Meet the Inter-Agency Regional Analysis Network (IARAN), a team of nine that is changing the way non-governmental organizations (NGOs) think about aid.
The IARAN, which gained international acclaim when it published “The Future of Aid, INGOs in 2030” report in July, helps humanitarian organizations all over the world by informing NGO strategy through its research about the changing nature of global humanitarianism. Paramount to its mission is ensuring that NGOs around the world harness foresight and modernized approaches to aid when addressing crises.
The group first worked with Save the Children International in 2012 and is now partnering with the international-nonprofit Action Against Hunger to introduce the organization to more proactive and sustainable methods of programming. In both its test-run with Save the Children and its current pilot phase, the group has seen a real change in the way each organization operates — an indicator of success.
The Borgen Project spoke to the IARAN Director Michel Maietta and Communications and Event Manager Leonie Le Borgne about the IARAN’s progress thus far and its ambitions going forward.
“The vision that is behind this program is actually how to contribute to alleviating poverty in a more efficient and preemptive way,” Maietta said. “Most of the humanitarian NGOs are very reactive. Naturally, you want to react when there is a threat. But the problem with reaction is that in the long-term there is no sustainability, and the problem will remain, the vulnerability will remain.”
To create sustainable solutions to the problems endangering the world’s most vulnerable, Maietta argued, NGOs must anticipate and address the root causes of global crises before they manifest. Many of today’s organizations have not practiced such foresight and as a result have not been able to adapt to new challenges or innovate in meaningful ways, yielding disastrous results.
“The refugee crisis that Europe is facing today is a direct consequence of the inability of the humanitarian system to directly access the population in Syria,” Maietta said.
Alternatively, when NGOs prepare for the future and create mechanisms that reduce damage down the line, they greatly increase their potential for positive impact. Planning as far as 15 years in the future can save lives as well as money, and more generally, increases organizational efficiency.
The IARAN aims to bring strategies of preparedness into the humanitarian mainstream.
“[The IARAN is] completely unable to diagnose the Hurricane Irma impact,” Maietta said when describing the IARAN’s scope of influence, “but what we can do is address the root causes of Irma, which are the warming of the Atlantic Ocean and climate change, and then help game-changers to design a preemptive strategy that can actually correct or re-address these root causes.”
Preemptive planning also allows organizations to be quicker and more flexible in their responses to disaster.
“Reactivity and life-saving response, and then strategy, preemptive news and the capacity to address root causes of the problems — the two can be done together. But, you need both. You cannot have one or the other.”
In addition to developing and expanding their work with NGOs, Maietta and his team are also working to enhance the humanitarian leadership graduate programs of two universities in France and Australia. The aim is to ready the next generation of humanitarian managers and directors for the global challenges ahead. This leadership is crucial for the creation of lasting and effective change within NGOs.
“We strongly believe that the humanitarian actors today are very good tacticians because they are very, very reactive,” Maietta said, “but the humanitarian system needs to have strategic leaders, leaders that can handle strategy in a very complex way because the context where we are interacting is very complex.”
The IARAN additionally publishes between 35 and 50 reports a year on a variety of issues, ranging from alleviating poverty to addressing undernutrition to responding to global migration crises. It will also produce a book in the next year that will discuss the organization’s findings from the last four years, including how it developed its methodology and promoted an organizational change in Save the Children and Action Against Hunger.
While the IARAN and its many projects are instrumental in promoting change within humanitarian organizations, the organizations themselves must act for any real progress to occur.
“The mission of IARAN is to offer food for thought but change will not happen without the actors,” Maietta said. “The actors need to be able to be the protagonists of the change.”
Time will only tell if NGOs take up Maietta’s call to action.
– Sabine Poux
Photo: Flickr
3.2 Million Face Extreme Hunger in Somalia
In March 2017, CNN spoke to Fatumata Hassan, a Somali mother struggling for her own survival and the survival of her children as Somalia faces drought, famine and terrorism – all culminating in the hunger of nearly half its population. She has walked over 100 miles to find food – an increasingly common requirement for many Somalis. Extreme hunger in Somalia is far-reaching; 3.2 million Somalis are critically food insecure, and 6.2 million Somalis need humanitarian assistance in general.
Somalia lies on the east coast of Africa, neighbored by Djibouti, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Established in 1960, Somalia is a relatively young country and has often faced instability. In 1991, the ousting of the ruler Mohamed Siad Barre resulted in an ongoing civil war. In the 2000s, pirates and jihadist groups, such as Al-Shabaab, created disruption and military conflict. Finally, in 2012, Somalia reintroduced a formal parliament and the first presidential election since 1967 took place. While these measures have helped to create greater stability in Somalia, Al-Shabaab continues to cause violence within the country.
Great instability within Somalia has not helped it to cope with the drought it has been facing. For two years now, Somaliland and Puntland in northern Somalia have received below-average rainfall. Now, Jubaland in the south is beginning to feel the effects of drought as well. Lack of rain causes crop failure. With little to nothing to eat for the people of Somalia, they cannot spare food to feed their livestock. Locals in Puntland estimate that pastoralists had lost 65 percent of their animals by March of 2017. Loss of livestock equates to a loss of income, meat and milk to nourish children, resulting in increased poverty and extreme hunger in Somalia.
Humanitarian efforts are helping alleviate the effects of the drought. Since the beginning of 2017, $667 million has gone to humanitarian aid within the country, helping it to avoid a similar outcome to the fatal famine of 2011, in which 260,000 people perished. However, conditions in camps set up to provide aid deteriorate as the U.N. appeal for donations is only one-third of the way fulfilled.
Stability and long-term investment to build proper infrastructure – such as a proper healthcare system – are necessary for Somalia to fully recover and handle future droughts with less required aid from the international community. These needs are difficult to achieve with most of Somalia’s budget funneled toward security forces needed to fend off Al-Shabaab.
In the future, greater international support and funding could help create stability in Somalia. The World Bank and International Development Association could be instrumental in this process.
For now, donations from the international community are needed to fend off famine and rehabilitate the 6.2 million Somali people struggling to survive. UNICEF and Save the Children both have online donation pages where individuals can help save those in Somalia who are suffering from hunger.
– Mary Kate Luft
Photo: Flickr
Waste as Fuel: Bringing Sustainability to Developing Countries
A lack of proper sanitation is one of the leading issues plaguing urban areas leading to water contamination, disease and spread of infection. Toilets are in high demand and low supply: they generally use excess water and have to be connected to established sewage systems. According to the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 44 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa relies on shared or unimproved sanitation facilities and 26 percent practice open defecation.
Improved sanitation facilities are defined by the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs as facilities that ensure hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact. Open defecation is a leading cause of diarrhea which causes more than 750,000 deaths of children under five. Countries with improved sanitation prove that it is costlier to economies to avoid improving sanitation. Every $1 spent on sanitation in the United States brings a $5.50 return by preventing sanitation-related health concerns.
In addition to sanitation concerns, the International Energy Agency estimates that 2.5 billion people cook with charcoal from forests or agricultural waste as fuel. Burning coal to heat homes and cook food safely would require excellent ventilation to avoid respiration of the chemicals involved in burning charcoal. Air pollution from inefficiently burning charcoal can kill nearly 4.3 million people in a year. 82 percent of the energy in urban households of Kenya is provided by charcoal.
Sanivation, a company in Kenya, is now processing human waste into a renewable fuel source for local communities. It isn’t a new concept, however, it has proven to be an accomplishment in rural villages with limited resources.
A dairy farm in Pennsylvania has solved its waste issues by using livestock waste as fuel. The 700 cows produce 7,000 gallons of manure a day. The owner of Reinford Farms made the decision to employ a digester. A digester is a place underground that fosters microorganisms to break down the manure it contains. As the manure and food waste breaks down, the microorganisms produce a number of gases, the most plentiful being methane. The methane is sent to an engine that powers and heats the facilities of the farm.
Sanivation has taken advantage of similar processes to transform human waste into fuel. The company does not have 7,000 gallons of manure to burn like Reinford Farms and therefore relies on its own collection of waste. The company provides free toilets and installs them in homes, only charging a fee to collect the waste to be processed.
The processing of collected waste is done as follows.
The excrement is loaded into a large container. Using a solar concentrator, Sanivation applies heat to the waste to sanitize and remove harmful pathogens.
The waste is checked for safety and combined with charcoal dust or sawdust in Sanivation’s agglomerator.
The mixture is cooled and dried into solid, highly flammable briquettes. These briquettes are then gathered for sale, making use of waste as fuel.
As environmental concerns remain at the forefront of global consciousness, companies like Sanivation are solving multiple issues with simple ideas. Sanivation provided a renewable energy source that improves health and sanitation while participating in the economy it serves. Research conducted by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health determined that the world’s collective waste could power up to 138 million households. Sanivation is looking to improve its processing methods in the future, ultimately processing up to 30 metric tons per month of waste as fuel.
– Rebekah Korn
Photo: Pixabay
Coffee in the Congo: The Efficacy of Advocacy
Founded in 2010 by Ben Affleck, the ECI works with and for the Congolese people towards rebuilding their lives and livelihoods in the aftermath of civil war, through advocacy and grant-making. ECI’s successes and partnerships illustrate the incredible efficacy of advocacy in the Congo. The initiative’s efforts to “raise public awareness about the tremendous need and opportunity in the region through highly targeted media and advocacy activities” caught the eye of the coffee industry giant Starbucks, which developed a partnership with ECI and began purchasing coffee from growers in the Eastern Congo in 2014.
Prior to the Rwandan Genocide and the subsequent Congolese Civil war, the Lake Kivu region in the Congo was a hotspot for the production of some of the highest quality coffees in the world. Decades of violence, however, decimated the industry. Unable to reach the international market upon which they had once thrived, it is estimated that about one 1,000 Congolese coffee farmers drowned per year while attempting to smuggle their crop across the rough waters of Lake Kivu and into Rwanda during the height of the violence.
The coffee purchased from the Congo by Starbucks has helped transform lives for more than 4,500 smallholder farmers and their families along Lake Kivu. These farmers’ incomes have more than tripled, which has enabled them to send their children to school and access healthcare.
Starbucks’ partnership with ECI has focused on helping Congolese coffee farmers develop sustainable agricultural production and restore the Congo as a key source of high-quality coffee, which is the key to the farmers’ improved profits. The mountainous topography and moist climate of the Lake Kivu region are ideal for growing high-quality coffee. The crop is almost entirely comprised of well-established local variants of the great heirloom Bourbon variety of Coffea arabica, which is known for its complex and engaging aromatics and flavor.
Starbucks provides Congolese farmers with the knowledge and resources to capitalize on these inherently excellent coffee-growing conditions. The endeavor has proven extremely successful, as is evidenced by Starbucks’ use of the crop as a Reserve roast and the wider coffee community’s increased interest in coffees originating from the Congo.
Starbucks has committed to continuing to purchase Congolese coffee, with the goal of working with the ECI to expand its reach to more than 10,000 coffee farmers and their communities in the coming few years. To the Congolese coffee farmers whose lives that this partnership has transformed, that had to be news with lively and sweet notes indeed.
– Savannah Bequeaith
Photo: Flickr
How to Help People in Samoa
Samoa’s economy has, for the most part, depended on development aid, tourism, agriculture, fishing and family members sending money to their relatives from abroad. Agriculture and fishing account for about two-thirds of the labor force and produce 90 percent of the nation’s exports.
A company that manufactures electrical harnesses for vehicles and ships them to a plant in Australia has more than 700 employees and accounts for 65 percent of exports, but is set to close by the end of 2017. This will leave many people unemployed and create a significant void in the economy. Something like this can get people thinking about how to help people in Samoa.
The nation is very vulnerable to disasters and extreme weather as well. An earthquake that caused a tsunami dealt a serious blow to transportation and the power grid and killed about 200 people in 2009. In 2012, Tropical Cyclone Even caused heavy flooding and wind damage which displaced more than 6,000 people and damaged or demolished around 1,500 homes in Upolu.
Projects Abroad, a leading international organization for volunteers, reported on goals they set to help people in Samoa from 2016 to 2017. English is the language of business for most of the world and is also the official language for business on the island nation. This means that having a good handle on it can significantly increase the chances of a good education and future employment prospects. Volunteers with the organization taught basic English to young. They also assisted students and teachers with improving their phonetics, pronunciation and grammar.
Volunteering is not the only way to help people in Samoa. People can also help by donating to nonprofit organizations. One such organization working in Samoa is Hesperian Health Guides, which focuses on providing health education. They assist various communities with finding the right healthcare needs for them and preventing poor health. They also publish a free wiki available in many languages.
There is more than one way to help people in Samoa. Volunteering and donating are two, but people can also contact their governors and representatives and ask that they support legislation that helps struggling nations.
– Fernando Vazquez
Photo: Flickr
90-90-90: A Bold New Goal in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS
90-90-90 is a target comprised of three interconnected objectives:
While the plan is straightforward and succinct, UNAIDS has self-awarely deemed it a “bold new target,” which may seem impossible to achieve to some. However, many countries around the globe are well on their way to achieving the elusive 90-90-90.
Most of the nations closest to 90-90-90 are part of the developed world, including Australia, Denmark and the UK. Unfortunately, poverty and weak healthcare systems make developing regions particularly vulnerable to the transmission of HIV. In fact, HIV is the second leading cause of death in developing countries.
HIV is more prevalent in Africa than in any other continent. Since the start of the AIDS epidemic, African countries such as Zimbabwe, Uganda and Botswana have exhibited average life expectancies up to 20 years lower than the rest of the world.
Despite HIV’s lethal presence in the developing world, there are methods that can be implemented to decrease HIV transmission and facilitate treatment in all nations.
In order to increase the amount of HIV-positive people who know their status, HIV testing must become more proactive. Some individuals infected with the HIV virus may not present symptoms and, therefore, will not be tested for the disease and never learn their status. Health campaigns in Uganda have increased their coverage of HIV status by 72 percent, simply by incorporating HIV tests in routine healthcare visits.
In many countries, HIV treatment is flawed due to its reliance on CD4 cell count. CD4 T-cells are the immune cells destroyed by the HIV virus. Ordinarily, HIV treatment is only given to people whose CD4 levels are low enough to put them at risk of developing AIDS. However, without treatment, anyone with HIV can pass on the virus, regardless of CD4 levels.
In 2002, Botswana began offering antiretroviral treatment to anyone infected with HIV. Botswana is now closer to 90-90-90 than almost any other country in Africa.
HIV treatment must be sustained in order to reach viral suppression – the final objective. In the Caribbean, 66 percent of individuals receiving treatment attain viral suppression. The ability to ascertain viral suppression status is reliant on viral load testing, which analyzes the amount of the HIV virus in the blood. Unfortunately, the medical technology required for viral load testing is not easily accessible throughout the globe. Recent data shows that the ability to perform these tests will likely inhibit viral suppression in the developing world. However, the work of the Diagnostics Access Initiative, which creates sustainable medical labs, has successfully decreased the global price of viral load tests by 40 percent, which will make them more accessible in impoverished regions.
While 90-90-90 may seem like an ambitious or overly optimistic dream, the methodology of efficiently diagnosing and treating HIV has proven successful in many countries. If strategically implemented on a global scale, these methods could feasibly eradicate HIV/AIDS and eventually heal the world of this epidemic.
– Mary Efird
Photo: Flickr
The Issue of Overfishing in Saint Pierre and Miquelon
The French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon are located off the coast of Newfoundland and have a population of about 5,533, according to July 2017 data. It is estimated that about 90 percent of inhabitants live on St. Pierre, while a smaller population lives on Miquelon. The islands focus largely on the fishing industry and have for over a century, but overfishing in Saint Pierre and Miquelon has led to Canada imposing a long-term closure of the industry, causing a negative ripple effect on the economy of the islands.
The overfishing in Saint Pierre and Miquelon started when the United States repealed Prohibition in 1933. The islands’ thriving economy decreased dramatically and forced the laborers to turn back to fishing. Since then, Saint Pierre and Miquelon have constantly been fishing, leading to the overfishing problem.
In addition to the issue of overfishing in Saint Pierre and Miquelon, there has been a decline in the number of ships using the Saint Pierre harbor. This could be due to the weather and the natural environment of the islands. Surrounding the islands are “treacherous currents and fog [that] have contributed to hundreds of shipwrecks off Saint Pierre and Miquelon.”
The four-mile strip of water between Saint Pierre and Miquelon is called “The Mouth of Hell” by the local fisherman because of the strong currents that have contributed to about 600 shipwrecks near the islands. The residents of Saint Pierre and Miquelon have used this to their benefit, as they can add to their earnings from fishing somewhat by salvaging the wreckage.
Dealing with overfishing in Saint Pierre and Miquelon has not been easy for the residents of the islands, but there has been some progress with sustainability and trying to stabilize the island’s economy, as the residents have turned to other kinds of seafood fishing such as crab fishing. They have slowly developed other types of agricultural farming, including vegetables, poultry, cattle, sheep and pigs. The government of Saint Pierre and Miquelon is also working to grow its tourism industry. With the hope of more tourism on the islands, a more sustainable way of fishing and more farming, Saint Pierre and Miquelon’s prospects are looking brighter and more stable.
– Jennifer Lightle
Photo: Flickr
She’s the First to Finish School – Girls’ Education
Two women wanted to combat all of that by helping young women get the education they need to succeed. She’s the First was started in November 2009 with a Youtube video and Facebook page by founders Tammy Tibbetts and Christen Brandt. Both had received scholarships for their schooling and wanted to do the same for other girls. It has been shown that education, specifically girls’ education, can help stop poverty.
It works with other international organizations to identify young women to sponsor. 11 countries are the current focus of the organization, including countries in West Africa, Eastern Africa, Latin America and East Asia.
Over 900 girls are She’s the First Scholars, meaning they have received a scholarship to allow them to pursue their education. The young women are provided with mentors in order to help them become successful leaders. These campus groups also aim to promote leadership and global citizenship within the campus community.
What are the benefits of improving education for young women? She’s the First says that a girl is likely to make “20 percent more per year of schooling she finishes”, is less likely to marry young and more likely to have fewer, but healthier, children.
Want to get involved? There are different levels of donor programs. You can become an Academic Ally, Equality Advocate, or a Girl Champion. There have also been more than 300 fundraisers to help raise money for the cause.
Since 2009, this organization has been able to help many young women finish school and give them the resources they need to do so. It has mobilized others across the country, specifically in communities and at universities. This organization’s message of investing in education to better the futures of these young women and girls is an amazing cause to help fight global poverty.
– Emilia Beuger
Photo: Pixabay
Trouble in Paradise: How to Help People in Mauritius
Despite this, there is still poverty and a significant need to figure out how to help people in Mauritius. Along with poverty still being present on the island, there are still issues of violence against women, children losing parental care due to poverty and the social exclusion that affects children with disabilities. With the island seeming more like a tropical paradise at times, it is important to keep in mind that there is still a great deal of disadvantaged and poor people in Mauritius, particularly in rural areas.
Another factor in Mauritius’ poverty situation is that there is no official poverty line in the country. They use a relative poverty line that is defined as “half median monthly household income per adult equivalent.” The poorest households usually satisfy three basic conditions: households that have difficulty obtaining daily basic food, households that consume government rice and households that buy food on credit.
Now we must consider the best ways of how to help people in Mauritius, allowing us to address these issues and achieve a better standard of living for the poor. The first solution undertaken by the government was implementing a social welfare program that aims to bridge the gap between the poor and the non-poor. The program focused on the distribution of social aid to needy people, subsidies on basic food items, improving the level of education, microfinancing small and medium enterprise and female empowerment in the labor market.
Social policies such as this are essential for combating poverty and for pinpointing how to help people in Mauritius effectively. Anthony Giddens, a British sociologist who is renowned for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies, said: “Although being poor does not necessarily mean being permanently mired in poverty, effective social policies which maximize the power of human agency will be a key part of any solution.”
In 2017, Mauritius instituted the Marshall Plan Against Poverty, an ambitious reform aimed at addressing persistent pockets of poverty and social exclusion in the country. Though the plan refers to the official number of poor households as 33,600, the government is focusing on the absolute poorest, equaling about 10,000 households. So far, the plan has committed approximately 2.2 billion rupees, or $63 million, over the next three years as they continue to implement the Marshall Plan.
There are several other solutions that can help us find how to help people in Mauritius, such as introducing legislation for a national minimum wage for workers and taking an initiative in creating more jobs in the manufacturing sector and other industries. The minimum wage of a worker should be equal to or more than the revised figures published by the Household Budget Survey of Statistics Mauritius, as it is necessary to reduce income inequality and to help the poor find a decent life using their own efforts. Similarly, as other countries around the world have shown, there is a working-class population that will largely never earn a degree, prompting the need for an increase in jobs for the working class.
– Drew Fox
Photo: Unsplash
Patricia Arquette and Mohammad Ashour Conferred 2017 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award
Arquette created the charity, GiveLove, a U.S. based skill-training non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to the instruction and promotion of Ecological Sanitation (EcoSan) and compost sanitation. Arquette founded GiveLove to assist after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurred approximately 16 miles west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.
GiveLove works in emergency and development contexts to introduce low-cost, decentralized sanitation systems based on container-based sanitation and human manure composting approaches. Specializing in dry toilets, known as, “compost toilets,” GiveLove’s industrial partners operate in areas with high demand and dry areas to provide safe options for latrines dug in challenging environments.
GiveLove has implemented training programs in Haiti, Nicaragua, Colombia, Uganda, Kenya, India and the United States. The charity partners with NGOs, local community associations, schools, youth groups, universities and governments. GiveLove provides technical skills training, program design and support, staff training, monitoring and evaluation and design consultancy. GiveLove also instructs local organizations to advance sanitation in high-risk communities. Arquette’s company trains licensed sanitation builders, as well as district technicians, to apply and manage projects.
The Center bestowed a second 2017 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award upon Mohammad Ashour.
During his acceptance speech for the Conviction Principle Award, Ashour promoted universal healthcare and condemned racism. Ashour’s enterprise, Aspire, operates in Ghana and the United States.
Aspire raises food-grade crickets on a commercial scale and actively works to normalize the consumption of insects in the western world. Ashour’s company, based in Austin, Texas, created a massive farm to raise crickets used to make mainstream snacks. The Center honored Ashour with the 2017 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for pursuing his goal to produce a high-grade source of protein, while also reducing the carbon and land footprint that stems from farming cattle. Crickets are a healthy source of protein and offset the harmful effects that come from the reliance on beef production.
At the onset, employees fed the crickets. However, this system proved inefficient and ineffective, as humans work during daylight hours and crickets are nocturnal. Aspire subsequently incorporated a robotic system that provides the ideal amount of food to the crickets. These adjustments to the cricket’s diet created a better product.
Inside Aspire’s newest building, a robot feeds millions of crickets 24 hours a day. This facility is a 25,000-square-foot research and development center. Aspire plans to duplicate this technology on an additional farm that is 10 times the size of the present plant. It’s a scale that Ashour believes will propel crickets as a mainstream food in the United States. For an insect’s diet to meet its sustainable promise of supplying protein without the carbon and land footprint of beef, Aspire must increase production, making cricket protein widely available and affordable. Mohammad Ashour believes Aspire’s endeavor will make that possible.
According to The Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky, the 2017 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award honored and extolled the valuable contributions of people from around the world.
– Heather Hopkins
Photo: Flickr
The IARAN Keeps Its Eyes on the Future
The IARAN, which gained international acclaim when it published “The Future of Aid, INGOs in 2030” report in July, helps humanitarian organizations all over the world by informing NGO strategy through its research about the changing nature of global humanitarianism. Paramount to its mission is ensuring that NGOs around the world harness foresight and modernized approaches to aid when addressing crises.
The group first worked with Save the Children International in 2012 and is now partnering with the international-nonprofit Action Against Hunger to introduce the organization to more proactive and sustainable methods of programming. In both its test-run with Save the Children and its current pilot phase, the group has seen a real change in the way each organization operates — an indicator of success.
The Borgen Project spoke to the IARAN Director Michel Maietta and Communications and Event Manager Leonie Le Borgne about the IARAN’s progress thus far and its ambitions going forward.
“The vision that is behind this program is actually how to contribute to alleviating poverty in a more efficient and preemptive way,” Maietta said. “Most of the humanitarian NGOs are very reactive. Naturally, you want to react when there is a threat. But the problem with reaction is that in the long-term there is no sustainability, and the problem will remain, the vulnerability will remain.”
To create sustainable solutions to the problems endangering the world’s most vulnerable, Maietta argued, NGOs must anticipate and address the root causes of global crises before they manifest. Many of today’s organizations have not practiced such foresight and as a result have not been able to adapt to new challenges or innovate in meaningful ways, yielding disastrous results.
“The refugee crisis that Europe is facing today is a direct consequence of the inability of the humanitarian system to directly access the population in Syria,” Maietta said.
Alternatively, when NGOs prepare for the future and create mechanisms that reduce damage down the line, they greatly increase their potential for positive impact. Planning as far as 15 years in the future can save lives as well as money, and more generally, increases organizational efficiency.
The IARAN aims to bring strategies of preparedness into the humanitarian mainstream.
“[The IARAN is] completely unable to diagnose the Hurricane Irma impact,” Maietta said when describing the IARAN’s scope of influence, “but what we can do is address the root causes of Irma, which are the warming of the Atlantic Ocean and climate change, and then help game-changers to design a preemptive strategy that can actually correct or re-address these root causes.”
Preemptive planning also allows organizations to be quicker and more flexible in their responses to disaster.
“Reactivity and life-saving response, and then strategy, preemptive news and the capacity to address root causes of the problems — the two can be done together. But, you need both. You cannot have one or the other.”
In addition to developing and expanding their work with NGOs, Maietta and his team are also working to enhance the humanitarian leadership graduate programs of two universities in France and Australia. The aim is to ready the next generation of humanitarian managers and directors for the global challenges ahead. This leadership is crucial for the creation of lasting and effective change within NGOs.
“We strongly believe that the humanitarian actors today are very good tacticians because they are very, very reactive,” Maietta said, “but the humanitarian system needs to have strategic leaders, leaders that can handle strategy in a very complex way because the context where we are interacting is very complex.”
The IARAN additionally publishes between 35 and 50 reports a year on a variety of issues, ranging from alleviating poverty to addressing undernutrition to responding to global migration crises. It will also produce a book in the next year that will discuss the organization’s findings from the last four years, including how it developed its methodology and promoted an organizational change in Save the Children and Action Against Hunger.
While the IARAN and its many projects are instrumental in promoting change within humanitarian organizations, the organizations themselves must act for any real progress to occur.
“The mission of IARAN is to offer food for thought but change will not happen without the actors,” Maietta said. “The actors need to be able to be the protagonists of the change.”
Time will only tell if NGOs take up Maietta’s call to action.
– Sabine Poux
Photo: Flickr