54. Out of Control

[Lars Peter Nissen] (0:50 - 0:54)

Meg Sattler and Paula Hilbysen, welcome to Trumanitarian.

[Meg Sattler] (0:54 - 0:55)

Thank you so much.

[Paula Gil Baizan] (0:55 - 0:56)

Hi, Lars.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (0:56 - 1:06)

This is, I mean, this is my favorite episode of the year. It's like Christmas coming a bit early. We're taping this mid-December and I missed you guys.

[Meg Sattler] (1:08 - 1:13)

I can't believe it's been a year since the last one. It seemed like it was about three months ago.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (1:14 - 1:23)

Yeah, it's gone very quickly and I want to break the good news to you up front. You have both made it to my top 50 favorite ever humanitarians this year also.

[Paula Gil Baizan] (1:23 - 1:26)

Top 50? Oh my god.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (1:26 - 1:30)

Yeah, yeah, top 50. Don't, I mean, I know it's a lot to sort of take on, but yeah.

[Meg Sattler] (1:30 - 1:33)

Honored... of the 52 that you know?

[Lars Peter Nissen] (1:33 - 1:42)

Yeah, but don't leak the news yet. There's quite a lot of competition and jealousy around that list, so I just wanted to break that so that we start this podcast off in a good tone.

[Paula Gil Baizan] (1:42 - 1:47)

Were we in like the top 100 last year and it means we climbed like 50 steps up?

[Lars Peter Nissen] (1:48 - 1:49)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can see it like that.

[Paula Gil Baizan] (1:49 - 1:51)

Okay, that's pretty awesome. No, Meg.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (1:52 - 1:58)

Paula, you are in an undisclosed location somewhere in Asia.

[Paula Gil Baizan] (1:58 - 2:16)

So yeah, I mean, my personal situation is now taking me to like one of the most interesting places for humanitarian work and I get to see the inner workings of the other side of the coin. So yeah, really interesting. Very different.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (2:17 - 2:25)

That's great. Great and Meg, you seem to be most of the time in Australia, but you're still the director of Ground2Solutions. How's life for you?

[Meg Sattler] (2:26 - 2:38)

Life is good. Very busy, which could be why it feels like three months since we last had this conversation. But I've been fluffing around the world a bit. And yeah, just a little bit out of control. Busy, I would say.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (2:39 - 2:51)

And since you're asking for me, nothing has really changed. I'm still stuck in Geneva and this morning I'm pondering the eternal question of what is more difficult to get a teenager to school or to run a cluster coordination meeting.

[Meg Sattler] (2:51 - 2:52)

Probably depends on the cluster.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (2:53 - 3:14)

[Meg Sattler] (3:15 - 4:41)

[Lars Peter Nissen] (4:41 - 4:49)

[Paula Gil Baizan] (4:50 - 6:10)

[Lars Peter Nissen] (6:12 - 8:45)

I don't want to see a focus on things that push the sector because they affect head of progress, which is something that we also discussed when we were talking about COVID. I'd like to see the sector moving to focus on things that are actually very far away and so forgotten that then the big agencies would add value.

If I can just say, I totally agree with that. And that sort of is my point, that in spite of fully agreeing with everything you just said, Paula, I can still see how living in Geneva, being European, how that sucks me into that big black hole that is Ukraine, European geopolitical situation, Finland joining NATO, right? How difficult it is to actually escape and have a truly global humanitarian narrative in your head in spite of what I do for a living. It's just a personal reflection of how difficult it is. And that I think maybe the sense of the cracks in the narrative that I hear you talking about, Meg, I think that those cracks also come because a lot of us are realizing this, that the stories we run around telling ourselves are not the right stories or are not a sufficiently inclusive story.

Just thinking. I mean, I think another... The thing with Ukraine, though, is that it has had its tentacles in a number of different areas. Like we were doing some survey work in Chad and we would talk to people in Chad who say, I think my aid is drying up because of Ukraine, because the food prices are costing so much now. And it's almost like this empathy that they had. And I think it's also blown open this conversation about, you know, there's been so much talk about localization. And I know Paula was talking about local agencies before. I think something that's also happened this year, and this probably also depends on your vantage point, but because so much of the focus on localization, first of all, it's given a name. It's called localization. It's like a thing. It becomes like another buzzword in the humanitarian system. And it's been so focused on funding flows and the failure of funding to go to local organizations. And if we're not talking about that, we're talking about due diligence and how do you get local humanitarian actors to be able to comply with due diligence so that they can access this funding? But I think what we've seen in places like Ukraine, also in places like Myanmar, is that when you talk about local actors, they're not local humanitarian actors. They're local people. They're local communities. They're local organizations who have a life and a focus that is outside the humanitarian system. They're not little versions of Save the Children that are just waiting to have their capacity built so they can become another one of these huge humanitarian organizations and fit into all the boxes that we've given them. And I think there's a real level of discomfort in that, one, because of humanitarian principles. Like most local actors are not impartial, and that is not always a bad thing. And there has to be this element of letting go if you want to really support, quote, unquote, localization. You have to be prepared to support people who are sort of actively part of a conflict or who are not impartial in any way, but who are probably best placed to be reaching people who others can't. And I think processes like that, or not processes, but just the state of things this year has made that so much clearer in a way that I think is quite positive when coupled with analysis that's just come out in the Global Humanitarian Overview of the, I guess, the inability of the sector as it stands now to meet the predicted need for next year without a serious shake up of how we view things. And I'm sort of hoping that that enables a sort of relinquishing of control and more of a messy ecosystem where a lot of these processes that don't perfectly fit into very old traditional humanitarian boxes will be supported. And therefore, a lot of these reforms that we either sort of want or we don't will be fast tracked, whether or not there's anyone in Geneva pushing for them to be fast tracked. So I see that as being a real sort of opportunity and one that, I mean, at least for me, I think Ukraine helped make that clearer by talking to a lot of local actors in Ukraine and just realizing who they were and how distant they were from this sector and how little they cared about this sector while doing quite inspiring work.

Yeah, I don't know, it's making me think of this like Octavia Butler quote of like, there's nothing new under the sun, but there are many different suns. And I wish that that was the focus, right? To say, actually, there are lots of other places in the humanitarian sort of universe that are changing the markers of what success looks like. So when you have, for example, an office who realizes that they cannot do any planning without having an exercise to understand what are the trends and how they are affecting their ability to program, that for me is like the emergence of a sun that needs to have some focus. Again, go back to Ukraine. When you have small sort of investors from the private sector delivering cash faster than any agency, right, at an amount that is actually lifesaving, as in a thousand dollars, not 20 bucks, then that for me is another sun. And I think it's just like, for me, it's a question of labels, maybe. As in who gets to call themselves a humanitarian and therefore who gets to represent this sector that I feel so passionate about, for me, it's changing. So for me, the person who delivered like a lot of cash grants that were actually transformative for people who were trying to escape a war, that's someone that represents this sector. A small organization like you were talking about, Meg, that like is actually delivering fundraising in whatever ways they can and then using digital means for their off ramp, those are the ones that represent me in this sector. All the other sort of agencies who are like super obsessed about their own relevance and not necessarily having very serious conversations about how is their business model going to have to adapt to serve one in 23 people who are going to need humanitarian assistance next year, they don't represent me. And I think I would like to have different suns, right, emerging.

I like the one about different suns. And I think that is, I think what I was trying to say is, I try to be aware that I am under a very specific sun, right, that I've just felt how much you get sucked into, because it's been so turbulent this year in Europe, right, you can really feel how your mind closes around that and how your ability to actually think globally and try to empathize with the global humanitarian agenda is diminished.

And I've got nothing to say, but like about time, man. As in like, why would people in Geneva need to be making all those decisions? As in like, stop it, like stop obsessing about it. There's like no funeral to be held, okay. This was a glitch in history that like white people in Europe got to decide about global solidarity for the rest of the people who are living in need. Whatever. I celebrate that. It's over. Give the opportunity for other suns to emerge and decide what matters.

So maybe two things to that, because I think that's obvious, obviously right. That's the whole decolonization that we always talk about, right. When I look back at the conversations I've had on true humanitarian this year, one of the things that really sticks with me is the one I had with Raj Kumar from Devex. And his message was essentially two things. One was, if you are inside the system, get with the program, take some risks and get fired. And secondly, we have to incubate or have to create a growth layer of new initiatives of new organizations or new projects that are there already. I mean, the creativity and the drive is there. But how do we enable that? I think that that's the second point.

So for me, I took with me from that conversation on one side, push it, take risks, get fired if you're an incumbent. And secondly, how the heck do we create a growth layer that accelerates all of the positive developments that are already happening?

But I think a lot of that also is, even in the way that we talk about this, we're still talking about the sector and who's in the sector. We never sort of start from what's the problem or what is the problem that is being addressed or what are the activities that are needed to be supported. Like a guy in Chad isn't waking up today and thinking, oh, my basic needs will maybe be facilitated by 40 percent humanitarian aid and 25 percent loss and damage and a sprinkling of development. And that will all be wrapped up in a nice nexus bow. And I'm really looking forward to participating in all of these evaluations. I mean, no, like he's thinking, how can I make an income today and how can I provide for my family and myself?And will my home and my pets and my assets withstand a drought? And within the spectrum of my concerns, what are my priorities today and this month and this year? And our system doesn't allow for that. And it's so interesting because I feel like now this year we've been learning a bit more about climate because we're doing more projects in the climate space and going to COP was so interesting to me because what people are talking about in those forums, you have all of these people talking about climate and their relationship to climate and it's disasters like they're talking about disasters and their ability to cope with disasters. And then you start bringing sectors into it and it just doesn't meet like you don't have conversations that meet in the middle when you're talking to like climate people. And I just wonder if there's something in this relinquishing of control that I'm hoping will be fast tracked off the back of all of these different focuses this year that will just make the person in their community more of the starting point. And I wonder how much we can sort of control that. And I hope that we can't. But I think that there's just a lot of resources that need to be channeled in a different way to enable that to happen, because otherwise it feels like a lot of these opportunities may be missed, even if we're sort of almost on the cusp of them taking hold.

But in a way, I think it is happening already, right? Like there are people, I don't know in charge, but in other places that I that I'm working in where people actually, yes, wake up one day and like I am fed up of this. So I'm fed up for myself and my community. And I'm going to use the power of modernity, aka the interwebs, to do something different. And they just get on with it and they do it. And I think there's there's beauty in that. I've been reading a lot about what's the difference between an invention and a discovery, right? So a discovery is something that starts to happen between people and then it changes, it pivots, it metamorphoses into something that is really big. And then one day someone stumbles into it and they're like, I've discovered capitalism. All right, I'm Adam Smith. Look what I discovered. But invention is something that comes from the top. And people say you should do this, you should do that. And they use the example of communism, right? Like Marxism as being one of these things that people invent. And I think what's happening in the humanitarian sector now is that it's going through a process of discovery. And what I would just say is like if you really want to invest like what you were saying last Peter, in terms of like creating the spaces, take the friction out of the people who want to do humanitarian work by, for example, doing what USAID is doing, creating spaces for them to be able to get funding, right? That's a very clear, simple entry point. Bravo USAID. Just do not block their entry. And then one day someone, hopefully not in Geneva, will discover the new humanitarians for doing all this work. Just let them be. It will happen on its own.

But you see, I think the difference is that people are beginning to say that bluntly. I think I've seen that more this year, that even people from quite high positions inside the system recognize this. Maybe sometimes there's a little nervous laughter and then they say, oh, you know, really, it's like this. It's like, yeah, duh, it's obviously like this. It's obviously against our interest to let go of control. And so we've had this conversation 50 times, right? Yes, the guy in chat doesn't care about the cluster system or the nexus. Yes, the creativity is out there. Yes, the system is incentivized to take care of itself rather than the people in need. We know this. What I keep on coming back to is an old boss of mine, a Finn actually, somehow Finland seems to be popping up in this conversation for me. He once said to me that when we send timber down the river in Finland, the point is not to sort of control every single lock going down the river. No, we know where they normally get stuck. And so that's where we stand. And we wait for one that almost gets stuck and then we give it a little shove and then it flows again. And so what I'm looking for is, what is that position? What is that shove that you can give to make sure that that flow which is there, that creativity which is there, that that is amplified, that that guy in chat actually wins? How do we do that? How do we reformulate the humanitarian project away from being the white savior flying out to save the poor or whatever and to being the people who stand at the side of the river shoving the things that almost get stuck, enabling flow so that people can get on with their lives? How do we do that?

I wish I had the answer to that question. But I mean, I do...

For a million bucks... You'd be like, can I call a friend?

Come on, girls. Did I just call you girls? Sorry. Come on, ladies. I'm relying on you.

I feel like a lot of this is because a lot of the resources. There are all these diverse resource places now where funding is coming and it's going more directly to people who are doing good work and whether or not we call that humanitarianism to Paul's point is a different thing. But I mean, that does need to be scaled up. I wonder if, you know, I mean, we talk a lot about intermediaries and I think it's quite boring because it doesn't feel like it's that revolutionary. But maybe while we have this sector looking the way that it is, when you have these huge agencies who want to remain relevant for a little while, I mean, they could sort of repurpose their roles to be much more supportive intermediaries while these processes from various institutional donors are sort of taking hold and they're working out at what point they can let go of their obsession with due diligence. So while we're waiting for a couple of billionaires to just come in and start really shaking up the status quo. My, not to turn it back into a negative, but I think one concern that I have about next year is the focus on famine. And the reason I have that concern is because all of the marketing that this status quo sector has been built on and the sort of status quo that you were mentioning before, Lars is about saving lives and feeding people and, you know, tugging at the heartstrings of this highly emotive visual of, you know, people need food to survive. They're malnourished. Do we feed them or do we test something else? And that has been the story and the marketing that tells this victims and heroes tale. And I'm a bit nervous, you know, at a time of unprecedented hunger, as is the story coming out of the humanitarian overview and the crisis that has been spurred by the rising food prices, that that may slow some of this progress because it's very easy to kind of tell that story. It's very easy then for a lot of big agencies to continue to perpetuate their own self-serving status quo in a way.

Yeah, but it's almost like we need more youth activism in this sector, right? Like, I would like to see the equivalent of like the young person that glues themselves to like a painting for this sector, because I think there's also like a crisis of imagination in terms of how do we like see ourselves in a different way? And I think young people are not the same as young people in terms of like, a couple of decades ago. I think these are young people that are super sort of aware of their surroundings, and they're very much vocal. So I don't know. I'd like to see it as a test, right? Of like, oh, yeah, everyone's so hungry. Let's be the hungry. And like, how many young people are not going to put their hand up and be like, yeah, it happens because of global politics, right? And like macroeconomics when it comes to food. And by the way, you don't know government, you have something to do with it. So I think, again, like, let them try. Let them go ahead with like their own sort of old message. What I'm more interested in is how do we fertilize the ground for this movement of global solidarity? And I think changing the goalposts matter, right? So if we stop talking about like the lack of capacity of global actors, but like the lack of capacity of international actors to work with global people, I'd like to see that discourse changing a lot, right? You were mentioning accountability. Yes, like, I don't know, millions and millions get like lost in humongously large INGOs and UN agencies every year. No one talks about their lack of capacity. So if we would just be able to own the narrative, to then change the goalposts from a systemic point of view, we would changing almost like the paradigm of success of the system. It's just that no one is willing to let go of that chair. They're willing to like give like some pennies for your activities or whatever, but no one is willing to like stand up from their chair where like the success markers of this sector are written down and say, hey, brown people, come sit down. That doesn't happen. That's what I would like to see happen.

That's where I do see, I think a lot of hope in this intersection of humanitarianism and the climate movement. And it really only dawned on me, I mean, it's probably really obvious, but talking to a lot of these youth climate activists and seeing when, I mean, I guess there were similar discussions around COVID, but because climate is this global threat and people really see it as a justice issue and the injustices in how climate change has come about are more and more obvious. And the information on that is shared in a way that's, you know, I mean, it's not perfect, but it's much more equitable than in the humanitarian space.

I think it's a great idea, Paula. And in a sense, I've been working a little bit, for example, with a guy called Gopi, who's been on the show earlier, who has this idea about building a platform, building resilient destinations for tourism-dependent, climate-affected communities, right? So communities where they get all their livelihood from tourism, a billion dollar industry, a trillion probably, I don't know, it's big. And then they will be hit by climate disasters again and again, wiping out the lodges and the cottages. And then how do you make these communities more resilient by somehow siphoning off some of all of the resources from that global tourism industry and driving that towards those communities? That's the sort of solution I find really, really inspiring. And I've been working with Gopi to try to figure out how do you build a platform for that? I've also been working with Travis, who has this idea about the circular economy, right boot. How do we green the sector? How do we make sure that all of the trash coming out of operations that is recycled or up-cycled or whatever they call it these days. I mean, there are these ideas out there. And so I'm doing it already and I'm happy to take on a couple of more entrepreneurial people who wants to drive things forward and see if I can be helpful.

And so I'm sure you guys are as well.

And I would say like the small things that actually make big agencies succeed, as in like imagine a course on how to not be bullied by your donor when they do a program visit. How to prepare a winning project proposal. How to define your unique selling points with like an institutional donor who is looking for something hashtag gender. Those that is the know-how that needs to be shared. And I do some of that work. I know of other people and other individuals that do that in their free time. So I think, I don't know, let's stop talking about how the system is broken and like do something to have another one grow.

I'd like to give the free tip number one here right on True Monetarian. That is never, never, ever put smart indicators into your lock frame. Only do dumb indicators. Only do activity indicators and put the activity as low as possible. Don't believe this bullshit about smart indicators. They just lock you into a cage that has changed once you have to report on it.

Dumb down the expectations as much as you can and your donor will be happy.

That's the end of the podcast. Happy New Year, everybody.

Happy New Year..

Okay, so I like, I really like the idea, Paula. So, and I think, as you say, a lot of us are already doing this in different shapes and forms. Now, what we need is a brand and then we need to start connecting.

Solidarity, I think, right? I think have a sense of solidarity with people who are trying to destroy the thing that you've been building for the last 18 years, in my case. How does that look like? And then make that a question that you ask for yourself and then spring into action. No more Twitters complaining because Twitter is broken already. So like spring into action. Turn your rage into transformation.

I mean, I would say though, a lot of that, even with those quite specific examples, that is happening, right? Like that is like intermediaries 101. I just wonder if the risk appetite doesn't follow that. You know, there's so much focus on kind of capacity strengthening and that's not necessarily then being followed with. And, you know, here are some examples and here are some resources to try putting all of these things into action. Like I still think we're in this mode where it's like, let's try and support localisation but let's even more tightly control that by making it like a teaching exercise. Just to touch on again, Paula's point, because it was so important about how much money gets wasted in huge agencies. I mean, there's no reporting. There's no... How many times has a huge grant gone in that was supposed to be for some common inclusive service that ends up just sort of funding more and more posts in huge agencies? I just think that this kind of hesitation when it comes to passing what are relatively small amounts of money to small actors because they're not deemed to be trustworthy enough. I mean, Ground Truth is one of them.

We have been turned down for so many grants from institutional donors because we're just not big enough to have all of the processes in place that they demand, let alone a small community organisation who this is their first foray into the humanitarian space. So, I mean, I think that there is at the top... I was in an IASC principles meeting last week and it was an inspiring meeting. I mean, there was such great conversation, huge will to change things. But they're the sorts of things that need to change. We need to say, okay, if we're going to start changing things, the risk appetite, at least initially, has to kind of increase. We have to be prepared to do things differently in a way that we cannot control. And I'm hoping that's what we're going to see more of because external forces are going to push that more than we currently know.

Can I add like one last thing? Because I think, yes, giving resources, voice, space, et cetera, for local actors is important. But there's also, I think, a humongous need to not ignore the fact that the programmatic approaches that we use are from the 50s. As in, it's not only how we do it that is outdated, right? It's what we do when we do it. And local actors can try new approaches. But the whole sector needs to start thinking about what does it look like to serve, again, one in 23 people? What does it look like to do, for example, environmental peacekeeping? We are on the doorstep of collapse of humanity. And we continue to think that by training tailors, things are going to get better. So yes, localization has all of my attention. But our approaches are entirely updated. And I would like to see more funding going into thinking, what are some of these programmatic approaches that we need for the time that we're in and the type of problems that people experience? That is so outdated. But again, it talks to the unique selling point of the big agency. So it's also not something that you hear very often. But if you're looking at it from the point of view of someone who's receiving assistance, it's pretty shocking. Migrants in Latin America receiving this random cash grant with no design behind it, it's not OK. We need to also modernize what we deliver.

No, I mean, I think that my hope is that they would go hand in hand. And I think this is the whole problem with localization, is that it's like, how do we equip other people who aren't currently involved in this weird sector to do everything like we do it? Rather than, how do we actually support ideas that are closer to community priorities? Because it's not necessarily all about localization. It's just about better prioritization and being more responsive to what people actually need in their day-to-day lives versus what we think they need in sectors that we have created a long time ago. I feel like that's where the, hopefully, I think that change would happen because we wouldn't then, I'm saying we, but a lot of the big humanitarian players wouldn't necessarily be controlling the programming in the same way.

Yeah, so like changing the designer, right? You change the designer, you change the point of view, therefore, you change the design. I like it.

And people know what they need to do. As we've all seen time and time again, I mean, we just did this research in Nigeria and it was about voucher assistance. And someone said, oh, my voucher assistance is so helpful. Thank you so much. And we were kind of saying, well, why is it helpful? And they said, because we sold it and we used the cash we got that was less than the transfer value of the voucher to put towards a livelihoods activity. I mean, people know, they take what they can and they know what they need to do to try and recover from whatever situation they're in. And we just continue to kind of think we can overly design that from somewhere far away and that it would have a good outcome.

I sense that we all, we have a shared feeling or we have a shared experience of this loss of control or this loss of a central point where the narrative is defined. And I think we are all quite comfortable with that. We're actually happy about that.

Absolutely. I'm celebrating it open like champagne bottles because I think once we've finally managed to understand that change is who we should be, right? Humanitarianism should never be about the status quo. It should be about change because that's what happens when you get like struck by a crisis, then we're winning. So yes, give up the control. Bravo.

I really like your idea, Paula, about sort of a friend in your corner, the old farts that have been through the system for 20 years somehow just making themselves available for younger entrepreneurs and giving them a few tips on how to play more dirty and get more ahead. I like that idea. I just don't like that you think I'm the one who's supposed to do it. I think you should actually be pushing it. It was your bloody idea.

Good point. Okay. I will do it because you know what? This happens in the private sector. I think like I work with like venture capitalists who are actually doing that for young companies, explaining them how to pitch, explaining them how to build a business model, mentoring them, giving them advice. Like why aren't we doing it? So, okay. Maybe this will be my new year's resolution with Meg.

So I'm not part of it anymore?

Well, you said you didn't want to. So power to the women. .

So maybe one last thing we could talk about before we wrap it up. And I'd like to thank both of you for a very delightful conversation. It's been really, really great. One, I hope we are still friends in a year from now. Not entirely sure, but I hope we're still friends. And I hope that Trumanitarian still exists. And I hope that we will have this sort of conversation again. And when we do, how will we know that we're moving forward? What will have changed that is a good thing?

It's like writing a letter to yourself. You know, I do this. I write a letter to myself and then I put it in the box of the plastic Christmas tree that I take out every year.

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I was thinking about the last conversation we had last year. And I know that's something that we were talking about, or at least I was, was I was getting really sick of all of these binary grandiose statements on Twitter from everyone, including myself about, you know, we just need to do this. So like, if we did this, everything would obviously be better. And so I feel like looking back over that year, a desire for sort of more humility has probably shown itself. And I feel like that could be taken to new heights for next year. Like, I think that progress in all of this will be shown by who are having these conversations. What are they talking about? Are they talking about the humanitarian sector? Or are they talking about how were needs met in a way that was driven by those who were most affected by various intersecting crises? You know, how have various voices in various arenas converged to come into these humanitarian discussions? Are they influencing the work of the IASC principles, which I know is a discussion every year? So that will be what I'm sort of looking for and hoping to foster between now and then.

Yeah, I'm on the same track. And I think what we should do is to say that next year's episode is not us talking. It is us bringing voices in here that we have met over the year to come that have inspired us, that we think are moving forward. And that is their voices that drive the conversation. And maybe the three of us will be allowed to say something at the end on how we think this is moving. But it's not us who are the centerpiece of that conversation.

How about that?

You just didn't like this conversation. So you're trying to find a way out of it for next year.

Yeah, yeah. No, we get it. We get it, Lars.

We've moved out of the top 50. I think we're back to like the top 500 or so.

Yeah. So after this ringing endorsement, I take that that's what we do.

Sounds good.