Are Humanitarian Organizations doing an amazing job with scare resources under impossible circumstances, or has international humanitarian assistance turned into a colonial, un-accountable, technocracy – disaster capitalism at its worst? And should we be more careful when criticizing this sector not to undermine morale and give the opponents of aid ammunition? This and many other questions is what Gareth Price-Jones, the Executive Secretary of SCHR and Marie-Rose Romain Murphy, the co-founder and Board President of Haitian Community Foundation discuss with Lars Peter Nissen in this episode.
Transcript
Welcome to humanitarian, I'm your host, Lars Peter Nissen. This week's episode began with a tweet. Gareth Price-Jones, the Executive Secretary of the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response (ACHR) sent out a tweet where he celebrated the achievements of the humanitarian community in 2o21 and expressed his frustration with all the criticism that is of the IRC family these days. For those of you not familiar with ACHR, I should say that it is an alliance of nine of the world's leading humanitarian organisations, they come together to support quality, accountability and learning in humanitarian action. And we are talking about the absolute Super League here. It is Save the Children World Vision, Care, Oxfam, the Lutheran World Federation, the Act Alliance, as well as the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies and the ICRC so the humanitarian heavyweights minus the UN, or as we call them, in this episode, Big Eight. The tweet got quite a few likes, but the comments, and there were quite a few of those as well, were not predominantly impressed with Gareth. I myself, I'm a rather pathetic tweeter, but I did manage to throw into the debate that when everybody was done being clever on Twitter, they were very welcome on the pod and Gareth took me up on that invitation. One of the critical and rather funny inputs to the tweet storm came from Marie-Rose Romain Murphy, the co-founder and board president of the Haitian Community Foundation, an organisation that seeks to foster thriving Haitian communities with justice and opportunities for all and to strengthen Haitian leadership to enable national self determination and collaborative development. Marie-Rose also agreed to come on the pod, and that has led to a very spirited and interesting conversation. I'd like to thank both Marie-Rose and Gareth, for agreeing to this conversation and for being really excellent at disagreeing. It's only through a very honest and respectful challenge, as the one we had this conversation, that we can move each other forward. It takes courage and both of my guests have plenty of that. Before we jump in, there are always a couple of things you can do if you enjoyed the show. You can like and review us wherever you listen, that really helps. You can also sign up for our newsletter on humanitarian.org. And while you are enjoying our excellent homepage, or you can scroll to the bottom of the page, where you will find a PayPal link. So if you're so inclined, a small contribution would be more than welcome. We're all volunteers, but still there are costs associated with hosting and producing the show. That's it for now. Enjoy the conversation.
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy and Gareth Price-Jones, welcome to Trumanitarian.
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy:Thank you.
Gareth Price-Jones:Thank you.
Lars Peter Nissen:Now, the reason that I've asked the two of you to come in here is a tweet storm that we had last week in humanitarian Twitter. I had... it was a great pleasure to sit on the sideline, and watch all these brilliant people express themselves in a few characters. And Gareth, you were the instigator. You were the guy who actually kicked this off and, and maybe I'll just read out the tweet that started at all. You... you somehow feel... I don't know if it's an evening, you're sitting there, maybe with a cup of tea. You say, "I get annoyed when people refer to the IRC international aid ecosystem as broken. It is not. It reached more than 107 million people in 37 crisis in 21, many of them were genuinely life saving assistance using just $18.35 billion. That's 170 $2 per person. 48 cents per person per day. And then you link to this report from from OCHA sort of outlining achievements from last year. Now, why did you sent that tweet?
Gareth Price-Jones:I think to start with that, I'd be the first to acknowledge that I'm not necessarily the best person to be be defending aid, right? I'm, I'm a white middle class, British guy and, you know, a lot of people would say, Oh, well, he's biassed he works for the INGOs and the Red Cross, he lives in Geneva, you know, so... but the thing I think that I struggle with is that I think a lot of better place colleagues struggle to put their heads above the parapet, you know, and many of them shared this with me, and when I wrote it... so I'd come out of a meeting with the SCHR principles, so that the chief executives of the nine member organisations of the SCHR. And they've been talking a lot about how the challenges and struggles they're having motivating and supporting there roughly 140,000 staff around the world who are talking about being tired, demotivated and really struggling, as I think many of us are after kind of two years of pandemic. And particularly, they were noting that there's a real resistance from their staff to any new change initiatives, particularly from HQ, but real resistance to further change. And as someone who's invested heavily in localization through the Grand Bargain in participation, and many of the things that I think we all agree we need to change around humanitarian aid. I'm worried about that, because I think it really blocks our ability to drive change moving forward. And I do feel it in a way we've we've lost perspective slightly, that yes, I fully agree, as you know, as I did in the in the follow on to that tweet, that, of course, we have loads of challenges, we have loads of things, we could and should be doing better. But I worry that, as I say, that we've lost perspective. And also that we're opening space for delegitimising aid, for blocking aid, and for this kind of tear it down mentality. And one of the things that really struck me in the meeting, one of my colleagues were saying that, you know, many staff had had felt that they wanted to change direction, they wanted more purpose in their life, that the pandemic had made them revisit what they were doing with their lives, and that this was actually making them leave the sector, rather than join the sector. And so that's really where it was coming from, and how do we balance better, the need to drive changes need to drive real improvement in the sector, but also recognise what it does, what those 140,000 odd staff are doing in the field, and in the partners and everything else that work with us. Just shift that balance slightly.
Lars Peter Nissen:Alright, so you thought you would cheer us all up a bit with that tweet after a couple of tough years. And then Marie-Rose, you saw it, and you as far as I can gather was not particularly cheered up. And you threw out a few quite funny tweets under the hashtag "realitycheck". What was your reaction when you saw the tweet?
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy:Let's see. I have to say that I need to make the difference between emotional response and strategic response. Because the emotional response is not what I want. What I want was the strategic response. And I think I'll try to explain where I'm coming from. You have to understand that I've worked in the social change sector for most of my life. At this point, we're talking about over 30 years of experience. International development, I really got involved after the earthquake, 2o1o earthquake, where I really felt like I had no other choice but getting involved. 2o1o... And the 2o1o earthquake was just this incredible year for Haiti and Haitians all over the world. It's not just the earthquake, the collective trauma... then there was a hurricane crops was lost, hunger as a result, on top of it, you ended up having UN troops bringing cholera into Haiti and denying it. On the personal level, end of the year, my mother got beaten up. So there was the sense of, you know, forget about just fatigue and trauma, it was just a wretched year for us. Okay? But out of all of this, because we Haitians have like this spirit which is incredible. And we... I won't call it resilience. I will call it creativity. I will call it "joie de vivre." I will call it a lot of different things. But other volunteers, a lot of us started feeling like this was happening for a reason and maybe it was to build back better, okay? And maybe it was an opportunity. And there were... there was the sense and there was a lot... there were a lot of ideas that were coming in Haiti that was coming up. What if we did this, what if we did that? And it was amazing. And I I will tell you what killed me was that these ideas and this energy was never... they were never leveraged, okay? And what we saw in 2o1o was pure colonisation and extraction and disaster capitalism. And no one was held responsible. And there were no reparations. And frankly, I'm at a stage where I feel like the aid sector and the world owes us reparations for the 2o1o earthquake. So this is a long explanation, but bear with me. So, I know we certainly there have been conversation about whether or not the ag sector has learned from 2o1o in Haiti. Everybody talks about it as a learning, a turning point. Except that no one is really touching it. There have be maybe some progress, but... Frankly, I haven't seen much learning. Just to give you one example, from August 2o21, to the end of it, USAID gave $50 million in contract to Haiti, okay? Do you know how many were given to local and national organisations? Haitian, organisations? Take a guess.
Lars Peter Nissen:A couple of 100,000?
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy:Ze-ro. All right? So here's the deal in terms of where I'm coming from. And this is why I talk about my emotional response being different from my strategic response. Okay? Some people will never hear me the same way... that some people will never fully see me as an equal. Okay? Some people will hear what's going on, they won't feel the sense of urgency, some people will understand. No one understands the need for change the way the affected population experiences. Okay? And do we need change? Not just yesterday, but 30 years ago plus. So my reaction to this tweet, and I have to be honest, Gareth, was not just being annoyed, but just this anger that I have. And that is... that I've learned to channel in a productive way. So my strategic response, though, because I understand that you're an ally, and I understand that some people are, I understand more or less where you're coming from was to try to articulate things in a way where the people who are not the dinosaurs that will never understand where people like me come from, but people will understand and have an illustration about what we from the Global South, all we are seeing in the aid sector.
Lars Peter Nissen:I have a question when I hear you talking, because I empathise quite heavily with the perspective and one of the things that deeply frustrates me is this repetitive nature of the mistakes we making, the seemingly inability to shift even though it is widely recognised that we do need to change quite a few things about our sector. At the same time, I want to ask you, is there a part of you that agrees with Gareth, that actually, there's this much money going out, you have 100 (and I can't remember how many staff working in the organisations Gareth represent... I mean, there's nothing good coming out of that. Is it a net negative for society? Or do you think that something good is coming out of that? And what does that mean?
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy:Here's the thing that I wanted for him. There are a lot of things... the aid sector is focused... a lot of it is focused on the short term, and it's focused on on reaction. It's not focused on prevention. It's not focused on the long term. Okay? So in terms of immediate action, okay, which I guess we're very good at, obviously, there are good. Some people are getting fed, the people are getting help, many people who have died otherwise, you know, being kept alive and all of this. So Should people take pride in that? Absolutely. What you have to understand is that I know a number of people, and I've met a number of people, that are very good people and I'm not trying to say, Oh, my God, this is horrible, there is nothing good. And, you know, nothing good is coming out of it, right? But now, let's cut back a little bit and let's separate intentions from actions. Let's also see nuances, in terms of different people, different levels, from policy to implementation. Okay? And then try to sort of like put the larger context and to see sort of like the long term impact, or even the short term impact. When... for me, and you know, I'm sorry, because if I've been part of different so like presentations and whatever, and for some people it would sound repetitive, but I have to keep saying it: aid is supposed to be about ending the need for aid and ending aid. Okay? And I will repeat it: aid is supposed to be about ending the need for aid and ending aid. The way it's structured right now, it's not doing it. Okay? And what's going on? It's like it's creating the system of dependency. It's also sort of like very much paternalistic, because all we can keep hearing, and the way things are set up, is that Global South local or national organisation, Global South countries, don't have the capacity, we have to keep teaching them. At the tune of millions, let's keep building their capacity, but these millions are not going straight to the country, the organization's or everything else, they are going into the pockets of international NGOs. Very little is actually getting into the community. And it's continuing to perpetuate the cycle of dependency. My thing is, if the aid sector were serious about sort of like, ending itself, it would plan an exit strategy. And I don't care if we're talking about 10, 20, 30 years, 40 years, but where is the exit strategy? And if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And you can keep talking, but if you're not doing it systematically, okay, it's just not happening. So what are you doing inside because I hear a lot of talk of, you know, Lars Peter, and Gareth about dignity, about empowerment, about whatever it is but you know, I'm going to tell you something, I've built and I've helped one local organisation with all of the pain that it includes, okay? I have worked as a consultant for international organisations who work in what people love to say talked about the field. And so I've experienced and I've seen what's going on at community levels, whether it was in Haiti or Africa. I'm part of different network, I'm been part of the localization, you know, movement. And what I can tell you, is that, Gareth, I hear you when he talked about people being sensitive, being discouraged, being tired. Okay? But there is a part of me that says, All I hear... and yeah, we have to acknowledge some of the positive at the same time, you know. If we keep patting people on the back and say, "This is good. Feel good. Let's keep going", It's never gonna happen. Because the reality of it is that we need structural change, not incremental change. Okay? And does any of it make any of us comfortable? You have many of us and you want to talk about uncomfortable? Uncomfortable is when you have you're in a room somewhere in Geneva, in London, in Brussels, or wherever, in Europe or in Washington, and you have different people that are talking very condescendingly, and very negatively, and very openly that way about local organisations, Global South countries, and the affected population. Okay? No respect whatsoever. But that's one layer. Then you go in the field and you see all your communities, or Global South communities, are being treated. And it has nothing to do with dignity. Nothing. On the contrary, I've had to play the role of the advocate and I've had to take the backlash and the attack because I've taken that wall because I didn't care at the end, if I lost money. So that's why, Lars Peter, that's where I'm at.
Lars Peter Nissen:As I think you also you mentioned Marie-Rose, I don't think I necessarily disagree with a lot of what you said. I think we can, we can see those things and have quite a deep frustration... at least, I shouldn't speak for you guys, but I have a very deep frustration around some of these things. And so for me, the question is Gareth, when you sit there with your senior executives from the nine biggest organisations we have in the business, and they talk about being unable to motivate and support their staff, okay, we have a pandemic, and that's tough on all of us, I believe, but to my knowledge, most people enter into this business, not primarily to make money, but because they believe in a more just world and they are trying to change the world. That's the people I meet anyways. Isn't it possible that the lack of motivation that the staff feels in this organisation is exactly because of what Marie Rose is describing, a lack of change of the fundamentally... a lack of change of the power in the sector? And this repetitive nature of thinking of it as 48 cents per person per day.
Gareth Price-Jones:Yes, so I think that's definitely part of it. And certainly I do share that frustration. You know, I worked in Haiti myself after the earthquake. But I think that... where we differ, I think, is possibly in our analysis of why that happens, right? So I think... I fully agree with, with what you're saying, Marie-Rose and I think, for me, there's a couple of things here. One is around the scale of aid. So one of the things that I find quite frustrating is when people talk about kind of big aid and, you know, we look at this year's appeal, it's like $42 billion, of which maybe we get 20 billion, right, it was it was at last year. And on a personal level, that's huge amount of money, right? But it's it's a drop in the ocean of a $94 trillion world economy. And just to put a context, last July, it was reported in The Economist that airlines alone had received $225 billion in COVID bailout money in 18 months. And even I think it's a drop in the ocean of even specific crises. So one of the things coming coming back to Haiti, you know, I worked in Haiti there, and but I don't think there was ever anywhere near the level of resourcing that would have been needed, even with all those big appeals. It was $5 billion, I think, over three years. So that's about 10%. of the Haitian economy. You know, about 10% of the GDP. And, yeah, compared to the earthquake sauces were 120% of total GDP. So what you're comparing with there is... you know, the Mexico earthquake in nineteen eighty-five, that was that was that was only 2.7% of the economy. So you're expecting aid to drive this huge transformational change, that it's just not resourced to do at all. And so I think it's that, you know, managing realistic expectations of what you can do with that level of support. So I completely share the frustration. But my sense is that you're expecting a sticking... I mean, all of us agree, humanitarian aid kind of sticking faster. I think most of us think it should aspire to something greater, which is exactly what you were talking about Marie-Rose, but I think it's just not resourced to do that. So we're setting ourselves up to fail.
Lars Peter Nissen:Maybe if I can just jump in there, Gareth, on a couple of things. We call it Big Aid because of the dominant position it holds in the sector. It's the concentration of power. It's a tendency towards a monopoly. That's why it's Big Aid. And an organisation that reaches 15 20,000 employees, walks and talks like an organisation that has 15 20,000 employees. And that's fundamentally different from an organisation that has 15 or 20. At least when I speak up big eight, it's not because I think we have enough money and it's being wasted. No, obviously not. Needs far exceeds resources. And it's ridiculous that we are incapable of being... having more solidarity in the world and giving more money. But that doesn't excuse a few big players dominating the field, monopolizing the narrative, and and basically stifling innovation.
Gareth Price-Jones:But I'm not sure they do. I mean, just on your on your last podcast, for example, and I was listening to that over the weekend. And there's a lot of talk there about entrepreneurs, about all the change that is happening, yet, my sense is that the dominant narrative, and this is what what many colleagues report back to me... is that, the narrative is, that we fail. You know, I mean, on your podcast, is that we suck. And I think that's not how we drive change, telling people that they're failing consistently, and also failing to differentiate between... because some are failing, I fully agree. But I think we're also seeing some really exciting change about how we engage with affected people, how much we empower our partners, and it's too slow, I fully agree, but to not acknowledge that shift, I find frustrating.
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy:I just want to be clear that my expectation is that aid is not going to solve the issues. So, Gareth, when you're talking about the money and then giving some figures I will say to you that the Centre for Global Development, when they analyse sort of like some of the aids that are come and try to track the outcome, and figure out the impact, they couldn't see anything. And for a sector that prides itself on accountability. Um, you know, that is quite saying something. I mean, so, no, I don't expect sort of like international to come and I can expect them to save us. But I also, you know, I think we, and I shouldn't say I, we had an issue with the fact that Asian activists were not necessarily welcome at the meetings. That there was no translation that was provided. There was... if you look at, and I started looking at, the way the money was allocated, and that's one of the things that enraged me and had me drive myself into the ground for years, is that the money was allocated to international organisations. And, you know, amazing salaries were being paid to people that had milk behind their ears. And it was well known that, you know, in a crisis of this type, you had aid organisation sending very young, inexperienced people. I mean, so, every time that I hear, forget about just the earthquake, every time that I hear a large amount of money just being allocated to, given by, donor country to the country, at this point, I'm not thinking good news. Because I can tell you from a local organisation, a national organisation, that has been able to drive significant change, and being able to uplift people, okay, what we've been able to do with very little resources... when I hear about these amounts of money that are being given for certain things, and then you figure out exactly... or very little has gone to the community. And all, you know, this impact is not long term and we're not seeing what's being left, what's being done. I have to tell you, I can't help thinking that even if these large international organisations work with local organisations in through partnerships, the results will be better in terms of cost efficiency, in terms of things that are really aligned, and as far as what the communities really want. And I have to tell you, you want to talk about the noise, one of the things that drives me nuts, and beyond the noise at this point, is the fact that whenever I hear different sort of like leaders, such as yourself, other people talk about the need for engagement, okay, as far as humanitarian or development or whatever. They talk about participation. Participation. I'll tell you where I come from (and you can call me a nationalist), okay, I come from the point that, I don't want to hear about participation. I want to hear leadership. I want to hear leadership. It is the basic human right, as far as I'm concerned, that organisations and countries should be in the leadership of their development and humanitarian efforts. And I want these things should be integrated and come from a community centred approach.
Lars Peter Nissen:So how about that Gareth, we talk about the participation revolution, and basically what Marie-Rose is saying is, Look, that's nowhere close enough. You have to have this led by the people affected by crisis. What the response there?
Gareth Price-Jones:Well, I completely agree. And I think in many contexts, it is. Particularly, I think one of the things we could do a lot more about is in terms of capturing the impact of local government and local actors much better. I mean, I think this is one of the problems in which we frame the humanitarian systems; we talk about what the international system is bringing in, but actually, the vast majority of almost every single humanitarian response in the world is provided by local people. Yeah, when I was in Bangladesh, we did a back of the envelope calculation. And the vast majority of just financial allocations came from the Government of Bangladesh. You know, all the organisation was done by local government. And I think that's where... so I differ from, you know, Mary Rose in that, I think that... I think there's an ongoing role for international solidarity, so I don't see us ever losing the need or desire for kind of international actors. But what I do see is that being a much more kind of effective partnership, where you know you've got your local capacity is sharing things. And then they're reaching out and saying, This is where we need kind of complementary resources. This is where we need to plug those resources in. And if you look at a lot of recent disaster management tags, they're around kind of creating an adapter that international assistance can plug into when the need overwhelm local capacity. Certainly not the case everywhere in the world, but increasingly, I think that's the case. And I think we have made progress in there. And I think that's what's missing from a lot of the narrative, is the progress that is being made in so much of the world.
Lars Peter Nissen:I still remember the last time we had the... what is it? The ALNAP report? State of the World Humanitarian System Report? Is that correct?
Gareth Price-Jones:Yes. Yeah. State of the Humanitarian System.
Lars Peter Nissen:Must have been three, four years ago. And the last slide they put up was, the humanitarian sector is changing, but the world is changing faster and so the gap between what we should be and what we are is getting bigger. And that's why I get concerned with us being happy with the changes we see. Because they are excruciatingly slow.
Gareth Price-Jones:Well, so that's where I differ slightly is because I think... Yeah, I fully agree that change needs to be faster. What I struggle to see is alternative ways to do that at scale. So I think, you know, we talk a lot... one way of thinking about it is the Amazon versus the... Amazon, you have one massive thing that does it and then you have the alternative which you have a long tail of small organisations, and how you aggregate that, and this long tail can potentially have a lot more impact than a few large organisations. I would suggest you probably need both and there are kind of economies of scale in a lot of this this kind of work. We do know a lot of the kind of top lines, you know we know because we've asked affected people, and I would argue that a lot of those big organisations are quite good at this, they do... I just remember as a country director, you know, a large part of my job was about kind of creating space for my team to do what they said was needed. And I fully agree that was often a big battle with HQ, right, to be allowed to do what effected people were telling you they need it rather than what your HQ wanted you to see, and what wanted you to be prioritising in accordance with their 10 year strategy. But I think there is the flexibility built in there. And I think we disempower a lot of people by assuming that there isn't.
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy:I think like, by the end of it, we may end up having to agree to disagree. Because one of the things that I see is... like, for example, you want to talk about change and the pace of change. Okay, let's not talk about the big bargain, and the fact that it did not necessarily land. Okay, that's one. And then COVID happened. And that was the sense that, given some of the restrictions, there were going to be... there was going to be that change and shift of power towards the local and national organisations of the Global South. And why do we have as a report that actually, there has been a regression, so forget about progress, there has been a regression, then the other piece is that if you want to talk about numbers, we... I think all of we, cash is good, it's better for the local economy and everything else. But then you start like looking and digging into the numbers. And you see that, okay, cash may have grown exponentially. But then so has... the control of it has mostly been, again, aggregated into the hands of sort of like the UN and larger INGOs. And now, you know... here's the thing, when you look at the change and then you say, Okay, yeah, maybe some organisation that may be willing to act differently. But then it's what there's... there are a couple of levels: what they say, and then what happens really, and all things are implemented. Alright? And that it really depends on whoever is managing that implementation. There is a system of mutual accountability. Okay? There is that a systematic way of making it sort of like an obligation, which means that it's one step forward, several steps back, and we're not going, you know, where we need to go. So, on one hand, I understand what you're talking about morale. On the other hand, there's a part of me that feels like... you see, if you talk to several people, like from the Global South, that work for an organisation, and I've had to keep pushing it, because most of the time is very difficult to access funding, we have lawyers and lawyers and lawyers and we have to bleed to make things happen. Okay, and when you tell me that people are discourage, because you're not getting just pat in the back and saying, Oh, your job is good. And I compare it to what very often you have to deal with, in terms of people acting towards you in an insulting way. People having to jump through hoops, people, sometimes completely ignoring you, or acting as if you are completely ungrateful for criticising them.Okay? Or criticising the system. Everything that we have to go through, and a lot of it, frankly, you know, it's systemic bias, racism, and everything else. Okay? And then what your people have to do, because I run myself into the ground and other people have to in order to make things happen financially, mentally, physically. Okay? I just... there's a part of me that when I say guys, I'll be honest, It's like, Come on, wake up, smell the coffee. If you're really in there to make things happen, okay, let us all get together and if you can't stand the heat, they are out of the picture. That's why not.
Gareth Price-Jones:So just on that, I mean, I think I yeah... I fully understand that frustration. I think I think the people who are in the kitchen aren't people like me in Geneva, right? That there are kind of 95 to 99% local colleagues working in the field who are constantly being told the challenge is that they're not consulting enough, they're not participatory enough. And yeah, I co-convened their participation workstream in the Grand Bargain. And I know that it's been frustrating for many people. But the key thing that we want to do is get affected people's views into those budget setting processes, into those kind of project design processes, because that's where the real decisions are getting made. And I think that's critical. And those, you know, those 140,000 staff, they're overwhelmingly from the Global South. These are people kind of working in their countries. The vast majority of humanitarian are working their home countries, even for these big international agencies. And and a lot of those decisions are made at that country level. You know, there's increasing flexibility. And I think where we have still have some big battles is around transferring... empowering those people to use that flexibility that does exist already, you know? When we talk to the donors about participation they say, Well, we already insist that all our partners incorporate the views of affected people. It's there in the donor contract. Now who on the ground reads those donor contracts? Who feels empowered enough to say to their donor, Actually, you know, we can change these activities to meet what people tell us they need. So yeah, I do fully agree agree with that. And I don't think we disagree on this. And I don't think anyone's suggesting we should get a nice, polite pat on the back. You know, and I think, you know, some of these conversations do need to happen in public. We know that that puts pressure on us to change. One of the biggest examples for me is around sexual exploitation and abuse, where I don't think we'd have seen anywhere like the pace of change that we've had in the last two, three years, if it hadn't been a big public scandal, you know? So I think that I certainly wouldn't suggest... yeah, I know, one of the responses was that we're saying that we, you know, we shouldn't hide behind our good works. And I completely agree with that. But I think we should at least acknowledge that there is some positive impact there. And that, you know, if you're one of the hundreds of thousands of people who deliver that stuff on the ground... and in local organisations, I remember my partners in many of the countries I've worked in, their staff worked for free. I mean, never mind, low local salaries, they were volunteering between contracts, because they believed in their organisations, they believed in what they were doing. And so I do find it difficult work, that we've got to get a better balance, I think. It's certainly not that we shouldn't be talking about this, but that we need to balance that recognising the impact we do have, with the challenges that we still face.
Lars Peter Nissen:I think we mapped out the territory, there's clearly a disagreement. Gareth, what I hear you saying is, Actually, when you look at it, the scale is quite big, we are not close to meeting the needs, obviously, but it's a significant amount of money going in. We have these quite effective, huge organisations who can channel this money out there, that does a lot of good. Don't forget that. Don't just be pessimist all the time, actually look at what we are able to achieve against all odds. And on the other hand, Marie-Rose, what I hear you saying is, It's a desperate situation. We don't see any shift of power. What do you do whenever something changes, it's a nice to not a need to, and the next time around, we're back to square one. There is no struggle. This is basically a colonial system and it's disaster capitalism, and where's the change? Right? So, on one side, we have scaling we have resources going out, on the other hand, we have a quite strong feeling of disempowerment and lack of real partnership. Is that somehow a fair recap of where we stand.
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy:I don't know if I would call it disempowerment because all I can tell you is that, in terms of my network and organisation, we're hustling. We're hustling. We're finding the resources. Were community centred. We're working with philanthropy, with humanitarian with development, whatever it is that needs to go. There's a lot of work that's happening, sort of like in Haiti, in terms of civil society. As I said to a young woman the other day, in Afghanistan... Actually not Afghanistan, Pakistan. I basically said to her, she wanted to work on something, and I said to her, Don't wait to be empowered. We're not interested in waiting to be empowered. That's the bottom line. And as far as I'm concerned, it's like, Are we saying... Am I saying that there is nothing good? No. But on the other hand, I just want to challenge the general thinking that I see out there. Because I am tired, even though they are changing to capacity sharing, to capacity reinforcement... How long are we going to be set up for failure as far as local and national organisations, because you can teach us how to fish 1oo1 time and ways and taking a lot of money to do that, but if we're don't have access to the water, if the resources are not shifted, if we continue to have to face the sense of distress that is not explained to us that even like a basically studies are saying it's senseless, okay, Where are we gonna go? It's like, come on!
Lars Peter Nissen:Thank you for that, Marie-Rose. I'd like to pick up on a slightly different part of the conversation. And the headline I gave myself before we started is, don't watch wash your laundry in public, versus sunlight is the best disinfectant. And it's about, How should we talk about this. There are obvious problems. None of us on this call are stupid. We know there are massive problems. We're not... but I hear you saying Garrett, it is so tiring to hear all this endless criticism and we need to also be positive. And I hear you, Marie-Rose, say, if we don't make noise, nothing will change. And I have a personal experience of having tried to grow ACAPS for the past 11 years and often been told to basically shut up, right? I mean... and so where are we with that? Do we have to be more careful about how we speak about these things? Do we... have we not stark enough in our criticism? I think that actually a lot of people are afraid of speaking out. And I really liked you for, for coming out and tweeting like this, and I loved your retweet Marie-Rose, and I am so happy that you're both here, because I hear a lot of people who say nothing, in spite of us knowing the problem. So how do we deal with this issue of public perception versus criticism?
Gareth Price-Jones:Maybe if I can come in on that that one? I mean, I think that there's definitely some fear, right? And I've been told myself, you know, by by NGO directors that speaking out and criticising is career limiting, was the phrase I think. And so I think there's very, very kind of solid grounds for fear. And one of the challenges that we're working on in the Grand Bargain is how do we create mechanisms by which local partners can be honest about where their big aid partners aren't great, without fearing that they'll have their funding cut? So I think that's a real challenge. But I think also, it's really different in different organisations as well. So I think there is genuine interest in in leaders from from right across the spectrum in in hearing alternative ways of working solutions. And I think my challenge is that it quite often comes across as a repeat critique. So I'm not saying don't criticise at all. I mean, absolutely, we deserve criticism. But I think it's also about how do you balance that with kind of recognition of the impact that we do have, which I think is very real, and significant, as I said. And my sense is that, you know, when you come out and say that you're optimistic, or that you're inspired or anything, it's often just dismissed as marketing or fundraising. And I think, I think that's not entirely true. And I think you know when... we're all aware that, particularly, when you look at beneficiary numbers or whatever, then some of them are pretty iffy, but none of them doesn't have a foundation, and on some of our programming, like cash, and... that's pretty robust, you know. Like a cash programme, you can tell exactly who received cash and you can... you know, there's very robust evaluations. And I'd like to see a bit more acknowledgement of that, because it's very easy to say, oh, that's just you fundraising, that's just you kind of blowing your trumpet. But it's also about kind of recognising the work of those staff on the ground that... the engagement that they do have. And the trouble is it's... It's about getting a balance. It's not about... I certainly wouldn't say for a second that we can't take criticism, but it's also about recognise... because the trouble is, then, I think if you just get the criticism, and particularly outside the sector where, you know, we've probably all seen this in, my family are really interested in what I do for about 15 minutes, and then they want to talk about the football. You know, when we have these conversations within the sector they're often heard outside the sector as, It's rubbish, why should we give money to those organisations? They're all appalling. They're all colonialist. They're all... They're all just holding people back. So it's about how do we have that useful conversation that drives change, without kind of just undermining the case for, you know amongst your taxpayers, and even amongst affected people, who to be fair often have limited... they just want to fix their problems, they want to get on with their lives. So it's, it's how you get that appropriate, more appropriate balance.
Lars Peter Nissen:So Marie-Rose, should you be more balanced in your rhetoric? You've been very critical on this podcast, do you think that undermines effort? Does it set us back as well? Is Gareth, right? Should we tone it down a little bit?
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy:I think that people need to realise that whatever criticism, unless they've done something very long, is not to be taken personally. And it's like... if you think about it, it's like, racism. I'll talk about white people, I'll talking about white supremacy, while I've been married for decades to a good man who happens to be white, and I saw my best friends are white. Should I really shut up because I'm afraid to hurt their feelings while all of the numbers are showing that the systems are still continuing to perpetuate themselves and, you know, things are not changing. And there was a lot of talk and not enough action? No. No.
Gareth Price-Jones:I wouldn't want you to.
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy:And I hear what you're saying. Because there... I hear what you're saying because there is a part of me that feels like, I would like to show up and not have someone question my capacity after 30 plus years of experience, and doing the impossible with very little resources and, you know, being sometimes actively discourage by different people in the system, only to keep persisting. Okay? And still having, just because of the colour of my skin, just because I'm from Haiti where people love to talk about as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, just because I have an accent, to help people keep spelling things out for me to have to face distress, for me too, in order to apply for a small grant, have to go through so much and so much in terms of, you know, vetting and everything else when it's there. Like the walk is there. It's getting a little easier but when I see all of the money that's being thrown at White organisations, or White people who have no God damn qualifications, I'm just like, for goodness freaking sake. So, I hear what you're saying and my thing is, there is a point where you can go and you still have funding, you still have transportation, you don't have to choose between getting paid and doing your walk or something like that or to go in a sleepless night to do a report because we our funders are not giving you the money to have the capacity or the people to do it. All right? And I want you to think about that reality and think about how fortunate... and your colleagues should realise how fortunate they are. And at this point, it's really about equity, to start thinking systematically, what are some of the changes that need to be made in order to make sure that we have true partnership? Not just politically correct, "Oh, these are our partners", but frankly, they have to prove us... themselves to us ad nauseam, and I've done that with a partner recently. They... we went through different hoops. It was an international organisation. And at one point I said Oh, good, I have letters from your partners saying that you're very good at partnering because money is good, but we're putting together some on the table that we'd like to know, it's also about the quality of the partnership. And there was shock. Because these are not things that white people are expecting.
Gareth Price-Jones:That someday we're really working on at the moment in the... I also sit on the intermediaries caucus, and one of the things we're really looking for looking for there is an effective way that gets that... we're very aware we've got these terms upstream and downstream, which we get a problematic, we're trying to find a non-jargony alternative to that, but just shifting the accountability the other way, because in some ways, I think it is getting worse in terms of the risk that's being placed on the local partners that... the risk is being transferred from those most able to bear it to those least able to bear it. And that's clearly not an effective way of working, you know?
Lars Peter Nissen:I'm just thinking, so we have had this conversation before, not the three of us, but I surely have had this conversation with other people. There are nuances to what we have said today, but I'm sure for you as well, this is well known territory. And Gareth, you have somehow taken the role of being the happy clapper of the bunch, right?
Gareth Price-Jones:[laughing]
Lars Peter Nissen:... defending Big Aid and saying that actually things are not that bad and... And I would like to then, in order to somehow move us forward and trying to find a way of a common understanding of what change means in the sector and how we move it forward... If the three of us met a year from now to discuss the same thing, let's say Gareth has itchy Twitter fingers in a year, and he sends out something similar same thing happens, we have this conversation, What are the things you would be looking for to show you that there has been real change? That ist's not just window dressing but that is real change? What is that thing you're looking for? What will tell you, Marie-Rose, that this is a real change that now we actually seeing a shift? What will tell you, Gareth, that is not just because you have your rosy eyeglasses on, but there's actually a real change here. And I'll give you mine as well, who wants to go first?
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy:I think for me, real change would mean actions, not talk. And specifically, when we talked about community-led development, which a lot of people love to talk about, that these community-led programmes would actually be developed not in Boston, not in Washington, not in Brussels, not in Geneva, but in India, in Haiti, in Pakistan, in our different countries in Africa. It would mean that, when I look at the funding, in terms of direct funding, is not like crumbs being thrown at us, okay, for which we have to do endless, you know, hours of recording, and we have to go to endless, you know, like vetting processes and evaluation, but that it would actually be significant. Because I understand and I don't want to discount some of the things that different advocacy groups and different groups have been trying to do when they clap and say that, Oh, there are two or three groups that were funded by the Start Network in terms of local Haitian organisations, I clap with them. But when I look at the situation of my country, which has been in crisis for decades, and the fact that, politically speaking, or in terms of aid or any other thing, is being manipulated, and nations cannot take the leadership, ot a system-wide level of the country, this change is like a drop in a bucket. And people have to understand, and I think for many of us, this is what we're looking at. Can we not look at the drop in a bucket, or can we actually sort of like literally have a system that's a lot more equitable. And that's where I'm at. So if I see some of that, and I go on the ground and as opposed to having committee meetings not happening, because, whether it's for cash programmes or any other stuff, because people say, Oh, we're gonna have a committee meetings, and it's not really happening, because they don't really care, and they [inaudible] to get the feedback. Okay, that would actually be a process. So these are the things that I would be looking at at different levels, from micro to macro, in terms of real change. Things that I'm not seeing right now.
Gareth Price-Jones:Yeah, so for me, I think what will really show show progresses is a bit of a shift away from the kind of humanitarian navel gazing. And I think if we get there, that will be because we have a shared competence that the overall we're making at least some progress, probably won't be as fast as some of us would like, certainly won't be as fast we like, but then we have a mechanism to both, kind of, say what's needed and critique as necessary, but also listen to that and be confident it's gonna drive change. And then if we could stop that focus on so much of our humanitarian system with, look at that much larger societal systems that I think, you know, we talk a lot about underlying causes, they're almost all non-humanitarian. And so if we were able to kind of get away from focusing so much on what we're doing wrong, and focusing much more on the wider political, diplomatic landscapes that is putting people in their most tremendous suffering that were even needed, then that for me is when we're looking much more outwards, to the private sector, to governments, to local governments. And that's where I feel... I'd really feel that they think that moved on.
Lars Peter Nissen:Thanks. For me, it, I think, is around diversity. Not in the sense that we often talk about it, but in the terms of institutional diversity. We speak a lot about ecosystems and the humanitarian ecosystem or whatever. And I'm going contrary to what you said, Gareth, because you say, oh, let's not obsess about the system or whatever. But for me, I think the thing that's really lacking is diversity of institutions. If you look at it, the way the main organisations, the big eight, from the UN, from the INGO side of things, and the Red Cross, the way they receive and distribute money, it's the same thing. It's the same business model. And we simply need to have a more diverse sector in terms of having checks and balances, organisations that perform different functions, and don't just work according to the sort of current cradle to grave grant model that we have. I think that's a massive part of the problem. So much more differentiation among the organisations, I think, will create that real accountability that we are we are lacking today. And then if we have that, I think we will actually see a couple of organisations probably go out of business because they're doing a bad job. And I think that would be good.
Gareth Price-Jones:Maybe just to challenge you bet on that last piece, because even within the SCHR, right, which compared to an NGO consortium, we're relatively homogenous group of big organisations, but I see huge differences in how the SCHR members work. You know from the Federation, which is focused entirely on how they support national societies to, you know, raging between our big... Well, increasingly that that is a clear strategy. It's a journey, right? But, but I do see, you know, very different approaches between, you know, even the big organisations, and I think some of them are far better at this than others are, I mean, if you compare your MSF model to Oxfam's model, to Cares model, they're all quite different. So I think we shouldn't dismiss the level of divers... And then you look at... you know, talking to Manu Gupta with NEAR recently, and he was explained to me how his organisation funds over 900 local organisations. It's a local organisation itself in India. So, and then you look at the BRACs and the others. So I think we do have significant diversity and I think one of our challenges is that there's so much of it out there, they're awful that we're not aware of it. And I think it kind of behoves all of us to try and understand that a bit better.
Lars Peter Nissen:It's a good thing. We live in the same city, the echo chamber of Geneva, because that means we can meet up over a beer and finish that one because I do not agree. I want to thank both of you. Marie-Rose and Gareth, thank you so much for coming on Trumanitarian. I deeply respect your willingness to enter into this debate. I think we need to talk more, not less about this... I need... I think we need to challenge each other. And Marie-Rose, I really agree with what you said, it's not personal. That's not what we're talking about. We're trying to explore different positions, and in order to do a better job. So thank you so much for your time today.
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy:Thank you.
Gareth Price-Jones:Thank you.