5 Ways to Reboot International NGOs

I finished my 20 year stint at Oxfam at the end of April, and as it recedes in the rear view mirror, I’ve been thinking about the future role of INGOs with a bit more distance. Spoiler, I don’t think they should shut up shop in the name of decolonization or anything else – there is important work still to do, but the nature of that work needs to constantly evolve to keep up with reality and changing understanding of aid, development and their possible roles within it.

First of all, there will always be a need to work on problems that require solutions beyond the national level – climate change, tax evasion, corruption, the arms trade, species loss, reform of the multilateral system etc etc. Add to that new issues such as AI or geoengineering, or ‘new old issues’ like nuclear proliferation that could pose threats to excluded groups, as well as opportunities. With their combination of a global footprint and links to organizations working on the ground, INGOs are well placed to work on at least some of these, as we’ve seen on everything from the Arms Trade Treaty to international legal activism on the fossil fuel industry.

Second, at the national/subnational level, some of the ideas I put forward while at Oxfam look less interesting now, while others seem just as salient. In no particular order, here are five that I still reckon are worth considering (with apologies if you’ve heard these rants before).

Fundraisers without Borders: Power follows money. As long as local civil society organizations remain dependent on aid, they will always be subordinate in the aid relationship. What’s more that dependence is increasingly becoming a source of political vulnerability, allowing governments to brand them as ‘foreign agents’ (India, Georgia, Russia). So INGOs need to get serious about helping their partners wean themselves off aid, and raise more of their income locally (e.g. through zakat or tithing), which could also do wonders for their local accountability.

There is an extraordinary number of ‘without borders’ organizations – full list here. The A’s alone include Acupuncturists WB, Accountants WB and Astronomers WB. So why isn’t there a Fundraisers without Borders? INGO and other fund raisers, current or retired, could spend a couple of months a year working with in partners to boost their local income. When Caritas Nigeria asked CAFOD to send them a couple of fundraisers to see if they could tap into local Catholic giving, they were overwhelmed with the response.

Stick to Humanitarian and Advocacy, drop/greatly cut back on Long-Term Development: The logic is that there will always be a need for outside help in extremis, and advocacy will be needed at the very least on global challenges from climate change to AI to tax evasion. Long-term development is a more doubtful proposition: the development of local economies, improved education, better South-South communications etc make the benefits less obvious, and the risks of colonialism, whether intentional or otherwise, greater. For a bit more nuance on the future of the three functions of INGOs, see this intriguing paper by Penny Lawrence (or my blog about it).

Be More Amnesty: What if INGOs moved to more of a solidarity model, akin to Amnesty’s Prisoner of Conscience campaigns? When CSOs come under threat, they could come to their defence (though some of them might not want it, due to the optics of foreign interference), and INGOs would then go all in with whatever’s needed – direct advocacy to governments or donors, cash, seconding staff etc. Maybe promote something like Peace Brigades International?

Immersions: Robert Chambers, one of my heroes, is a big fan of these.  Here’s what he said back in 2007:

‘Immersions can take many forms, but an almost universal feature is staying in a poor community, as a person, living with a host family, helping with tasks and sharing in their life. The overnight stay is vital for relationships, experience, and relaxed conversations after dark and talking into the night. There may be activities like working with and helping the family, listening and dialogue, learning a life history, keeping a reflective diary or trying to explain your work and its relevance, but the essence is to be open much of the time to the unplanned and unexpected, to live and be and relate as a person. The unplanned incident is so often the most striking, moving and significant. Much is experienced and learnt, but what that will be is hard to predict.   Agreement seems universal that immersions give insights and experiences that are not otherwise accessible. Those who participate learn in a personal way about people’s lives, livelihoods and cultures and the conditions they experience. The world can be seen the other way round, from the perspective of people living in poverty.   Quite often there are stark and startling insights and impacts.’

If it sounds a bit white saviourist, think again. This is about going to work and listen alongside a community, the opposite of a ‘needs assessment’ or ‘building their capacity’. I think it could be a great antidote to the loss of real contact (an unintended consequence of localization) that I described in one of my outgoing blogs.

Positive Deviance or Cash Transfers as default: If INGOs decide to start work on a particular issue in a particular setting, where should they start? The traditional way is to identify a gap that needs filling – clean water, poor health etc etc. I think they should instead start from the assets – where are people getting better access to clean water? Why are some kids healthier/less malnourished than others? This ‘positive deviance approach’ is more respectful, acknowledging that solutions (full or partial) often arise locally, and that white saviours are not required. The approach has been remarkably effective on everything from FGM to school drop-out rates to reducing malnutrition, and yet remains firmly in development’s Cinderella camp. Why that might be so would take a whole other post…..

Another intriguing idea is to only embark on a project if you can satisfy yourself that it is likely to get better results than simply handing the funds to the people you are trying to help as a cash transfer. See one such comparison from Rwanda here.

Open to other suggestions, natch.