Human Currencies

 Some of the blogs I have written in 2024 appear to be on a crusade against due diligence. In “Neocolonialism Through Due Diligence. The Price of Depending on Imperialist Institutions for Brokering Trust” I made the point that document based due diligence not only fails in its stated goal of building trust, but more concerningly that it divides communities by favouring those more experienced in complex bureaucracy. 

The blog’s main point is that paperwork based due diligence should not seek to replace the building of trust achieved through human relationships. In other words, paperwork is not inherently bad, it becomes a problem when it is used to short cut human relationships. Due diligence contributes to the mechanisation of relationships that is often specifically designed to help humanitarian actors avoid human relationships. This is done explicitly for many reasons, some of the reasons stated include the quest for scale (“you can’t scale an idea if you have to know everyone involved”) and the lack of trust within institutions - due diligence is needed to protect institutions from themselves just as much to protect them from their external partners. However, if priority is given to building trust through human relationships then paperwork that runs in parallel is not per se a bad thing. In fact it is usually likely that paperwork is needed to document a trust based relationship simply to comply with the standards of local authorities such as NGO boards or the Charities Commission. When looking at it this way the documentation of a relationship and the trust building in a relationship should not be conflated as being the same thing. People have been saying to me “we agree that we should build trust through human relationships but what should be the basic minimum of due diligence that we should depend on?” The answer is that two different forms of interaction and exchange are being confused. 

Human Currencies

The concept of a currency of exchange can help open these ideas out to other dimensions. We can think about currency in its broadest sense as a medium of exchange between humans. Aside from the obvious form of hard currency, financial transactions, there are other material currencies such as the exchange of goods and services. Documentation and accountability make up another form of material currency whereby receipts and audits are provided as part of a financial exchange. Sociology might offer three other broad categories of currency in societies- political currency, knowledge and data, and social and emotional currencies, the currencies of the most real human interactions. Political currency exists between the voters and the elected. Reputational currency, social standing and influence could be bunched into this category as a form of political currency. Knowledge and data gets a category of its own owing to the importance of transaction in exchanging information or ideas. Finally, the real human currencies go to depths of human interaction that cannot be efficiently summarised, but would include ideas such as trust, compassion, respect, mutual support and solidarity. 

The main problem we have identified in the humanitarian sector is that while material and data forms of exchange have been elevated, the currencies of real human interaction have been sidelined or abandoned altogether. The only way the humanitarian sector can be humanitarian is if human relationships form the main basis of exchange - otherwise it should really consider a rebrand. Due diligence, money and data can serve their own purpose but we should not confuse them with real human interactions, they are a different form of currency. 

Whose Vision is it Anyway?

 

Vision for Change - Whose Vision Is It Anyway? 

There are many problems in the world we would want to see change and the world’s challenges are all interconnected in one way or another. Since 2008 we have been learning and understanding the multitude of challenges faced by people who have been forcibly displaced, and we decided long ago that the vision for change we want to see as an organisation is the change that refugee communities want to see. People affected by forced displacement around the world face very different challenges according to their separate contexts as well as due to their various individual circumstances but there are also commonalities in the challenges and restrictions faced by refugee communities as well as commonalities in the way that refugees are able to imagine a better today and a better tomorrow. 

One commonality is the way that having been a victim of forced displacement, with the upheavals and tragedies that accompany such events, refugees find themselves with reduced rights and reduced freedoms and reduced agency over their lives. These reductions in freedoms and rights can be structurally embedded in national or international law, can be the consequences of social dynamics such as xenophobia, and can be connected to resources and exasperated wealth inequalities around the world. There is really no refugee context around the world where either some or all of these dynamics are not present. From the perspective of justice we do not feel that it is right that someone should have to experience such changes to their lives when they have committed no crimes, especially after experiencing the upheaval of forced displacement.  From a position of compassion and solidarity, we are driven to ensure we do better as a global community in including the most vulnerable. From the perspective of utilitarian ethics we do not believe that the current nature of the refugee response gives maximum benefit to us all as global citizens, not least because refugees are denied the opportunity of contributing in the way that they would like to global peace and prosperity. 

Over the last 15 years we have been a team informed by the visions for change that people who have experienced forced displacement would like to see. Central to visions for change are the ideas that communities of people affected by forced displacement should see a rebalancing of their rights and freedoms and access to the resources that would enable them to take back control of their lives and make decisions about their own futures. 

Needs and opportunities as defined by refugees start from the most basic needs of the most marginalised in their communities including those in need of emergency help in a time of crisis, the need to be safe, to have shelter, a healthy diet, good health and basic education. Refugees define a better future in terms of access to jobs and livelihoods, good learning opportunities, peaceful coexistence in sustainable communities. Definitions extend to the opportunities for future prosperity that refugees see with refugee and hosting communities developing together with integrated progress towards shared dividends, with community members of all backgrounds able to enjoy fulfilled lives. At Cohere we have heard and experienced these expressions of a better future time and time again and indeed we have seen many examples of when these visions for a better future have become a reality. In our sector this success is captured in the sanitised word - IMPACT. 

But what we have also learnt is that it is the communities affected by forced displacement, and only these communities, who can define what success means for their communities. When someone from outside the community frames success on behalf of a refugee community and controls the outcomes and experiences for refugees then there is a key element that directly contradicts the vision for change that refugees want to see - decisions forced or imposed upon communities, even with the best intentions, impedes that same community of their right and their wish to be able to make the decisions themselves that affect their lives. 

A refugee response that is led by people affected by forced displacement (and this includes the immediately hosting community) is the only appropriate means of achieving impact and achieving the individual visions for change for refugees. Also, insofar as the response is refugee-led this shift in power is part of the end itself because in the process of leading the changes in their communities refugees are better able to access the rights and freedom of agency that forced displacement has curtailed. But, it is only an end in itself if upholding the agency of refugee leaders simultaneously serves to shift power to the most marginalised in a refugee community who don’t have a platform to air their voices or stand in a position of leadership. 

We need to recognise that the rights and freedoms of every individual have to be considered in relation to rights and liberties of everyone else around them, and in every community, rights and liberties will clash. Someone’s right to not be offended, for example, will clash with their neighbour’s right to freedom of expression.  It is theoretically possible that a refugee leader’s right to lead and make decisions on behalf of their community will clash with the right of the individuals in their communities to make the decisions over their own lives or their right to be included in refugee-led programmes. In other words it could be possible for an organisation like Cohere to support an objective that seems like an end goal - shifting power to refugee leadership- while at the same time further limiting the rights and freedoms of individual refugees in controlling their own lives. In such a situation we are making a choice to support one person’s vision for change over another’s. 

Why is it Cohere’s responsibility to consider this? Some, including some refugee leaders, would argue that this whole question is not Cohere’s concern because there are enough refugee leaders who have proven that they prioritise the needs and visions of the most marginalised in their communities in the most inclusive way, and indeed there are structures of refugee leadership up to the global level designed to best channel support to inclusive leaders. These entities should be the ones to choose whose rights and visions should be considered as part of the refugee response. We do and will align our work with these initiatives -  but as long as Cohere exists and we have an element of influence to exert, every decision we make must be a decision that takes into account all the people that decision will impact, even if, or especially if, that means deferring day to day decision making to refugee-led decision making structures. 

The good news is that of course many refugee leaders are listening to and making decisions with all their community members and prioritising the needs of the most vulnerable, creating a buy-in for aligned visions within the community and in partnership with hosting communities. To know how to best exert our influence towards bringing about this alignment really depends on Cohere listening to and being led by a broad and diverse array of voices, so that we can be informed by the visions of the most marginalised in any community, whether they have a pre-existing platform for leadership or not. It also means that Cohere cannot shy away from having influence as an ally, we just need to be clearer as to whom we are allies to. Lastly, we need to think about who Cohere is when we say that Cohere is exerting influence and to create clarity on the outwardly rippling rings that make up the concept of Cohere as a “team”.  Exploring these questions will be central to this theory of change process. 

Conclusion 

Individuals, communities and leaders in contexts affected by forced displacement able to communicate and work towards aligned and integrated visions for change. This is what we want to see. This is happening and it would be good to see it happen more. How can community visions for change be more aligned and more inclusive to all voices? How can barriers to this be reduced? How can the communities access the power they need to have this agency so that their futures are not being imposed on them by someone from the outside, who may not have their best interests at heart, or may even have cynical or self-interested motives behind the decisions they impose on refugee populations? We will try to address these questions collectively before contemplating what Cohere’s role could be.

The Concept of Giving and Donations in World of Forced Displacement

 As Cohere embarks on a journey of internal reform and shifting power we are also asking ourselves questions about the appropriate roles and responsibilities of donors and funding intermediaries in the refugee response. In this blog I call for approaches that uphold engagement, understanding and solidarity as equally important and the concept of giving. 

There are clear causal links between global wealth inequality and forced displacement. Past colonialism was explicitly wealth extracting and the scars of colonialism are etched into today’s conflicts around borders and resources. Today, to add to on-going neocolonial extractive global systems, the wealthiest countries are the biggest consumers and consequently the most responsible for the climate crisis that will forcibly displace hundreds of millions of people in coming decades. 

The majority of people who are forcibly displaced need urgent humanitarian assistance. Their needs must be met by people who are less vulnerable and more prosperous than them. Refugees aren’t wholly dependent on the globally prosperous, and not all need assistance for long, as there are unrecognised resources within refugee communities and the communities immediately hosting them who are often not beneficiaries of global wealth injustices. However, the unavoidable fact is that when people are forcibly displaced they usually depend to a certain degree on other people choosing to help them.

Today, virtually all giving to refugee communities is based on choice. The choice of donors to give to a particular cause, the choice of governments to spend taxpayer money on addressing the challenges of forced displacements. Despite the fact that those who have benefitted from global wealth injustices have a moral obligation to share their wealth with those affected by global inequalities, there is no compunction to share their wealth. There are currently no legal systems that I know of in which refugee populations could sue the globally wealthy for the world’s injustices and demand reparations to compensate for their experience. (Perhaps it could be something someone might try one day in the wake of on-going attempts to demand reparations for slavery and war crimes.)

For now, refugee communities need people to choose to give, and this creates a power dynamic where the giver has power over the receiver - has power to determine elements of someone’s life over which they have no control. This power exists whether the giver is a professional donor agency, a government donor transferring taxpayer funding, or an individual donor giving their own money. The power also exists if the “giver” is an international NGO that has received the funding from another donor and is passing on that funding, of course while taking a significant cut to fund their existence. It makes sense for refugee communities to be connected  most directly with the original givers, such as when refugee-led organisations receive funding directly from donors, rather than as downstream recipients of a long chain of intermediary humanitarian agencies. Currently, less than 1% of funding allocated to refugee responses is controlled by refugee led organsations, and one of the reasons for this is the incredible wastage of resources that fund humanitarian agencies who may eventually go on to channel (some) funds to refugee leaders. 

When donors are connected more directly to refugee leaders, humanitarian funds are used more efficiently. Cohere is trying to make this happen through the platform we co-launched, Reframe.network, which already enables donors to give in such a way that 100% of their donation will be received by refugee leaders. These donors may choose to give out of a sense of altruism or generosity, and hopefully others give out of sense of solidarity, that as human race we have to all move forward together. Some may give out of a sense of collective responsibility for the situation we find our world in today, and still others may interpret their level of privilege as unfair and a consequence of an unjust history, with a view to playing their role in rebalancing privilege and justice.

We would hope that individual donors would not give as a way of grandstanding, or as a tokenistic gesture to mask a perpetuating a power imbalance. They would not give with one hand, with the explicit intention of extracting with the other in the way explicitly espoused by  government aid strategies.

When individuals make a choice to give, especially when their motives are genuine, they are expressing an important freedom and part of that freedom involves the right to choose who to give to and how to give it. At the same time we should remember that refugee led organisations (RLOs) are also in the position of choosing how to spend these resources on behalf of the communities they serve, knowing, as we do, that they don’t use the funds directly for their own personal benefit. They need to make decisions on behalf of communities whose same freedoms and rights have been suppressed by the experience of forced displacement. RLO leaders are in the challenging position as interlocutors between the original donors, and the community recipients of aid and their varied rights and entitlements. 

Aid moves in a chain from the original donors via RLOs to the recipient communities and all three entities should be engaged creatively in the process. This is firstly inevitable, because unless donors have agency over the funding they choose to give, there is nothing to force them to give it (for better or worse). Secondly, it is fair that all three entities are able to express their own positions within the chain of aid, they have the right to be involved. Thirdly, in my opinion the re-balancing of injustices and inequities will be far more effective when we build up a sense of community. The donors should be invested not just in the transfer of funds, but invested in building understanding in and empathy for the causes they are supporting as a broader strategy for preventing some of the world’s problems. 

What should be the role of international organisations in this chain of funding? Too many organisations build their business model around taking a chunk of this funding as it makes its gradual way to refugee communities. When this chain has multiple nodes and bottlenecks we end up in a situation where far more aid is being spent propping up aid worker salaries than reaching refugee communities. Sometimes this is an implicit business model, such as fundraisers and project development teams being rewarded for their ability to generate income for their organisations. Other times this strategy is explicit, with phrases such as “we need our jobs too” being overheard in the sector.  

Instead the main priority should be to facilitate the flow of funds as directly as possible between original givers and refugee communities. For Cohere this would mean that when at all possible the funding should bypass our bank accounts and go directly from individual donor to refugee led organisation, and this is very much our approach, such as via www.reframe.network. 

A laudable additional example is Give Directly, the organisation that gives a one-off cash transfer to every household in a defined geographical area. They pool all funds they raise, with the clear explanation that donors are not choosing who the money is going to, because the funds will simply go to everyone in a village, district or refugee camp. This approach would appear at first glance to be even more efficient than Cohere’s in transferring funds to refugee communities, although in practice Give Directly have to use aggregators such as RLOs to help them identify all the households and make disbursements in refugee hosting areas. They also pool the funds at some, albeit comparatively efficient, cost and at the same time exclude the donor from any engagement in aid beyond the act of giving, something that I would argue does not help build a community based on solidarity. Conversely, the act of investing in social entrepreneurs could arguably be framed as an act of enhancing the agency of a community, by enabling innovators to build a platform that could grow to more than what a one-off cash transfer could achieve for a community, including scaling humanitarian funding or commercial investment in sustainable projects.

Another fascinating position is that of Adeso, the African NGO led by Degan Ali, who in turning down institutional aid from government donors have converted their annual revenue from a $25M+ NGO to a $3M revenue NGO, arguably achieving more for the sector in the process. Adeso goes further by urging the international aid community to stand back to allow local and national governments to lead the refugee response and all the service delivery of aid, urging them instead to use their large budgets to lobby the global north countries they are headquartered in to stop perpetuating global inequality.

I fully back Adeso in this line of advocacy. It would be shocking to imagine a large NGO providing all the services to refugees and asylum seekers in Europe,  rather than the state, so why should it be different in the global south? I also understand the logic and applaud the success of Give Directly in cutting out most of the inefficiencies in the flow of aid. However, I fear that both approaches could give an excuse for the privileged, those who are benefitting from an unjust and unequal global order, to think they are doing their bit and that topics like the global refugee crisis don’t directly affect them.

This is why at Cohere we are creating channels for donors to not only give towards refugee communities, but in the process learn more about the realities of forced displacement and about the people impacted by the inequalities of today’s world. Ultimately this will mean that donors have some influence over which organisations receive funding but they will also be more engaged with a worsening global refugee crisis. Now is not the time for giving a small portion of income and moving on with life, and it is not time for a display of power. There will be 117 million forcibly displaced people by the end of this year and before long the global refugee crisis will negatively affect everyone on the planet if it doesn’t already - this trend will only be reversed if we see ourselves as one community built on empathy and solidarity. Everyone has to be involved. 

To learn more about how Cohere is bridging the distances between refugee communities, refugee leaders and potential donors all over the world visit our website, and learn about the RLOs and their specific projects on www.reframe.network. 

Trust and Funding Locally-Led Initiatives

Trust, or lack of, is often cited as a significant barrier to localising humanitarian aid and channelling funds directly to local leaders. What is behind this?

Large NGOs are seen as trust-worthy recipients of large sums of international aid funding. This is one of the major reasons why international aid funding going to local actors has reduced from highs of 4% in 2020 to an even-worse 2% in 2021 - the other 98% is going to well-trusted international actors. By my assessment, most NGOs are well-trusted because they have been able to pass thorough due diligence processes with various layers and supposed fail-safes. But every layer is fallible and the more layers you have, the higher the chance that one layer is a weak-link. The only way to really trust an NGO is to go directly to the people they claim to work with and hear what they have to say. But institutional donors don’t do this enough. Instead, they trust a flimsy system of verification, that is more based on collective accreditation by the donor’s peers, than on the accreditation by the communities they are trying to help. This is particularly the case with emergency humanitarian funding, where verification is more an exercise of being asked “did you spend the money?”, than “what difference did you make with the money?”.

 

If donors went directly to the communities being served by refugee led organisations (RLOs) to understand their work they would see amazing things. My hunch is that if both RLOs and NGOs were assessed only by the communities they work with, RLOs would come out as more worthy of trust than NGOs. RLOs are embedded in their communities and as such they are accountable to their communities. They live similar lives to the people they work with, so they’re more relatable than outsiders arriving in large vehicles with foreign views of what should or should not be changed. RLOs and their leaders are there for the long haul, while outside actors have a reputation for leaving a community high-and-dry after a short-term intervention. 

One of the major reasons donors are reluctant to give funds to RLOs is because there is a “lack of trust” and this is an issue that is brought up openly. But whenever lack of trust is discussed, it is always qualified by saying that there is a lack of trust in both directions - suggesting that RLOs also need to trust donors more for the funds to flow. To me this is clearly a veiling of what is really being said - donors don’t trust RLOs. Would an RLO turn down donor funds due to not trusting the donor enough? It would have to be a pretty extreme case. It is true that RLOs don’t have enough trust in the donor and NGO community, and this should be changed, but that isn’t what is stopping the flow of funds. Perhaps if they dig deeper they might be faced with slightly more confronting reasons why there is a lack of trust from RLOs towards donors. 

Donors should be more open that it is their lack of trust that is a barrier to providing more funding to RLOs. 

Since donors claim to want to give more funding to RLOs and trust is given as a major barrier, they need to explore why that is the case. If RLOs, who are the most accountable to their communities for the work they do, cannot pass levels of verification that their other funding recipients can, the donors need to think about whether those verification measures are the right ones or have any validity at all. 

If donors want to hit the target of 25% of funding channelled to local actors it is upon them to find new ways to overcome and counter this lack of trust and initiate ways to accredit grantees based on verification by their communities. 

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In the meantime, RLOs should continue to work on complying to standards set by donors, with support from partners like Cohere. They can also find ways to open up access to their communities and the views of their participants through engaging and persuasive communication channels, such as www.reframe.network . RLOs can use funds from donors who are already committed to funding local humanitarian actors, such as Open Societies Foundation, Bosch Foundation, Segal Family Foundation and Porticus to invest in the ways they prove impact and bring the voices of their community to a wider audience. 

Who owns the ideas?

 

In protracted refugee contexts the aid sector need to stop deciding HOW the lives of refugees should be improved. We need to break down the monopolisation of ideas.

In emergencies forcibly displaced people’s lives are turned upside down. They need help from others, often they need help to survive. When people are at their weakest they often need people to make decisions on their behalf, just so they remain protected, fed and sheltered – this is true for all of us, refugees or not. It is not a position any of us want to be in.

Within a remarkably short time, most people who have received emergency aid in the time of a crisis, transition to being able to and wanting to look after themselves and their own families and make decisions for themselves. Refugee contexts around the world are increasingly protracted. Refugee hosting areas, such as the camps and settlements in Kenya and Uganda, have developed into societies that have elements and characteristics that emulate any other society in the world, and in many cases reflect the characteristics of the societies in the countries of origin they have fled from. Most refugees (though not all) shifted from a position of pure dependency to relative self-reliance a long time ago, thanks in part to emergency response interventions reaching them at their time of greatest need.

But the humanitarian aid sector has struggled to appreciate what this means, and at times refuses to accept it at all. If a group of people are in the position to make the decisions that affect their communities, why don’t we let them do so?

In January 2012 I visited a village called Rugari in East DR Congo. It still stands as the most beautiful place I have ever been, perched half-way up a semi-active volcano overlooking a verdant tectonic landscape. There were a few soldiers with multifarious uniforms hanging around but no representation from any other kind of institution like NGOs or the UN. I met the mayor of the village, Eric, who shared with me the development plans that were unrolling in the village.

     Taken from Rugari, Eastern DR Congo

In March 2012 the M23 rebellion, sparked by the likes of war criminal Bosco Ntaganda, swept through this part of Congo. I have not been back to Rugari but I hear it still hasn’t fully recovered from the trauma of that time. Every single inhabitant was displaced and most fled to Uganda, though some, such as Eric, remained in IDP camps outside Goma city.

Rwamwanja refugee settlement in 2012 – 2013 was the host of an emergency response, an emergency of hundreds of thousands of Congolese refugees fleeing to Uganda from the M23 war. I didn’t go there at the time but I remember hearing about the desperation in Rwamwanja while in agency meetings in Kampala. When I did go to Rwamwanja in 2015 I met many people from Rugari, including some who knew Eric the mayor. It seemed that all the refugees who fled Rugari ended up in Rwamwanja. But by 2015 the refugees in Rwamwanja had, on the whole, already transitioned from dependency to self-reliance. They were demonstrating the remarkable resilience of a population who had picked themselves up after the multiple conflicts affecting the region since the early 1990s. Now in 2021 these same people are developing their own community, and what is more they are investing their time, energy and resources into improving the lives of the local Ugandan population too. These are people who know how to get their lives back in motion, but in practice the humanitarian system still limits the agency they have over their lives.

                                  Refugees from around Rugari now innovating in Rwamwanja

In recent years the humanitarian aid sector has pushed words like “participation”, “localisation” “accountability” and “partnerships” to the fore. This is fuelled by the collective realisation that people affected by conflict should be involved in the decisions that affect their futures, especially since the refugee contexts have become so protracted (though it should be noted that there is resistance even to this). This has certainly changed the structure of refugee responses. Refugee leaders are involved in implementation of humanitarian aid interventions, but the nature of their role would usually be best described as “sub-contracting”. This is because however involved refugees might be in humanitarian implementation, the ideas come from above, and ultimately are dictated by donors. Transitioning power over decisions and resources will go no further unless this brick wall is removed and claims of “localisation” will only ever be lip-service to what the concept should really mean.

It could arguably be justifiable for a donor to develop their funding programme based on what they see as the biggest need. You could argue that they have a broader perspective than people on the ground and are party to evidence that shows one problem to be bigger than another. For example, data will show that fewer girls are accessing education or there is not enough iron in refugee diets. If a donor or large NGO is passionate about addressing these specific problems then that is understandable (after all Xavier Project used to be thus), but it will be impossible to claim that the intervention is led or owned by the community. Frankly, this consequently means that the results of the project are unlikely to be sustained far beyond the duration of the funding programme too (yes Xavier Project has been there). The intervention will not be led by the community because it was not their idea – it was the donor idea.

Calls for proposals by donors, large or small, vary in specificity, but the funding is (virtually) always specified in one way or another, and is also available only to implementers who meet hard and soft criteria (such as confidence in humanitarian language). In 98%[1] of cases funding goes to large agencies who add to the idea laid out in the funding programme –it is not really their own idea at this point. To give an example, a funding programme will highlight a priority of reducing school drop-out rates (this is their idea) and an implementer will add to details to this idea in terms of what they intend to do to reduce drop-out rates. Once funding is secured the agency might approach the community for their “participation”. Paradoxically (and we have been guilty of this) they might tell the community that this is their project and that they should now take ownership of it.

To me it is the monopolisation of ideas by humanitarians that is most concerning, over and above the monopolisation of resources (which will one day change too), partly because the solutions to changing it seem to be so much more straight-forward – just stop coming up with the ideas if you want the changes to be owned by the community.

Some will say this will lead to nothing being done or poorly researched programming, or chaos.

These assumptions are wrong, and they are being proven to be wrong right now. In 2020, when humanitarian aid structures were themselves thrown into chaos, it was the refugee leaders at the front of the humanitarian response, doing more (with less) than any other humanitarian actors. The same people who had regenerated villages like Rugari in Eastern DR Congo in times to crisis, were steering their new communities through times of crises and reaching the most vulnerable. The assumption that programmes will be poorly researched and less effective than interventions from larger actors is being proven wrong by the nascent but rapidly scaling trend of refugee led research, with the Refugee Led Research Hub in East Africa pioneering scalable approaches. Finally, the assumption that lots of smaller refugee led initiatives working together will be chaotic is being countered by the impressive examples of co-ordination and networking among refugee leaders, from the Global Refugee Led Network down to national, sub-national and camp level chapters of refugee leadership collaboratives.

Other factors holding back this transformation of the aid sector include a lack of imagination around what is possible. I often hear people from large agencies say, “refugee leadership is fine in some sectors like informal education or livelihoods, but surely they are not going to lead in areas such as shelter or healthcare or protection?”. Have you asked refugee leaders what their thoughts are on this question? They will tell you that refugees already do lead in these sectors and would do more so if given the space to. Either that or they would be happy to support hosting nation authorities in integrating services into state systems.

Another factor is that humanitarian aid workers fear redundancy if the power of idea generation is taken away from them. This might be a natural if unjustified fear, but if they want to keep busy and relevant there will be a huge amount of work to do in capacity sharing, facilitating the flow of funding, supporting with co-ordination and advocating with communities around new ways of working.

Meanwhile, donors are coming round to this idea with select pioneers leading the way and showing what is possible. After years of unsustainable humanitarian interventions, funding cuts in the aftermath of COVID19, and with movements to de-colonialise humanitarian aid, donors are starting to look for alternative models of funding. One option is going back towards funding the hosting state more directly, such as transitioning refugee education into hosting national systems, and this is good, especially if the authorities are open to collaborating with community leaders too. But at the same time the tide is slowly turning towards community led ideas in protracted refugee crises. Instead of dressing up business-as-usual in jargon such as “feedback” and “participation” the whole sector needs to embrace this now. Let’s find the refugee leaders and support them in their own vision for change in their communities.

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[1] https://bit.ly/3xv2trj Figure 3.2

Remote Learning

A guest blog from my colleague Maureen Ouma who is part of our admin team at Xavier Project

As a mother of four currently working from home ,I’ve been required to multi-task by taking up the role of teacher on many occasions to my children and by doing so , I’ve encountered numerous challenges especially because they are all at very different levels of education. I was used to helping my children with their homework whenever they return from school but I never envisioned that someday I would be required to monitor and assist them In their studies on a daily basis without the help of the teachers, but this is the new normal ,for me and many other parents for now anyway.

 Currently the schools in Kenya have adopted an online learning model, where they send classwork to the learners via either Email or WhatsApp to the Parents to relay to the kids and for this to work effectively, the children need access to internet services as well as access to devices such as smart phones and laptops. All these are things that I did not budget for and therefore I have to had to share my devices. This has been a bit of an issue, simply because I have had to try and balance my work obligations whilst doubling up as a teacher and sharing the same devices with my 3 children who are of school going age has enabled me to truly appreciate the art of patience. In addition to this access to the internet has exposed my kids to a lot of content. It has been really hard for me to monitor the content that my kids access and on several occasions I have really had to sit them down and discuss what they are searching online. On more instances that one they often decide to explore when I am not around and therefore require constant monitoring. In my experience turning our home into a classroom has had its own challenges.

 Creating the right learning environment for the kids has been an uphill task compared to school where they run on a per set schedule, being at home is different, it has taken so much out of me to explain why they need to try and stick to a certain way of doing things .My kids attention span and learning environment is affected by numerous factors such as their friends who come looking for them so that they can go out and play to neighbours who play loud music not to mention various activities going on within the neighbourhood that attract them . From my observation studying from home requires self-discipline which the kids lack, I’ve noticed they are really struggling to establish a daily learning routine in that whenever my husband and I are around they study, but when we step out they also stop studying and start playing despite the numerous warnings and threats we give them. This makes us reprimand them every now and then and has ended up affecting our relationship with them. I have to admit that I too have fallen short of my own expectations as sometimes I can’t resist the urge to send my kids on errands. I also have a toddler whom they baby sit while am busy or not around , and In so doing they end up wasting a lot of time helping me with the chores in between their studies and this also affects their concentration .

 On occasion I also find it difficult assisting my children when they have a questions that require clarification, I’ve forgotten most of the things they ask about and find that I lack the proper way to explain others in a way that they would understand easily, especially for the one who is in kindergarten who believes her teacher is the only one who knows any of the content even if it’s just shading within to lines. All in all I would like to mention that having my kids learning from home has given me as a parent the opportunity to understand their strengths and weaknesses in the various subjects .I have noted areas where they need assistance and I am able to make plans on the possible ways of resolving them. On the flipside, there is also a lot of time to bond with the kids and make learning more interesting .Who knows maybe I should branch into teaching……hahaha .

Localising humanitarian aid has been shown to be even more urgent by the COVID-19 crisis

This blog was originally published on www.xavierproject.org 

on April 9th 2020.

The refugee led agencies we work with, during normal times generally either worked in Education and Livelihoods, but all of them are now, during COVID-19, pivoting their work to providing basic human needs to their communities. I say “normal times” with the proviso that all the refugees we work with in East Africa are living in a semi-permanent state of crisis, with uncertainties and concerns around their asylum/refugee status, sources of income and basic needs such as food, healthcare and security. 

Uncertainties on an individual level are magnified several times when looking at the perspective of uncertainties on an organisational level. Existential threats come at refugee led organisations from every angle. I have observed refugee led organisations unable to pay staff salaries for up to six months at a time. I have witnessed government officials doing everything they can to shut down a refugee led initiative. I have seen refugee led organisations get evicted for being a year behind on rent. I have seen management teams hollowed out overnight by leaders leaving without warning due to security issues, or even being locked up. I have even seen donors renege on contracts and commitments to refugee led organisations, saddling them with debts and despairing beneficiaries. 

In view of challenges like these it is all the more remarkable that people who have gone through the gutting experience of displacement would choose to put their communities first and take on the mantle of humanitarian aid themselves. I am permanently in awe of the leaders of our 12 partner organisations and have learnt more from them than any other experience at Xavier Project. 

Resilience and resourcefulness are particular characteristics that are common to all of our refugee led partner organisations. For me to imagine going for months without paying salaries is incomprehensible and I don’t know if I would have the mental resolve to continue operating through such a situation. However, our partner agencies regularly do it and achieve it by drawing on the immense reserves of community solidarity they have built up over years of generous service. Their constituents, including their employees but also others in the community, are willing to make sacrifices to ensure their good work continues, with the hope of seeing better days in the future. 

Refugee led organisations understand the needs of their communities, because the leaders are experiencing similar needs. What do their communities need most right now? In one refugee hosting location food prices are rocketing and have already doubled on February’s prices. Fear is stoking food hoarding and this puts pressure on demand. This in turn hikes the prices. One of our partner teams want to buy food in bulk from outside the settlement and sell it slowly at cost over a prolonged period, so that for their constituents food prices will be stable and they will know what to budget for. They will also get their original money back and be able to recycle similar initiatives. This for them is the most strategic move right now, and who can question it? 

This is an organisation that focused primarily on youth education, but they are diverting their efforts to food at the moment. It is not easy to imagine an international NGO being so flexible and adapting so rapidly. In fact, due to decrees from national governments here, most international NGO staff are not in the vicinity (or even in the country). 

What is an unprecedented crisis to most of us humanitarian actors, is to refugees and the organisations they lead an additional challenge to be overcome, not so different from many of the other challenges they face. While the rest of us are restricted to quarantine (and rightly so) the refugee led agencies are showing that against the odds they not only keep up with the humanitarian response but they can lead it. Imagine what they could achieve if they could overcome the massive challenges they face in running organisations. Imagine if refugee leaders could be given the support structure they need and deserve in running large projects in a permanent state of uncertainty.

This is what Xavier Project wants to see happen. We have been saying that localisation is urgent, but more importantly it is the “how” that we are perfecting. We have developed a capacity strengthening and sharing course, with version one printed with funds we received when winning UNHCR’s Innovation Prize. It is always being added to, and the most recent drafting covers community initiatives in times of social distancing. Almost all the content in the course is based on either suggestions from our refugee led partners, or experiences of Xavier Project staff in working with refugee led organisations over many years. (It’s open source, so please use it and share it.)

Meanwhile, other organisations are doing great work to strengthen capacity, such as Urban Refugees and their course for refugee led organisations working in urban areas, and Street Child’s work developing a course for local agencies working in emergency contexts. The Global Refugee Led Network has quickly been growing advocacy efforts on behalf of refugee led organisations and The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network is leading the charge from the enterprise angle in Europe.

There are several others and there is more we can do. Capacity is only one element of localisation. More has to be done to strengthen chains of accountability, to promote principles of partnership that value the assets of all parties, and to accelerate mechanisms that can see worthwhile funding reach refugee led organisations without too much red tape. While more of us get to work on this it mustn’t be forgotten that we still need a wider consensus that this way of working is vital from across the sector. The COVID-19 crisis is showing that shifting power to refugee led organisations is not just a good way of working – it’s the best way.