Interesting aid Tweets

A couple of links I liked:

1. A sweet, yet sad look at how resourceful street children carve out a life in India. I often wonder how well these kids would do if they were adopted and looked after in some circumstance. Imagine if every middle class family took on one of these kids, paid them to do chores, sponsored their education, and gave them a place to sleep and eat, what a different world India would be!

2. A has done an excellent two-part write-up on the differences between the work/impact of Relief and Development Aid agencies. It gives a fairly clear idea of the strengths and weaknesses of this process, as well as outlines holes and inefficiencies. I see good dialogue happening from this topic.

3. Another potentially great debate will be stimulated by this post about How True is your Altruism? The author muses about altruistic fatigue...do people get tired of giving? and how genuine are their feelings of giving? Do political affiliations, for example play a role?

4. Manuel Borego blogs about stimulating BoP markets in disaster areas as a means to Relief. I think its easier said than done. BoPs are the first hit in disaster zones; they worry first about survival, and coping with the tragedies in their lives. Stimulating a market that has had its coping mechanisms ripped apart takes time and dedication, which relief organizations don't foray into. Essentially, great idea...but not so practical.

5. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) has put out a great report on Women and Entrepreneurship. Turns out that women entrepreneurs significantly contribute to economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean. It also says that women with strong social networks are more successful...this is not surprising considering that word-of-mouth plays a significant role in market consumption. Finally, all those neighborly housecalls and gossip have paid off well :-)

Help Burma Links

Wanna help Burma? Here are some resources:

1. Arabella Advisors, financial advisors who specialize in philanthropic strategy, is holding a free advisory teleconference for donors interested in helping the Burmese on Monday, May 12th at 3PM ET. RSVPs are encouraged. Details are here.

2. Chris Blattman and Alanna Shaikh blog their picks here, here, and here. Alanna is an aid worker, so I'd give her picks some thought.

3. The New York Times has put together a well-thought out list of resources here.

4. For those on the hunt for more permanent action, ReliefWeb has a list of positions here.

Disaster Relief Efficiency: And then there's the governments...

I've spent the past week reading Richard Branson's engaging autobiography Losing My Virginity. Its a great lesson in entrepreneurship and life, and a fascinating read.

Branson is quite an adventurer, and in describing one of his round-the-world ballooning expeditions talks about something that rings through today. After three sleepless days in a hot air balloon capsule, he writes the following in his journal:

Day 3, 20 December 1998
I haven't slept since I last wrote my diary 24 hours ago, with good reason. [While] I wish you could be up here with us...there were some moments...I would not wish on you.
Let me first explain the challenge that faces...us... It is not just the elements, or the technological challenge. Sadly, it also involves people and politics. As always in life, it is not the ordinary people who get in the way.. Its a handful of politicians at the top who selfishly make their country and this world a sadder place to live. After all...this is a mission flown in peace.

He goes on to describe how much a hot-air balloon is at the mercy of the weather elements, with wind as the only propulsion system. The balloon goes where the wind takes it. You can't demand that the wind go south of Russia, Iraq, China and North Korea. It goes where it wants and takes you with it. And although he had cleared this with many of the governments before starting his journey, some (China) revoked their permission just as he was about to enter their airspace, while others he expected to be downright difficult (N. Korea) were absolutely civil.

What is so sad and poignant about this situation is reflected in Burma's situation today. With relief teams and supplies ready to help the people of Burma, you have a few idiotic politicians on the top who are selfishly standing in the way of helping their innocent people.
In this case, it isn't a lack of technology or human resources or management, its the government and its stupid policy that comes in the way.

What can be done?? Well, its a watch-and-wait game. Relief and other philanthropic organizations need to think of this extra time as a blessing. Use it to practice, prepare and coordinate, so that when the regime does let them in, they can be efficient. OCHA (the UN Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs)...are you listening?? The Regime can't hold us off forever. They have to let us in.

In the meantime, can we please bring up our kids better?? Because some kid somewhere grew up to be the nutcase(s) who run(s) Burma now. Maybe if he had had a couple of knocks on his head, maybe he would have turned out better...

Making disaster relief efficient PART II: Formulating a solution

Put the right pieces together to make a more efficient relief operation (source: Emin Sinanyan)

Following up on Part I, I've been formulating a solution to Sue's (i've decided to name her that) predicament; and that of international agencies stuck in an inefficiency rut. Here's what I have so far:

To reformulate, here's the problem: Sue (a water-sanitation engineer) and other skilled workers like her want to work or volunteer for organizations using their necessary skills, rather than give money. And the agencies' poor human resource management and lack of coordination keeps outstanding workers like Sue out of their system. To make matters worse, relief isn't being as efficient as it could. How do you help make relief operations more efficient??

Disaster Relief is like a puzzle. There are different holes in your puzzle that need to be filled. Find out the right pieces for those holes in an organized manner and you'll have an efficient, complete operation in progress.

That's how relief operations and aid work need to be approached. The relief operation is like the puzzle, with parts of it already filled in (defined by relief work already in progress and the people in need), with odd holes that still need filling. These holes (aid) can be classified into three distinct shapes:

• Materials/Supplies (Food, blood, search lights, helicopter, you name it)
  
• Money (self explanatory...$$$)
  
• Skills/Knowledge/Info (like Sue, logisticians, doctors, construction workers, etc)
  

You need all of these to make a complete puzzle, and relief agencies need to understand that and organize their needs accordingly.

Not everyone can give money, and some others are better at donating supplies or skills than money (eg. Sue). In fact most agencies get a better deal in the process. For example, most agencies wouldn't be able to afford Sue. She bills out at $250-300 an hour. Instead, with Sue volunteering for two weeks, they get $24,000 worth for free, rather than the $200 she ends up donating to them.

Essentially, there needs to be a common space where agencies can lay out their needs broken down in this manner, along with a listing of the size of their needs (eg. water/sanitation engineer for 9 weeks, or 100 boxes of nails, or $10,000 for buying plane tickets); and volunteers/potential employees can decide/select which of those needs they can fulfill.

One of the closest platforms I have come across is VolunteerMatch. In a neat, user-friendly interface, volunteers and agencies can find each other in an efficient manner. It is a win-win situation, that I've personally used many times. I find an opportunity I like that allows me to work in a field I like, in the timeframe I want. Essentially, i end up happy; and the organization gets good, skilled labor for a position they desperately need filled at no cost.

Now think about expanding the concept of VolunteerMatch beyond the boundaries of the United States, to include all international agencies. Bring in organizations like Transparency International and Charity Navigator, to rate the efficiency/transparency of these organizations. Then let people decide how and in what manner they want to invest in which agency - money, time, and/or materials. Sue, for example, might want to volunteer full-time for a small International Rescue Committee (IRC) operation as a water/sanitation engineer in Burma, for two weeks (since she has to return back to work)...and maybe she can find a friend at work to take over her shift once she leaves. Maybe she can even get her company to sponsor one person's work for the cycle of the operation with IRC. Maybe Sue might even leave her job and want to work full-time on this operation for the duration of the mission. But she can make up her mind one day and fly out the next to be on an operation she can actually help with. This is what informational efficiency can do for disaster relief.

This is entirely possible if the information is up there for people to see, essentially giving the power of decision to the person making the most investment. This is how Kiva.org works, and this is why it is so successful.

As I look at the Burmese disaster, I personally know of professionals - doctors, nurses, engineers, logisticians, construction workers, who would fly out to Burma to volunteer, if they knew for sure that they would be put to work immediately, in an efficient manner, for the duration they can afford. But that's not the way things are happening right now. There is so much competition between the agencies, there are turf wars, and money being lost in the process, and all against the backdrop of human tragedy. It is SO unnecessarily inefficient.

I even think of Katrina's aftermath in 2008. Its not that America has forgotten about New Orleans. They just don't know how to help anymore. They've done what they were told to do - give money. And yet, the problem is still there. And they are frustrated that having already done the best they could (i.e. donate as much money as they could), that the impact hasn't happened. People still struggling against the aftermath of the disaster are mad at the rest of America, and honestly its not their fault.

Imagine the reverse scenario, where Americans with the right skills, tools and supplies, and money showed up and worked together to build up the city...what a different scenario that would be! That's what I'm aiming for with this post. We've got to make disaster relief more efficient...

Making disaster relief efficient PART I: What would you do?

Burmese women wait in line for water (photo courtesy: Wall Street Journal)

The biggest inefficiencies of International Development agencies, who are at the front line of disaster relief operations, are their lack of coordination and POOR human resources management, which DESPERATELY need to be addressed.

I've been following the Burmese Cyclone tragedy, as I'm sure most of you have. It brings to mind Katrina, and the Tsunami - large-scale disasters that have been poorly managed, and several years later are STILL being worked on. Why haven't the lessons of the past been learned?? Why is it that Walmart, a supermarket chain store, had a superior response to the Katrina disaster than any other relief agency that specializes in "relief"??

Well, I have a good answer to the Walmart question. The overall short answer to the larger question of why International Development agencies respond so badly is a lack of coordination, and poor human resources management.

Let me give you a small example:

As soon as the 2004 tsunami happened, my friend who is a water-sanitation specialist wanted to help. She called up various news agencies who pointed her to the American Red Cross (ARC). Their phone line (not surprisingly) was overloaded with other people like her trying to find a way to help. The generic phone message said Please give money or blood (not exactly in those words, but you get the point). My frustrated friend, who had relevant skills, tried calling around in vain. She ended up trading in her christmas presents for money, which she donated to ARC. We still don't know where that money went or how it has been used. For that matter, I won't go into how much money ended up being collected for the tsunami by all the international development agencies, how quickly it disappeared, and how little has actually been done about it. That's a frustrating tale in and of itself. (On that note, here's a great article about what happened to the money donated to Katrina??)

Yesterday I was browsing through some job ads on the ARC website, and they were looking for a water-sanitation specialist for "tsunami relief." Someone explain to me why three and a half years later, they are still looking for my friend who wanted to work with them in the first place for the same project!

Here's something even more ironic. A year ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) put out a desperate call for water/sanitation engineers to work in the field. My friend who fit the description of what they were looking for, filled out the excruciatingly long application and sent it in. Three hours later, she got a response saying "no." Confused, she called and emailed them. Three days later, sick of her calls, they wrote saying "sorry...we don't offer explanations to anyone we didn't interview" or something to that effect. I'm still confused. She has field experience, top-line degrees, and good knowledge of her subject; not to mention that she is well-traveled and lived independently in rough parts of the world. I'm more curious than she is about why she got turned down.

Now the Burmese tragedy. She calls me up again saying...I just read, they are having problems with water quality. I want to help. My first response is...just go there. You'll find something. But that's dumb. Its worse to send someone out like that. I've already done that. I've shown up and the place was a zoo, and my being there only made the chaos worse. I got frustrated. I might as well have stuck with the job I had. Now I need help! So I just shut up and listen to her complain. I don't tell her to give money, or volunteer locally. Been there, done that too. I know how frustrating it is to be told that.

So what can someone in her shoes do??