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

I'm glad to see our subscriber list grow. Welcome new readers – you can find the first two editions here and here.

Last week, Devex released a report, Breaking Point, that surveyed more than 2,000 USAID staff and partners in the wake of the funding freeze.

The survey showed mostly what you’d expect: 86% of respondents were certain lives would be lost, and 77% thought US national security would be impacted (in case we needed a reminder about aid’s real purpose).

But what stuck out to me most was the USAID employees’ response to a question about reform.

When asked if USAID needs reform, only 20% thought “major reforms” or a “complete overhaul” were needed. Three quarters responded that only minor or moderate reforms were needed.

Another 4.2% said no reform was needed at all.

Of course, this question was a bit of a distraction. Many of the USAID staff who responded – not to mention the NGO and iNGO partners – are at risk of losing their jobs or seeing them dramatically change.

But what that means is this: there are now tens of thousands of aid practitioners coming into the job market who still don’t get it. They will have shiny CVs, and many will find good jobs in philanthropy and other development agencies, where they will proceed to perpetuate the same problems. 

To these practitioners – please for the love of all that is useful – actively unlearn what you know about the Global Majority. Business as usual is not the order of the day.

To the iNGOs and other funders trying to compensate for the loss of US funding, or trying to be supportive, please don’t re-inflate yourselves, as Deborah Doane implores. 

The next steps must include a meaningful redefining of what “capacity” and “risk” mean in individual contexts. Local organizations are not meant to be clones of their funders (see below).  Western perceptions of risk are not relevant in many Global Majority countries. 

We can break the cycle and repair the damage for better local and global outcomes. 

Isabelle 

Proximate Columnist

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

What I’m thinking about this week

Capacity building as cloning

This moment of uncertainty is provoking some real talk, and I am so relieved to see this. 

Ali Al Mokdad called out a practice of development that I absolutely despise, the insufferable “capacity building.” In his piece, "How INGOs Are Cloning, Not Partnering with, Local NGOs", he argues that what’s framed as ‘support and capacity building’ is often a "slow erosion of local leadership, adaptability, and independent thought.”

From my experience, USAID capacity building programs pretty much amounted to compliance training. We would attend mandatory sessions on topics like how to prepare financial reports, how to procure services or equipment their way, and understanding the things their money will not pay for.

Pretty soon, you find yourself at odds with long-time suppliers and partners, working with expatriate consultants who need everything explained,, and slowly your content starts to incorporate more and more of your funder’s language as you drift away from your mission.

Affording our values

Meanwhile, Janet Mayiwolo addressed practitioners to remind us of all the ways we often cede power to our funders who “feed us.” She asks us to embrace the moment and start saying “no” to money that does align. This is terrifying! 

At various points in my career, I’ve said “we can’t afford our values” to justify misaligned funding and partnerships. In Haiti there is a saying that goes “degaje pa peche” which means “getting by isn’t a sin.” 

Now is the time to reframe degaje into an asset. No one in the entire pipeline of development actors is as agile and adaptable as communities themselves. 

If we can understand that those qualities are what make us the most powerful agents of the change we want to see, I wonder how differently we will understand our work.

Talk the walk

Localization is not the mere practice of working with groups who live in a project site. It is not speaking the language, or being legally registered in a host country. It requires a deep integration of the local context including language (native and technical jargon), existing knowledge and resources (capacity), and how things really work (risk). 

Reimagining INGOs (RINGO) aims to co-create more just and equitable systems and for this they have several tools and resources that practitioners can use to advocate for themselves, and to help INGOs unlearn their dysfunctional modus operandi. I’ll share two such tools today:

1. Risk and compliance management - This is a case study that shows the disconnect between institutional standards of risk and compliance and the realities of different contexts. It suggests a peer-to-peer due diligence process rather than disqualifying an organization because they haven’t had an external audit, or if they don’t have a designated ops person.

2. Language - This is a work in progress that aims to “disrupt colonial/traditional perceptions of capacity, knowledge and expertise, rather than perpetuating the narrative of the north doing capacity building ‘to’ southern civil society.” Language shapes thought and it’s high time we spoke about ourselves according to us.

Hard truths

Yes, it took the loss of billions and the immediate threat to the lives of millions for MacArthur to pledge to spend 6%. 

How long have advocates called for foundations to spend more than 5%? A mere 1% increase in their spending means 150 million dollars. That is the amount allocated to food security for my entire country of 12 million people.

It’s unfortunate that the aid freeze is the cataclysm that had to happen to get funders to scootch ever so slightly towards what advocates have been begging for for decades, but all in all, let’s take the (small) win and continue hitting them with the hard truths.

I’d love to hear from you…

Speaking of hard truths! Reply to this email or write  me at iclerie@impact.ht and let’s get this conversation started:

1. How have you witnessed the “cloning” effect in your work?

2. Which of the tools above (risk management or language) would you want to see at your organization? 

3. If you had to pitch your org on one of these tools, and we recognize that these are power-sharing tools, what barriers would you expect to face?

Thanks for reading!
Sign up for future newsletters here.