I’ve now transitioned from my interim role as CEO for Kuja Kuja, and am delighted that Sandra García has agreed to take our organization forward into a very bright future. Sandra has been serving as our superb “Global Operations Director,” and I couldn’t imagine a better choice – she’s a gifted leader and manager, committed and passionate about Kuja Kuja’s mission, and deeply experienced with our product and our customers.
Congratulations, Sandra!
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I’ll be supporting Sandra for some time, as an advisor. As I reflected about my months as interim CEO, about the revolutionary potential of Kuja Kuja in the humanitarian world and beyond, a series of metaphors occurred to me.
Like any metaphor, these ways of thinking about Kuja Kuja are false, or at least not true in a literal sense because, to some extent, any metaphor serves as a different “mental model” for viewing a particular reality from a new perspective. I think that a metaphor, if it’s successful, captures an unexpected view of a phenomenon, a symbol or representation that is not literally applicable. Good metaphors illustrate some aspect of the reality which opens our minds to see things differently.
In that spirit, I want to share three metaphors, each of which offers a different way of seeing our humanitarian work:
* We can look at our work with refugees and displaced people like running a food bank, a food pantry;
* Or we can compare our work to operating a cooking school;
* Or, perhaps, it’s as if we ran a restaurant.
Let me explain!
We Run A Food Bank
In this metaphor, humanitarian organizations, and their donors, provide services to people in need who cannot pay, or even play any active role: they line up for food, or for water, or for shelter, and we do our best to give it to them.
Of course, this “mental model” of our work is probably pretty accurate in the direst emergencies, after disasters or in war. Our task is to just provide food / water / shelter to people. As. Soon. As. Possible.
Many of our organizations still work this way, and many of our policies and standard procedures come from this world view, this metaphor. And many of our staff come from this emergency world, where the task is to deliver services in situations of conflict or disaster.
Nothing wrong with that, at least in the “direst emergencies.”
But what about other situations, perhaps not the “direst emergencies”? Does the “food bank” metaphor work in these cases?
No: We Operate A Cooking School!
These days, most of the time, our work is more like a cooking school, in which we involve refugees and displaced people in our work, hoping to teach them how to improve things - our way! - for themselves: like learning to prepare a new kind of meal in a cooking school.
This “empowerment” or “sustainability” approach probably came from the influence of international NGOs. My former world.
Let me explain...
As INGOs began to work in the humanitarian sector, they brought with them a set of values and practices that differed from “food-bank” approaches typical of the “emergency” world. At least by the 1990s, INGOs had adopted methods that enhanced the “participation” of beneficiaries, using tools such as “participatory rural appraisal.” And tools like the “logical framework” that were built to promote enduring impact over time, rather than just being focused on immediate need.
So today we see that many humanitarian organizations and, crucially, their donors, include strategies that seek to enhance the "participation" of displaced communities in INGO programming, that address the perpetuation of impact beyond the project cycle, etc.
We can’t think of this like a “food bank” or “food pantry.” No, this is more like a cooking school, where the “beneficiary” is expected to learn to prepare the new dish, so that the program that the INGO and donor have implemented, and its impact, can endure. Somehow.
I would argue that, in general, this “cooking school” approach was fit for the “MDG” world of the past. But times have changed, and continue to change… and, anyway, "MDG" world was all about "basic needs" mainly in stable, rural places. Nothing like emergencies!
Actually, We Run A Restaurant!
And, anyway, today, many refugees and displaced people are not actually helpless victims of disaster. In plenty of situations there are private-sector organizations that offer, or could offer, solutions. And, to say the least, many displaced people don’t actually want to learn to run programs created by INGOs and donors. Or set up their own organizations to sustain impact: they want to get on with their lives, in dignity and, hopefully, return home as soon as possible. As we would.
And another thing has changed, and continues to change: increasingly, donors are moving towards cash-based support: putting cash in the hands of displaced people so that they can decide what is best for themselves in their predicament. This shift is very promising, and offers the prospect of helping displaced people “get on with their lives, in dignity”: instead of being dependent on services provided by the "humanitarian sector," they can buy what they need.
This is not at all like a “food bank” or “food pantry”! Or even like a cooking school. This is more like a restaurant, where the displaced person is a customer, ordering food from a menu. And if the refugee is not satisfied, she chooses another restaurant next time!
It’s a whole new world, one in which humanitarian organizations will compete for customers and, if the population being served decides that the quality of food distribution, of the health clinic, of the water point, isn’t good enough (as, to be honest, most are not!) then their voice will matter. Not "participating" in our programs but, instead, as consumers, customers with voice and choice.
Which Is It?
Most humanitarian organizations today operate like food banks or cooking schools. And, to be clear, there are many situations where those metaphors describe reality accurately.
But the problem arises, big time, when the metaphors bleed from one situation to another, where they aren't accurate: where we look at our work as a food bank when displaced people are actually looking for a restaurant. Or vice-versa. That’s where we get into trouble, and are prone to applying methods that don’t fit. This is wasteful and disrespectful to human beings who deserve every support.
Because, more and more, treating displaced people as if they were standing in a queue at a food bank, or enrolling them in a cooking school, is simply inappropriate and wrong.
Take a look at the increasing prevalence of cash-grant programs being used by bi- and multi-lateral donors. Here we can see that we’ve already moved a long way into “restaurant” world, a reality in which we are called upon to treat refugees as customers, with voice and agency and dignity, not as objects of “food bank” charity or somehow as replicas of ourselves, as if they were INGO workers (or, somehow, part of "community-based organizations") implementing programs.
No, the time is coming - the time has actually come! - when humanitarian organizations must treat displaced people as assets, not as burdens; when we must abandon non-profit funding models that are not scalable; and when we must adopt new tools and mental models in our work.
If we don't shift, we will increasingly find ourselves behaving as food banks, or as cooking schools, when people are asking for the menu so they can decide for themselves. I think that's already happening.
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We’re entering a world of massive, unprecedented human displacement, one in which – unlike the post WWII years, in many cases – the tools and mental models we’ve used so far won’t and don’t work any more.
I feel a great sense of pride and excitement when I see how Kuja Kuja’s customers are discovering how our tools and approaches empower them, humanitarian organizations, to work in this new way.