There is no simple answer to the question of how to achieve sustainable systemic change of the current humanitarian system. In this episode of Trumanitarian Fergus Thomas from FCDO and Lars Peter Nissen explore the potential of the H2H network (www.h2hnetwork.org) as a change agent. They also talk about being bipolar, dyslexic and a humanitarian.
Transcript
As you may be aware, I work with ACAPS, and have done so for the past 11 years since the organisation was founded. However, from first of February this year, I have put a second cap on my head. I am now also the acting director of the H2H Network, the Humanitarian to Humanitarian Network, and that is what today's conversation on Trumanitarian is about. H2H was an idea that originated in 2O15, just before the World Humanitarian Summit, and essentially, it was an attempt to get together a broad and diverse range of organisation in a network united by one thing, namely, the position we hold vis-à-vis the mainstream humanitarian system. H2H orgnizations don't deliver services directly to affect the communities, but rather to the system as such, creating an enabling environment for coordination and response. We are a swarm of change agents, if you want. And what I talked to Fergus about in this conversation is the thinking that went into the business case, what we've learned over the past couple of years, and what we would do different. I hope you enjoy the conversation and Fergus's limitless creativity, energy and positivity, which always lifts me up a couple of inches.
Fergus Thomas, Welcome to Trumanitarian.
Fergus Thomas:Thanks, Lars.
Lars Peter Nissen:You are a Civil servant in the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office in the UK, FCDO, the agency formerly known as DFID. You are a humanitarian advisor, and as such, you will actually be the first donor we have on humanitarian, so I'd like to thank you for having the courage to come in here and have this conversation, and I'd like to thank your superiors for letting you come in. And I'd like to pledge, and I'm sure you will join me in this pledge, we will be on best behaviour throughout and have a really constructive conversation.
Fergus Thomas:It's perfect.
Lars Peter Nissen:So Fergus, I'd like to take us back to the fall of 2O16, where we met doing the big exercise Triplex that took place in Norway, this was a couple of months after the World Humanitarian Summit in Turkey. And I still remember you coming up and approaching me dressed in... I'd never figured out whether it was half a hazmat suit, or some kind of fishing waders or... it was some kind of rubbery outfit, and you were half naked. And I thought, Who is this peculiar person? But after introductions, we sat down in a bar in Norway, and we had a conversation about service delivery in the humanitarian sector, about this new network H2H, Humanitarian to Humanitarian, which essentially is b2b for the humanitarian sector. So humanitarian actors, who are an integral part of the humanitarian sector, but who do not deliver direct services to crisis affected populations, but rather create an enabling environment for coordination and response through service delivery. And this was an idea that I had fumbled around with for awhile when we met back in 2O16. And when we met during that Triplex exercise... what surprised me was that you had such similar thinking, Where did that come from?
Fergus Thomas:So actually, first I met your colleague Jude, who was another Britt, who was at ACAPS at the time, and we were talking about these ideas that we were having about, how do we, make the humanitarian environment the ecosystem more diverse? How do we support small players that do really cool things? And what kind of what kind of players would those be? And what kind of activities would they do? And we just... we knew there was a lot of really cool stuff going on that was really under the radar, and that most big donors like DFID wouldn't really be able to fund properly. And Jude draged herself to stand in front of you, Lars, me and my colleague, and we talked about this idea that we had about a project that would bring together the really smartest, cleverest enablers in the system that brought quality that none of the big NGOs or UN agencies could bring, and created just a really, really superior quality of humanitarian response. And it was almost as if you were kind of preordained to have this meeting with us because you turned around and basically said, 'I think what you're describing is essentially Humanitarian to Humanitarian'. I don't know if you remember that.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, and I think it was... I think that idea popping up in different places shows you that, in a sense, it was an idea whose time had come. And I think the reason it had come was that we... you know, the way I think of the... improving the humanitarian system... we have these big reform attempt attempts, right? And we had just come out of the World Humanitarian Summit, we had signed off on the Grand Bargain, there was a lot of excitement about the 10 commitments and hoping to make progress on that... But it's interesting, when you look back, throughout the past 20 years of... even further, probably humanitarian history, you've seen, on one side, these big attempts to reform the system, but you also see little patches, right. So Sphere Standards coming up after some really dysfunctional operations, you see, that being followed up by the Core Humanitarian Standard, you see mapping specialists popping up, MapAction, IMAP Reach, ACAPS, obviously... you know, there's a whole bunch of these small patches. And I think going into the third big reform... sort of, cereal reformism, also meant that there... I think there was a realisation of the things you can't do through these big reforms, that it's good for some things, and it's not so good for other things, and that there was a need for counterpart. And I think that's why you were looking for something. And I think that's why Jude and I came up with the whole H2H concept. And it was lucky that we met during that exercise and somehow exchanged ideas.
Fergus Thomas:Yeah, and I think, you know, we were both quite, you know, jaded. We... you know, we've lived through our collective memory of humanitarian reform, the Transformative Agenda, the Grand Bargain. And I just... I just love so much when when you said, 'what will the next one be called?' And you came up with this idea of calling the next Grand Bargain, The Great Leap Sideways. And I think that was just so perfect in highlighting that, yeah, we can achieve some interesting things and interesting reforms and system change is important and we shouldn't stop that, but by incentivizing the diversity of the humanitarian system and the creativity (and I think we'll talk a little bit more about creativity and innovation a bit later on)... But this is one of the biggest brings a change. And that whole notion that by disruption, that you can actually make quality better and actually serve affected communities better, was just something that we've sort of taken hold off. And so maybe, yeah, the next bit of the story in the narrative is that we took these ideas away from Triplex, and had this very long gestation period of thinking and consulting, and designed a project. And about a year later, we were back in touch again.
Lars Peter Nissen:And so what came out of our conversation in 16, was a business case that you worked on... I didn't hear from you for almost a whole year, but then suddenly came quite a finished product of what later became the Humanitarian Global Services Business Case, HUGS, as we sometimes call it. What's in HUGS?
Fergus Thomas:So HUGS is like an attempt to bring together the actors that we really... that we really think, in diffident (we base this on a lot of evidence) that are really improving that enabling environment, bringing a set of services that really help us to get to vulnerable people better and serve them better. So it's essentially funding for very strong partners that we really respect. And then this pilot funding, and quite a large amount, 3 million, to try and launch this H2H initiative as well, which, in its in its turn, then should enable up to 60 different small organisations to respond in a crisis.
Lars Peter Nissen:So maybe we should just name those four organisations. It's ACAPS, it's INSO, it's GISF, and it's the informed group. And then you have HoH as the fifth partner in that business case. Right.
Fergus Thomas:Right. So they're all working in quite separate areas, but all of them, I think, delivering an enormous amount of complementarity and obviously inform communities... you know, we are providing support to the development of the risk indices. But that's... you know, that project is about a community of people who get together and think about risk. And that community is one of, I think, the most powerful examples of a kind of joint needs assessment Initiative that we've got so far.
Lars Peter Nissen:If you think about the partners to your your business case, those five, what's the relationship to the Grand Bargain? How do you see that?
Fergus Thomas:Well, we... when we sort of thought about the theory of change of the project, the, you know, the impact level architecture of the, of the, of the programme, we use the Grand Bargain commitments, and specifically, the the three commitments that the UK were really keen on in 2O17, which were joint needs assessments, community engagement or AAP and community engagement, and cash as a delivery mechanism. And so, we feel that that most of these partners are contributing to those reform agendas. So the sort of... the reform policy, which we developed in the UK, coming out of the Grand Bargain, is the kind of the hook then for the the rationale for us doing this programme, and the justification of how it fits with our humanitarian strategy, if that makes sense.
Lars Peter Nissen:It totally makes sense. And I think if you think about some of the H2H partners within AAP or community engagement, Internews, BBC Media Action, Translators Without Borders, Ground Truth Solutions... Who am I forgetting?
Fergus Thomas:CDAC is there as well. So that's another network within the network. Yeah.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah. And you know, all of these are members of H2H. And I believe most of them have, if not all of them have, received funding from a switch over the course of this. So I think... you think of the work of those organisations in relation to that agenda and how important they've been in terms of energising it. And I think you'll begin to see the concrete importance of the network. Can I ask you, what hasn't worked as you thought it would?
Fergus Thomas:So I've been really, really fascinated and really wrote the strategy around a notion that collaboration is better than competition. And I think this was really blown out of the water very quickly, when I realised that collaboration is one of those archetypal Halcyon realities that will probably never really properly exist in the world. Because of the nature of the ecosystem, because of competition, you can never just expect organisations to collaborate. And I think what you need to see is collaboration within the context of competition. That there are so so few resources out there, that it's you can never undo the competitive nature and the way that that kind of competitiveness is basically hardwired into the DNA of all NGOs and agencies. That's irreversible. What you've got to get to is where collaboration is mutually beneficial. And I think that's a lot of learning about the nature of what collaboration is
Lars Peter Nissen:For me, collaboration, it's what makes you more competitive. So I collaborate with others, in order to be able to beat my competitors. So I want to strike strategic collaborative partnerships with mapping agencies, with primary data collectors, that means that ACAPS becomes the best provider of analysis on humans and crisis so that we beat our competitors. I... for me, there's no disconnect there. And I think one of the things that fascinates me about coordination, and the way we think of coordination as a community is that it's like it's a good thing to do no matter what. Right? It's like we detach it from the value that is in coordination. But I think the way to look at it is that if you if it costs you $20 million to coordinate an operation, you can duplicate for $19 million dollars and still be better off without coordination. So in a sense, what you're looking for is the optimal level of duplication, not coordination. And for me, that's where we get it wrong with coordination. That's why sometimes these meetings are there... detached from the value they produce for an operation and and become almost theatre sometimes. For me, collaboration is not something we do because we are nice or play nice. For me, and ecosystem, it's not... you know, it's not a bambifaication of the world. Right, an ecosystem is a brutal place. You have you have symbiotic relationships, obviously, but you also have parasitic relationships. Where species are outcompeted and die. This... It's a brutal place in many ways. But I think it also helps it evolve. And so that... for me, there's no... collaboration is what makes us better competitors, and ensures that the most effective agencies survive.
Fergus Thomas:Absolutely, absolutely. And...
Lars Peter Nissen:I hope it's not... I hope it's not too Darwinian for you.
Fergus Thomas:Absolutely, it's evolutionary, and what happens in evolution is that, you know, the dinosaurs get extinct and it's often the mosquitoes and the cockroaches and the rats that, um, that survive. And I think that was maybe my mistake at the beginning of this project, when we were first met as partners, was that I called you guys a bunch of cockroaches and mosquitoes. And there was the silence for five minutes. When these very polite people... basically looking at me saying, You're the donor. You just called us vectors. How should we react? Yeah. But yeah, you know, H2H will survive if it functions and provides a role in the system, right? ACAPS will survive, if it continues to enable good secondary data quality assurance, right? All of these things that succeed, succeed because they are enabling a better response. And they won't survive. Donors won't fund them if they're not functioning in that way. So I do have a very kind of, yeah, evolutionary view to that, I think the problem is... in our ecosystem, is that you have monopolistic large agencies that should be doing some of these functions that aren't, but aren't giving the space to small one-trick ponies, like, sorry to call you out, ACAPS, and therefore, you need to have some influences in this ecosystem, like this funding in this project, to enable these small actors to bring their contribution.
Lars Peter Nissen:We absolutely are one-trick ponies. And proudly so. And I think the the key in that is to know what you are not. Right, so we know that we're not a big, mandated UN agency. That's actually what we bring to the table. We bring that informality and agility that you can develop when you are a handful of people who do nothing but analyse and write reports and who don't... if we put out something that's wrong, if we put some something out that upsets the government, it's a very different ballgame from if a major agency with a massive footprint in that country does it. And so we have degrees of freedom, we have a much easier life, and a much more limited set of tricks we can perform. But that's exactly our value. And the beauty then comes in the interaction between diverse actors. That's where I think change and evolution comes from. And so I agree with you, I think I think we have a very flat understanding of humanitarian architecture. And if you look at a diagram coming out of the IRC or the cluster system and so on, you won't find the single H2H agency anywhere. We don't exist. If you look at the signatories to the Grand Bargain, we're not there. Right? So we're not... we're not recognised or thought of as an integral part of the system, as the fourth leg, if you want, of the IRC or something like that, and there's there's not a strategic approach to growing a healthy ecosystem that deliver the services that the system needs. I think that's really where a big part of the challenge lies.
Fergus Thomas:And I mean, this is because it's in the interest of large agencies to maintain their drip feed of money from donors without shaking the applecart. And they don't want to examine the areas in which they are not fit for purpose anymore.
Lars Peter Nissen:But of course they don't. Why would they? And you know what, if I was a D1 in one of those agencies, or D2, or whatever, or P3, or whatever, I wouldn't probably either, right? Why would I? That's not my incentives. That's not why I'm there. That's not my job. My job description is to maximise funding for this agency, and ensure that we dominate as big a part of the policy agenda as we can, so that we strengthen our agency. Because we are on a very important mission, and we want to do that as well as we can. That's very natural. We can't blame agencies for doing that. And so it's really an architecture discussion. It's really about strategically fostering a more diverse system where power is less concentrated in a few places.
Fergus Thomas:Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so I think, you know, we've been doing this for three years now with this model, and we think it has a lot of potential, we think has a lot of risks as well. But you know, on a one level, we were able to speak to donors and say we've got this common services, this HUGS idea that means that we can provide this vital inject into the system that makes it more diverse and takes away some of that power imbalance... or challenges that power at least. I don't know if we actually can take any of the power away. Only funding really does that. But it's still... I still think it's a very important challenge. Maybe we were thinking a little bit about the the collaboration, we're thinking a little bit about, as well, the agility... I mean, it's obviously it's clear that this project has been interesting, because it's enabled small, agile actors to move quickly. but my concern with it is that it hasn't really increased the amount of creativity and innovation. And I think we are still... even in spite of COVID-19 and not being able to travel anymore, we're still quite an agile industry. But I... I'm a bit disappointed in these three years, if I'm honest, about how little space there's been to create and how little space there's been to innovate. And that's something that I think is really central to the idea of the H2H idea, of the H2H network.
Lars Peter Nissen:Why do you think that is, Fergus?
Fergus Thomas:I think I think we've tried to force it into some... Well, I think it's been in an incubator. So from our side, we've really focused lots of resourcing, MEAL, money, staffing, as much, you know, advocacy about the idea... And maybe we've just forced this to grow in a very kind of hydroponic way. And this stuff needs to happen a little bit more slowly and more organically. Also, maybe our focus as DFID has been on a tool for response. So we've done that, it's been amazing. We've had... H2H responded 45 times in the last couple of years. They took on extra money and did amazing work on fake news and myth busting around COVID-19. In terms of projects delivered, it's been fantastic. But that... you know, that idea of the network, fostering growth, increasing learning, incubating creativity, reaching out to the private sector, reaching out to the Global South. I think... yeah, I think we've been very ambitious. And we've... and it's... it has certainly produced a lot, but still has much more that it can do. But that will take time.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, I think time is essence, right? I think... Listening to you, I think it's unrealistic to expect a network to be fully formed after a couple of years, right? I mean, you have 60 members of the network now. That's in itself is fantastic. It's still here. That's fantastic. You got money out to a wider range of agencies than you would normally have supported. That's fantastic. Now, did you get everything you want? No. Is it fully fledged? No. It takes a decade. It takes maybe 20 years to really grow something strong and healthy that can produce all of the things you talk about. I think that's... you know, I've been at ACAPS for 11 years now which is... still blows my mind. And I think one of the things I'm learning now, in these last couple of years, is just how long certain things take, and how the the institutional bandwidth or the ability to absorb new things... there's just a limit to how much you can do that. Right, I did it does take time. And it's nonlinear and really nonlinear. It's very hard to handle processes like that in a log frame, and in a business case. And so I think the big success is that you did it. I think the big success is that it didn't just totally go sideways, it delivered. And it's still growing. And I don't think you can expect more.
Fergus Thomas:Yeah, I don't think I did it. I think we did it. And there's a huge number of people that have worked incredibly hard on it. I think it was an achievement of patience and tenacity and... you know, pushing any kind of system change project within an institution is going to be very slow. And it took a lot of a lot of hard work to influence and to explain and to persuade our seniors in DFID about the project. And I feel very grateful that we were given the space to try and try something very different and try and really kind of break down the silos between the policy thinking and the reformed thinking and the operational response capacity. So, yeah, really, really pleased with it but it was a massive, massive effort.
Lars Peter Nissen:And I think the real innovation here, Fergus, is that you didn't invest in a one trick pony to fix a specific problem to provide a patch to something that you were not happy with in the humanitarian system. You invested in creating an environment from where solutions can emerge. And that's a really strategic way of thinking about system development. And I don't see that happening very often. So for me, that's the big... that's a big win here. That's the big innovation actually. So the current H suedes. grant runs out in October, I believe, this year. And of course, we don't know yet whether there will be a possibility to continue and that decision hasn't been made. But if it does continue, what's on the top of your wish list? What's in your head in terms of 'Oh, I'd love to see this included'?
Fergus Thomas:I'd love to see it, like I was saying, picking up and getting a bit more into the sort of the creativity of the network and the fostering of growth. And possibly, you know, services for small members. So one area that we've talked about quite a lot with a few people is having a management information system that all the partners can use to really benefit from more methodical way of sharing information and managing data. So that could be one thing. I think that probably the focus, moving forward for us, is very much about resilience, is about the kind of... seeing our humanitarian work in a continuum of development of localization. So in terms of those of themes, I think data is going to be really important and attracting membership to the network of actors from the South is going to be really, really, really key, I think, for it to to really grow and to remain a relevant organisation. So yeah, loads of loads of stuff. I think COVID is really, you know, taught us a lot about how much we need to rely more on digital and data now. And so I can see more and more actors in that area, sort of coming up with, with with skills and bridging out and making links. Um, some really specific things like biometrics in the sector. You know, one of our friends said, if... you know, if we don't come up with good solutions for biometrics, the private sector will. And wouldn't it be better to have a humanitarian biometrics provider, for example. So these kinds of innovation, tech frontier, services that some of our some of our partners can provide could be really interesting.
Lars Peter Nissen:So I agree, I... what I hear you saying is we need to lower the threshold for small organisations to be successful, really create an enabling environment for them; we need more creativity, we need to think about the challenges that that this pandemic and 2O2O taught us. Picking up all that learning that is emerging there, I think we... there is a special role for the network in ensuring that the sector as such evolves quickly. I think before we close off this part of the conversation, I... there's a point I'd like to make. Because sometimes when we talk about these things, I know some colleagues get upset when we call them dinosaurs or elephants or whatever. You know, it's sometimes felt like it's a very cheap background upon which to profile these small organisations. And I get that point. And I can see how it can be provocative to think in these terms. But at least my take on it is that, on one side, there are some real problems associated with the current modality in which we operate and some of that is associated, I think, with large organisations not knowing what they're not, not knowing the boundaries of their own value added. And I think if I have one aspiration for the H2H Network, it is that it doesn't repeat that mistake. I think if we can be acutely aware of being one-trick ponies who actually don't change the world unless there's somebody using our services, unless we influence others. Our success, in a sense, is through the agency of others. And if we if we forget that very fundamental lesson, then I don't think we can play a transformative role. But if we managed to get that piece right and foster a strong system link with the mainstream humanitarian organisations, then I think it is a piece of the puzzle that is today under-utilised and that can add more value than it is today. But I don't think it's a silver bullet that solves all problems. But it'll, I think, edge us forward. And I think an increased investment into that community will deliver good return on investment. But it's not a zero sum game with the mainstream organisations. I think that that's really what I'm trying to say.
Fergus Thomas:No, they they remain actors with significant things to bring to the table and do things at scale. I mean, this is why we we have such a commitment to multilaterals, is their ability to respond over multiple geographies, with relevant assistance, right? And I still think that remains.
Lars Peter Nissen:We've spoken about H2H and about the work you do as a civil servant is in DFCDO. What I'd like to pursue now is a somewhat different track, or a different side of Fergus. And I'd like to start by reading out your Twitter profile. It says, 'congo optimist, dyslexic, humanitarian, dog lover, LGBTQI+ advocate, European, Tamil speaker, disrupter, bipolar, tweets and retweets reflect my opinion'. So that certainly shows a different side of you. I don't I hope nobody ever called you a square.
Fergus Thomas:Not yet.
Lars Peter Nissen:And so, how come you put on your Twitter profile that you're bipolar?
Fergus Thomas:Because I think it's really important to talk about the disabilities that you live with. And Bipolar disorder is a really debilitating disorder, has frighteningly high mortality rates, especially in young men, and is that... it is an illness that I think that many people experience at one stage in their life or other. It's much more common than we think. And I... it's important for me to show the world, I think, that you can live a really creative, really productive, really colourful life, and be medicated and live in the community and live with this illness. So I do it because I think I want other people to realise that they're not alone and realise that it's not such.. it doesn't have to be such a massive deal.
Lars Peter Nissen:And so I'm sure you're being quite open about this in your workplace as well and that your colleagues obviously know this is... How does... Is there any concrete things that that changes, that openness? What... How does that make your life different at your at your workplace?
Fergus Thomas:That's a really good question. Um, I think one of the great things of working in the British civil service is that there's a really big openness and willingness to talk about any kind of disability or inclusion, and a real attempt to make people know that they are supported and cared about. And that's, you know, from a very individual team level, up to very sort of corporate things, so, you know, the kind of assistance and help they're available for people who struggle with mental health illnesses are available and can be accessed. I still think there is huge stigma. So my family were very protective of me when I first had a diagnosis and they encouraged me not to talk about having bipolar disorder and I found that actually wasn't helpful. That made me kind of internalise a lot of the things that I was feeling and I found it very hard to cope with having awful mood swings, and I think it was only when I started talking honestly to my friends and being a bit more open about it... And I really do think that discussing discussing mental illness, and being honest about it is the best thing. It's no more abnormal to have bipolar disorder than it is to have diabetes or epilepsy. And the solutions for, you know, for diabetes and epilepsy is that there's a therapeutic medical treatment that manages that illness. And just for me as well. I've been so fortunate, I've lived since I was 18 on lithium, and that has enabled me to have a relatively straightforward life, I think, and to achieve a lot of stuff. So yeah, I mean, a lot of people are very critical about lithium therapy, they say it really diminishes the amount you can be creative and it kind of just kind of dulls your senses and things. I would rather take having those dulled senses then be dead, honestly. Because the risks of suicide are incredibly high.
Lars Peter Nissen:First, I want to say I just deeply admire your courage and your ability to take this out into the open. It can't be easy. It's... It must be a very intimidating thing to bring into the public space and I really admire your courage for doing it. Thank you for doing that. And secondly, I would say that if this is the dull you and this is the less creative you, I... you're not too bad off. I mean, I think you do manage to bring a tremendous amount of creativity to the table and an energy that's just amazing so I find that a very admirable and courageous thing to do. You also write that you're dyslexic?
Fergus Thomas:Yeah. Yeah, dyslexia, dyslexia is in my family too. Both of my brothers were dyslexics. I kind of got assessed when I was about eight or nine, I think, and I think really, in the 80s, when I was age, the system wasn't really set up. Nowadays in the UK, there's a lot more support for people with dyslexia, and you can access a lot more assistive technologies, while those didn't exist in the 80s. But it was... I mean, I was 10-11 year old and I couldn't read or write and I definitely couldn't do maths.
Lars Peter Nissen:But here you have, Fergus, you have a job where you basically write concept notes and approve budgets.
Fergus Thomas:Yeah. Something worked out okay, right.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah. And how... But how do you.. Do you have tools? How do you actually manage that?
Fergus Thomas:Yeah, so the assistive technologies are getting there. They're not perfect yet, but there are things like, you know, a voice to text. So the computer will enable me to dictate. So I don't write when I'm tired reading. I read quite slowly. The computer reads texts for me. It's more... I think it's... I still generally don't use voice to text because it's not... you know, the software isn't the greatest yet. But it's... they're improving it all the time. And, you know, I'm sure that that technology will come on really quickly in the next five years or so. I also am allowed to have extra time in my work. So if there's a deadline, I'm allowed a bit of extra time to just make sure that I carefully read. And I... you know, I still... I make I make loads of errors when I'm writing emails, especially when my brain is going more quickly than my fingers. But I do put a disclaimer on my email saying excuse my spelling or please remember that this email was written with voice recognition software, just to give people a bit of a heads up. But again, I can't criticise the British civil service. They've really made space for this and really want to help people with dyslexia.
Lars Peter Nissen:How is it to deploy into a sudden onset? I mean, being bipolar (I must... I have to be honest, I don't know much about it)... But I wouldn't imagine that high-stress situations are particularly good mixed with that?
Fergus Thomas:Yeah, I mean, the thing is, I think that I've lived on a diet of high stress for the last 20 years doing responses and living in conflict zones. So I think I've... as long as I'm on my meds, I'm fine. I'm fine. I... yeah. My thresholds for stress and stimulus are really, really high. I think actually, last February, when we were in Geneva, and I had... I think I had COVID-19 already and the sort of... I don't know if was the stimulation levels of being at the HMPW and meeting so many friends and colleagues. It was a very, very intense time. And that was beginning to push me towards having a, you know, quite a bit up mood swing. So I think the older you get, the more insight you have, and the more you realise that there are times when you need to step back. I usually... Yeah, I've been fine doing rapid onset. And I think rapid onset is much... you know, my present job in the foreign office, in Foreign Development Commonwealth Office, rather than... most of my work experience has been in conflict affected and, you know, protracted, countries. So...
Lars Peter Nissen:Fergus, thank you for coming on Trumanitarian. Thank you for all of the work you do behind the scenes, inside FCDO and for your creativity, the new ideas you managed to bring to the table and make grow and thrive. It's just... it's a working relationship I deeply treasure and also thank you for sharing your personal story and having the courage to come out and be open and fighting the stigma around mental illness. And thank you for trying to create a more inclusive humanitarian sector.
Fergus Thomas:It's my pleasure.