I’ve been an aid worker for the past two decades. When I started out in the mid 1990s humanitarian responses were characterised by giving too much too often and at too great a cost to the taxpayer. The institutional heart tended to rule the head resulting in a broadly scattergun approach to crisis with beneficiary households receiving different forms of assistance. Today, thankfully we’re better at targeting aid where it will have the most impact.
In the past our responses also tended to focus on alleviating short-term needs without addressing the fundamental structural and political challenges that exacerbated the crisis in the first place. For example, it took an earthquake in Kashmir in 2005 for the government of Pakistan and international community to acknowledge that the impact of natural disasters would continue until such time as adequate resources were invested in preparedness and prevention. The Pakistan National Disaster Management Authority was duly established in 2007. The Mozambique floods of 2000 and 2001 had a similarly galvanising effect and led to the enhancement of regional monitoring and preparedness platforms.
By adopting a more holistic approach the sector has become a vastly more competent responder to crisis than before. But the reinvention of the sector didn’t end with long overdue professionalisation. We started to adopt other aspects of private sector management and readily imbibed their corporate culture.
Here’s how a response to a typical crisis unfurls today. Nowadays, almost as soon as a shock happens, it is recorded, broadcast, tweeted and shared on Facebook. Public consciousness stirs and the chief executives of humanitarian agencies (an increasing number of whom have political backgrounds), as well as the fee-paying membership of these organisations begin to query “what are their respective agencies doing to alleviate the crisis?”
CEOs need to show they’ve determined their agency’s role in the response quickly, so assessment teams are rapidly dispatched to determine what, if anything, they should do in response to the crisis. However, the rush to respond often jams up the market and leads to congestion. Agencies become in greater danger of duplicating each other’s activities which, in turn, impacts operational efficiency and effectiveness, and reduces value for money.
Middle-income country Lebanon is a prime example. In a country that is half the size of Wales, there are close to 100 humanitarian agencies appealing through the 2016 Lebanon Crisis Response Plan. Are all these responders required?
The arrival of multiple partners is compounded by a lack of regulation surrounding who does what in a response. The competition for resources is fierce, and in today’s increasingly corporate humanitarian sector agencies work assiduously to maintain market share. This is different from earlier times.
The language of business has become the language of aid and business practice has been adopted wholesale by humanitarian agencies. This is not necessarily a bad thing as these aid agencies are now better set up to offer far greater value for money to their two key constituencies: those in need of assistance, and those that provide the funding.
But, in adopting business culture, the CEOs of humanitarian agencies become bound by the same obligations as their counterparts in the private sector. They are now answerable to boards of trustees and well-remunerated executive performance appears increasingly measured against turnover, be it the amount of funding generated, or the numbers of countries in which an agency is operating.
Having established a presence in response to a crisis, humanitarian agencies only tend to leave once the funding dries up.
Aid has become big business and big business has started paying attention. The 2016 Global Humanitarian Assistance report, for example, shows that $28bn (£23bn) was allocated as humanitarian aid in 2015 (in 2009 it was $16.4bn).
But, at the same time needs have deepened, and the cost of maintaining multi-year responses continues to outstrip available resources. The scale of need coupled with the relative lack of resources has led to fierce competition within the sector. Thus, the decision to respond when disaster strikes is no longer simply about how well placed an agency is to respond, but also the commercial and corporate risks that come from not responding. Will an agency’s boards of trustees, members and donors be satisfied to learn that their inactivity stems from the knowledge that rival organisations have things covered?
We’ve come a long way in this sector; moving with the times, embracing technology and becoming slicker and more effective in responding to sudden onset emergencies. Future responses may be characterised by the collision between humanitarian and corporate values. The professionalisation of the sector and the adoption of some aspects of corporate practice has turned us into a better functioning, and eminently more capable and credible group. However, we must remain true to our history and principles, and not allow commercial factors to unduly influence what are essentially humanitarian considerations.
Simon Little is a freelance consultant who has worked for the Department for International Development, the UN and the Red Cross.
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