Welcome back to this regular newsletter, where I think out loud about the future of development.

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Last week, my friend Marina shared a post about an experiment she conducted with AI.

Marina works in humanitarian aid, and in late 2024 she asked AI to conduct a risk assessment for an imaginary high-risk context. Recently, she asked it the same question again. Here are the results:

𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗡: rigid compliance frameworks, unannounced audits, robust due diligence, and local partners framed primarily as risks to be managed.

𝗡𝗢𝗪: balanced approaches integrating compliance with locally-led work, progressive assurance models, mutual capacity sharing and community-driven accountability.

In six months, AI had learned decolonizing and #ShiftThePower rhetoric!

I see this as a victory. AI learns from what exists, meaning that the more we talk about new models of development, the more we are influencing its baseline data and connecting with all the people who are asking hard questions about how money flows.

And now is the time for this disruption in the Matrix. We keep talking about grand solutions and frameworks – the Grand Bargain, the SDGs, and now the “humanitarian reset”. At what point will we stop rebranding “same shit, different day”?

Majority world activists and thought leaders are not hoping to reshape the system; we are making a new one. One that looks like us. If we can influence the baseline language around these debates, in the AI sphere or elsewhere, all the better.

This calls to mind a quote by Buckminster Fuller:  “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

Who will join us in true solidarity – and who will merely drift away into obsoletion? 

What I’m thinking about this week

Peace in Haiti means moving past silos

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to speak before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the US House of Representatives, where I shared reflections on the need for transitional and restorative justice models right now in Haiti.

You can read my remarks here. I made the case that restorative justice can start today. And that there is a very real opportunity for Haitians to lead their own recovery.

Restorative justice in Haiti is possible. But the fact is, there are difficult realities to peace that some people in power are not ready for. In my countless conversations with local and international partners over the past several months, I have only strengthened my belief that the only way out of this crisis is to leverage local resources.

As I share in the remarks, my focus now is to weave the network into a bold pattern of Haitian assets that will design, implement, and sustain a beautiful future for Haiti.

If you’re working in this space or curious about what a restorative future could look like for Haiti, I’d love to connect. Email me at iclerie@impact.ht.

Let locals lead!

A few weeks ago, I shared that the Power Shift podcast brought in two guests from opposite sides of the spectrum (aid donor, aid recipient). They recently brought back those two guests, Nadine Saba and Michael Kohler, to talk about dynamics within the Grand Bargain space.

In this second conversation, Kohler argued that despite the perception that there is no money for aid, the problem is actually that the aid industry is badly organized and “resources are not being combined in intelligent ways.” 

I’ll take this as a positive.  We all know this – but we don’t often see those on "the other side” say it. 

Recently, I accomplished in three weeks what one agency has been attempting to do for two years. And I did it all from my phone. It worked because I have the relationships that agencies need multiple $20,000 dollar events to initiate – and I have the knowledge they need a few thousand billable man-hours to acquire.

I'm not special – I'm just leveraging the resources I have at hand.

What I'm reading

• Bill Gates announced he will donate the remainder of his wealth, about 200 billion, over the next 20 years. I’m curious to see how they roll this out…

• No More Self-Delusion: Why UN80 Must Address the Humanitarian Systems Fatal Flaws. In this essay, Thomas Byrnes provides a comprehensive look at the timeliness of the UN80 Initiative, Secretary General Guterres’ system overhaul that is “identifying efficiencies and improvements" and "reviewing the implementation of mandates from Member States."

• I enjoyed The Problem with Charity by Zahabiya Husain. It moves away from the idea of charity and benevolence that sustain oppressive systems, and looks more at the how people mobilize in ways not involving money. I’m excited to see more thinking around these ideas! 

• The Humanitarian Reset - a colleague polled a lot of humanitarian leaders to see who had been consulted for this “reset” allegedly prioritizing localization. Alas, this seems to be another “one man show” from the development industry.

Thanks for reading!
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