There's so much pain involved in individual stories of many colleagues from the global north and south and from everywhere across the globe. And many colleagues that are single mothers that are losing their jobs, many sole breadwinners in homes, in organizations that also have depended on INGOs and aid. But still, what I can see now is I feel kind of free to talk about, maybe also from a different point of view and perspective.

Actually, it's a privilege to focus on the analysis of it all, the possibilities of it all, the options in front of the table, rather than on quick restructuring or restructuring in order to find a meaningful role. So I'm not sure whether I have, though, the answer to what it should look like now. I don't think I do, because right now we're in the middle of, it feels like a hurricane.

And you're like, OK, where should it all fall? The only thing I do know is that what really matters is to listen to locally led options, to the feminist humanitarian network, to the near network and about what they are proposing, because the solution is there and nowhere else than there.

And then I think the million dollar question is, are you from the top of these big, big organizations, from the top of big aid, are you able to hear those voices? Are you the best type of organization to hear those voices? I think that is the million dollar question.

And to what extent is our hunt for scaling and impact at scale, and I don't know what else we tell each other, how is that becoming an obstacle to listening?

Honest and introspective answer would be no. Because local voices have been around and have been articulating similar concerns for a while. And we have not been able to reform ourselves.

And I would not want us to be defensive about it. We need to acknowledge that there have been limitations. Having been inside the system, I can say that there are people who would want to listen to these voices sincerely, do course correction.

However, that has not happened. So, you know, if you zoom out, the fact is that INGOs have not reformed themselves the way we should have done. However, the moment that we are in, this is a moment which is in many ways completely rebooting the entire system.

And I would say that the INGOs had developed vested interest in the previous system. And therefore, even if individuals wanted to listen, the organizations were not willing to listen because there was too much at stake. I think those stakes have now disappeared.

And there are possibilities now of reimagining a new future for INGOs, for the civil society, which is much more around the vision and mission of the organization and not about the volumes of money that the organization handles. Because I would make a distinction between impact at scale and big volumes of money. So impact at scale is critical in a globalized world where we know that power holders sit across the world and to influence them to address even a very local problem.

The roots are at times somewhere else. It's probably sitting at the Wall Street. So you need that scale, the global connect.

But I do think that this is a moment where the entire sector is going to get reconfigured. It is now our responsibility to show up in a way that it's listening and is willing to change.

Maybe let me pick up on Wall Street, right? Because we see monopolistic behavior in various industries. And when I look at the humanitarian industry or the aid industry, I would say that I see some of the same tendencies.

Now in the private sector, what do we do when we have monopolies? We break them up. So maybe instead of talking about changing the storytelling, the narrative you spin out, or equitable partnership, we should make a rule that if your turnover exceeds 100 million, or if you have more than 150 staff, we split you up.

We break you up so you don't become a monopoly. Maybe that would decolonize us. What do you think about that?

It's a really good thought, actually. It's a really, really provocative thought. Yeah, how do we go about reforming?

And I honestly think that right now, we simply have no choice. And it will happen. One way or the other, because the system as we know it is falling apart.

It's like the Twin Towers, to be honest. It's crushing. So right now, what has been complex over time, and you're asking, can it be kind of reformed and can it be changed?

I think what is hard for... I don't want to speak on your behalf, Amitabh, but I might, because both of us are from the Global South, from India and from Uruguay, working for Oxfam, and for me, former care. What is hard is, and I think we were actually having a good chat last night, and we both said to each other, if we wouldn't be in the roles we have been, we probably would be a revolutionary.

So I think we can confess that if that's all right with Amitabh. But what I wanted to say, it's really hard because I think we constantly, people like ourselves, walk on a tightrope, which is, in order to be accepted to be even part of the system, you must learn the language of the system, even to get a foot in and to be able to find even a role in this world. But we always come with the intent of transforming it and to be true to solidarity, to humanity in the deepest sense and to the values which made us join the sector in the first place.

So it's all about, and in order to even join the sector, you know, I had to learn to eloquently speak in English in one, two, three, with clear, synthetic points. So in order to be allowed into the door, but the reason why we also join it is then to reform it from inside, to reform it from inside with, and of course, the danger is that one could forget the original intent, because that's, at least in my case, that's why I joined this sector and this line of work, understanding from the outside the issues it suffered and the issues that needed reform, going inside, trying to reform, trying to somehow do it, and clearly not always successful because otherwise it would be in a very different place. And then you think, OK, what do I do?

Do I punch it from outside rather than reform it from inside? What do I do? Where is my place in the world?

But right now, at this very moment of time, given what we are seeing on this planet and the forces that are gaining power again, I actually think this is a moment for human rights organizations, humanitarian organizations, environmentalists, feminists, all of us joining forces to fight what we have in front of our eyes, which is just, I mean, the regression on this planet and the loss in terms of human rights, also progress that we're seeing, is just so deep that unless we kind of stick together somehow and join hands in the middle of the storm and then see what we can do in togetherness, we will be in deep, deep trouble if people like Amitabh and many others, you know, don't sit with all of the wonderful people we are here in Doha with, you know, to find ways forward. It will be complex the times that we have ahead.

Completely agreeing with Sofía's analysis of what we need to do. But I want to go back to your question. And first, thank you for the idea.

I think you do need to challenge all of us and with creative ideas like this one, because I do see a normative edge also in the question. So it's important. However, let me push you to make it a little more radical.

In India, and I know Indian civil society fairly well, you will not see a single organization which is even 10 million USD. You're talking of 100 million USD. The point I want to make is that at this moment, we need to go back to how the economic system functions, how there's continuing neocolonialism, how money is getting extracted from the South and which goes and sits in the pockets of few individuals in the North.

So until we start addressing the question of where do you have the agency, where does the imagination of civil society come from? I think we'll not be able to decolonize. Now, before I joined Oxfam, and I do not hesitate to say it even now, I was part of a very large global coalition and we did a global campaign.

And for the same moment, we, along with our colleagues, organized 25,000 people in Delhi protesting against poverty. And the same coalition had 300 people at Trafalgar Square. We ended up reporting saying that there was a good national movement that happened in Delhi and a global movement at Trafalgar Square.

If that conceptualization, that power, imagination, ideas, knowledge, everything sits in the North. We will not be able to decolonize. So there's a fundamental shift.

It starts with how INGOs are governed. We need to change that. It needs to move to how finances are distributed within the confederation, with partners.

That's critical. But it's also decolonization has to move to decolonity. And that's a big, big conversation that we need to work on.

I couldn't agree more with your analysis. And before we go on, I just want to say, if I was sitting in your chair, I would not do anything differently. I think we are constrained when we sit in very powerful positions.

What was fascinating for me in the discussion today was the disconnect between you as individuals and the formal positions you hold in the system. It came across so clearly. I think my thinking has really been informed by...

I'd like to bring up two things that have shaped my thinking around this. One was to move from the Red Cross movement, where I spent the first part of my career with the ICRC and the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent, to ACAPS, a little startup with a handful of people. And basically having worked my entire career in the humanitarian sector, being told you're not part of the sector.

You're not... Just that sense of exclusion in Geneva from the big organizations was quite powerful. Not in a, oh, feel sorry for me, but when like, what the heck?

How come that they have the power to tell who's in and who's out? And so that was one experience of what big eight looks like from the outside. And had I stayed with the federation, the thought would never have crossed my mind.

Secondly, I had Raj Kumar from DevEx on the show at one stage. And I asked him basically the sum of the questions I'm asking you, how do we do better? And he said, you know, we need honest competition.

And that really struck me as the core problem. Right now, if you want to be a bit sort of, maybe a shallow way to say this, we have a handful of donors giving money to a handful of agencies. And so there's a concentration of power in the sector that is stifling honest competitions.

And that's why I'm pushing on, isn't the problem that you're just too big? You're the elephants in the room and you're sort of dominating the ecosystem to an extent that instead of a swarm of effective change agents, we have a bunch of heavy organizations trying to deal with this administrative burden that you spoke about not being able to change.

Partially agreeing with what you're saying. Yes, we are not necessarily the elephants in the room, but there's a need for dramatic transformation. There's absolutely no doubt about it.

It is also about INU's vacating space so that you have many other actors. However, I would not agree with the framing of competition or the framing of these few donors kind of designing the sector. You're giving too much power by that framing to the donors to design the sector.

And therefore, as in the resources, ultimately, as in what we have heard since yesterday, and I've lived all my life in the South, the resources that the communities bring in are a million times more than what comes from these aid agencies. And those investments are enormous. As in you just cannot even put a value to those moments of solidarity, of support, of emotional support, physical support.

People literally, actually, if they have one piece of bread, they will make it half and give it to their neighbor. All that, so therefore, let's not give these donors such importance. So that's my disagreement, but INU's need to change, yes.

Yeah, I would say same thing. I'm not too happy with the competition. Nothing against DevEx, but honestly, the framing must be solidarity.

And the framing, I also have lived all my life in the Global South. And I think the framing must be one of, yeah, solidarity. That's the main, the essence of it all.

I am very excited in this phase of my life to be reconnecting also to the roots of working with Latin American organizations, with being in solidarity with them in different ways that maybe I wasn't able to when I was occupying the chair in CARE. So this is where I find, though, that there's different ways of contributing to the same cause. All are valid, all are necessary.

Again, this is a moment more for unity than disunity. I really believe that very strongly. But I'm excited to, we just had in Lima in December, I would call it a festival, not a conference, a decolonizing aid festival, a Latin American one.

And we are having another one in Bogota, in Colombia in June. Amitabh will be there with 15,000 people from movements, from all sectors in Latin America. Because I also, as a Latin American, I feel that Latin America is often at its best in these kind of moments.

And a lot of transformative ideas for the planet have come from Latin America. And I want to contribute to that right now in this time of history, when we look at what has happened over many decades in the last century in Latin America, good ideas have arisen from there. And that's where I want to put my energy in this moment of time.

Yeah, it's not an either or, right? It's not an either or. It's like you said, you felt there was a tension between us as individuals and then the system in which we all reside.

Well, this is the whole system in which we all reside somehow. And you pick your place, and you yourself talked about your own story and history of in which moments of your life do you reside within one place so that you also know it well and actually can then also talk about its issues, which otherwise we wouldn't be able to talk about if we would not have seen it from the inside. So it's all about trying to pull these pieces together, try to see what makes sense, shake off what doesn't.

And I mean, the problem is even, I wouldn't even have a problem with some bureaucracies if those bureaucracies would even have the ability to drive change. And to be very honest, what we're seeing right now is, for example, in multilateralism, we see the whole UN construct, which is a bureaucracy with no teeth. Why would you have normally when organizations are put together, they have a certain level of bureaucracy, but they must have a clear purpose and they must make a difference.

And right now we have sometimes bureaucracies for bureaucracy's sake, rather than for the transformative agendas they should be about. And that's the issue. And I can see, I mean, even most INGOs that I have seen in action over the years in different settings, even the same NGO could have a very different face in one country and then in another country, depending on who they were in solidarity with, with one leader or another leader.

Often it comes to that individual passion that people do have and that fire in the belly to transform, to truly transform. And I have seen marvelous examples of that and poor examples of that. I also don't believe that, just because I happened to be born in the global South, I somehow wear a badge of honor.

I also have seen over the years, well, we've seen it all. Also leaders from the global South being authoritarian, being elitist, being top downish and leaders from the globe, not always so. I mean, there is also, we must really remember what all of this is about and the values that we all should rally behind and find all the ways possible.

And we need all ways possible, again, all hands on deck right now. This is one of those moments, which if we don't now, I don't know when.

I think that's an excellent place to end our conversation. Sofía Sprechmann and Amitabh Bihar, thank you so much for coming on True Manitarian and being willing to be scrutinized and questioned. It's been a real pleasure to have you here.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to connect. Thanks.