This weeks episode is a thought experiment. What would we do if we had to begin building the humanitarian sector from scratch? One of my ongoing frustrations have been that many of the reform attempt we have had in the sector are defined more by what is already there than by the problems we are trying to solve – so I thought it would be interesting to build from scratch.
Arbie Bagois is the founder of Aid Re-imagined and is currently doing his PhD at London School of Economics. Arbie is a fresh and radical thinking and exactly the sort of companion you want to have when blowing up the box and thinking new thoughts.
You should check out Aid re-imagined on their website https://medium.com/aidreimagined
And you can learn more about Arbie here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arbiebaguios/
Transcript
Welcome to Trumanitarian. I'm your host, Lars Peter Nissen. This week's episode is a thought experiment. What would we do if we had to begin building the humanitarian sector from scratch? One of my ongoing frustrations have been that many of the reform attempts we have had in the sector over the past years, seem to have been defined more by what is already there, than by the problems we're trying to solve. So I thought it would be really interesting to try to build from scratch. My guest is Arbie Bagois, who is the founder of eight reimagined and who's currently doing his PhD at London School of Economics. Arbie is a fresh and radical thinker, exactly the sort of companion you want to have when you're trying to blow up the box, and think some new thoughts. I'd like to thank Arbie for his relentless challenging of every thought I could come up with. And for his insistence on placing the crisis affected populations at the centre of what we do. I hope you'll find this episode as enjoyable as Arbie and I did making it and that it'll stretch the mindset here and there and be useful for you in your future work. Hi Arbie, do you hear me?
Arbie Bagois:Yes.
Lars Peter Nissen:Good. Hey, thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it. I'm sure we will have a great episode come out of this. Is that big red button, i see, is that thing on your screen... That's not normally there. Is that...
Arbie Bagois:I'm going to press it and we find out what it does.
Lars Peter Nissen:Okay.
Big Red Button Voice:Thank you for pressing the self destruct button. We will self destruct in three, two, one.
Lars Peter Nissen:You there, Arbie?
Arbie Bagois:Yes, I'm still here.
Lars Peter Nissen:You know what, I think we blew up the sector.
Arbie Bagois:Hopefully, no humanitarians have been armed with our pressing of the button.
Lars Peter Nissen:I'm not saying I'm regretting inviting you to this podcast. But that is a bit more than I bargained for. What do we do?
Arbie Bagois:I think this is a... you know, we can we can frame it negatively as kind of like the end of the world, burned down the sector, or we can frame it positively and say that, Oh, this is actually a really good opportunity for us to build the kind of humanitarian aid sector that we want to see in the world, understanding that the the past ones were were filled with stuff that we just didn't like and just didn't work. Yeah, I think we should start and get building.
Lars Peter Nissen:All right. So maybe before we jump into building concrete stuff, we should think about, what are some of the design principles or spaces that we want to operate within? So what, what is for you the point of departure here?
Arbie Bagois:I think, a good sort of like design principles to have in mind is to start with a problem, right? What is the problem that we're trying to solve? Or why are we building something in the first place? And the humanitarian aid sector, we want to have it because we recognise that there are crises in the world where it affects people and communities. And we want to prevent those crises from happening, or to address them when they've already happened. And I think that is a good starting point. Just understanding the problem.
Lars Peter Nissen:And so what I... how I would say that is, in situations where states are unable or unwilling to take care of parts or the whole population, we need to do something.
Arbie Bagois:That's an interesting, kind of like way to look at it. I think I don't know if if states are able or unable to do it. We don't know which civilised country we're talking about, or we don't know which context we're specifying here. I think, you know, that, regardless, whether a state can, quote unquote, do it or not. I think it is a system, right? We've thought about international humanitarian aid sector as a system before and systems are comprised of many parts. And I see the state as being part of that system. And so it's not, for me, it's not necessarily that there is international humanitarian system, only for specific places where the states don't work, but it's, it's yeah, it's a kind of system with different actors with one problem to solve, which is to prevent any sort of crisis from happening, and to do help people and communities who are affected by crisis.
Lars Peter Nissen:Okay, so let's just unpack crisis. What is a crisis?
Arbie Bagois:Good question. I think, you know, to keep it simple, a crisis when there is, you know. A lot of... it's... I know that it's been framed in the humanitarian sector as a kind of like state of exception of Oh, okay, there is a disaster or there is war. And so we can similarly consider that as crises. But obviously, reality is much more complex than that. You know, there are places with complex crises where lots of things are happening all at once. And, of course, we also cannot kind of like separate out crises from, say, non-crisis times, because what happens in times without crisis can determine how, or when, a crisis occurs, how the population responds. So, yeah, maybe, to keep it simple. Yeah, like a crisis is something like a disaster where people are unnecessarily affected, or conflict or epidemics or something like that. I think, yeah, building on that kind of like, common sense understanding of crisis for this episode.
Lars Peter Nissen:We're not trying to replicate academia here. We're doing a thought experiment, right? So for us a crisis is when people are deprived of their life, their dignity or agency, I would say. It's... I actually liked that the good old "freedom to be and to do when when people don't have freedom to be and to do, then we have some kind of a crisis, it's of course, a slightly broader I think it's a slightly broader definition than we often use in the humanitarian sector. So are we opening up the floodgates here to deal with any sort of development problem. Is there is a need to distinguish between development and humanitarian in our new world?
Arbie Bagois:I think we should open up the floodgates. And I think it should collapse that distinction. You know, I focused on crises, because it's a specific experience, I guess, of people compared to some, like just non-crises, where they're experiencing something like poverty. So while I think there's two distinct experiences, their causes, their solutions, are interwoven. So yeah, maybe... I mean, like, that's a good prompt, right, maybe the first thing that we should sort of like reconceptualize in rebuilding the international humanitarian system from scratch is this concept of humanitarian, maybe we should just not call it humanitarian, maybe we should just call it the international problem solving sector, with a specific focus on solving the problem of crises, in particular, experience of crisis.
Lars Peter Nissen:Maybe Problem Solvers Without Borders.
Arbie Bagois:I love that.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, it's quite original, I think. Okay, so we... we have quite a broad set of problems we're trying to solve, we are trying to think through how to we put in place a system that can help people experiencing a crisis, we don't want the heart, sort of a hard barrier between protracted development problems and sudden onset crises, we think we must think these things holistically. And the challenge for us now is to then think through, what do we then need to put in place? What do we need to build, to be able to meet this rather amorphous, I would say, set of problems that we're trying to deal with?
Arbie Bagois:Um so personally, for me, I would start with the people and the communities who are experiencing these crises, these problems themselves. So let's start with them, right? You know, how do they understand the problem? You know, what makes this... what makes crisis a problem for them? And how do they think this can be solved? Or how are they already solving it? So start really starting with with people and communities.
Lars Peter Nissen:So if I can argue against that, I would say that's all well and good, but if your house is on fire, you don't want the firemen to sit down with you and discuss how you perceive this fire. You want him to get you out of there.
Arbie Bagois:That's true. But then you know, after that act... you know taking this like very small sample that you gave, okay, after that act, okay, you've got them out of the fire, where are you going to put them? Or what are you going to provide to them? How would they like do something like proceed from then on? And even you know, before the house becomes on fire, you know, I think it is, you know, for this kind of like brand new system, I would think that we would be asking people how to prevent the fires in the first place, right? [inaudible]
Lars Peter Nissen:No, absolutely. But I think we... what we know about the world is that no matter how well we prepare, you know, even very, very well-prepared societies can experience situations that overwhelm their capacities, right? And so I think what I would like to maintain... and because I do agree with your overall thrust here that of course, we must start with looking at the agency of the crisis affected populations, and that must be the centrepiece of what we do, but there is a subset of situations. You know, the first days after an earthquake, a massive flood, the big natural disasters, a fire, that's sort of... that's... those sort of overwhelming incidents do, I think, call upon a special skill, set sort of a, if you want to operate in a nation state framework, a sort of a civil protection, sort of... you need those assets somewhere.
Arbie Bagois:I think that's fair. You know, we are... we've just destroyed the humanitarian system, but you know, we're not... our knowledge remains, right. So if if we destroy the system, but our knowledge means, then we know that in these cases, it is local people themselves who are the first responders. In any emergency, when there's a fire, it's probably going to be the local fire department, when there is flooding, it's going to be sort of like the local authorities, the local civil society, even just their neighbours, private sector, etc. And it's only after that that sort of like this so called international humanitarian sector comes in. And so that's why, you know... you know, going back to the example, I think there is already something that is happening at that particular local context that then we can build on.
Lars Peter Nissen:Fair enough, there's always something. And I fully agree with you, the people we tend to look at and talk about as victims are often actually the true humanitarians who do the bulk of the rescuing and the lifting in this crisis. So I take that point. And I think actually, as we move forward and begin to come up with new things we want to build, I think maybe let's try to really keep this in mind that whatever we build must serve and support and underpin that ownership of the community involved. And then and if we somehow detect that it's not I think we need to figure out why that is.
Arbie Bagois:Exactly. No, I agree.
Lars Peter Nissen:All right. So we have the foundation now. We think that crises must, in a sense, I hear also that, in a sense, must be defined by the populations themselves, the way they think about them, is the point of departure here, they shaped the humanitarian narrative, if you want. We want them to be masters of their own destiny and we are there to somehow enhance that agency. I think that I think that that's the key. So how do we then do that? What do we need to... what kind of resources, what kind of systems and capabilities do we need to have to do that?
Arbie Bagois:I think if this kind of like thought experiment is set up in the world as we know it today, where inequalities exist between different kinds of groups of people and different countries, so it's not like, okay, it's, it's like a blank slate, right, but like, if it's happening in the real world at the moment, then, you know, presumably, some communities, or some localities or some context might experience a crisis, but they don't have kind of like the resources to respond to such crises, or they don't have the resources to think about how to prevent it, or solve problems, or they might say, Oh, we're actually craving for for knowledge and to like technical expertise that we might not have, like, they they might be very capable of doing one thing, but they, they want to learn from others. And so I think this is where kind of like the rationale is for having an international system that is connected, and that is, you know, on the basis of solidarity and cooperation. So I think we can then have a rationale for why we want to interact with each other. And I support this kind of like interaction between different groups, different organisations, different states, different countries.
Lars Peter Nissen:Functionally, what kind of capabilities do we then need to have available to support communities that don't, that can't sort of self-recover?
Arbie Bagois:I don't know, to be honest. It really depends on some of the situation, right? I think like from a very kind of like, micro perspective, so going back to, let's say, a particular community or a particular context, I think this is what we want to kind of like, rebuild, this notion of like standardisation of capacities and resources that are required. Because every problem will require different things. One of the most interesting things I've read before is that... it's about the future of work. And they're seeing that the future of work is going to be somewhat like the way that things are done in Hollywood, where they have a project in mind that they want to kind of like, create, then they kind of like, all come together different sort of like parts and different people and different capacities and then once that problem is solved, then they kind of like just disband. It's... I mean, it's a flawed analogy, because obviously, we don't want to kind of like, with that, immediately want to kind of like hold those relationships. But I think the insight here is, one... is what's the problem? And what does that problem need?
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, I think it's, I think it's a great analogy. What I like about it is the agility of the institutional setup. So you build what you need for the context instead of having it predefined. And then secondly, instead of coming to the field with sort of broad-spectrum humanitarian approach, the Humanitarian Swiss army knife, if you want, you come with a set of the world's sharpest kitchen knives. You come with some really high level, specialised capabilities that can do the job, and that are there for that very punctual insertion, and then they leave again. So what I think what's interesting to talk about is functionally, sort of in in a generic sense, what what are the different chef's knives you need? What are the different capabilities you need, right? And so for me, one thing is, you need somebody who absorbs or connects the international capabilities with the local context. So if you have the world leading expert on, let's say, dam repair, or maybe there's environmental hazard, or maybe there is an issue with crops that no longer grow, like... then how do their specialised knowledge... how's that transferred to the population? I think... so I think there's the... for me, the first type of, quote unquote, humanitarian, is the connector--is the person who interfaces with the community, and understands what they say, and the sort of the translator or the bridge to the international. Do you buy that?
Arbie Bagois:No, not really. I mean, like, how do you know that they need it? Right?
Lars Peter Nissen:Well, you you were the guy who was saying, sometimes there will be communities who don't have enough resources. or don't... I you even said, or they don't even know that they have a crisis or something along those lines. Right? And so how do you then engage with the community like that?
Arbie Bagois:Yeah. So I mean, like, I guess.. I said, sometimes, so potentially, potentially, that's something that they would need. I guess, like, I just want to, again, push back on these sort of, like universal notions of Oh, well, we need a connected type. And it might well be that a community somewhere experiencing a crisis might be that but I would not say that that is, you know, should be a part of the toolkit. I think the higher level principle makes sense. You want to... you want people to be connected to the resources that they need. And I think, said that way and framed that way, I would agree. I don't know how that looks like. Does that look like an intermediary organisation or even individual from one country that is like embedded in another country? Does it mean kind of like a forum where people can similarly come together and discuss their capacities that, they can share? Does that mean sort of like a different governance system or improving an existing governance system within that local context? I mean, I don't know. You know, like, so it's... yeah, for me, the higher level principle is great, but I'm not sure about the need for this specific individual as a connector.
Lars Peter Nissen:Okay. I think you need it, actually. I think otherwise, the absorption capacity will not be there. The question I want to ask you is, if it's not needed, why doesn't it just happen all by itself?
Arbie Bagois:I think there's a lot of assumptions there, in the statement that you've said, where you said, Oh, the absorption capacity is not there. I mean, like, we don't know what we're which country we're talking about. We don't know which context we're talking about. Right? Like, it could be the Philippines or Panama or Pakistan. And that will have very different implications, depending on on where we're talking about. And so... and I would also challenge a bit on, you know, why doesn't it happen? I think it does. And I think that's one of the major blind spots of the old humanitarian system that we've just destroyed is that it doesn't recognise anything else apart from things that look like itself. It's very vain, to some extent. Actually, there's so many, you know, initiatives happening in different places that are trying to solve a problem.
Lars Peter Nissen:I agree with the vanity, actually. I think I think one of the basic problems we have is that, that we are able to shape the humanitarian narrative in the way we want. And that that's not really challenged. And what I liked about where we started out was that, that we said, we want that narrative to be shaped by the communities themselves. And so we for them to be drivers of that story. I still want to take you up on, you know, on what you just said, because I... I think we have to get a bit closer. It's all good, well and good, to say that context is king and you can't just sit here and conceptually design capabilities that can be used all over the world. But it's also not very satisfactory to just say, Ah, there's no way you can compare the Philippines with El Salvador, with Burundi or... there are things you can compare, there are obvious patterns. And I think I would hope that we would be able to somehow create a system that could respond and help these communities. But maybe... What are you saying? That we can't really do anything? Or that we don't need to do anything?
Arbie Bagois:So what I'm saying here is that I really... I think this is the area that we have to push back in because this was the syndrome of the old humanitarian sector, which is the this universalizing tendency, the standardising tendency of there must be some sort of like system, or there must be some sort of... we have to put something new, we have to put something on top. So I just want to push back on that. And I think, let's focus on the goal. Let's focus... something that you can compare is the outcome, which is a problem solved. So let's focus that. Let's make our, kind of like, indicator, problem solved. And so if there is flooding, or if we want to prevent flooding, or if there is conflict, or we want to prevent conflict, let's not focus on Oh, well, okay, let's divide peace building this, humanitarian this, development this, state this, private sector this, chapter... No, maybe we should be agnostic about all of those, and then just see what can solve the problem. And I think, you know, it's a very subtle, but I think it's a very sort of, like, powerful shift in the way that we're looking at things. I mean, this organisation, of the Alliance for Empowered Partnerships, A4EP, they released a document about their kind of like reaction or recommendation for the Grand Bargain 2.0. Because it's the five year anniversary, right? And they use like a phrase, I really like. They're saying that the international humanitarian sector is encouraging this monoculture instead of biodiversity, and I think, yeah, this is great. I love it. I think, you know, it's not that you know... there will be things that are common, probably, depends again, like on what we're looking at. I also definitely acknowledge our, sort of like, common humanity, which is the foundation for why we're trying to help each other, but our expressions of our humanity, of our altruism, will be... should be very different. And we should just embrace and acknowledge that.
Lars Peter Nissen:I think once you start digging into the root causes of the problems we're dealing with, you will very quickly run into factors external to the community affected by crisis. And you somehow need to tackle that. You... and so... how are you going to... How are you going to address some of the more structural issues if all you have is, Oh we must sit down and develop a deep contextual understanding of this community's perception of the crisis and build from there? You know... you don't want anything on top of that?
Arbie Bagois:I think I hear what you're saying. And I think, you know, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be anything that connects sort of like the the resources and capacities, you know, like, when I go back to what I said earlier, oh, they... if they want to share some like knowledge, or if they want to request for resources, then there must be some way to do that, right. So fine, I guess I'll concede to the point of there must be some sort of like, infrastructure, so I don't want to call it system yet, but like, there must be some sort of some like infrastructure...
Lars Peter Nissen:Some Lego blocks.
Arbie Bagois:Yeah. ...that enables people to kind of like, ask for assistance if they want to, or receive assistance, if they want to, or share their their knowledge, if they want to. So yeah, fair enough.
Lars Peter Nissen:Good. So what are the legos we need?
Arbie Bagois:I think, I don't know at this stage. Right? Obviously, I don't have the answers. But something that I want to refer to, as you sent me earlier, sort of design themes of how the humanitarian sector can look like and you mentioned that it can kind of like look like a starfish. And how... you asked me how can we expand that starfish so that we reach more people and help more people. And I don't like this analogy, because then it says here that a starfish has a centre that anchors the arms, and then the arms can adapt and regenerate. I don't necessarily think there there has to be a centre.
Lars Peter Nissen:So I think the starfish analogy, you know, and then there's this great book called the starfish and the spider, right, that you may be familiar with... but the unique thing about a starfish is that the arms can live independently, and replicate themselves, right. So that actually, if you chop a starfish up into two it, you know, there exactly isn't a centre, and the centre is just there to keep the arms together, but they operate independently. And so for me, it's a nice metaphor for collaboration and for some kind of edge organisation that adapts to the context it's in, leverages resources that are there, and yet built to starfish, find non-humanitarian force multipliers, as you might say.
Arbie Bagois:I think that's a that's a fair analogy. And if that is the meaning of some of the centre, then I think that's fair enough. I think a better analogy would be the entire forest itself, or the entire forest and sea, where there are different things happening and there are different actors within an ecosystem, because as you say, earlier, problems can be caused by other things. So for example, a conflict in Yemen is not kind of like closed or exclusive to Yemen, and that also involves geopolitics, right? And it involves other countries. And so if that's what we want to kind of like, solve, you know, we can't just look at one thing. And again, this is why... I think this is connected to what I said earlier about the blind spot of the old humanitarian sector where it's so focused on the sector that ignores what's happening, it in inadvertently ignores what's happening, outside of it. What's the private sector doing? What's the arts and culture sector doing? What's scientist and the academia doing? What are politicians doing? And I think, again, going back to kind of the goal of a problem solved, if our goal is to solve a problem, then we have to look at all these things.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, I... so I think we actually agree on most of that. I think maybe where we are not quite on the same page is I think you can actually... I do believe that you can you can design some of these capabilities. I do think that you can, you can create institutions and actors who play a very specific role in that ecosystem and who create the right effects. And what really interests me is to try to zoom in on what are those... what are those capabilities. I'll give you a concrete example. So in a previous episode, I spoke to a friend of mine called Gopi, who has this idea about dual-purposing travel assets in climate vulnerable, tourism dependent communities, to do sudden onset response. So the hotel is used to house homeless people when the storm strikes, the tour guides become search and rescue people, and then the third leg is that you somehow put in the mix the global travel industry, which is thousands times bigger than what the humanitarian sector ever would be. And that you then drive part of their profits towards these communities to help fund that. So you create a collaboration, a starfish linking the global tourism ecosystem, which it's incredible wealth and by the way, reputational risk for creating climate change with vulnerable communities on the ground, who have assets that can be used, especially in situations where the no tourist pattern or destruction, right. So for me, that's sort of an example of the type of platform you can build that would help drive value towards vulnerable communities. And my argument is that that's equally valuable for the Philippines, for Mozambique, for the Caribbean, for wherever, right? And I think we can do that. I think you can find those Lego blocks that can be plugged into the different areas and adapt to the context. Exactly because they're Legos.
Arbie Bagois:I think that's, that's really interesting. I like the example. And if it works in the context, I mean, like, my knowledge of that particular example is limited. I don't know, you know, where that study came from, or whatever. If it works, that's great. Can you replicate it in other places? Maybe? Sounds feasible, but I don't know, right? We don't know until we sort of look at the context. But what's interesting is, you mentioned that it's like a starfish, lots of different actors trying to come together to make a solution for a problem. And I think, in another analogy, we said earlier, yeah, it's Legos. I think, what the new, let's call it for now, again, aid system, the new aid system could be is, if it could be the kind of the nerves or like the, I don't want to say the bones of the starfish.
Lars Peter Nissen:[laughing] I don't think they have bones.
Arbie Bagois:[Laughing} Oh, yeah. Of course. Not to make it sound like the most fundamental, but unimportant connector of the different sort of like arms, that could be what the sector is. And it's not about replicating it in different... and replicating that specific solution in different contexts. But about having that kind of like, infrastructure, as I've referred to earlier, in place. And I think, what does that look like? We could enumerate some of the basics. It could look like money. It could look like knowledge. And I think those two are really important. It could look like technology, in a very broad sense, right? Like not just high technology, but also kind of like low technology or techniques, even. But anyways, yeah, I think this infrastructure could have money and money and knowledge, especially, I think we can start with those two.
Lars Peter Nissen:Okay, so we need MasterCard to do some cash distribution programmes, maybe through WFP... Oh! I'm sorry, I recreated WFP, I didn't mean to do that. So we could have the private sector providing the infrastructure for cash distributions, you would need somebody to then target, quick pick the populations... How should that be done? Should that be self-starting?
Arbie Bagois:I mean, again, potentially, like what you mentioned, if in context, we found that the communities want cash distributions, and that's what works for them, then yeah, I think cash should be provided to them. If they think that a corporation such as MasterCard is the one that is the best kind of like actor to to do this, then let's do it. What's important is, in this kind of like infrastructure, it is being led by the people and communities. And this is something that was not, or is rarely, to a large extent, not happening in the old system. Because the decision makers are not the people and communities. It's the holder of the money. And we were more concerned about the humanitarian sector and Oh, okay, let's really think about the the sector instead of actually solving the problem.
Lars Peter Nissen:This business of, because it seems to me if you want people to be in the driving seat, they need to have a choice. So who makes that choice? Is it the community? Is it individual? Is it like, you can pick the red one, the blue one or the green one? Or is it as a community, we want to do this? How... what does that market look like?
Arbie Bagois:So I don't know. I don't know how a community makes a choice. Again, it depends on sort of like the community, right. Like different communities will have different sort of like decision making systems. And, you know, I am not unrealistic. I'm very pragmatic, I understand that even within these communities, there might be inequalities. And so I think we have to kind of like, support the community in making the most equitable decision possible and our support will depend on how that kind of like system looks like. I do think, and I think this is, this might be controversial to some, but I do think we have to then stand for our beliefs, or my beliefs, at least, of equity and helping the most marginalised. So I say this, because then we're not... we're being transparent about our values, we're being transparent about the change we want to see. And so for me, I want to see equity between, for example, a marginalised group, men and women, young and old, people with disabilities, etc. I want to see that, and that's my own value. And so I will... as an individual actor, I might try to do look for other people who share my values, and we might form an organisation, and then our organisation will then sort of like fight for that value.
Lars Peter Nissen:But isn't that what's happening today? Isn't that what civil society is and isn't that what all the NGOs we have... isn't that what they are.
Arbie Bagois:And that's great. I think that's great that I'm different NGOs, you know, in that old system that we've destroyed, I think it's great, they have things that they want to fight for. Perfect. I think the kind of like, the balance that is missed in that old system is that because of the feedbacks and incentives, it became more about their organisational mandates and their organisation, rather than actually solving the problem. And, you know, because of the way that it's set up, and the different incentives, an organisation wants to increase their income, will then, you know, to some extent, make the, you know, things like needs assessment and applying funding... it's a bit perverse now, because their focus on their organisational growth instead of actually starting from people and communities and asking them, okay, what problem do you want to be solved?
Lars Peter Nissen:Okay. Here is $10 million. You cannot spend it on... you can't give it away. You have to build something that helps people. What are you building? And how will you avoid falling into the same pitfalls that you just identified for the the old system?
Arbie Bagois:Um... I'll just give it to people and communities. I mean...
Lars Peter Nissen:No, you're... That's not... The rule is you can't do that. You have to build something that amplifies your impact. How do you do that?
Arbie Bagois:But why, right? Like why... Why can't you give that? Why does it have to suffer like amplify an impact, defined by who? So for me, if I were the first holder in this scenario, I have $10 million, the people and community they have a problem. That they want to be solve a crisis, they want to address or prevent, to be honest, just give it to them, right? Just give it to them. And then engage... if then, I see or an organisation sees that there is inequity within their communities, you know, engage that community, but I'm not sure the best way to do it is to tie the money with whatever principles or goals I have, that they might not share.
Lars Peter Nissen:So how does that fit with what you just said about wanting to target the most marginalised? And actually having those values you wanted to fight for? How does that fit with what you just said?
Arbie Bagois:I mean, as I've said, you know, I will engage in other ways in, you know, in ways that potentially could work. So whether that's sort of like advocacy with local authorities, whether that's more community campaigning, raising awareness, whether that's some other kind of like, activity, but then I won't personally... I don't think it's wise, to personally tie that change... [inaudible]
Lars Peter Nissen:I think that one of the fundamental problems we have with the old sector is this sort of cradle to grave business model where you become... you handle the risk of a grant model, or a grant from from from beginning to end. And you then have to do all sorts of things. There's a lack of specialisation. And I fully agree with you that once money enters the equation, you roll role changes, and what I hear you saying is you uncomfortable with having the power associated with having that much money. And what you would like to do is to sort of use your power to influence others, advocacy, sharing knowledge, whatever that might be, and that is how you would like to fight for your principles.
Arbie Bagois:Exactly, yeah. And it's about unintended consequences as well. As we've said, it's a process, and with money, that just sort of like amplifies the power dynamics. And that could lead to some unintended consequences,
Lars Peter Nissen:Who distributes the money? I mean, decisions have to be made, we agreed that there's a lack of resources, we agreed that these crisis affected communities somehow must have a transfer, not just of knowledge and accompanying and efficacy, but also resources. Now, who does that?
Arbie Bagois:So if we're setting this new system in the real world again, so then the people who will hold the money would be those from presumably richer countries, right? Like, let's say, the UK, the US, Europeans states, whatever. And so they would be the ones making the decision. Now, their decision making process in the old system was also perverted because, you know, you've got politicians who are making these policies, you've got the civil service for enacting the policies of the politicians, you've got NGOs trying to influence, in very simplistic and to be honest, unhealthy ways, domestic constituencies, because of their fundraising, or because of their campaigns. And so you've got these simplistic and unhealthy expectations from from domestic constituencies, who then influences politicians policies. So it's like a vicious cycle. And so you've got politician saying, Oh, well, we'll reduce aid because, you know, charity starts from home, and we won't do this anymore in this particular place, because the people do not want that. And so that was what's wrong in the old.
Lars Peter Nissen:Which is what, which is why we blew it up, right? But the question is, now that you are here in your very admirable role of advocating of challenging power structures, and this and that, but you blew up that sector.
Arbie Bagois:Exactly. And so I think one idea that might be able to work is that... so we were thinking of, of the different purposes of this system that we've created, right. And I think one purpose of the system could be to facilitate the dialogue between people and communities who may be at the receiving end of the money, with the domestic constituencies, with people and communities from there, and actually make real this solidarity that we keep on saying... we keep on saying, Oh, it's based on solidarity, but people don't know. You know, that there is no connection between these two public bodies. And I think this could be a role for this new system.
Lars Peter Nissen:So that's almost like an Airbnb platform. We could call it the United Beyond Nation, sort of a thing.
Arbie Bagois:I mean, I don't know if it's necessarily going to be like a social media or like a internet platform, but this is something we could do.
Lars Peter Nissen:So really, you you're very sceptical in terms of recreating the institutions because you see those perverse incentives that sort of drive... have driven some of those institutions and the political agendas and forget all of that, that whole set of issues. It's interesting because it... of course, there are organisations who have been trying to, to work in that way. They are, for example, the adoption of children, not sort of actual adoption, for sort of child sponsorship models, I guess, you call them, which is something that I've always... that I've found a bit strange... that seems to be sort of a very individualised, you know, let me be good to this person who really needs it, or this poor innocent child here, let me help that person... sort of, for me, that was an uncomfortable personalization of... it was linking the recipient to strictly to the giver, in many ways. So I've never really liked those sort of things.
Arbie Bagois:And if you... that's not what I had in mind, like, I think that's totally the wrong way to do about that. Like, the potential is there but how is problematic, right? What I'm talking about is, when you look at, sort of, like surveys have done in the UK and in the US, people, so something like just citizens of the UK or US, don't know much about international development and humanitarian action. They don't know how these things work. And they're actually craving to get more information on how these things work. And yet, the kind of like... the public facing communications of a lot of the NGOs in that old sector is, "Give five pounds to save a life" or "Give $10 and help, you know, lift up a family in poverty". I mean, I think we should change that I think we should grapple with with the complexity of what we're trying to do, which is to solve problems in a global way. And I think, you know, if I remember correctly, there is a lot of evidence now to say that people can hold complex ideas. And in fact, you know, it's much better in the long term for people to sort of like, hold these complex ideas and receive complex messages so that they can understand for themselves, rather than relying on this simplistic field of messages, and I think by changing that, by actually sort of like raising sort of awareness and understanding, then we might have some hope in then influencing how politicians can can then make their policies that will be executed by civil servants in that particular example. And I'm not saying that that's going to be perfect, right? It will probably have its own set of set of problems, like, for example, fake news, or I don't know, like, maybe some ways of telling the message won't work. But I think that should be the direction that this new system tackles.
Lars Peter Nissen:Okay, let me let me try to summarise what we have discussed so far. And let's see if you agree with the way I do that. I think we started out talking about the most important thing being that crisis affected people themselves are in the driving seat, and that we, whoever we, are trying to also help in this situation that we we depart from an understanding of their resources and their right to be the masters of their own destiny that they need to have freedom to be and to do that, that seems to be the most important thing we have said today. Then the second set of issues I hear us talking about is that once we have recognised this point of departure with the agency of crisis affected populations, then how do we then construct or support that? How do we as individuals help that. And the answers you have given for me are very much around the sort of non-financial aid I would say you you talk about advocacy, you talk about knowledge sharing, you talk about connecting people, helping create better understanding globally, but you don't want to touch the transfer of sort of currency of resources... in financial resources. That seems for you not to be a goal. So...
Arbie Bagois:Oh, sorry, I think can I just clarify? I think funding should be transferred when asked. What I don't want to do is to tie that funding to some sort of objective, as in, Oh, we'll give you funding, if you work on, say, women or girls, or We'll give you funding, if you do this. No, just give the funding. If people or organisations want to fight for their vision of the world where, for example, equal rights for men and women, they can also do that in some other way, but just not tying it to the funding. But if a community asks for funding, then give it to them.
Lars Peter Nissen:Seems to be sort of the blank check model. Which might work, but isn't it more complicated than that? Would you have to... I mean, wouldn't you create a situation where maybe people would ask for too much? Who then decides, Ah no, you can only have 50% of what you asked for?
Arbie Bagois:So I don't know. I mean, I guess, yeah, we have to grapple with realities. It's not going to be an infinite amount of resources. And that's a separate conversation. But I think this is the right direction. Again, it's not going to be... it's never going to be a perfect system that's free of loss or injustice. But I think we reduce the injustice and inequity if we genuinely let people in communities decide for themselves how they want to spend the finances that they've asked for.
Lars Peter Nissen:Thank you for that clarification, then I think maybe the way to summarise what I hear you saying is that... Now we don't necessarily have to call this the humanitarian approach or... right? What was it? Problemsolvers Without Borders or something?
Arbie Bagois:[Laughing] yes.
Lars Peter Nissen:So what what problem solvers Without Borders do is that they simply advocate on behalf of crisis affected populations, they try to amplify the voices of crisis affected populations, and connect them to resources, but they don't themselves handle that those resources. Is that Is that what you're saying?
Arbie Bagois:I think that's fairly close to what I'm saying. So Problem Solvers Without Borders will work with communities and people who are affected by crisis and basically just try to meet what they need, whether that's money, whether that's knowledge, etc. If the people and communities themselves ask, Oh, actually, we don't have any of all of this, can you actually do it yourselves? Then sure. Do it. Again, there's no template, it's just the measure is, the problem solved. And then the the process is that it's led by people in communities.
Lars Peter Nissen:So I thought... I sort of like it, right. But I think the problem that is left unsolved, or the problems you will run into, is that, especially in some of the more severe crisis that we see around the world, there's there's an obvious need for massive transfer of resources, be that food with that money, be that whatever, I mean... I that's not really I think, what we're discussing. And I think the I think the reason you say what you say is that you can see how, if you... the more you get sucked into the implementation role, the closer you get to the money and the power, the more compromised, you also become by those... by that that power, and the more difficult it becomes for you to simply just be at the service of the community. And so I think you're making a choice to serve the community. But I think by doing that you're leaving a number of difficult issue around decision making in transfer of power, who controls resources in the community, a whole range of issues, as you mentioned yourself, you know, local communities are not unitary actors. They are themselves not not equal. They're very hierarchical often. And so I think you... I think you're making the right choice but I think you then also leave on solve a number of issues that the current humanitarian sector deals with?
Arbie Bagois:I don't think so. Because if you listen to the so many Global South actors, so many people, humanitarian aid workers from the Global South, and I have, I've conducted dozens and dozens of interviews with them. And all they're saying is, we don't feel trusted, and we can't make decisions for ourselves and we have to follow the policies and the decisions on someone else. Why can't we do that ourselves? It's very colonial and very patronising. And I think that's what this kind of like new system, personally, I think, is trying to address. Of course, that's going to open up into new issues again, but at least you're, you're minimising that power inequity, which is one of the biggest problems in the old system. And I think with this system, you know, like, we can open up the conversation to interesting directions. You know, you can ask, Oh, you know, so then anyone can anyone can, can do as they please. Or is there some some sort of like, professional standards? Or should there be standards? I think there should be... I think standards and regulation is somewhat good. But again, like, I would say that whatever standards we follow, or whatever professional codes of conduct we have to abide by, must be defined locally. Again, a recognition of common infrastructure and common, sort of like, humanity, but the decision should always be at the kind of like the contextual reality.
Lars Peter Nissen:Arbie, thank you so much for coming on Trumanitarian and agreeing to this little thought experiment. I really enjoyed discussing with you, and thank you for letting me challenge you and thanks for your new ideas and your passion and driving forward this agenda. I really, really admire that. And so it's just been great to have you here.
Arbie Bagois:Thank you very much. I really enjoyed it.