How i Pulled a "Harry Kellar" in Vienna on behalf of Poor and Vulnerable people in Central Asia

I am glad to say that the week in Vienna, at the mother of all junkets, was time well spent, mostly because I managed to facilitate a few “sole sources” with several high-profile donors and sorted out a few “strategic partnerships" (as reported recently), all over dignified fair at the Danube Hilton, the destination of choice for the discerning participant at AIDS2010.

Funding comfort in the world of HIV/ AIDS, reader, lives and dies on chance encounters, which is why I was on the list of invitees to all relevant “receptions” organized during the week, including those hosted by our competitors partners.

In one of the days I even took advantage of the fact that all “stakeholders” needed to approve our involvement in a complex project in Central Asia (where “complex” is an euphemism for “generously funded but in an area that HRI has no previous knowledge of or experience in and shouldn't really be involved with”) were around and I invited them all in for a strategic meeting, timed towards the end of a very hot day, in a non-air-conditioned venue, the ideal place to pull a “Harry Kellar”, also known as “The Ride”. 

The Harry Kellar (named in honor of the man who first brought us  misdirection) is a favorite of mine from the vast arsenal of HRI meeting techniques, so useful in the break-neck world of international aid and development that arguably HRI's enviable global reputation for deal-making and cooperation pretty much rests on our staff's ability to pull one at the right time.

Essentially, the "Harry Keller" is a technique designed to facilitate consensus on topics that would otherwise be controversial, by ensuring that the fundamentally finite energy of any meeting participant is wasted on irrelevant but time-consuming discussions, allowing little energy or time for the important topics, which are timed towards the end of the meeting, only better to be rushed in without a real discussion.

In the specific case I mentioned ("The Central Asia Coordination Project" - CACP), HRI has managed to obtain a “sole source” award from a very respectable donor (leveraging just the right mix of greed and insecurity on the side of the donor representative with a generous dose of unrealistic promises and reassurances of credit from our side), that secured HRI's place at the helm of coordinating regional HIV/AIDS activities in central asia over the coming 5 years, “on behalf of the respective governments”, to the envy of “implementation partners” on the ground who, short-sighted, started feeling threatened by our assertiveness in the region and expressed unfounded concerns that our high NICRA rates, overheads and commitment to working with armies of reasonably paid expatriats will further diminish the already shrinking amounts of donor funding available to fight the epidemic in that part of the world.

In short, a situation that risked back-firing as you must agree - it is not easy to coordinate stuff you don't really understand with people that don't really like you. A challenge to anybody else, but nothing unusual to us, an organizationm so well versed in the finer points of coordination.

Enter the non-air-conditioned venue, for a 2h meeting at the end of a hot day. The invitation went out and all “partners” showed up knowing well that not pitching would have given us an oportunity to complain to the donor that so-and-so organization is non-cooperative and not a team player, a fact that would surely affect their future funding from this particular donor in a negative fashion.

As they entered the room, all participants found a 48-pages document in front of them, aptly titled:

“5-year Action Plan for the Coordination of HIV/AIDS Interventions in Central Asia”

with the pixelized logos of all respective governments (downloaded off the net by Nathan the intern) as well as, more prominent, the logos of the donor and HRI. The meeting was called on behalf of the respective governments, all of them represented by HRI technical advisors, conveniently seconded to the respective ministries as part of other life-saving technical cooperation projects in implementation all around the region (that's what we here at HRI call "project integration").

Participants were told that we are pressed by time and this document has to be finalized and submitted for approval with all respective governments next week - failure to do so would geopaardize our funding, a situation that would have negative consequences to anybody. It was proposed that we all go through it paragraph by paragraph and suggest changes that will immediately be operated by Nathan the intern, set in front of a laptop connected to the over-head projector, all business.   

The first 42 pages of the document were of course elaborate studies in the use of wankwords, with the occasional  reference to details that may or may not be controversial to our esteemed participants (hint: they mostly are), always reliably quick to react to such nonsense. Pages 43-45 were the only ones HRI really cared about, as, in a nutshell, they pretty much allocated implementation responsibility to partners and “coordination” (and credit) to HR, along with the majority of resources.   

On cue, at around 8.30pm, as we just found agreement on Acknowledgments and the Executive Summary, Nathan interrupted discussions with a  quick “process check”, reminding participants that the document must be finalized today, and from there it all went by script – attention span decreased with the passing of time along with energy levels, and every  time someone would attempt to raise a question related to fundamentals, a HRI technical advisor would start a debate about the grammatical merits of this or the other formulation, triggering intense exchanges among the learned participants that would further wear everyone's attention.

By 10pm, after an apparent spontaneous invitation to dinner (“let's finish this and we'll all go for a Schnitzel to celebrate”), Nathan the intern recorded in the minutes that the participants unanimously agreed on the plan, as modified during the session, and hands were shaken, promises were made to share minutes for approval and we all walked together into the sunset, fixing to neck the proverbial Schnitzel of celebration.

The Ride was successful. Nathan has learned something. The donor was relieved that everyone agreed to play ball. I am writing this from Istanbul Airport, en route to Almaty.

Everybody wins.

I love my job.

Report from the Field: microbicide gel is circumcision 2.0

As i make my way from the dignified merc taxii to this or the other venue in the German city of Vienna, i am reminded again why i am paid so generously: it isn't easy being the most senior HRI representative at the mother of all junkets and I barely found some time today to sit down and share my thoughts with you, between shady deals brokered behind the scenes, smiley meetings in which I deny that the those deals exist and touching moments of joy at the sight of so many old friends i haven't seen it like at least two years (remember Mexico?). 

The though that people actually attend the various sessions, posters and presentation is very amusing and in my busy schedule I do find time to stop for a sip of coffee and marvel at the earnestness of it all. Even by the generous standards of our business, if these junkets were merely meant to provide a forum for thousands of “abstracts”, they would be money unwell spent, and believe me i know money unwell spent when i see it.

Speaking about money, I did attend a “plenary” yesterday, to watch technology enthusiast and hobby philanthropist Bill “Let Me Bing That” Gates giving the world a piece of his mind and being charmingly introduced to the stage by a group of Wilhelm Tell enthusiast, seeing that we are in Germany, the home of elevated culture:

Being a technology enthusiast, Mr. Gates then proceeded to show a few movies himself, including one of a young man being circumcised in a Hermite kingdom that I just so happen to have visited recently:

Now, circumcision for hiv prevention was the big news at the mother of all junkets a few years ago (was it Toronto? Nathan wasn't around then so can't help this aging aidworker remember), very much like the microbicide is the big news this time around, but in specific HRI fashion, while everyone will pay attention to the noise around the microbicide story we'll grab a hold of the global circumcision donor "resources", with just the right mixture of “strategic partnerships”, “sole sources” and backhanders, most of them sealed and sorted in the coffee shops of Vienna, over fairly average fair (what was that cabbage thing today, for bing's sake?)

So, in the close future expect tons of cutting edge glossy HRI reports and newsletters on circumcision, as well as plenty meetings across all levels of "stakeholders", lifesaving workshops, seminars and capacity building initiatives – enough to keep us busy, along with a reasonable group of affiliates, from the public and private sectors. Also expect armies of reasonably paid experts to descend on unsuspecting small and medium-sized African countries, all in the name of HRIs vision to acquire any available funding for the sake of the people we serve.

What will happen to the microbicides? I hear you ask. Well do not worry, we have our people on the job, and experience tells us that the big microbicide money will start flowing in a year or two, just in time for us to close up our circumcision work, with a final, tasteful launch of a last report (about the failure of local partners to circumcise the people, i would risk to say) and to unleash our “experts” on the unsuspecting world of microbicides.

And with that i'm off  to my next meeting in the coffee shop. Here's to many years of groundbreaking successes and really, Bill shouldn't worry about nothing, the whole thing is as always in best hands.

The Mother of All Junkets

Barely have I had any time to recover from the grueling work done around trafficking at the world cup, and I am already preparing for the next epic trip, attending the mother of all life-saving activities – the biggest-ass bi-annual HIV/ AIDS mega-junket, organized this year around in the German city of Vienna, a cultural hot-spot for the dubious immigration policy enthusiast.

An ideal place in other words to organize this most comprehensive of life-saving meetings about a disease that mostly affects people with the wrong kind of passport, and I am thrilled by the prospect of catching up with my fellow Africa and development experts, some of whom I haven’t been in touch with snice “back in the day” in Mexico.


Unfortunately, La Negresse, who in her capacity of HRIs Director of Diversity (DoD) is among the most trusted of my executives (where “trusted” is another word for “eager to have around for corporate photo opportunities”) will not be part of my entourage for this European journey, although her name has been added in smaller script as co-author to several of HRIs submitted abstracts authored by me and put together by Nathan the intern out of recycled USAID “success stories” and some unverifiable stuff made up to fit the audience. Some of these abstracts were “accepted” which means that HRI staff will be busy delivering “presentations” and “posters” while the main author (me) will be busy “networking”.

I expect the week in Vienna to also allow me some time to reflect on my the weeks in which I have been using the little free time I had between games counter-trafficking activities in South Africa to visit HRI programs in neighboring countries, including the hermit kingdoms of Lesotho and Swaziland as well as "Zim", up there with the best of HRIs favorite locations due to its ideal comfort of living : hardship allowance ratio.

HRI’s work in the two hermit kingdoms alone would deserve their own “newsletter” (Nathan is already working on the “concept paper”) but suffice to say that due to their interesting combination of size, HIV prevalence, good infrastructure, as well as a relatively uniform devotion to the right sort of religion as far as some of our donors are concerned, these two countries are well on their way to becoming HRI favorites. The hype (which is another word for $$) around Male Circumcision also helps and, as a result of my recent visit, I can already tell you that HRI will play a very important role in “creating an enabling environment”, by implementing a package containing just the right mix of “Lima Bravo Sierras”, “Avalanches”, “Hulk Hogans” and “Diegos”, with a few “Trojans” and “Weasel Hold’ems” thrown in for good measure, all topped up with a glorified “High Five” few years down the drain line.

I expect the strategy for the hermit kingdoms will be sealed and sorted during “networking sessions” Vienna, but meanwhile let’s not forget that the battle against trafficking at the world cup is not yet completed. Apparently, HRI & affiliates vigilance has also paid off so far and countless cases of trafficking have been successfully avoided at this world cup as well. But we can’t drop our vigilance now, not before the last three games are over.

As I have been walking in and out of dignified hospitality suites, past strategically placed crowd-control vehicles (the sort designed after extensive R&D “in the old days”) at various world cup stadiums, I could not but be repeatedly impressed by the diligence of the organizers who have spared no effort in ensuring that every street peddler and hawker is dealt with swiftly, lest they compromise the purity of handing loads of money in exchange for sponsor-approved shit around the stadium, the ultimate experience of any global sporting event.

Ayoba to that, as they say, and see the ones of you with the right passport in Vienna!

Report From The Field - Dr. K's World Cup Diary

Regular readers of this “newsletter” (all three of them) are aware that I am in South Africa at the moment, commuting between Johannesburg, Cape-Town and Durban attending life-saving meetings about trafficking that also happen to coincide with some of the more interesting games in the World Cup. I am also attending the odd meeting in Rastenberg (the proximity to Sun City, a nearby monument of tastefulness, is reassuring) but I do try to stay away from Blumfontein and Nelspruit, where driving around in a white landcruiser among the millions BMWs gracing the roads of South Africa makes one liable to be mistaken for a farmer, an indignity no man in my position could risk.


The fortunate timing allows me to make use of my WorldCup VIP tickets - graciously offered by the organizers as a token of their commitment to oppose trafficking, extracted with well designed guilt trips - and watch some of the games from obligatory "Hospitality Suites" where I not only find shelter from the nasty elements, but also afford a good view of the game, along with complementary snacks and beverages.

A man of my status has little time for frivolous games involving uneducated people running after a ball but I wouldn’t want to offend the organizers. Besides, someone needs to keep an eye out for the traffickers, who will surely make use of this event to ply their unspeakable trade.

Speaking of trade – at one of the games last week I was positively impressed by the swiftness with which officials have apprehended and ever so slightly slapped around a lowly criminal attempting to sell coffee during the game. Sponsors and organizers cannot afford to lose potential business by allowing the competition of small-time entrepreneurs spoiling a perfect opportunity to rip people off shamelessly.

As an enthusiast myself, I cannot but marvel at the beautiful act of creating a solid fallacy for the masses to believe that it is all about the game, in order to lock-in an average of 30,000 wallets in a confined area the size of a small city, 3 times a day, for 3-4 hours at a time and shove expensive shit down their throats. And I can only sympathize with the strategic geniuses behind this scheme who see their plans threatened by some dude selling coffee out of 5 liter flasks, not to mention the terrorist-like criminals trying to flog wire-and-beads souvenirs to the masses, thinning out the demand for sponsored-approved vuvuzelas.

Once arrived at the hospitality suite, I fortified myself with a few shots of free beverage (the sponsor-approved vintage of course) after which I took to the galleries, trying to get some street cred – nothing like rubbing shoulders with the commoners. The fine people manning the divide between dignified people like me and scum warned me that once stepping on the other side I will be lost unless I keep my lanyarded pass visible. Then they stepped aside and I was by myself among the masses:

(Hic Sunt Leones)

It was a viciously cold night (what? cold in "africa"?) and my hand-tailored silk shirt and beige Gucci 3-piece, specially tailored for Africa, was not doing me any justice. I looked around and I realized that the locals have developed truly innovative ways to protect themselves from the cold, such as applying a randomly colored substance to their skin, hugging stuffed animals and jumping around in crowded groups:

(The Local Solution: a right mix of face-paint, stuffed lions and traditional, elaborate "moves")

Like everything else in life, football thrives on competition and in this particular instance the competition was between people favouring yellow and green:

And some favouring blue, vastly outnumbered but not less loud:

Check out the odd-dude-out, supporting red, which can only be the color of the referee. My kind of guy:

(me, i support the referee)

With my street-cred reinforced by the short walk among the masses, I rushed back in the warmed hospitality suite, where, further fortified by the free beverage deal, I proceeded to watch the game. Here is the view from the suite:

(at least i didn't pay for the view)

Not being able to see much, plus the comparative quietness of the suite, the warmth and the right mix of full stomach, comfortable arm-chair and free-flowing beverages have induced a heavy sleep in this over-worked aid professional, causing me to awaken to the gentle poking of a hospitality hostess, pointing out an empty stadium and a pitch populated by people with rakes fixing the turf. I asked her what the score was, and it turns out the wrong team won, i just forgot which one that was.

Well, them and the referee of course - there is a lesson right there for everyone in our business sector.
One detail that needs mentioning is that unlike the masses outside, queing in the cold for the luxury of urination, I had readily access to a toilet facility right there in the suite. And that toilet, very much like similar facilities I have visited in other hospitality suites at this wold cup (as well as in some of the choicer hotels I have been accommodated in) had the extra touch of being fitted with speakers continuously playing that cheesy song with the flag, while silent LCD Screens incorporated in the walls continuously showed Shakira in her hybrid Mobutu-Tahiti-school-of-fashion outfit (everyone knows you cannot go wrong when combining zebra patterns with waguely Polynesian-looking dress when attempting to nail an "african" visual), doing her part in promoting the event.

Is that a coincidence? I think what happened is it was a competition between the two favourite songs and a wise peace-maker among the organizers proposed to show the more pleasing image on the screens (skin sells, stupid), while playing the other song as a soundtrack. everybody happy and my instincts immediately recognized the familiar Win-Win, and as we speak I am trying to track down the person who came up with this idea for a swift head-hunting.

HRI needs people like that to keep the edge.

The Sound of a Million Vuvuzelas: More Trafficking Work at The World Cup and A Journey Down Memory Lane, to Kinder Times And Places

As mentioned earlier “trafficking” has been good to us this World Cup, which is why this post will be a short one, typed during a Trafficking Working Group, where I kill time between good matches “facilitating” discussions around our need as stakeholders to coordinate our “response”.


The meeting should finish just in time for me to attend the Italy-Paraguay game tonight, allowing of course enough leeway to make my way from the Radisson Blu in Sandton to the VIP section of the stadium, where I have a HRI sponsored ticket, as part of our campaign to fight trafficking during the world cup (as always when in South Africa, I will take the route less beaten, in this case sticking to the back-roads of the mock-European suburbs reassuringly surrounded by massive electrified walls, behind which discreet servants mend the lush tropical gardens around pools and tennis courts).

The more inexperienced of you may wonder how come my attending games out of the VIP section is related to fighting trafficking. well, it is our obligation as “counter-trafficking stakeholders” to approach the organizers of any large event with a well-designed guilt trips and that’s exactly what we have done both with FIFA as well as with the relevant South African authorities. They need to be aware of the dangers of Trafficking and they need to be seen as doing something about it – it’s just good business in the 21st century. And what better way to show commitment than to make tickets available to dignified representatives of important “partners”, such as yours truly.

While at games I will of course keep my eyes open for any sign of trafficking and will take the opportunity to snap a few pictures of the crowd, which Nathan the intern can then put in our project report and newsletter with a random, ophraesque capture:

(while the world celebrates the world cup, thousands of vulnerable women and children are exploited by internationally networked ruthless hooligans)

As I was sipping Savanna Dry during the Ghana-Serbia game yesterday, in the ear-blasting sound of millions of vuvuzelas, I had a moment of nostalgia for the early days of trafficking and my formative years in what in those days we called “The Balkans”. Like so many other competitors partners in the sector, HRI had a sizeable presence all over the Balkans and up until today continues to have a significant involvement in the region, with offices everywhere from Croatia to Macedonia and everything in-between, much of it funded by trafficking-related grants, but also by “Governance” as well as various European Commission mechanisms, all of them fitting HRI’s business model like a glove.

The transitions from UNPROFOR to IFOR to EUFOR with KFOR and 26 different other “FORS” in-between were all useful opportunities for hundreds of inexperienced HRI staff to become today’s experts in fields as diverse as refugee protection and public health. There were also unique circumstances for bonding and networking, that remain beneficial until today. My old mate Gianluca for example, used to be our official supplier of Italian toilet-paper, vastly superior to the Yugoslav one, shipped in 20foot containers with the diplomatic currier straight out of Rome, with vacuum sealed packages of Parma ham in-between. He remains a close collaborator for HRI and, in exchange for reasonable fees, often produces “counter-trafficking manuals” for our affiliates, based on his experience in “The Balkans” - the world’s trafficking capital.

His expertise was developed over many a “field research” in Pristina’s and Belgrade’s seedier strip-joints (further enriched by subsequent HRI assignements in SouthEast Asia, West Africa and Central America), as well as in several useful interaction with Montenegrin fake-cigarettes suppliers, a community often referred to in those days as “the only reliable people in the Balkans”. With the help of a certain HRI affiliate based out of Vienna (HRIs official R&R location for “the Balkans”), we have established the absolute and universal assumption that all organized crime is inter-linked, which helped not only with “transferrable skills” in experts such as Gianluca, but also with the fear factor when fundraising – insinuating to potential donors that not doing anything about trafficking is the same thing with essentially supporting the illegal arms trade is a very effective fundraising strategy, we found.

This association remains relevant today, which is why HRI continues to be the recipient of very generous trafficking funding in places from Afghanistan to Brazil, Iceland to South Africa.

The failures of all these efforts to make even a visible dent in the world of organized trafficking, should not discourage anybody - it is not a symptom that our approach is wrong, but merely a sign that the respective crime cartels are very cunning and have access to modern technology, which is why our associates need more money for life-saving workshops, “toolkits” and “awareness raising campaigns” – all time-proven strategies to “address” not only trafficking, but pretty much any other “scourge”, from HIV/ AIDS to poverty, child exploitation and environmental degradation.

Meanwhile, I am happy to hear that Holland has won the game against Denmark – tomorrow I do have a fundraising meeting with the EC Head of Delegation in South Africa, and he just happens to be Dutch, a detail that will probably make the meeting more pleasant. Along the same lines, I will root for Italy tonight – not only in honour of my friend Gianluca, but also because it has been a while since Paraguay has funded HRI to do anything.

And as we are talking about funding, i would like to encourage everyone to go here and buy a Talibannosaurus Rex poster - it is for a good cause, as 10% of all proceeds will go towards a worthy HRI cause (either overhead or admin fees, i am not decided yet).

"Working in Trafficking" at the World Cup

Turns out the world cup starts friday. I didn’t know that, me, and the fact that my several trips to South Africa, for life-saving workshops and other meetings, coincide with some of the better games is just how it happens.

That’s right.

In small-talk sessions with fellow travelers i am planning to pull the above line often, for sport. I expect the usual business class crowd on the Joburg route to diversify over the next month, to include the grumpy guy who had to buy a very expensive ticket not to miss that business meeting and that other guy who forked out for business (half miles half cash) when there were no more places in couch as he didn’t want to miss that game to which his wife got him surprise tickets without bothering to book a flight.

The good news is that trafficking is back on the agenda and HRI is as ever the leading agency with an expertise developed over the last 12 years or so, in the “golden era of trafficking”, when hapless donors were scrambling over ben seen as funding very simplistic visions of the world of trafficking, as presented to them by HRI & affiliates, so they can please an Oprah educated constituency.

In Moldova, Cambodia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Panama, Costa Rica and elsewhere where a HRI expat may find it comfortable to settle for a while, trafficking has been combated with workshops and trainings, which also created a lucrative market for the counter-trafficking expert, a HRI specialty represented in particular by the dodgy ex-policemen with the 80s chauvinist jokes, the hysterical “case worker” providing technical input in “legal drafting processes” and the former DA, always a training expert in legal definitions inspired by the Arizona Counter Trafficking Act, particularly relevant in the Philippines and Vietnam.

Armies of HRI experts descended on every imaginable “shelter”, to make it more secure, more gender integrated, more child-friendly and more donor-compliant, all expensive processes that helped us better count “targets” and deliver successful projects.

Awareness campaigns were launched (best practices included “The Beaver and the Crocodile” edutainment strategy in Indonesia and the “I am empowered, I Know the Difference between Smuggling and Trafficking” t-shirt campaign in Guatemala), training curricula were developed, law-enforcement handbooks, press handbooks and hand-books for the military were printed, films were made and broadcasted, relevant fables were included in pre-school curricula. The link to migration was immediately explored which has been good to our refugee/ migration portfolios.

Additionally, to please our most eager donor during the “golden era”, HRI has pursued the useful assumption that all women in the sex trade are victims who need urgent saving, a matter in which our experts could provide cutting edge training to the police forces of relevant countries.

Often the bond between trainer and trainees would be sealed with a glorious night at the karaoke parlor (just indulging in a cultural experience) and the few cases when HRI consultants were involved in unspeakable acts with teenagers were always handled swiftly with the respective offender promptly transferred to another country where they would be tasked with presenting “lessons learned” and “best practices”. (If this sounds familiar, our methods in those days were guided by the church of course, a solid and strategically important HRI partner, also in matters of trafficking.

I assume you already saw the signature HRI Win-Win: HRI & affiliates get the cash and the kudos, government officials can continue getting backhanders from their dodgy business partners while showing the world their counter-trafficking credentials and the donors can get an Oprah tear, convertible in whatever political currency floats their boat.

Everybody happy.
Meanwhile women and children continue to be abused, which will ensure future work for all of us, so all should be ok. That no real trafficker was ever successfully convicted is another matter, which is easily explained away by the “lack of precise legal definitions defense”, a matter that must be addressed by a series of complex cross-border and regional activities conducted by a team of HRI experts. Among other things of course.

It may strike some as strange that countries with no legal system to speak of, no constitution and no courts would have a highly precise definition of "trafficking", inspired by the legal literature of Arizona, as part of a 600+ sections Counter-Trafficking Act, “operationalized” by a vast package of guidelines, by-laws and “SOPs” (ok I’ll tell you: Standard Operating Procedures”), but I say at least this “framework” has benefitted from the input of people with no legal background at all, who have ensured that no due process will be necessary when prosecuting a trafficker.

In other words, Trafficking is the new Terrorism, and I am taking back that thing about no trafficker having ever being convicted – it has happened that this opposition leaders or the other reactionary character have been found involved in trafficking, usually around election time, their prompt imprisonment always ensuring a better “tier ranking” a matter that leads to an increase in “trafficking” funding to HRI.

Did anyone say win-win? Thank you.

But that was the golden era. These days even Oprah has changed her business model and trafficking has been pushed ever so slightly towards the fringe.

Except every four years, during world cup or the Olympics. HRI & affiliates have already secured funding, got the story in every paper, launched campaigns and issued statements about expectations of significant increases in trafficking and exploitation during the world cup, all based of course on following precedents:

(whole thing here in pdf)

Part of us feels it is our duty to make some noise out of principle - after all, this is Africa and just because it didn’t really happen elsewhere doesn’t mean it won’t happen here. But also, there is another small matter – don’t know about you, but every cup is different and I for one want to make sure i can say: “I was there” (as well).

Bibi is a Twat! and Life-saving Global Fund work in Kinshasa

I’ve been silent for a while, mostly putting up with the indignities of travelling around Africa, and, over the last two days, sitting silently in my room at the Inter in Kinshasa, watching Bibi being a twat, with French translation.

Bibi reminds me of many a former collaborator of HRI, men who always end up finding true love in the seedy underbelly of Manila, Phnom Penh or Kinshasa and whom you would run into on a Tuesday evening - sweaty, red-faced and slightly inebriated - comb-over a mess, always in too young a company, always a bit too proud of it. You look at them knowing they belong somewhere in a tin, preferably in solitary confinement and on strong medication, but given the landscape, you tolerate them as just a mild annoyance and yet another drunken bore before ordering another round.

That’s how it is with Bibi as well – we all know he belongs somewhere else, perhaps donning one of those classy shirts with very long sleeves (that can be tied helpfully around his back), but because of the landscape we dismiss his madness as an unfortunate transgression and move on with our lives.

This is not the first case a police-state shoots civilians and I am afraid it will not be the last either. My personal element of discomfort stems from the fact that usually when that happens people of my status congregate somewhere where they serve dodgy beer under neon “butcher’s lights” and bond with colleagues and donors representatives while lamenting the shocking strategies of respective rouge state while plotting possible “capacity building” programs for the future.

This time it’s different. HRI doesn’t even have an office in Israel. Perhaps that’s what those people need – extensive exposure to HRI “capacity building” activities to the point they get numbed, the danger element gets shaven off and they will be satisfied with just being mere incompetent, corrupt hypocrites – a type our lot knows how to “partner” with.

Anyway, you guessed it: I’m in Kinshasa because it is Global Fund season. For those who don’t know, the Global Fund is the donor community’s version of “multilateral aid”, and we are already talking round 10, no less (time passes, eh?). HRI has of course been the principal recipient for Global Fund money in D.R. Congo in three previous rounds and we have managed to spend almost 19% of the money already allocated. Naturally we decided to go for round 10 as well, arguing that the slow spending of existing funds is an obvious indication of “lack of absorption capacity” of partners, a situation that requires supplemental funds to address.

The CCM (Country Coordinating Mechanism, for the uninitiated) as well as other stakeholders in the country agree on this strategy so we have a textbook case of the development community and the government speaking in one voice. Donors love that stuff, so our chances to get at least part of what we ask for are pretty high. Knowing that partial funding is an option, we will of course massively inflate our initial submitted budget so everyone will be happy.

I was pleased to discover that I remain well known at the Sunday buffet at the Intercontinental (Le Grand these days is not what it used to be by the way), as well as at other respectable establishments in town and I remain on very cordial terms with many of the 86 or so Ministers in the Government, some of whom I visited already as part of my preparatory work for Round 10 GF, with a long list of visits scheduled for the remainder of the week.

One of my favourite is the Minister of Human Rights, an absolutely crucial partner on any application for funding involving partnerships with the Government and a man of high moral standing with the staff at L’Orangerie and Chez Nicola on account of the fact that he always tips generously when he is invited for lunch, which is every time he has a meeting with an NGO.

Yesterday, before inviting him for lunch I met him at his office where I had the pleasure to admire the tastefulness of his desk, complete with the obligatory leopard-skin accessories, so stylishly consecrated by the Mobutu school of interior design (the reader may remember I am myself a man who appreciates discrete tastefulness).

Here is a picture of his desk, taken on the sly on my “iphon”:

And here is my friend the minister himself, happy to see me again and filling me in on the “progress” of his Ministry since back in the day when he was a promising student of capacity building literature, before his HRI backed promotion :

You may notice, to his honorable's left hand, on the right side of the photo a shelf containing files on important matters of Human Rights in the country. While the minister excused himself to do his hair before our departure, I dared a step closer and put my “Iphon” to use.

And here are some useful details:

(before Nathan the inter's birth)

(after Nathan the intern's birth)

Amazingly efficient, the Minister seems to be still working on files from the 70s and the 80s (each decade has its own shelf, in impeccable ascending order), which is very reassuring. I like a well organized fellow and I have already proposed to the CCM that he will be elected as the co-chair.

But what of Bibi the twat? To do my part I already decided to refuse the service of any bodyguard armed with Israeli weapons (notoriously unreliable as well, “my driver” tells me) and perhaps, in the future I will laugh a bit less when treated to Israeli jokes by the next drunken bore at the Savannana or 3615.

How to stay on top by speaking the right language in the 21st century: "Multilateral Aid" & "Budget Support"

Progress in our sector, as in life, comes from “creating an enabling environment” for ideas to interract and cross-fertilize, a thing also known as “collective intelligence”, which, according to Nathan, means that good stuff always comes out of interaction and collaboration between great minds.

This is a good thing for sure, that also explains why it is so crucially important for us experts to spend much of our precious time in meetings and workshops. We do it for the sake of progress and evolution – the future of our sector depends on it.

But the best thing about our business must be the high number of experts ready to roll their sleeves and get the theoretical game sorted for all of us. Always at the cutting edge, HRI remains fully commitment to “shifting paradigms” in order to increase the eloquence of proposals we submit to donors. We’re privileged that way, and I’ve noticed since we adopted the latest “development discourse” it has become even easier to mobilize resources by closing deals behind the scenes with donors or bullying less well connected partners into HRI partnerships: it feels good to know that for example when major donors "sole-source" a massive grant to us over impeccable lobbying, they actually compliment us on adopting the latest ideas flogged by development punters.

It’s also pretty much why HRI bothers to have a twitter account, by the way, or a blog – Nathan the intern sometimes complains about having to write regular posts and 140 character long messages to complete strangers formulated in line with HRIs strict corporate style guidelines, but how else can we take the pulse off the punters from all the way here in Comoros, a place on another planet?

It has also been suggested to us that we create a facebook profile – to better market ourselves to the young and hip, to tomorrow’s donor bureaucrats. I’d be up for that, just worry that we couldn’t handle seeing that we’d have less friends than certain competitors partners – the pressure, the pressure.

Every so often, Nathan the intern is preparing a little brief for me, containing a list of subjects that are currently discussed and found to be in favour with the most influential minds in the sector and we immediately incorporate them in our “discourse” to better please both donors and potential critics. That fact alone will certainly convince even the most bitter of our critics that we are the flexible, agile organization that this century of ours needs.

For example, we have already put "Multilateral Aid" under our belt. Several of our affiliates are international governmental organization and as a “best practice” i could mention HRI’s own Women and Tradition Forum (WTF), based on a protocol 42 important countries have signed after a high level “technical meeting” we organized at the Imperial Botanical Beach Hotel in Entebbe, timed shortly after the place was graced by the Clintons, back in the day.

The meeting has produced what has been since known as "The Entebbe Declaration" – strong commitments on empowering women, as long as that does not interfere with cultural and traditional norms in the respective countries.

At the meeting, government representatives agreed to pay an annual fee as a membership to HRIs network. The money would formally come out of the respective ministry’s budget, but given that the all countries in question “lack resources” in the meantime we simply use HRI donor funds in the respective countries to contribute for this fee, just to “bridge the gap” of course. We file the whole thing under “system strengthening” and it is indeed another HRI win-win: dodgy governments get to beef up their international credentials without actually committing to anything, and HRI gets to position itself as a facilitator of international collaboration – a position very much in favour with donors. As a bonus, we sell the whole thing as “multilateral aid” and please the academics as well.

Also, we have already adopted “Budget support”, a thing punters started promoting as the aid of the 21 century. In plain English, "budget support" means that donor money goes straight to the government budget – a perfect position for HRI in most countries we are working in and here is how it works:

• We start with an informal meeting with donor’s representative where we bond over anecdotes about the unreliability and ineffectiveness of the respective government;
• We then address the reality that money put into the government budget cannot be traced and, given the fact that it is distributed by percentage by an paranoid authoritative executive branch, we wonder what can be done to avoid taxpayer dollars to go into say the defense budget of given country;
• Helpfully, at this point HRI makes the inspired recommendation to give the money directly to the Ministry of Agriculture budget, point at which a HRI local staff (former government employee, still a ghost employee at the ministry, due to a human concern for his pension) brought along for this single purpose volunteers the insight that the Ministry of Agriculture does not have a bank account and its centrally allocated budget gets distributed in random batches with an average of six years delay;
• Then, the signature HRI win-win move: why doesn’t HRI as a strategic government partner not handle these funds on behalf of the government (paying salaries, procuring stuff etc), while also placing a few advisors in this and the other commission to ensure the right decisions are taken?
• Before long, MoUs get signed, partnership meetings get called, ministry offices get refurbished, capacity gets built, systems get strengthened.

 Yes, reader - like you HRI & affiliates are looking forward to another century of effective, life-saving, empowering, high impact aid. 

 

You're welcome.

Brand Building: HRI Logo and Location x 3

Today's customary Friday Bacon and Booze combo has blown fresh courage into Nathan the intern, who, slightly inebriated, has just pointed out to me that HRI has not done a good job of “building a brand” and that our logo is virtually unknown outside the vast circles of life-saving workshopaholics.

All those leadership and management trainings have really changed me to the better and I appreciate an intern attempting to give unsolicited advice, just because they took Marketing in College. Theoretically at least, it could be that years and years of working for HRI has biased me just a bit and perhaps there is something one can learn from a humble intern's "fresh" perspective (fresh perspective of course being an euphemism for "green", and by that i don't mean the environmental type).

After all, working together in the hardships of "Africa" has led to a certain bond between the two of us and perhaps Nathan will have a chance to get a 1-year “special contract” in six-seven years or so and become one of us.

Faking passive-aggressiveness I first tnaked him and immediately told him he needs to learn to keep his mouth shut as well, while he proves himself by writing reports, taking minutes, making newsletters and in general engages in other character-building activities that will help him cut his teeth and learn the ropes. Nothing kills a promising career in this business than speaking to your supervisors un-asked and/ or attempting to be smarter than them.

Meanwhile, in the unlikely event that there may be some truth to Nathan’s opinion, I thought I use the opportunity and share with all of you the well-known, iconic HRI logo again, just in case you need to put it in document-headers, billboards, t-shirts, landcruiser doors and what have you and somehow have misplaced the correct file:

Also, while we speak of brand-building. Some new-comers into the sector have recently emailed me with questions about why someone like me, the executive director of a large international organization no less, chooses to set up in a backwaterish place like the Comoros.

I will provide the simple explanation, apologizing to the more clued-up of our readers for having to state the obvious: please bear with me, for the sake of “brand-building”.

The answer, of course is: Location, Location, Location.

The world has changed you see, and HRI being the cutting-edge organization that it has always been, has immediately acted on these changes under my visionary leadership. Back in the day the executive director used to be based in Geneva or in Washington DC or in some other such place. But in those days it was all about saving the world and life was much simpler. Concepts like "Local Ownership" and "Local Knowledge" were virtually unknown and the donors were happily funding the same sort of stuff again and again.

These days, some people tend to frown upon US/ EU based organizations and besides, having to choose between being based in Europe or in the US also forces one to choose between donors, as US donors tend to fund US-type organizations and EC tends to fund EU-type organizations. And we’re not even talking AUSAid, NZAid or private fundations.

Enter HRI. Having our executive director based in Moroni makes us eligible to funding from a comprehensive list of donors to include everyone that matters, really. They go crazy over being able to fund “locally based organizations” these days and it is our pleasure to indulge them.

Naturally we maintain well-staffed “Administrative Centers” in Washington, DC, Geneva, Brussels, Melbourne and Beijing, to name a few, in addition to having a direct, affiliated or francised presences in virtually every country out there. Sure, these arrangements tend to keep admin, travel and communications costs pretty high, but that also conveniently explains our higher-than-average overhead fees.

Besides, having a well organized “domestic support” team who know how to treat a man of my status has sadly become unfashionable in large parts of the world, just like being driven around up and down the street in a bulletproof Landcruiser, all while acquiring the “field cred” so very useful in our business sector.

A Glimpse Into the Awesome World of Meetings

It may have occurred to some of you that much of what we do in this business sector has to do with meetings. We are all fully committed to coordination, cooperation, sharing of information, learning lessons, creating enabling environments and that the only way all these noble ideas can be achieved is through the marvelous realm of life-saving meetings.

With the passing of time, HRI & affiliates have developed a repository and specialized jargon to differentiate among various types of meetings, but also to build the necessary skills and core competencies in our staff to handle this awesome diversity (you want to send the right skills to the right meeting).

The endless diversity and richness in the world of meetings can hardly be captured in a simple list and any attempt will remain nothing but a humble “work in progress”, continuously evolving with the development of our business sector (there’s a pun there waiting to happen).

Regardless, I am happy to share with you the most updated version in the hope that it will give at least a glimpse in the marvelous world of meetings.

The “LBS”, or the “Lima Bravo Sierra” (short for Look Busy And Stall) - a favourite here, organized for the purpose of avoiding doing something while looking busy doing it. Self explanatory, no?

The “Skopje Sling” – HRI convinces the government to call a meeting so agenda items look like government proposals. Took its name from the golden days of new autonomous states.

The “Dry Cleaner” – useful when a HRI reasonably paid consultant needs to legitimize a copy/paste job from another country (policy, strategy, action plan, roadmap). Example of use: "We just got a grant to develop public health policies in Sri Lanka, call Ed and have him pull a Dry Cleaner on that job he’s done for us in the Solomons".

The “Hulk Hogan” (the name is a complicated derivate from Steering Committee, as in Steering as in Handlebar as in Hulk being like Mr. Handlebar Mustache). When you pull a "Hulk Hogan" you share very complicated matrixes and work plans written by reasonably paid consultants in impenetrable wank-lish to a steering committee, on the assumption that no-one will ever be able to read them and then, as you improvise during implementation you repeatedly make reference to the workplan/ matrix/ strategy. No-one will actually check.

The “SHRUE” (as in Shift Responsibility to Uncertain Entity) – organized when decisions need to be taken that should not be traced back to HRI, or any other specific player for that matter. Difficult one to pull without preliminary “groundwork” and a way to spend donor money discretely. Should be timed to coincide with mealtimes. Use: “This is a pretty shitty plan but money needs to be spent; Nathan, pull a SHRUE on it please”)

The “Maradona”, also know affectionately as "The Diego" – a meeting is called after a miserable and obvious failure, with the objective to “identify challenges” and “lessons learned”, as a way to avoid admitting responsibility. Official documentation in a “Maradona” is always formulated in passive voice (“challenges have been faced”, “there was a gap in communication”, “capacity to absorb has been low” etc.) and conclusions involve recommendations that need further funding to address. Named in honor of the legendary Diego who managed to win the mother of all games by braking the most important rule and not only did he get away with it, but he made more money after that.  

The “Trojan” – attending a meeting/ becoming members in a task force for the sole purpose of sabotaging a competitor providing constructive criticism to a partner, that may result in changes in strategy. A good way to pull a Trojan is to exploit the instincts of any collective body to favour unanimity and avoid conflict. For example, a competitor partner presents a distribution strategy for NFIs (non-food items, for the uninitiated) to an emergency planning committee. HRI would pick on a detail and “express concerns”, for example by saying that members of so and so obscure group in so and so community receiving those NFI have a cultural suspicion of the color blue (which they believe brings bad luck). Unfortunately that tarpaulin provided by the competitor partner is blue therefore we cannot support that distribution strategy. The rest will be done by the ensuing dynamic and the whole thing may evolve in either a "Lima Bravo Sierra" (above) or and “Avalanche” (below).

The “Avalanche” – possibly a sub-genre of the “Lima Bravo Sierra”, using as main stalling technique the “follow up meeting” which will require an action group that needs to be divided in topical working groups that report back to a task force and so on ad nauseam.

The “High Five” – a meeting organized for the sole purpose of patting each other’s backs. Very wide spread, requires no further explanation.

The “Weasel Hold’em” – call a meeting to “collect feedback” on an item that has already been decided as a way to create the illusion of ownership.

Why one Single HRI Project is Worth 1million Bad Ideas

While experts are busy dragging the corpse of 1millionshirts behind their technicals on the streets of twitterdishu under the watchful eyes of punters including this or the other glossy magazine, HRI has silently closed a few behind-the stage deals with donors and is comfortably on the way to “burn” upwards of 68 millions world-wide without having to put up with any significant scrutiny, except the occasional passive aggressiveness from competitors partners when we sit together in life-saving coordination meetings.


Many of these funds have been “sole-sourced” to us by donors who trust us to get the job done, while others were deservedly won in open competitions where the procurement criteria are designed to fit HRI like a glove, in ways that regular readers of this blaag, as well as veterans of the sector understand very well.

The lynching of impressionable teenagers with bad ideas about aid is to the world of aid criticism what the jailing and public shaming of a village headmaster who accepted a chicken from the parents of a pupil would be to the world of anti-corruption, in a country where the province governor drives around in a S600 merc, regularly flown to the big town for service in the belly of an Antonov AN-12 operated by a Logistics Cluster contractor.

Speaking about logistics clusters, yesterday I drove to a nearby compound in Moroni, to attend the regular Heads of Agency Country Team Meeting, scheduled every Thursday at 9am. Unfortunately I arrived just a bit late and the whole compound yard was already full with white landcruisers and hiluxes, some of them with imposing agency flags appended to their HF aerials, and my driver had to drop me quite a distance away from the entrance – a maneuvre I usually disapprove of as the short walk threatens to affect my dignified standing with the local populace.

It was my own fault for being late however, so I proceeded walking and entered my man-of-the-people-mode, giving dignified nods and grimacing grins to the group of drivers congregated around the tea-lady's improvised stall. Right here, I thought, is the hard evidence of our important impact – without us, the tea lady could not make the good business that she makes, probably feeding numerous children with the profits. A success story right there, as well as a charming little anecdote I can tell as cocktail chit-chat during the next life-saving function.

Inside, the senior aid/development community, were getting ready for the meeting with instant coffee and biscuits, chatting leisurely about malaria, famine, environment and condoms while they were waiting for the chairman of the meeting, always fashionably late (she has a reserved parking space outside so there is no incentive to be there in time). As i entered, I immediately sensed the usual mix of passive aggressiveness and need to flatter that comes with my respectable position and I made a mental note to try and sugarcoat my mentioning of the 9 million that HRI has been recently awarded for “peace consolidation” in the Comoros.

That will happen only during the AOB section however, so i have plenty time to "feel" the crowd. Meanwhile main items on the agenda include: coordination of office opening hours, a proposal to increase the security phase for Moroni, based on a worrying incident of pick-pocketing in the local market (it is not about the increased danger pay, it is only that as head of agencies we worry for the safety of our staff) and, finally, the piloting of a new matrix expected to increase coordination between agencies by combining logical frameworks with available budgets. On behalf of HRI, Nathan the intern has been committed to take the lead with this process and he will “follow up” with each agency focal point to finalize the matrix – the deadline is end of 2nd quarter 2011, a time when all respective info will be of great value to development history buffs.

And so, reader, another busy week has passed, in which we have done all we could to make the world a better, more peaceful place.

Today, being a day off i will spend smoking Hookah with the minister of planning and coordination, who has kindly offered to send his driver to pick me up in his private Lexus. He’s an important partner for HRI and, indeed the development community in Comoros and I will make sure we bond over exchanging anecdotes and having some laughs about bad aid ideas, a subject sure to keep a conversation going for hours, even here in the Comoros.

Converting Credit into Development - What's it all about?

Those in the business sector who have recently joined the ranks of the cynics can be forgiven for thinking that it is all about the money. In fact they would be very wrong and that’s why the saying goes about this profession being filled to the brim with unrealistic motherfu*ers.

While money makes the world go round - and don’t get me wrong, proud HRI affiliates do like to dance to the tune of sizeable chunks of them ka-chinging in our bank accounts - fact is money does not come directly out of anybody’s pocket, which brings us closer than you’d think to the proverbial insurance salesman.

what is it all about then?

Well, it’s about credit. I mentioned elsewhere how important credit is in “M&E”, but that’s just a small part of it and this credit i'm talking about is different. Think about HRIs many partnerships - the trouble to administer all that money on behalf of various inferiorly capacitated local partners, the hassle we are putting up with when we play middlemen between the donor and so many unreasonable local organizations, and what do we get for it? Sure the 40% overhead fee is welcome, but the thing that keeps me going, in spite of all the adversity, is clicking on HRIs webpage and seeing how many lives we touch, what a difference we make, all over the world.

A good example is a recent project in Laos where a local organization (LO) has been providing sub-standard orthopedic surgery to children since 1999. They were struggling with resources, coordination and “demand” until HRI, using our cutting edge fundraising techniques, have “mobilized resources” to support this and other similar LOs in and around Ventianne. We have organized a few workshops to ensure that all relevant LOs get to meet each other and coordinate their work. We have identified medical students in the US who came for several 3 weeks cycles, just enough to change all procedures, point out the unsuitability of available instruments and, with sustainability in mind, training surgeons in modern orthopedic techniques, still fresh in their minds after recent anatomy classes. Thinking out of the box, they offered a road-map that would require “upgrading” supply-chains and “increasing demand”. Each of them required a driver during their time there, which also justified purchasing a few vehicles and make some strategic hires to ensure sound administration of assets etc.

Shortly, assessments were completed, new instruments were procured, new techniques were “piloted”, trainings were developed, programmes were managed, consultants were consulting, capacities were built, enabling environments were created.

The number of people receiving surgery didn’t really increase, but as one consultant pointed out that is a matter of “demand” so a communication campaign was hastily put together – it is ongoing as I am writing and based on focus-groups and pre-tests we are optimistic that demand of services wil soar. The donors particularly liked the campaign because due credit was given in the creative execution, the right logos were there and the messaging also included a reference to the importance of sexual abstinence, a relevant issue in what are traditionally promiscuous, karaoke-loving communities.

To make the story short I am personally filled with pride to go to the HRI website and read about how “HRI is saving limbs and improving lives in Laos” and i am actually looking forward to a few trips to Vientianne to see the program myself - as someone who was based there "back in the day" i maintain a soft spot for Laos, in spite of recent developments in which the place has lost much of its sleepy charm. But really, for me knowing that I can have a small contribution to improving people’s live, making sure that people know we are making a difference, that's what really matters. It's good to see that good work like this is always acknowledged by current and other donors and I find that with every new program our track record improves, which means our eligibility for further funding improves as well.

That's what it's all about - converting credit into development. Make sure you are seen doing a good deed and money will flow, lives will keep improving.

It's The Small Things, Arizona

In this business, like in life, it’s the small things that matter. Busy day-in day-out with meetings, workshops and other life-saving activities we tend to forget about the smaller things in life, the ones that give its texture, its poetry. Things like bacon, red wine and superior cheese, all of them smuggled regularly into Moroni by myself and other respectable HRI collaborator.

As some of you may know, the Comoros are what you would call a “dry country” and things like bacon are referred to by the local populace as “haram”, which is a French word (Comoros were French colonies you see) and as far as I can tell means something like “bad for your cholesterol”. For unclear reasons, Friday is the day off here and on this day Comorians like to congregate around a tall building with speakers where they play some sort of French talk-music that presumably gives them trances, so important to any form of "ethnic" worship. Nathan the intern is also a hobby anthropologist and he is explaining these things to me. he is also in the process of finalizing a short documentary about the mystical habits of Africans, which he plans to "premiere" together with his photo exhibition upon his return home. 

Last Friday the weather was spectacular and I had a few people over for lunch – Nathan, forever home-sick, has made us pancakes with bacon and eggs, with Malagasy honey instead of syrup, all washed down with two choices of wine: white or red. We’re not talking any decent terroir here of course, just the boxed fare one can procure in “Joburg” airport, my personal choice to transit planes on the way here. To fit more, I just remove the carton and stuff the bladder in my “Vesachi” carry-on and there you have it.  

As we are enjoying the bacon and wine lunch at my humble residence on the beach, with mysterious French talk-music sneaking in from the over the electrified fence mingling with the sounds of the waves, all was fine indeed on this "island of contrasts”.

An observing pastafarianist, I find it hard to comprehend strict dietary restrictions beyond the obvious ones (no parmesan on sea-food pasta) - which is another small but significant sign that my religion is the superiour one. However, I would say that smuggling in bacon and wine and consuming it in ear-distance of a place of worship in a country that forbids both, must be a minor and understandable transgression (after saving all those lives in particular, with our work). 

Not unlike say a group of immodestly clad gay Mexicans consuming a generous choice of recreational substances around the corner from the whatsitcalled megachurch in Tampa, Arizona on an early summer Sunday morning. As a matter of fact, today is probably a fine Sunday morning in Tampa, Arizona, early summer, and I have no doubt that such an innocent scene is not uncommon back there.

Here's to that - and, for those with no map at hand, Tampa, Arizona is somewhere south of Canada (not quite, but in the ballpark).

Shifting the Aid/ Development Paradigm - HRI Life saving Congress in Monrovia

With the corpse of 1millionshirts still cooling off on the battlefield, where the strategy to “bring it on like a man” apparently did not work out to well for them, the ashes are slowly settling over another epic battle in the world of online “aid & development”, until the next sucker touches another nerve and we can all awaken again and lynch some teenager trying to impress chicks with a cheesy sounding idea on his facebook, the sort that Angelina would approve of (fact: chicks dig givers).

Speaking of which, am i the only one who, during the hottest moments of this “debate” was wondering: What would Angelina have done? Which side would they have Bono taken?

Regardless, it’s all over now and it is time for all of us to get back to our life-saving work. For me that means preparing my keynote speech at the upcoming African Aid Workers Congress, to take place in Monrovia later this month, where I have been invited on the panel along with other reputable African aid experts from Atlanta, Georgia, Washington, DC and one bloke from Geneva, name to be confirmed.

Liberia is an excellent place for aid meetings, rivaled in west Africa only by neighboring Sierra Leone as a "country of contrasts" that has gone a long way from civil war and destruction to being a stable democracy where one can have a well organized extracurricular topic on any development event agenda that would include friendly matches between amputee football teams - the sort of stuff that replaces the usual “cultural show” with a mix of actually going to the beach, a bit of feel-good factor, an opportunity for grave reminiscing and a feeling that one witnesses something better, in a very "african" landscape that conveniently confirms one's expectation of palm trees and chaotic driving. A very good (photo) opportunity as well for future smugness, constructive or not, and many a tale about suffering told in the future, always with the same changes in tone of one’s voice.

During the congress itself, I am looking forward to fascinating discussions about what differentiates “aid” from “development” – solving this thorny issue once and for all, by means of a list of action points developed by subcommittees, will greatly help the HRI coalition of affiliates on the ground make another significant step towards becoming a regional leader in achieving MDG no. 8 – “develop a global partnership for development”.

Further life-saving topics of discussions will doubtlessly include construing relevant standards on the difference between very vulnerable people and the merely vulnerable (a crucial debate in which, as some of you may remember, I have previously been involved during another life-saving activity). Perhaps discussions in the subcommittees will even address the complex issue of how to interpret the definition of “extreme poverty” as reflected by the baseline 2004 Millennium Development Goals Report (MDGR) for Liberia and apply it to today’s realities (also a good opportunity for mentioning blood diamonds and their “disempowering effects in the vicious circle of poverty”).

Nathan the intern will come along as the organizers can use some help with logistics – he will even get to practice his public speaking as he will address the plenary regularly with updates on tea breaks and “process checks”. In expectation of this trip he has just used our regular diplomatic pouch in Moroni to ship in three or four new lenses for his DSLR from back home. Indeed, Nathan the intern is a photography enthusiast, already planning a exposition on “Africa” upon his return in his local coffee shop. Meanwhile he also gets to practice his photo & layout skills with finalizing the congress report – another small favour that we’ll do on behalf of the coalition, for a very modest fee.

You may think it is unusual that HRI would invest in letting an intern attend such a conference, but who knows I say, perhaps with more exposure like this Nathan the intern will become the African Aid expert of the future.