To Profit or Not to Profit?

I know, I know - I'm supposed to be writing about what I'm doing. Bear with me awhile longer - this one is about something that got me thinking.

This article in the New York Times has caused a bit of a stir in some corners of the development blogosphere (I stumbled upon it here and followed up with some additional interesting reading here).

The gist of the question floating around is this: should people/organizations/CEOs who do development work be able to make money "helping?" How about a lot of money?

I don't have an answer to either, but they are interesting questions.

In trying to come up with an answer, I've come across the following additional questions and observations.

-Most people don't like it when other people make more money than they do. This stigma needs to be avoided by NGOs (who rely on donations from 'most people' either directly or through taxes) to function. It also needs to be ignored entirely when discussing whether or not it's ethical for NGO CEOs to make big salaries.

-The discussion on whether or not NGOs and the people who work for them tends conflate the question of whether or not aid staff should make a living wage with the question of whether or not they should be allowed or encouraged to make A LOT of money. They're two different questions. The answer to the first one is a resounding YES as far as I'm concerned. People who aren't making a living wage doing development work aren't maximizing their impact: they're learning a lot about the conditions they're trying to change via first-hand experience, but at the expense of being able to focus on and innovate in the work of changing them. I am fortunate enough to work/volunteer with an organization that provides me a stipend that I count as a living wage. While I can't live forever/start an RRSP with the stipend I get for being an EWB Canada volunteer, I can live comfortably in Malawi, and that helps me do (or at least try to do) better development work.

-The question of whether or not development professionals should make A LOT of money is trickier. One school of thought holds that a good way to improve development work is to reward good work and/or to use material incentives to attract talented people (aka pay people more) while another camp firmly holds that development work should be a reward in and of itself and that people who are attracted to such work for the money are simply the wrong sort of people to be doing it. I don't know enough about what "talented people" in development look like to declare whether or not money is the answer to unlocking their true potential, and I'm 100% convinced that, either way, the definition of "good work" needs a pretty serious overhaul before we can say that more money in the form of salaries will encourage it.

-On the "good work" point: an argument in favour of higher salaries is the meritocracy effect. Reward people for good work and the good work being done experiences a net increase. Kristof highlights the point in the example of Dan Pallotta, businessman-turned-pariah. I don't disagree with the logic: it seems to work in sales. I worry though about whether or not the targeted outputs of development work
a) exist in any sort of useful, form; and
b) lend themselves to the creation of salary brackets.
Outside of fundraising, how do you quantify whether an organization or a CEO or an individual field-level staffer is doing "good work"? By number of beneficiaries reached? Number of committees trained? Money spent on projects? Community members who feel they were "helped" by the organization when asked on a survey?

-I get the feeling that this discussion is about expats who are based in developed countries and go do development work in developing countries and largely being conducted by those expats and the people living in the developed countries that they're based out of.Do the terms of the discussion change when we're talking about local NGO staff? Should the Malawian Head of Malawi Fresh Water (this guy's partner organization) be subject to whatever moral consensus we reach? How do we involve such people in the discussion? (I'm going to ask around at my office next time I have the chance - knowing what Malawian development workers collecting pretty decent salaries think about this whole mess would, I think, be rather interesting).

-I have serious reservations about the implications of thinking about aid as an industry. These reservations need some more thinking (they're even more half-formed than my thoughts about NGO salaries), but I raise them because the question of whether or not aid is and should be an industry, with experts, careers, pensions and bottom lines is a thorny one that directly relates to how the sector's employees should think of themselves and be treated. My knee-jerk reaction is to rail against industrializing aid - I am motivated to be here by the (vain, perhaps) hope that I can work myself out of a job, and anything that lends more permanence to development infrastructure than is minimally necessary makes me nervous. On the other hand, 'industry' and the private sector more broadly have pretty good track records in solving some of the problems that hamper the work of development agencies. Areas of best practice like staff retention, professional development, organizational efficiency and output quality control might benefit from a more 'industrial' touch than the one currently being administered by us starry-eyed idealists.

-In case you're a data type, the Canadian government graciously hosts a database detailing the tax documentation filed by registered charities. The salaries of EWB's CEOs are quite modest, by the way.

That's all the food for thought I have for now.

So... the "weekend," eh?

By "this weekend" I apparently meant "early 2009."

Sorry!

I'm just in the process of returning to Nkhamenya (my home - more on that later) from Zomba (where I spent Christmas - more on that later as well).

I'm going back a few days early so that I can clean my yard and write the updates I've been promising before I go back to work (more on that later).

*sheepish grin*

Happy New Year!

Give the Gift of Opportunity

So...I'm planning on writing a more substantial update over the weekend, but in the meantime, please allow me to share EWB's current fundraising campaign with you.

The Gift of Opportunity Campaign is a chance for people to contribute to the work that EWB is doing in Africa.

I know that barely any time has passed since the wide world of Amanda and friends (and friends of friends and random officiandos of handmade jewelry) pitched in to fundraise for this year in Malawi. I'm not trying to pressure you into donating again. And EWB certainly isn't one of those "now that we have your email we're going to use it to ask for money ALL the time" organizations. I just wanted to let you know that the opportunity to keep supporting the work that I'm doing is there if you're so inclined.

I hear tell that it's becoming increasingly fashionable in some circles to make donations of material aid in the names of friends & family in lieu of Christmas gifts. This isn't quite the same - you don't get the satisfaction of seeing photos of your specific beneficiary with the specific goat that you bought. You do however get to contribute to the work I'll be doing to assist Plan International in their work in Malawi to ensure that Malawian children, their families and their communities have access to safe water & adequate sanitation to free them from the entirely preventable spectre of water-borne disease.

That's a pretty solid showing of Christmas spirit in my opinion... even without the goat.

What’s in a Name” – The ‘Amanda’ Mystery

“Dzina langa ndi Amanda.”
(My name is Amanda.)
[insert mysterious grins from adults or the pealing laughter of children here]

By Day 2 in Malawi, I knew there was something fishy going on with my name. Despite being far more pronounceable than some of the other Canadian monikers I’m chumming around with (“l” and “r” are pretty interchangeable sounds in Chichewa, making Alynne, Garrett and Colleen all exercises in hilarity ), my name rarely fails to prompt some surprise or amusement from whoever I happen to be getting acquainted with.
Armed with this suspicion, I decided to do a little bit of investigating.

I chatted with children with no real success.
I listened to the radio with some of the kitchen staff and made a surprising discovery.
I pulled in some help and got fellow EWBers (most especially one Graham Lettner) on the case.
I put some of my question-asking powers to work.

And before the month was out, my associates and I made a surprising number of interesting discoveries about the many reasons for the hilarity of being named Amanda.

• There’s an Amanda brand margarine. We’ve only seen it in one shop though, so as much as that’s kind of funny, it’s probably not the root cause.
• “A” is an honorific prefix in Chichewa, and “manda” is the Chichewa word for “graveyard.” So if I say my name slowly and deliberately, stressing the wrong syllables, it sounds like my name is “graveyard” or “Mr./Mme. Graveyard.”
• According to a book currently in the possession of one of the other EWB volunteers, amanda is also a title used by members of the Nyao in some of their activities (I know that’s pretty vague…still working on figuring out the whole Nyao thing…).
• Most people here introduce themselves by their first name or their first name and surname together. But if you wanted to introduce yourself by surname only, a man would say “A [surname]” while a woman would say “Na [surname]. So not only is my name “Graveyard,” it’s funny because I’m introducing myself as “Mr. Graveyard” (A Manda) instead of “Mrs. Graveyard” (Na Manda).
• Amanda Robinson (Or Robson, potentially) is the name of a radio personality on one of the big Malawi stations. I’ve been asked if I’m her a couple of times. Oh, the celebrity.
• Amanda and similar names like Tamanda and Miranda are fairly common Malawian names. Meeting a white foreigner named Amanda has actually given some people I’ve talked to pause not because it’s a weird name but because its weird for a strange person from a faraway land to have such a normal name.

Mystery solved. For now…

Really, Canada? I leave you alone for 3 weeks and this is what you come up with?

Though I’m half the world away and have my hands full getting settled in Malawi, I am at the end of the day still a Canadian and a politics nerd: I can’t help but to be following what’s going on in the true north strong and free. [This post does meander around back to being on topic eventually, but not in a “and we all lived happily ever after” kind of way…]

Others (daveberta, albertagetrich, Chris LaBossiere and Six meetings for starters) have all said much of what I’m thinking, albeit with their own editorial slants that I don’t necessarily agree with. I’m a little horrified, a little mystified, a little intrigued, and (saddest of all) remarkably unsurprised that Canadian politics have degenerated into such a shambles in such a short amount of time.

I think the budget update/campaign finance sneakaround that the Harper government tried to ram through was absolutely shameful; to even attempt such blatant partisan hackery at a time when real vision is needed to shepherd us (Canada and humankind a bit more grandiosely) through this mess is political opportunism at its worst. To screw it up so badly is equally ridiculous. And then to scream “separatist” at an already politically alienated Quebec… Nevermind the irony of staving off such a shady “backroom deal” oust via closed door meeting with the appointed representative of the Queen of England. It boggles my mind.

Then again, the Opposition isn’t exactly rising to the occasion either. The possibility that Harper is running away from “parliament” is NOT the issue here, nor will an unstable and – let’s face it – leaderless coalition of the desperate “fix” anything. Especially not one so beholden to the interests of Quebec’s self-appointed protectors and so devoid of focus on any objective higher than sticking it to the nasty mean Prime Minister man. That’s not cooperation – it’s collusion, and it’s the kind of collusion where everyone gets cheated but no one is really deceived.

As a Canadian I’m annoyed and disappointed in all this, and, despite all prior indications, still did expect better from my duly elected representatives. As a Canadian development worker living in Malawi, however, I’m swiftly coming to the realization that, whether I can expect it or not, I require better from them in order to do what I came here to do.

The ‘why’ goes something like this:

Both of the organizations I work with (EWB Canada and Plan Malawi) rely on donors for their funding. In the current global economic climate it’s likely (read: virtually certain) that both the pool of donors and average size of individual donations is going to shrink this coming year as people in the West start bunkering down for the rough ride ahead.

Cue the vicious cycle: hard times hit people and institutions in the West (donors) who in turn start trimming away their excess expenses (donations), increasing the financial constraints facing development agencies (my employers) which decreases either the scope, the number, or the efficacy of development projects (the work I do), thus passing along the hard times to the people who would’ve benefited from the projects had agency funding remained the same and who are additionally trying to survive the same financial crisis hitting donors but from a position of poverty such that they were the intended beneficiaries of development aid in the first place (the people I see and talk to every day I’m here).

I can’t fault individual donors for making that choice. People in Canada just like people in Malawi just like people everywhere else have a lot of responsibilities and tough choices to make, and I’d have a hard time arguing against people at home making the choices that will do the most to help those nearest and dearest to them (though I can probably make a good case for it not being an either/or scenario - some other day).

That being said, the money and the commitment and the vision need to come from somewhere and that 'somewhere' is the government of Canada, opposition and majority members both; the men and women who were elected to govern on our behalf and in our best interests, with conscience and with a view to elevating the state of our nation(s) and who have a responsibility to set aside their partisan squabbles when push comes to shove so that they can get down to the business of charting a way forward.
And no, “need” is not too strong a word.
Though I have no doubt I there are grand systemic arguments about justice and our responsibility as global citizens that I could make, the “need” for this commitment that I’m feeling right now is far more personal than grand theories of humanitarianism can communicate.

If the Canadian government fails to strike the hard balance between what’s good for Canada on the surface in time for the next election and what, in principle and in light of the reality of the world around us, is actually the right thing to do, I lose out. I lose an implicit support from my fellow Canadians and from my government that the work I’m trying to do here is something that people ‘back home’ value. The work I hope to do this year loses out as the prospects for the sustainability of Canadian-funded projects dim. The people I’m living and working with and for lose out too: this financial crisis affects them in ways that might actually kill them or their children, and the diminishing capacity of development agencies to do the work that they have been established to do exacerbates those effects. In the year that I am here, the lives of Malawians living in poverty (and even those who are better off) get harder instead of the already elusive easier or maybe even better that everyone was hoping for.

This risk of ‘losing out’ always exists, and was something I came into development sort of expecting to have to face. But the events of this past month have really thrown a sharp focus on the consequences that the mix of global financial systems and national politics at home can have here. If these challenges are not navigated bravely and carefully by the people in charge in the countries with the cash, being the change I want to see won’t be enough. Without commitment from something larger than me, the work I do this year might just wash away as the organizations I work with lose the ability to carry on building on their past projects.

From what I’ve seen this past while, I don’t trust the current Parliament to figure out what would be good for Canada in the short term, nevermind to engage in a sober, probing, and ultimately inspiring dialogue about striking a just balance between those short term needs and what Canada needs to be doing to contribute to a better world and a better future for us all.

And that scares me.