Making 1millionshirts a Success in Ten Easy Steps

The last few days were quite emotional as the “twitterverse” came alive with the voices of many offering an opinion on the serious matter of some dude from US of A wanting to send a million t-shirts to “Africa”. Some of the noise, produced in a wide spectrum spanning from “constructive smugness” to aggravated snark, reached even the sleepy metropolis of Moroni where I have recently returned after a culturally significant and high impact trip to “Zim”.

Regardeless, as I take in the many angles of this story, along with a humble breakfast prepared by my trusty “domestic help”, I thought I should also throw in some unsolicited advice for the nice people who came up with this idea, in the hope that the vast experience HRI has in matters of aid may perhaps benefit this or other such innovative ideas in the future.

1. Before going live with the next big idea, you are well advised to get in touch with a HRI affiliate "on the ground" and arrange for a "needs assessment". All it takes is a reasonably paid consultant to go down to “Africa” and see what’s going on, take some pictures, write a report.
2. After that you want to call together all “stakeholders” and discuss the report. The trick here is to pull the old “recommendations monte” and by the end of the event it should be obvious that the recommendations were made by a “committee” (helpful language: so and so working group, on the base of the obvious gaps resulting from the assessment reports recommends mobilizing resources for the identification of 1 million t-shirts to be distributed by HRI affiliate in the logistica cluster along with other NFIs). That simple detail is very helpful in managing eventual PR issues as you upgrade to the position of someone just implementing what the committee has decided.
3. You have to ensure the government, as a main stakeholder, participates in this workshop (think lunch), after which you will visit the Director/ PS/ Minister and obtain an official letter in which the government requests so and so many t-shirts, urgently; if you are smart, you could even pull out a "t-shirt state of emergency" situation, which will qualify you for CERF funding.
4. Once the recommendations have been “formulated” and “approved” by the stakeholders, you approach donors and source some funds, not forgetting to include crucial overheads and costs of marketing and distribution;
5. It gets a bit tricky once you find the t-shirts, as every intern knows t-shirts can only be distributed if the logos of all “stakeholders” are appended very visibly. This minor inconvenience can be resolved by contracting (following due procurement procedures) a company that can either silkscreen or embroil the respective logos on the t-shirts, along with a well designed and creative slogan (my back used to be bare, now it is covered, thank you HRI).
6. To increase "perception of value" you could also contract a company that can shrink wrap the t-shirts after they have been embroided. This phase, along with the business of the warehousing and distribution strategy will come in handy in your final report where you claim success under “supporting income generating activities”;
7. Your next problem is targeting. You need to avoid that t-shirts get distributed randomly or that somebody will god forbid grab more than their share and sell them, falling in the sad trap of exploiting his brethren. This can be addressed by developing a number of activities, to include “edutainment”, “exercises in community inclusion and participation” and of course life-saving workshops. All participants will receive one t-shirt, with the better ones (polos) distributed as prizes during games.
8. If there are too many t-shirts and you "face challanges" in distributing all in the given timeframe, what you do is you first put them in your central warehouse (upgraded to comply with WHO standards for storing t-shirts) in the capital, after which you take them out in batches that you then deposit in regional warehouses. You do your counts on the bin-cards in the main warehouse only and once that is empty, job done.
9. All you need to do now is finalize your first draft of the report and present it to the same stakeholders for approval – ensure you take many pictures under HRI banners, which will then be pasted in the final version of the report that will subsequently be DHLed to all participants. 
10. You will print more reports than necessary, and deposit them in the now empty central warehouse. You can then hand them out to any person you run into that wears one of your, easily recognizable, shirts.

And this is how, friends, wisdom and experience can make the difference between a PR disaster and a “best practice”.

Roughing it in Zim: cholera, cocktails and rock'n'roll

It’s been a while but here I am again, typing on the sleight while chairing a life-saving workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe. Or “Zim” as it is affectionately known among those of us who try hard to show nonchalant familiarity with the region.

A Zim old-timer, I have had the pleasure to be invited back here by a coalition of HRI affiliates, who understand that in principle donors appreciate like no other to hear that the work they have funded during the cholera outbreak in 2008 is slowly been wrapped up in lifesaving lessons learned workshops, known in local development circles as “post mortems”.

And so, here i am, sitting at the panel in front of a packed room decorated in by the strict standards of the Plastic-Chairs-Covered-In-Cotton-Condoms School of Interior Design. It is a bit too early in the year to enjoy the legendary jacarandas that have made Harare such a beloved destination among HRI consultants as well as intrepid backpackers, but the plastic flowers on the panel table, contrasting nicely with the hue chosen for the conference banner, make up for it, as do the tastefully arranged sets of water bottle,mints and purple napkins spread meaningfully among the participants.

As one of the presenters was getting into the second part of her presentation – appologizing to Mr. Chairman for running behind schedule before starting the section of challenges and lessons learned from the role played by the organization she represents in the unprecedented “scale-up of aid in the wake of the outbreak” - in my peripheral view I caught a glimpse of the garden, where a young unkempt looking girl was being removed from the premises by a dignifiedly clad servant. She couldn’t have possibly jumped over the electric fence so her presence here must be a case of human failure (which has become too common in ZIm, what with the brain-drain and all). I made a mental note to mention my concerns about security to the hotel manager before making a point to personally close the curtains, to avoid witnessing further scenes that would distract participants from the topic at hand.

With the room freshly darkened by my inspired gesture, the powerpoint slides become more vivid and meaningful and I have allowed myself a rare moment of reminiscence.

Zim really is an ideal HRI location and the past few years have been good to us. For the average HRI employee, Harare is a suitably comfortable location, featuring a vast choice of dignified accommodation as well as a solid infrastructure and a vibrant expat community, served by what may very well be the region's best "domestic support", conveniently accomodating due to the current unfortunate economic realities. To the outside world however, Zim is a very rough place where access to the most basic supplies is a rare and expensive luxury while oppression, poverty and despair consume a once-glorious country making the misery index soar to very respectable levels.

Both camps are right of course, which is not only good for HRI staff’s street-cred, but also for that small matter of hazard pay and the monthly shopping trips to Johannesburg and R&Rs to Cape Town.

Sure, inconveniences such as having bank accounts in Botswana or, at least over the last two years or so, the difficulty to source quality petrol with suitable octane content as recommended by the manufacturer of our brand new fleet of Ford Explorers (purchased during the cholera outbreak with emergency funds made available to HRI by one of our main donors) are real and they do diminish the quality of life ever so slightly. But somebody has got to do this job and we take pride in the readiness of our staff to rough it when there is no other way.

Anyhow, I’d better intervene and bring the proceedings to an end. The organizers of the currently ongoing Harare International Festival of the Arts have gracefully offered us a few VIP tickets and I really must have a nap before cocktail hour.

HRI Success Stories. Today: groundbreaking work from CelebrAID

We all agree: celebrities are awesome and they are crucial to the process of "development" as we know it. HRI is naturally aware of the ability of a good celebrity to simplify development realities and create a useful stereotype about big-eyed undernourished children “back in Africa“ that have not known affection.

through my work I have myself hosted my fair share of celebrities visiting HRI programs in this or the other camp, shelter or other miserable location and have experienced deep transformations within, from the privilege to stand modestly in the background and hand out the occasional disinfectant tissue so they can ostentatiously wipe a tear and/ or discretely rub a hand, an elbow, after the dreaded skin contact so necessary to any choice photo opportunity.

Like no other "tool", celebrities succeed in bringing important issues to the attention of the masses so that the issues become part of the “popular culture”, commented on facebook, lamented on twitter or reflected in sound advice given about role-modeling, as shown in this example taken out of a copy of a popular guide book for intrepid travelers:

You will agree that such impact is worth a lot to HRI and our donors so it goes without saying that money does change hands every time a celebrity “gets involved”. Money well spent of course, and it is also a pleasure for our more impressionable international staff to get to be patronized by a celebrity’s vast and demanding entourage, while HRIs "local staff” gets to be chased around by what looks like a group of stereotypical decadent caricatures of everything that is wrong with the "west".

But what of the celebrities themselves?

Well, today’s success story shows that HRI & affiliates care about them. As first movers in the area of “celebarketing”, HRI has an affiliate fully dedicated to “harnessing the power of celebrities to create an enabling environment for empowering the powerless” and today’s human interest story is just about them. Do read on and shed a tear if so inclined; and, should you want to share your own success story, remember that HRIs call for abstract remains open.

CelebrAID: The Humanitarian Appeal for Celebrities

Britney (not her real name) sits quietly in a dark corner of a Haitian village hut and studies her hands. It's a rare moment of quiet reflection for a girl otherwise cast into the shadow of the spotlight.

Britney is one of America's countless vulnerable and most-at-risk celebrities.

On a normal day, Britney will wake up early in the afternoon and begin her arduous daily routine. She climbs out of bed after everyone else in the house is still fast awake and she boils her own water to make a cup of coffee. This is a dangerous task for a girl with a crippling hangover. Almost immediately, she remembers she has children and checks in with her nannies to ensure they will be out of the house for a little while longer. Each day she walks 0.000003 miles to fetch water for her bubble bath. She has very little to eat.

Still, life has improved dramatically for Britney. When CelebrAID found Britney 3 years ago, she was in dire need. She was about to lose her mansion, her children, and her career. She had been exploited endlessly and her name had been tarnished in her Hollywoodian community. We found her in celebrity rags. We approached Britney and let her know that there are people out there who care about her and who want to see her image improve. At first, she was wary and confused, but soon enough, we gained her trust and sent her on her first field mission to a refugee camp in Colombia.

Today, the girl in Haiti is a very different one. Britney emerges from the Haitian hut and into the sunlight, to be photographed cradling a child. "America is a tough place for a young female celebrity" Britney says with wisdom beyond her years. "There is an entrenched culture of slut-shaming and if any female celebrity dares to drunkenly expose a glimpse of her vag or french-kiss another woman on stage...her chances of being treated with respect significantly decrease. Thankfully, CelebrAID is there without fail to provide PR-disaster relief" she announces in a calm manner as she manages to walk in a straight line on one of Port-au-Prince's few roads cleared of debris.

"For so long, I had no idea I could claim the right to aid. I thought the right to aid was reserved for elite celebrities that were well-educated and had a reasonable understanding of world affairs that was reflected in the dignified manner with which they carried themselves, despite their fame and fortune. But CelebrAID taught me the principle of non-discrimination - that ALL celebrities EVERYWHERE have the right to participate in 3-day overseas missions to pre-arranged, thoughtfully selected field sites that demonstrate "model" programmes that make a difference in the life of the poor. No celebrity should be deprived of their right to engage in awkward conversations with poor people they will never see again. Even the most vulnerable caste of celebrity should have the chance to put on a stern face with a furrowed brow and nod thoughtfully as they relay their story of visiting Pakistani earthquake victims at a NY-cocktail party" says a teary-eyed Britney.

In addition to CelebrAID's rights-based approach to celebrity disaster relief, another way CelebrAID has been able to reach out successfully to a whole new generation of stars, is through the power of role-modeling. This is especially important for female celebrities. Old-timer celebrity, but relative new-comer to the aid scene, Madonna, illustrates this point.

"Girls like us don't need a hand-out - we want a hand-up", Madonna thoughtfully explains. "Preferably when that hand is formed into a fist," she adds. Even for the infamous "brilliant business woman" it took decades to realize the massive power of celebrity aid. "I saw Bono doing it, I saw Geldof doing it, but it didn't really click until I saw the world see Angelina doing it" she says as she happily bounces her adopted son on her lap.

Indeed, CelebrAID harnesses the technique of "behavior role modeling" to inspire at-risk celebrities to gain confidence in themselves. "I mean, here I was in LA right, and I was thinking to myself...you know, if Cameron Diaz can take photographs with poor children in the vast slums of Nairobi, then so can I," beamed Nicole Richie, proudly displaying her new photos of herself with a small group of Kenyan schoolchildren.

While some international charities prefer to partner up with dignified celebrities like Cate Blanchette or respectable musicians like Angelique Kidjo, CelebrAID specializes in celebrity disaster relief - daring to go where the need is greatest for celebrity reconstruction. CelebrAID focuses on the LDCs (Least Developed Celebrities) even though it would be easier to work with more reliable artists that have spent years legitimately honing their craft, such as Kate Winslet.

"Working in disaster zones such as Lindsay Lohan is so much more rewarding than working in predictable and safe places like [Denzel] Washington" reflects Sarah Witman, a long-time employee and spokesperson for CelebrAID. "Yes, all celebrities have the right to aid, but it's much more satisfying touring with Paris Hilton and seeing the look on her face when she is finally able to distinguish the difference between the region of West Africa and the country of South Africa. I knew right then and there that I wanted to dedicate my life to ensure each and every celebrity has the chance to gain a basic education."

Thanks to generous donors like yourself, CelebrAID boasts Nobel-Prize-worthy results. CelebrAID increased the celebrity participation rate (CPR) by 500% in just the last 5 years! With such a dramatic increase in the use of CPR, CelebrAID is seeing the celebrity mortality rate (CMR) plummet to levels approaching zero! "We are confident that within 2 years, we will be able to report near-universal enrollment of celebrities in aid projects in ever single country of the world!" exclaims Witman. "This would NOT have been possible without the very generous time the average hard-working American citizen volunteers every single week - often daily - tracking the every going-on and whereabout in the lives of celebrities. By showing you care, they care too."

CelebrAID is not without its critics, however. The Malthus Institute released a controversial report last month that questioned the long-term sustainability of celebrity spread. "Yes we are pleased to see CMR decrease so drastically, but no one is asking how indigenous cultures will cope with the influx of celebrities as the CPR far outstrips the CMR. We believe CMR is being artificially deflated by the activities of INGOs such as CelebrAID and issue strong caution that soon aid workers might be overburdened and without capacity to respond to so many celebrity needs" warned a Malthus spokesperson.

We are at the end of our tour with Britney in Haiti and she seems content and at peace. She is holding the little hand of Veronique, a 10 year old Haitian girl. Veronique is wearing a beautiful white dress that was distributed to her by Britney; she looks up at the star and smiles shyly. In a barely audible voice, Veronique whispers:

"I am very happy for Britney. When she first came to Haiti she seemed a little nervous but after us children told her not to worry about her problems and that everything would turn out ok, she really cheered up. Thank you CelebrAID for giving Britney the chance to come and take pictures with us."

Veronique walks away, still with many of her own problems, but happy knowing that she was able to make a difference in the life and publicity ratings of even just one celebrity.

How can YOU help? Here are three simple ways you can take action TODAY. Like our celebrities at an Oscars after-party, they are easy:

1. Become our fan on facebook and follow us on Twitter. In the 21st century, facebook-friending and Twitter-following are the two single most important ways we will talk about changing the world.
2. Talk to your friends and family about the need for celebrity aid. You can download the inspirational story of Amy Whinehouse at our website. The more you care, the more celebrities care too.
3. SPONSOR A CELEBRITY TODAY! For as little as the price of a manicure a week, you can restore hope and a sense of purpose to the life of a depraved celebrity starting now! As a sponsor, you will receive a photo of your celebrity, a daily gossip email, and progress report. We also encourage you to send fan mail to your celebrity to thank them for their efforts and to let them know that you are watching and rely on them to guide your nearly non-existent political interests. Let them know that because of their cause-involvement, you have heard of a new country though you are not sure where it is exactly, and that because of their tweet, you spent one minute on CelebrAID's website before going back to Perez'.

Thank you CelebrAID for taking Celebarketing to another level!

Short HRI Q&A and Words of Wisdom on Emergency Response Funding

For whatever reason, this blaag seems to have received increased attention recently, which, while not unpleasing, has brought along the occasional unsolicited email from well-wishers, haters and inquisitive types. The latter are the most fascinating and I thought I take the opportunity for a very unusual step out of character and address here a few of the common questions raised by representatives of this group, to avoid any "duplication" involved in having Nathan the intern respond individually:

Q: Do you work in development?
A: No, I just learned stuff from repeatedly watching that movie where Angelina is the suitably dressed selfless HRI employee working in some refugee camp in "Africa".

Q: What is your opinion on the link between <put whatever you fancy here> and development?
A: I don’t have one. Except if you are a donor of course, in which case Nathan the intern will get a draft proposal going, pointing out the obvious interdependence between the two and HRIs readiness to make the link more meaningful by empowering stakeholders and building capacity to harness the power of the <put your pet subject here> to impact the poor and vulnerable and reverse the cycle of poverty by innovative strategies.

Q: Why do you choose to write a “spoof” blog instead of participating constructively in a debate about <put whatever you fancy here>?
A: Did you just call me a poof?

Right, with that out of the way, let’s get back to more important business - a very quick one today as i am planning a lobster-binge over lunch, to celebrate my return to Moroni after many a week of wanderings, complete with having being "stranded" in Paris due to that islanding vulcano thing.

If you feel a bit overwhelmed by recent earthquakes, plane crashes, landslides and famines that may have led to the proverbial “donor fatigue”, you should pity the professional emergency type who, having missed the opportunity to score a good-for-street-cred job in Haiti is forced to follow the thinning stream of cash to all sorts of lesser emergencies just to put bred on the table.

Luckily HRI, having seen our share of emergencies, has developed useful coping mechanisms to identify and secure sufficient resources to keep our “emergency” presence uniformly spread across the globe. A helpful factor of course is the Central Emergency Response Fund – CERF, a funding mechanism mentioned right here a while back, that has the helpful rule stating that in order to become eligible for funding, any emergency must be recognized and formally declared as such by the respective government.

Many whiners in our business have refered to this clause as dangerous because it allows dodgy governments to refuse assistance to groups in emergency that they don’t like. Whatever, I say. For those of us inclined to look at the full half of the glass, the beauty is that with HRI extensive network of partners and affiliates working closely with governments across the globe to “build their capacity”, it is a small matter to get this or the other government (dodgy or not, who are we to judge) to declare the small landslide here, minor cattle epidemic there as an emergency, after which HRI immediately liaises with the CERF people to get that "rapid response" cash in to put some plastic sheeting in place, buy a few goats.

Stuff like that keeps our world class emergency response team busy and HRI in the headlines - good for us, good for business the sector .

HRI fundraising secrets: writing a succesful proposal

It is still award season and many of our affiliates remain busy working well into the night to finalize proposals to ensure our activities will continue uninterrupted for the next funding cycle.

Spare a thought for those who bet on the fallacy that a proposal will succeed or fail based on the soundness of the activities proposed, for their survival in the cutthroat realm of reality will be short and sweet and their minor careers devoid of much satisfaction.

For those who know better here is some useful advice from HRIs vast experience:

First you need some local partners. You will find some good advice in HRIs guide to successful partnerships, and in a nutshell, the secret is to ensure that all local organizations that do something useful and have visible results are committed to exclusive collaboration with HRI. Donors like to be seen as funding local networks - “ownership” and “sustainability” are the appropriate wank-words here, and we all have to adapt to a world increasingly inclined to ridicule the more obvious clichés of the beltway bandit. You want them in your “partnership” also that you can report their results as your own during the next “reporting season”.

You don’t need to worry, the donor will never fund such local organizations directly as there is general agreement that they “lack capacity to absorb funds” – HRI will gladly do that for them.

Then, you need a slick team of lobbyist types in the capital of the donor who can reliably sleaze their way into the process walking that thin line between “seeking further guidelines” and “compromising procurement process”. Do not underestimate the relevance of this phase.

It helps a lot if, in country (“the field”), you have at least one or two staff who succeed in to combining a solid professional relationship based on respect with the “head of mission” – having children in the same school helps here as does frequenting the same cocktail circles. These situations provide useful opportunities for shared smugness about the lifesaving work we are doing together as well as bonding conversations about the heat, the craving for superior coffee and baby spinach salads and the unreliability of the local staff.

If in your country there is a local organization lead by someone with a dramatic story – an ex sex worker say, a former refugee or an HIV+ person - you are in luck. Throwing in a “bio” of this person in the proposal, written in a way that HRI does not necessarily deny any contribution to their “finding the way” will hit some important spots with the bureaucrats processing your application. Besides, after the award has been granted, you can burn significant amounts of money on having this person attend international meetings where they can “tell their story” in front of note-taking voyeurs before returning to the front of the room where they are expected to remain silent but smiling with dignity while HRI experts talk about her past suffering and what that means to her.

You will have to acknowledge that there are other organizations out there with whom HRI & affiliates compete for this funding. “Competition” is not a very popular word in our circles so the trick is to find a way to “partner” with them that keeps everyone happy. The best way to do that is to have a “coordination” meeting where, in front of a map, all the head of these organizations would decide who works where, dividing so to say spheres of influence. A good sign is when some participants will attend by phone and you know the meeting is productive if you hear phrases like “these are my MARPS (acronym for “most at risk population”)” or “so and so province is ours”. Expect a bit of horsetrading here, covered in the fair sounding argument of “avoiding double counting” and do become suspicious if many local organizations are invited to attend this particular coordination meeting (one or two are ok though, to cover "ownership", as long as they dont talk too much).

Making the budget is a pretty straight forward affair – you start with the bottom line (which you set as a few dollars under the maximum amount for that particular call for proposals, making sure that the overhead formulas are locked on the spreadsheet) and work your way up by adding random numbers until the totals come together nicely. Experience and access to the right information make or break the success of this process, as knowing the right favourable percentages for each section is crucial. With most donors it is safe to assume that staff costs have to be minimal (10% is a safe percentage) and the way you achieve that is by ensuring that these lines are covered by the right mixture of expatriate staff and drivers (“support staff”), while the rest of the people involved will be budgeted under “consultants”, in the operations section. The Consultants line benefits from much more “flexibility”, going up to 80% of the total with many donors.

For obvious reasons, it is a good idea to ensure that the person who finalizes the budget is not the same person as the one who fills in the “sustainability” section in the narrative – in HRI that is usually Nathan the interns’ section as he is pretty good at copying and pasting it from past successful proposals (why re-invent the wheel?).

Writing the actual “narrative” usually involves filling in complex forms that make no sense to anyone, developed by wannabe academics making a living as born-again bureaucrats in teh donor's headquarters. The secret here is to err on the side of optimism and promise loads of “downstream targets” and much "involvement of local partners" with significant "capacity building" components. Not to worry, after the award has been granted the whole thing will be diluted through endless “realignments” and “restrategizing processes", which are spun in such a way as to shed on HRI the favourable light of “flexibility” and “adjustment to local changes” while ensuring that all measurable commitments are conveniently replaced with vague concepts like "enabling environment" and "system strenthening". Indicators are helpfully chosen along the lines of “t-shirts distributed” and “people trained” which also helps with finalizing the “workplan”, in addition to further assuring you that all those t-shirts & baseball caps will benefit at least one local small or medium enterprise, fairly procured of course through a competitive bidding process.

Well, good luck y'all with proposals and do reach out to HRI affiliates for further guidelines – your chances of receiving some funding will significantly increase if you partner up nicely. Also, may I remind you that HRIs call for abstracts remains open and we are looking forward to more flattering, feel-good human interest stories from our hard working affiliates out there.

HRI Success Stories. Today: Stroke the Children on the groundbreaking "Stroke don't Spank" campaign

You may remember HRIs recent call for abstracts/ human interest stories. Thanks for all the awesome submissions – Nathan the intern (known to the outside world as "the panel”) is going through them and, among those that he bothers to read, he is short-listing the ones that he assumes would be more to the liking of the donor community, for ticking all the right boxes. I should add that Nathan is not paid at all, his only reward for doing all the unpleasant tasks in the office is appearing world-exploring to his facebook friends, in addition to the unrealistic hope that one day soon he’ll score a proper job with HRI. He remains motivated though and diligent in completing his tasks.

If you did not submit your abstract/ human interest story/ success story yet, you can still do it as submissions continue to be accepted (we really love to hear how our affiliates out there get the job done and, perhaps, touch a life or two).

Anyways, without further ado, let’s hear it from Mr. Jean Baptiste Clamence, Executive Director of Stroke the Children (STC), a HRI affiliate on the “south-asian subcontinent”

 

Dear Dr. Kurtz,

As a proud recipient and inefficient administrator of HRI's funds over the past 15 years, we at Stroke the Children are delighted to send you a summary of lessons learned from our successful "Stroke Don't Spank" Campaign. Hand Relief has supported Stroke the Children to make a positive impact on the lives of children and families, and the local economy throughout South Asia.

A brief summary of our key achievements in 2009, made possible through HRI funding:

• Stroke's and HRI's joint Publication "Harnessing Women and Girls" provided key revenue for Mustafa Publishing House and allowed Mustafa enough income during this tough financial crisis to take on his fourth wife.
• Through our series of 5 high-level regional workshops, we filled out a total of 200 sheets of flip paper that were then transcribed into a 40-page "Stroke Don't Spank" Workshop Results paper that included 20 tables of workshop results separated into 6 columns (Problems, Solutions, Stakeholders, Actions, Main Responsibility, Key Dates). The government authorities will now be responsible to follow up on these agreed-upon actions so that we at Stroke don't have to. In this way, we will also not need to be held accountable for results. We expect that the annual monsoons in 2010 will sufficiently divert attention away from the incomplete processes and serve as an appropriate challenge that disenabled the promised outcomes.
• The Stroke Don't Spank Campaign has been extremely successful to date. Through this campaign, we set up a website that allows users to select whether they click on the "Stroke" icon or the "Spank" icon thus showing their support to end violence against children. In this way, visitors to the site were not mere passive observers, but were enabled to take real action (clicking on the icon) and express themselves. Visitors were invited to sign an online petition from which we will feed the "# of visitors signing petition" data into our M&E indicator matrix.
• The Stroke Don't Spank Campaign has to date, photographed and video-taped three pilot sessions of rural men and women sitting under trees and listening to a facilitator. While we have typed "Ministry of Women and Children" into the matrix under the column "Main Responsibility" to replicate these pilot sessions across 5 regions, Stroke decided to conduct 3 initial "pilot" sessions so that we could have enough visual evidence of activity to populate our promotional materials (website, brochures, donor reports, and powerpoint presentations).
• In these pilot sessions, participants were outnumbered 3-to-1 by NGO officials, the local Prefect, local media, and village dignitaries that were all standing around fanning themselves and congratulating each other on the success of the approach, before the facilitator even begun the 45-minute session. During this session the facilitator explained to the rural villagers who have an average of a grade 2 education, that there is a difference between gender and biological sex and that gender is something that is created. She spent the first 25 minutes asking the participants gathered under the tree to name tasks that are seen as "female only" and "male only". This segued into discussions of domestic violence as being something we can stop and then veered into child spanking. The participants, who work in back-breaking agriculture under the searing sun all day long, listened patiently as the Oregan-born facilitator spoke kindly and scanned the group to see the "aha" moment. The unmarried, childless facilitator then went on to explain that discipline is important but that it does not need to involve corporal punishment. The pilot session was a huge success because after only 10 minutes of discussing why we must Stroke and not Spank our children, the men and women gathered under the tree agreed unanimously that yes, they and their entire ancestry have been going about child discipline in the wrong manner and that from that point forward, instead of raising their hand, they would count to 10 and take 5 deep breaths, before reacting. In merely a 45 minute session, the entire socio-cultural fabric of a community was revealed as illegitimate and people that suffer from chronic worms and whose feet are constantly cracked from walking barefoot, accepted the error of their historical ways and agreed that they from now on would squeeze the branded Stroke Don't Spank Campaign yellow stress balls to release their frustration.

Finally, and most importantly, our key finding from this experience is that by focusing our advocacy efforts on the offensive behaviours of society's vulnerable (the poorest of the poor), we are able to detract attention from the fact that we are impotent to express outrage toward the most serious human rights violations. By focusing on impoverished rural parents' child discipline practices, we present ourselves as outraged against abuses and taking action to eliminate them...while all this while we don't once ever publicly decry the Government Leaders, local Mafia Networks, the corrupt Police, anti-Unionists, or Big Business for the myriad ways they oppress human rights, jail and torture activists, and block economic progress for the poor. By making next to no reference whatsoever to the gross land rights abuses inflicted on the landless poor - something which we are completely helpless to tackle and indeed personally terrified to do - we instead highlight sensational and horrifying child spanking stories to our constituents in donor countries. We thus gain the financial donations while never having to actually address the underlying politico-economic landscape that creates stressed-out parents. Through photographing workshops and taking note of 2 or 3 participant quotes - we are able to demonstrate that change is possible, without ever having to change anything.

 

You may have noticed that this format does not follow your request for an abstract but is rather a few bullet points. In the first sentence, I erased the word "abstract" and replaced it with the word "summary" so that I could avoid the necessary work it takes to fashion a proper abstract. I thought you would appreciate this as its very much in line with the spirit of our work.

 

Once again, without Hand Relief, we would not be able to truly....Stroke the Children.

 

Very truly yours,

 

Jean-Baptiste Clamence

Ex. Dir., Stroke the Children

En route to Bishkek and all you ever wanted to know about certain HRI refugee assistance programs

Been a while, but I am back at the Grand Hyatt Dubai, letting my hair down and indulging in impeccable room service while waiting for the connection to Manas International on Kyrgyzstan Airlines, departing tomorrow. For whatever it's worth, business class on Kyrgyzstan Airlines is nowhere close to business class on Turkmenistan Airlines by the way, HRIs favourite airline in Central Asia and the first choice of any discerning traveler in the region. For lovers of details, retro leather seats make all the difference.


Anyway, the decision to swing by Bishkek was taken very spontaneously, over by a few dirty martinis consumed in the Emirates Lounge where yesterday, on my way back from New Delhi, I was killing time in the pleasant company of a respectable Swiss entrepreneur in town with business he wouldn’t give too many details on. I couldn’t help noticing that he was carrying last week’s Economist and, for some reason, a book with nursery rhymes – he wouldn’t give too many details on that one either.

Anyway, we were exchanging expert opinions on pros and cons of skiing in Kyrgyzstan versus Chimbulak off Almaty and from one to the other we ended up talking about the recent unfortunate incidents in Bishkek which have brought fond memories of the days of the Tajik-color-revolution-that-never-happened and a certain not-so-subtly-handled-incident-in-Uzbekistan, both of which have provided useful opportunities for HRI to considerably expand its Central Asian portfolio under a newly found donor interest in a traditionally ignored region where pretty much everything goes.

And that’s why I am headed to Bishkek. Like elsewhere in the region, this is the sort of situation where a few donors will throw money around to compensate for continuing to do business as usual with nasty governments, geo-political strategy and all. I foresee life-saving workshops and capacity building in human rights and right based approaches, I foresee a need to develop gender tool kits and I foresee some lucrative work around refugees.

I may have said it before: HRI & affiliates really excel in our work with refugees and there are several reasons why I am particularly partial to HRIs refugee agenda. For one, this is one of the few solid arguments for HRI to maintain humble presences in the developed world, in particular say in Scandinavian countries or the UK. Here’s how we pay the rent:

Mentioned governments have to balance a natural dislike for immigrants with a number of inconvenient international obligations that include one exotically called non-refulement which essentially forbids them from deporting people to places like Iraq or Somalia. Another inconvenience is a rather active public opinion that would react unpleasantly to hearing that their trusted governments deports people to Haiti. Additionally, these governments also reckon they have too many refugees already so in principle they refuse most asylum applications for technical reasons that no one really understands, while crafting clinical euphemisms to refer to rejected asylum seekers in ways that would remove any element of vulnerability: “economic migrants” is HRIs term of choice, or "irregular migrants" is another one, embraced by governments who know very well it is easier to maintain one’s asylum credentials by funding Angelina & co to publicly hug miserable looking people on TV rather than actually fulfilling any inconvenient obligations. It may be a bit more expensive but damn, she is hot isn’t she?

What to do however with all those people that cannot be deported due to such technicalities? This is where HRI comes in with a typical helpful plan constructed on a sound argument which goes like this: all people have a "fundamental right to return” to their countries of origin, and HRI, as a humanitarian organization is ready to help the government support these poor people fulfilling their rights.

It so happens that most of them are conveniently detained indeterminately for being caught without a visa, which obviously limits their “universe of choices” significantly. They are briefly visited by an HRI official in the high security prison where their handcuffs are slightly loosened by the “law enforcement officer” (whose capacity is built in related HRI activities), just enough to allow them to sign an official application for Humanitarian Voluntary Return and the rest as they say is logistics – get a charter, put them on a plane, whatever.

The government loves the deal because the spin allows them to appear compassionate and helpful – which their enlightened citizenry find pretty cool and something worth opening one’s purse for. The additional association with HRI takes care of inconvenient legal technicalities and provides a nice opportunity to whitewash what are essentially illegal deportations and make them appear like the acts of a supportive, caring government. in press conference, the misfortunes of these people are deplored and straight government speaker faces make mention of countkess thank you notes received, for affording them the opportunity to return “home”. The idea that someone may leave a nasty place with many a financial and personal sacrifice on a journey that often takes several years and typically involves leaky boats, dodgy facilitators and plenty of significant loses before having the opportunity to claim asylum just to happily and voluntarily choose to return beck to square one does not strike anyone as unreal as long as HRI is there to vouch for the humanitarian nature of the whole affair. Since no courts are involved, HRI is helpfully covering all necessary legal advice, avoiding to burden what are essentially simple minds with difficult to comprehend (and impossible to pronounce) terms such as non-refoulement.

You may wonder what happens to these people once they voluntarily return to a place where they have nothing left and where unemployment is in the upper 90% ? Well I am glad you ask – sometime soon I will tell you all about HRIs cutting edge vocational training and “reintegration” programs, generously funded by a coalition of Scandinavian governments plus the UK.

Secrets of succesful "Partnerships"

You may remember that one of my recent posts was written en route to New Delhi where I was supposed to give a presentation about HRI best practices in income generating activities. The presentation was a success and I have managed to get through my 68 powerpoint slides in the allocated 15 minutes (more or less of course, in our circles it is considered good form to “run behind schedule”). The Q&A session was also pretty good with several participants asking pertinent questions about the upcoming tea-break. Participants also received color hand-outs of my presentation, along with an electronic copy on a CD containing our newsletter and a folder with a few hundreds relevant pictures of red-eyed people in HRI polo shirts giving presentations under HRI banners all over the world.

The presentation was part of a groundbreaking Training of Trainers (ToT) Training, that HRI is currently implementing as part of a regional initiative funded by one of our more significant donors. Although we do not really have a presence to speak if in India, the award was granted to us based on our impeccable lobbying and our ability to put both the local donor “mission” in India and their capital at ease with our demographic and linguistic familiarity.

Sure, there are hundreds of local organizations in India who do a pretty good job with “income generating activities” but it is only natural that HRI would come in from outside to “coordinate” all this well intentioned but sporadically implemented work. For a reasonable fee (negotiated globally with the respective donor to be ever so slightly above your average INGO fee) we are ready to bring our coordination expertise to the “income generating” sector in India while also saving money by not establishing a permanent presence there.

What we do is first we hire a reasonably paid consultant (I am thinking to "sole source" my yold buddy, Ed) to fly in and complete a "comprehensive assessment" of all the “stakeholders”. That is an HRI euphemism for playing some necessary power games with the “partners” to make sure they understand who calls the shots. The reasonably paid consultant will compile that information by outlining the best looking processes from some of these “local partners” before giving the report to another reasonably paid consultant (“the trainer”). The trainer, who for the sake of objectivity has only a vague theoretical understanding of Indian realities, aquired by thorough lecture of the on-flight magazine on the way in, looks at the assessment report and conveniently identifies those processes that are already in place with some of the “partners” and develops training materials (“the curricula”) focused on exactly the processes already in place.

In the next phase, we find a bling place to organize the training and invite the “local partners” who are already doing the work that involves the processes in question and pretend we train them in “innovative processes” during an "intensive" 18 day residential training. We’ll then send them home with a well stamped certificate and take credit for all their work onwards, while we expect them to change all their accounting and reporting structures in order to qualify for the money that we give them as part of our “prime-sub partnership”. Given the different reporting/ financial cycles between us, the donor and the “partner” we will remit the money to them with an average of eight month delay and, just to keep them on their feet, we will sometimes ask them to apply random budget cuts which we justify with vague arguments involving donor requirements and the fluctuation of currency exchange rates.

Unfortunately, not all of these partners see the brilliance of our work all the time or the important addition that we bring to the sector. Just recently one of them regreted our invitation for the ToT training motivating their refusal to participate with a spurious argument that they already have said processes in place and none of their staff can afford to be away from their work for 18 days to attend our training. In our formal response, conveniently copied to the local donor mission, we expressed regrets that the said partner chooses to prioritize dubious “political arguments” over a commitment to cooperation so clearly supported and facilitated by both the government and the donor agency. We also expressed regrets to hearing that the said partner refuses to use this TOT training as an opportunity to share their experience as part of the planed working group sessions and to reminding them that, as hard as it may be, we as sector leaders expect our “partners” not to allow their “egos” to be in the way of important activities in support of the poor and vulnerable people of India.

The letter prompted a direct call on my cellphone from the donor “mission director” who congratulated me personally for the hard work we are doing and our commitment to cooperation. He appologized for the unnecessary trouble and we finished the call on a friendly tone, with some chit-chat about the hopelessness of the “local culture” that encourages such unacceptable behavior as the one displayed by the un-cooperative partner. We agreed that we have to stick together as “strategic partners” as we brave the hostile attitudes of the local populace before promising each other to catch up during happy hour at the Taj later in the week.

During the same call, he also mentioned to me off the record that there is an upcoming “RFP” for SriLanka. For those who are not familiar with the lingo, "RFP" is donor shorthand for “loads of money to be awarded to an HRI affiliate”, so it was pretty useful information and I thought perhaps I should take advantage of being on the subcontinent already to pop across to Colombo and do some footwork. (No need to tell you that SriLanka is HRI territory what with all the post-war reconstruction not to mention the all the great “tsunami work” we’ve been doing there for a while now).

As I am writing this my trip to Colombo is already organized – will leave tomorrow early in the morning and use the opportunity to spend some quality time on the beaches in the south (where package tour fortresses have been successfully reconstructed, conveniently keeping the local citizenry away from the sea), discreetly but satisfyingly attended to by respectful hospitality personnel, many of them former fishermen trained in the high arts of waiting tables by an HRI affiliate as part of our flagship “income generating” work in post-tsunami SriLanka (project “info-sheet” heading: “Destitute SriLankans Given Second Chance to Dignified Life Through HRI Groundbreaking work in Ceylon”).

Then, next week I will have a series of meetings with HRI affiliate directors to get a better idea of who does what, who has what "core competency" and also identify “local partners” that could do good work without having the “capacity to absorb” large amounts of money. We'll then approach some of these “partners” and get them to sign exclusive letter of intent about their willingness to partner up with HRI for activities that could be covered by the mentioned RFP. Finally, when the RFP will be out, we’ll apply as “primes” without bothering to consult with these “partners” and then, once awarded, we’ll approach them and ask them to deliver whatever activities we want them to deliver. Not having too many other funding options (it so happens that donors like to avoid duplication) they will naturally agree and that's how, reader, you create the beginning of a wonderful “partnership”.

Of Dubai Layovers, Church Sex Scandals and "Saddlebacking"

So here I am, in Dubai, enjoying a leisurely layover en route to New Delhi. I am at the Grand Hyatt downtown, where Emirates put their stranded discerning travelers and where I was taken by the shuttle when it became apparent that I won’t make it on my connection flight.

As it sometimes happens, the business class was full – they did have some places on coach and for a moment the airline liaison person attempted to suggest I board in coach but one look over the Irish coffee in the lounge where we were having this conversation and she immediately organized the Hyatt voucher. Here I am, the international man of development, at home in DXB lounges, I am to fly coach to New Delhi and ruin my hard earned reputation? Sure I would if I was in a hurry or anything, but I’m not – I am on my way there at the invitation of one of our affiliates to give a presentation about income generating activities (believe me, I know a lot about that sort of stuff) and the conference won’t start til next Wednesday. Why would I rough if with the commoners in coach when I could put up with a night at the Grand Hyatt?

Never the one to argue with sound logic, here I am in my dignified room overseeing the infinity pools, pillow arranged by service beautifully enhancing my confort in the king size bed, a tray with half-eaten Beijing duck next to me, telly on. Perfect time to reminisce about my recent trip and a few current events.


Dubai airport, for starters, is my kind of place. They know how to treat their first or business travelers and the experience is even more delightful as you observe through the well-coated lounge windows the over-crowded jet-lagged masses, trying desperately to get some sleep on the floor while hugging their laptop bags. Whole families on holiday, refugees, migrant workers, cheap-flight connoisseurs en route to that postcard destination and bargain hunters are all rubbing shoulders with cell-phone shop owners from all over the world on stock-up trips and the occasional junior investor looking out of place, trying to sleep in a stiff Marks & Spencer suit on a bench specifically designed to make laying down impossible. The kiddie corner, with its enviable soft floor has been taken over by a group of Philippino hospitality workers while the Starbucks table are all occupied by what looks like a massive group of student-union rejects, but which are actually separate small groups of back-packers, NGO interns & volunteers crowding the wireless with long updates to their blogs. The “duty free” downstairs is haunted by zombies in elaborated funny packs on the look for cashew nuts and sugary drinks to keep them going during that golden watch bargain hunt.

Meanwhile, in the first class lounge, HRI executives on their to or from Afghanistan are catching up with the international press over sushi while dignified business people in full thobe & guthras chat about the latest consequences of the “crisis” with well perfumed investment brokers and their silent, dolled up girlfriends.

As I’m watching the telly and catching up with the lates news, my favourite story must be the mud hitting the fan with the most recent series of catholic sex scandals. I don’t want to be misunderstood – just because I am an observant pastafarian doesn’t mean I enjoy seeing our fellow institution having their skeletons finally taken out of the closet (for the gazzilionth time). But as a veteran of quite a few peace-keeping missions, not to mention plenty of other postings in the sort of places where the proverbial red line is thinner than we would care to admit, I have always been amazed by the apparent contradiction between the surprise that people profess when some scandal hits the press and the passivity-inducing consistency and spread of the knowledge of that particular scandal going on.

Raise a hand if you ever been in Kinshasa and saw a HRI vehicle parked in front of Savananna, complete with HF aerial and donor branding!

Raise a hand if you ever had a beer with the HRI affiliated Nepali army contingent in Dili at the Obrigado Barracks overhearing war stories from Bali!

Raise a hand if you were in Cambodia during the days of the HRI-sponsored UNTAC – no need to say more;

Raise a hand if you ever spent a night on the town in Djibuti and run into drunken army boys taking the edge off that tedious military routine!

Raise a hand if you had few drinks with the US troops in Haiti recently!

Are these hands perhaps the limbs of people who are outraged to read reports of abuse from refugee camps to karaoke parlors patronized by people linked to HRI directly or indirectly?

Are the people outraged to hear the stories of children abused by clerics the same who have sent their children to religious schools to keep them away from the “dangers” of the world? Parents who would rather have a dignified institution run by sexually oppressed men in frocks taking care of educating their progeny?

Finally, Saddlebacking anyone?

This just in: Excellent Experts sought for Parliamentary Reform & a look under the hood of HRI's win-win work in Turkmenistan

In our commitment to this or the other respectable value, HRI is naturally at the cutting edge of any well funded processes of “democratization” the world over. For instance, an affiliate of ours is currently recruiting “Excellent Experts in Parliamentary Reform”, for a gig in Turkmenistan.


HRI has been doing good work in Turkmenistan from the mid 90s (part of our "CIS Strategy" - in those days CIS was a donor euphemism for “former soviet countries that no-one can place on the map”) and I have personally spent many a delightful autumn day in the company of Father Andrew the local papa nuncio, (tasked with shepherding the 12 or so catholic souls in the country and, presumably, ensuring from a typically neutral position that all that gas is put at good use) playing ping-pong against the modern Ashgabat skyline and ruminating about the relative merits of the Turkmen melons superior we agreed, to the Afghan ones.

It was like M*A*S*H, on crack, in North Korea.

In those days, Turkmenistan was led to its glory by a visionary leader, a renaissance man with a taste in the arts and feel for history. The place was in many ways an ideal HRI location, and for a brief moment in the mid 90s we actually considered setting our headquarters there, in one of the then newly constructed skyscrapers where i was even offered and considered backhand shares by a friendly “government contact” (upon inspection we found it was a hollow structure, built just to enhance the quality of the skyline at sunset, so we made other plans).

Turkmenistan sits one of the biggest single natural gas reserves ever. It is also neighboring Afghanistan. Both these facts placed it pretty high on the priority list to receive generous aid from certain donors. For years and years HRI and affiliates have organized “training sessions” with “government officials” on democratic values and “right-based approaches”, in seminar rooms tastefully decorated with giant portraits of the late Mr. Niyazov, President for Life by the Will of His People and his Good Book, all the while wondering how to inform various local staff that their employment with HRI is retroactively terminated by virtue of their names being on a list of “relatives of subversive elements” submitted to us by our “government counterpart”, in a pink envelope with the notorious green seal (in the shape of Mr. President’s portrait, from profile, Cesar Style).

While members of the opposition were routinely denounced as terrorists before summarily disappearing (presumably hit by the president’s mystical powers), HRI Rights Based Approach to Development trainings naturally commenced and finished with quotes from the Ruhnama, the book that contains all that ever needed to be written, and, as practical exercises requested by the Ministry of Justice, the whole group was regularly taken in pilgrimage to the newly constructed Ruhnama Park, where we were all ritually bowing in front of the mechanically enhanced statue of the book, before stopping for a green tea at the end of the 45degree elevator up one mechanically enhanced golden statue of the great leader.

That great leader proved to be mortal after all and checked out sometime in 2007. After the shocked citizenry recovered from the tragedy, they voted his successor in as the second president for life, with a 99.9% majority in an "open" election. Another man of the people, a visionary and modernizer this one, a leader to be trusted to build solid, democratic institutions that can be further “capacity-built”. The head of another government to be supported in his efforts to “reform the parliament”, a complicated process in support of which HRI is bringing out the big guns.

And that’s how that vacancy is on reliefweb as I’m writing this.

To make things work smoothly, HRI has a number of private sector affiliates, consultancy partnerships as it were. These are essentially staffed by HRI old-timers plus a few slick striped-suited types in relevant capitals, to make sure the right amounts of lube are applied to the right wheels and joints of the bureaucratic machinery to ensure the necessary “resources” are being “mobilized”. These particular affiliates prefer to operate mostly in places that can be hard to point on a map and about which most people don't know the first thing.

Once the money is in, the affiliate sends in the “short term consultants”, for an assessment, which then identifies stakeholders and drafts an action plan. In the next phase, technical meetings are organized with the “stakeholders” and “lists of recommendations” are drafted. Sometimes, “third country experts” are being brought in to share best practices, after which the whole thing is wrapped up in a dignified “summit” at the President Hotel (government endorsed wiki page here), where I personally prefer to occupy the suite facing the Ministry of Natural Resources (the junior suite in the other wing offers an inferior view on some back street populated by depressing looking people moving around with donkeys). During the reception compliments are made to the government partners for the tastefulness of their golden President pins (all the rage in local fashion circles) while expats pat each other's backs over the success in managing to obtain visas for all the experts.

Finally, reports are printed, acknowledgements and appreciations are shared, group-pictures are taken, you know the gig. The rest of the money goes where it belongs, in obverheads, fees etc and the government of Turkmenistan is delighted to go around producing solid credentials about their "efforts" towards democratization. Meanwhile  the donor country enjoys improved talks about that gas and there you have it, another delighteful HRI win-win situation.

Research & Rescue Action Plan

As I leisurely walked into my humble but tastefully decorated office this morning, slowly digesting a dignified breakfast professionally prepared and served at my residence by two of my six “domestic helpers”, I beheld the HRI calendar on my desk (“if you have any questions about the content of this calendar please contact HRI” it says, under the touching picture with the big-eyed child, making one imagine a stakeholder calling: “I have a question about the content, how come August has 31 days, just like July?).

I beheld the calendar and realized that by the end of the month we need to provide one of our donors with the results of a research about the reasons behind gender-based violence in the Comoros. Except we don’t call the thing "research", we call it “M&E” because we know that our donors have a software that they run all funding proposals through and if they contain the word “research” they get automatically rejected, or at least, as was the case in point, the funding gets “restricted”. It’s actually an open-source spam guard software that was adapted for a reasonable price by a mixed team of IT and “programmatic” experts and is now “implemented” on all computers used by all members of the Grants commission at the headquarters of the respective donor.

This particular proposal was submitted in the financial year 2004 and it was compiled by Nikki, one of our interns at the time, hired since as a “project officer” based on her combination of Brandeis University degree and “experience in the field”, a box she ticked as a peace corps volunteer in Cameroon where, in addition to a ganja habit, she also acquired three words of French (one of them is “espece” and the other two cannot be printed in a family blog, in the words of one of our former employees), which consolidated her position as an HRI francophone country expert.

While the donor agency won’t fund “research” as a matter of principle, the feller who works for the donor at the local “mission” is particularly interested in “M&E” results because he hopes to put his name next to them so when former high-school colleagues in Ohio google him they find out he has published stuff which will obviously make that girl regret she did not go bowling with him back in 1983. He also doesn’t particularly like Moroni so he hopes a few publications under his belt will increase his chances of obtaining a posting closer to Pattaya, where he once spent memorable moments in the company of several talented karaoke artists. Meanwhile, the restrictions imposed on this research by the mentioned software need to be lifted but most of the budget has been “realigned” since, which means HRI is currently having a team of six permanent staff, three interns and a reasonably-paid consultant addressing some restrictions on money committed in 2004 and already spent years ago for different activities than the ones flagged by the software.

Naturally all people involved at the time on both sides have moved on and cannot be contacted anymore which makes the whole process even more interesting, while allowing all of us to just point the fingers ar vague “predecessors” while we try to figure out hhow we burry the whole thing under piles of papers. The fact that this particular donor is very much interested in “M&E” is not the same thing with their intense interest in “numbers of t-shirts distributed” or “numbers of stakeholeders trained” commonly reffered to as “impact indicators”.

Whatever the background, fact is there remain less than 2 weeks to complete this “M&E” process about gender based violence and, because we are go-getters, here is what we will do:
1. Nathan the intern will google gender based violence and Comoros;
2. He will then copy-paste whatever he finds into one document with a special focus on footnotes (“primary sources”)– we’ll refer to this step as “literature review”;
3. Make up a generic sounding story about a woman “whose name has been changed to protect her privacy”, as a believable “human interest story” and we’ll add some pictures Nathan took when he backpacked through east Africa on his way to Comoros.
4. Put together some vague references to cultural norms with references to islam;
5. Take the section “Expected Results” from the original proposal drafted by Nikki in 2004 and do a ctrl+F/ Replace All "2004" with "2010" and “will” with “have” along with some subsequent fine tuning;
6. Take a list of recommendations from a similar “M&E” process completed in nearby Madagascar and copy/ paste/ adjust them to Comoros;
7. Nathan the intern will then put all of it together in a “publication”, complete with the usual overexposed pictures of HRI staff under the logo and submit it to the duly procured printer.

Once all above steps are completed we will book the large conference room at the Itsandra Sun (which is to Comoros what the Sheraton is to Ethiopia) for sometimes in April and send out invitations for all stake-holders to attend the dissemination event. We’ll pick the date to be ever so slightly late, for credibility’s sake (as everyone knows when you get down to practice sometimes things get a bit more complicated etc etc) and we’ll ensure that he budget gets ever so slightly overspent – we’ll naturally offer to cover the diference ourselves, to show commitment (easily done by charging some staff time dedicated to this project to another donor) – that stuff goes a long way in increasing our funding next time around. We’ll print ca 20,000 copies of the report in high quality color and send many of them by DHL to regional and global “stakeholders”. We’ll then wrap it all up with a regional seminar at the Ellerman in Cape Town (a dignified long term partner of HRI), and call it a ground breaking success and a regional best practice. The whole thing being “M&E” of course will inform our programmatic decisions which means that we are well placed to apply for further funding and there you go, sorted.

Anyways, may I remind you all that we are still collecting “abstracts” and we are looking forward to host some quality submissions from colleagues out there.

Call for abstracts: HRI success stories/ be a HRI guest writer

For years and years HRI and our many affiliates have been working hard in all corners of the world doing workshops, seminars and engaging in various other activities that had massive impact on the lives of the poor and vulnerable and have, in the process, created and sustained vital industries of fake-ethnic eateries in dignified hotels and expat-only watering holes, to name just two of million other sectors essential to a decent life in the bubble.

HRI is naturally committed to exchanges of experiences and I personally believe that by sharing lessons learned and success stories we will become an even stronger and more “comprehensive” organization.

If you work for HRI or one of our affiliates (not sure? apply the “toolkit”) you must have some experiences you want to share, a lesson or two you have learned, a story you’d like to tell.

To facilitate the exchange of such materials I have decided to put out this call for abstracts – please email your story and over the coming days I will post the better ones right here, with the level of credit/ acknowledgement you request.

In order to select the best ones, I will ask Nathan, one of our interns (currently working on a team of eight tasked with compiling a global newsletter containing unreadable articles and underexposed, blurred pictures of HRI seminars, distributed straight to the spam folders of many of our affiliates) to skim over some of the submissions and pick the ones dealing with topics that are currently in favour with our donors. We’ll then select a few that refer to strategic countries for HRI and tell everyone the selection was done by a panel of “peers” based on objective criteria.

We’ll then put all of them in a “repository", which is another word for an obscure folder on our website, available for later (and unlikely) consultation to all, and call the whole affair a success in inter-agency exchange of experiences.

Please submit your “abstract” at alden dot kurtz at gmail dot com.

And please spread the word – for credibility with our stakeholders, it's important we can tell everyone that we had a very diverse pool of “abstracts” to choose from.

Ground-Breaking Work in Somalia - A Report

Somalia is again in the news and, as the executive director of an organization with significant “stakes” in "the horn", I feel I need to provide an overview of the great work HRI and affiliates are doing there, with the hope that the timing is good for donors to make the sort of commitments they always do when Somalia gets some news coverage. (Meanwhile we remain hopeful that the consolidated appeals will facilitated more much-needed funding for HRI)


As a measure of our organizational standards, in spite of all the hardship, HRI staff remain committed to our work in Somalia and continue to put up with the hassle of living in Nairobi on Somali hazard pay while their bravery stories of flying rusty An-24s throughout Somalia remain popular as ever with the crowd at “Crazy House” as well as with trophy spouse circles sipping lattes at Java House.

In Somaliland for example (a place that we officially prefer to refer to as “the north” fearing that any acknowledgement of an almost two decade reality will turn us into the odd-organisation-out and have negative consequences on our funding) we run a very “broad portfolio” of workshops and capacity building activities, striving to build the appalling capacity of our local partners. As elsewhere in Somalia, any very obvious failure that cannot be window-dressed in our reports is swiftly and naturally addressed by the “Clan Complexity Defense”, which is HRIs Somalia-adapted version of the reputable and irefutable Chewbacca Defense.

Our most successful program (part of our income generation package) is building the capacity of camel herders in “the north” to transition from herding camels to herding “shoats”. “Shoats” is HRI shorthand for “Sheep and Goats” and it is a term that we had to coin because no-one on our staff knew the difference between the two (they really taste the same with spaghetti and rice). One of our livelihood consultants gave us a PowerPoint presentation pointing out the differences but she presented it in the afternoon over our state-of-the-art video-conferencing facilities and everyone fell asleep due to a post-lunch combination of heat and lack of interest in the topic. An intern in Nairobi was then tasked with “following up” with the consultant and making a brief of the presentation and share it with all of us but then the email server crashed and, due to clan complexities, could not be restored for three or so weeks and all some of us remembered was that one of them had a black head but we couldn’t agree which (voting, in the democratic traditions of HRI led to a draw).

Then there are the “capacity building” activities aimed at dealing with market imbalances caused by an expected increased demand in “shoats” and decreased demand in camels that may have “complex trigger effects”. People affected negatively by these effects will have to be exposed to various “vocational trainings” and are taught how to start a business that does not involve buying an old Hilux and transporting khat. (Although irrelevant in context, we are making reference to khat because that will increase our chances of obtaining funding from donors interested in showing a commitment to fighting drug trafficking).

Then, in Puntland (referred to in HRI official documents as “the North-East”) we are working mainly out of Nairobi with short and expensive trips to Bossaaso meant to keep the spending going while we combine the Clan Complexity Defense with the application for more funding. We have three staff who exclusively deal with making and cancelling bookings at the only HRI approved guesthouse in town, run by one of our close affiliates. “Piracy” remains the magic word here, which is also why all our funding has to do with capacity building and mitigating effects of piracy in Bossaaso, while the rest of the country remains only relevant to us in as much as regular trips to Garowe are required by our concern with keeping appearances about collaborating with the local authorities. We have also hired a retired prosecutor from Wisconsin who is leading our “Law Enforcement Capacity Building to Combat Piracy” program out of Nairobi. Naturally, most of our work here happens in Nairobi, where we implement additional workshops of significant complexity, attended by “Somali officials from Puntland”.

Which brings me to our ground-breaking work in “South-Central Somalia”, a vast area that is mostly off-limits to everyone at HRI. For reasons of Clan Complexity we do not trust any of our local staff with any decisions, which means that most of our work in “South-Central” is about spending money in Nairobi “building the capacity” of whoever is referred to as “the government” at the respective moment. This is a sustainable activity because, due to high turnover in the government teams, we manage to run the same trainings again and again, giving us an opportunity to develop templates, manuals and other tools and become even more cost-effective.

The occasional international staff flying into Baidoa for a day or so give us the necessary street cred, while our affiliate doing overpriced exclusive Humanitarian Flight management gets us kudos in the Logistics Cluster (LCF).

Which reminds me: our decision to have water for sale in these flights a few years back has gone down as one of the most innovative decisions in recent memory, and has been quoted extensively as a positive example of “lessons learned” from the private sector.
I’d love to tell you more about the fantastic results of all this work (well acknowledged in the sector) but I need to attend a video-conference about some funding in the Seychelles and anyway, you wouldn’t understand the clan complexities.

Musings on Tastefulness and News from Mozambique

It’s been an emotional couple of days.

For starters a certain academic type feller who used to work for one of our affiliates back in the day has dismissed HRI as a mere “satire”, and a tasteless one at that. I’ve said it before: HRI is not a satire. We are a dead-serious organization whose committed staff work day and night in some of the roughest parts of the world to address poor and vulnerable people’s fundamental needs for talking-shops and other life-saving activities. We are, an economist could say, the necessary response to a massive demand for our services. And we are NOT tasteless: from the life-saving cross-sectoral activities we organize in dignified establishments world-wide, to the plug-in 3d paintings on the walls of our headquarters in Moroni (my favourite one shows a placid lake with a waterfall – when you switch it on the water twinkles and the waterfall starts flowing), everywhere we work we are renowned for our tastefulness. Our offices in Cambodia, for instance, decorated by strict rules imposed by the Hok Lundy School of Interior Design are all the rage in local cock-fighting circles; and our Southern Africa regional headquarters, set amongst the hills in Somerset West, at a safe distance from the offending landscape of Khayelitsha, offer a dignified view of the bay and delight the eye with lines well set in Dutch and French architectural heritage. Our cutting-edge offices in Panama located in Clayton, next door to the new and greener-than-though US embassy are the envy of the NGO and IGO world, and not only because the proximity to the embassy allows our staff to minimize the time needed to go to a meeting to only 3 hours, as little as it takes to get through the routine security checks with our privileged, fast-track status.

And don’t even get me started on our vehicles.

Speaking of tastefulness, I spent the weekend in Mozambique and was quite disappointed to see that the Polana is still under renovations. Mozambique is a country where HRI is implementing crucial programs and I have traditionally favoured Polana as a home away from home while in town as well as a place to engage in life-saving workshops and conferences. Not unlike the Sheraton in Addis but with a superiour view, the Polana has deservedly earned its place in HRIs world as a dependable private sector partner where meetings about the regular floodings in the north can be facilitated with overpriced conference packages in a comforting surrounding, complete with servants in tasteful colonial-era uniform (another interesting feature shared with the Addis Sheraton or, since we mentioned Cambodia, the Le Royal, a dependable HRI partner in Phnom Penh additionally loaded with good memories as that was the place where HRI staff were accommodated during the UNTAC days, a period that has provided us in the “development community” the opportunity to learn many a lesson about how to do things in peace-keeping, how to calculate hazard pay and how to support small enterprises post-conflict, one cold thai beer at a time).

Anyways, since the Polana remains in an unfortunate state of renovation, I had to settle with a sub-standard establishment up the street, with an inferior view of the river and an appalling patisserie choice. But then hardship is part of the job and I am happy to report that my trip was very successful – making use of HRIs old boys network in the country I managed to put together an unbeatable consortium of affiliates ideally positioned to win both a massive upcoming HIV/ AIDS RFA and significant CERF funding to build overpriced pre-packaged houses in the flood affected areas (based on our world-class experience with similar activities in Aceh). Ed, the reasonable paid consultant is telling me he is slowly getting sick and tired of Haiti so will shortly fly him into Maputo to get the whole thing started.

Award Season, Avatar and HRI on Twitter

It’s been a while but I’m back online ready to continue reporting from the frontlines of HRI state of the art development. It’s RFA season of course, which for those in the know is a time when loads of efforts are invested in creating the appearances of competition while making deals on the side and getting the money where it belongs – in HRIs and our affiliates’ account. Basically RFA is USAID procurement short-hand for a process in which political interests are combined with “priorities” that are irrelevant in a given country but sound pretty good in Washington DC and then a meeting with partners is called to give the whole thing an appearance of participation and ownership (to be fair we also love participation & ownership at HRI). Eventually, the official request for applications is issued and HRI or one of our affiliates will prove to be the best placed to bag the money. Spending it is pretty easy as we usually just hand it out to all the other organizations ("sub-recipients”) who have unsuccessfully applied for it with USAID, to do the same thing that they are doing anyway, plus of course we keep a certain amount for overhead, admin costs and so on.

It’s also global fund season of course and the situation here is a bit different. As Principal Recipients in quite a few countries, HRI and our affiliates find it pretty hard in principle to spend all the global fund money (round this, round the other, confusing stuff). What we do however, is we blame the slow spending on the country team & coordination and continue to apply for every new round prioritizing capacity building of course and “creating an enabling environment”. 

You may remember last time I checked in I was in cape town doing important work around ownership and stuff. Well I had an epiphany in the flight back where I was taking refuge from the “it-used-to-be-better-back-in-the-day” chit-chat with my fellow passenger in first class by checking out the on-flight entertainment system, the only viable alternative in my experience to not having to have that conversation while flying in or out of South Africa. Anyways, this is how I got to watch Avatar, that movie that was all the rage a few months ago and that’s when I had the epiphany. The irony of a loud anti-colonial movie in which some American dude becomes the savior of noble savages somewhere on another planet has not gotten lost on me, but the most beautiful thing is how often the movie hit home for me in its similarities with HRI. The plot will sound familiar to any technical advisor with the right arrogance to ignorance ratio who, although doesn't know anything about the country or the people where he gets posted and has only a marginal knowledge of what he is supposed to be doing, becomes active in all sorts of meetings in which his proud local counter-parts translate for him. In his reports all stakeholders seem to be on the same page, working together towards a grand goal while the “big tree” is burning. You may  think otherwise but to my knowledge HRI has not been consulted on the script.

Oh, and one more thing – HRI is on twitter as well. I thought since we’re cutting edge and all why not go 2.0 like everyone else? Still figuring the whole follow this follow that part but do expect regular twat twitter wisdom from yours truly.