Four Insights from Senior Aid Leaders on how to Influence the Wider System

The GELI webinars I’ve been hosting with senior leaders in the aid sector have come to an end for the moment, and I’m going to really miss them. Sitting in on a bunch of frontline bosses exchanging top tips on influencing is a real privilege (see my previous post on ‘How do you Influence the State when Leaders change every 5 minutes?’). It’s Chatham House rules, so no names or institutions, but here are some of the highlights from my notes.

Don’t be led by internal hierarchies and pecking orders: learn to tap into the hidden resources and connections of staff such as those who drive cars. In fact drivers keep coming up, echoing the podcast with OCHA’s Vincent Omuga, where finding out that his driver was super-connected in the opaque Eritrean system transformed his ability to get stuff done. Has anyone seen an ethnography of aid-sector drivers, what they do, who their networks are etc? Would love to see it if so.

Similarly, in another opaque system – China, ‘I can’t breathe without understanding who are the advisers to the advisers, who’s connected to who’. This particular leader has a 30-minute informal coffee with senior management every morning on what happened yesterday, who talked to who, what they need to do next, news from stakeholders, counterparts and private gossip, who needs to pick up the phone and express sympathy to who.

Another nice example from Central America of taking the whole operations team (who usually stay in the office) to talk to incoming Venezuelan migrants. They asked much deeper and more human questions in real conversations, exposing just how much the ‘professional staff’ who normally conduct such interviews have (under pressure to ‘get through the numbers’) lost sight of the humanity and richness of those they are trying to help.

How to lead country teams that have a mix of expats and nationals: Lots of talk on this (we had expats, nationals and people who have been in both positions on the calls).

Firstly, you need to work to get alignment, given the different levels of understanding. There may be big differences on qualifications, local knowledge, language, deference, and connections to donors. One leader from Southeast Asia draws up a Social Contract with staff setting out ways of working on things like asking local staff to speak first on national issues. Another promotes nationals because she hates it when expats on massive wages essentially just rely on them to both think and do everything, but she sends them on secondment to other offices in her organization to get a better understanding of what it’s like being an expat.

Secondly, there can be serious political tensions between expats and nationals: e.g. on the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, where national staff were often quite hostile to Rohingya rights, but also under huge social pressure in their communities over international organizations’ defence of the Rohingya (some even had to leave their homes for a time).

There are also downsides to inclusion as the political affiliations of local staff can be much more risky to the organization than those of expats. ‘Local knowledge is political’.

Being foreign isn’t always an asset: Times have changed. Being foreign (UN, INGO, donors etc) has in some cases moved from being a political asset to a political liability (accusations of political interference, branding partners as foreign stooges for taking international funding).

What to do? People suggested instead of just rallying the embassies, donors, INGOs etc around a particular cause, widening the range of national stakeholders to bring in the private sector, professors, faith leaders, ex politicians with credibility, civil servants and to find out who your national staff know even at the mid-levels of officialdom. Emphasize the historical contribution of NGOs to national wellbeing, most recently during Covid, but also going back much further.

Finally, try and detox the ‘foreign lobbyist’ accusation by showing some skin in the game –take politicians to see the health clinics or schools you run, to show that you’re not just talking, but really helping people. ‘In Afghanistan, there are no golf clubs,’ so field visits are often the best way to build relationships.

Dealing with blockers: what do you do when someone fairly senior in government is blocking you via bureaucratic harassment, eg delaying your proposals by sending them round multiple ministries for sign off? Answers included trying to work out their sources of influence within the Department, who influences them, and then making informal contacts with those influencers – coffee, dinner or (in the Philippines) karaoke. Also making full use of relationships of national staff at all levels, mirroring the big driver conversation to find a ‘soft bridge to pass through’ to get to the blocker, or even just to get to the first step of finding out who’s doing the blocking.

Really hope we can continue the training – these sessions are absolutely fascinating.