As soon as I introduced myself, explaining that I was involved in the development sector, he started in quite straightforward manner doubting and questioning the efficiency of the “professional” development organizations and their international staff, complaining about their false promises to change the world while delivering a little.
As I was listening to him patiently and calmly without giving any impression of uneasiness, I was thinking how nongovernmental organizations, local or international, have a pretty tainted image not only in Nepal but also overseas where the bulk of money comes from.
What’s wrong with us? Are we doing such a terrible job? Are those professionals like me involved in the sector really constituting a group of privileged persons, a kind of “caste” apart from the reality of the ground, far away from the human sufferings that actually should be the unfortunate driver of our motivation to work in the development sector?
Yes, I do admit that it is not easy to counter some of the accusations thrown by that foreigner. In some cases, vast areas of inefficiencies in the sector exist and these should be eliminated.
Regarding the issue of high salaries and perks, we should distinguish between those who travel overseas to genuinely volunteer using their own resources with incredible passion and motivation and those who rather decide to work professionally using skills and knowledge for good purposes at a cost that is normally very attractive at least for the local markets.
The success of development sector, with all its pros and cons, lies, ultimately, in its own nature: Being and remaining relevant to the beneficiaries. If not, we will all succumb to our fate, becoming something anachronistic and out of touch with reality.
I wish we could all be like Mother Teresa. I am glad that there are a high number of people who decide to give themselves to others with no frills attached, totally and unconditionally. These are the real heroes, persons who sacrifice their lives for the less fortunate. In a different planet and different league, thousands of miles away from the sainthood of the first group, there are normal people; people like me who choose to give a life a certain turn, deciding to work overseas in the development sector. We are not saints and we never wanted to be but at the same time we are driven, at least most of us, not by the perks and benefits (although these might make our work attractive) but by a genuine will to change and improve the world.
The things that emerged from the conversation with the foreigner did not sound new to me. The truth is that there is an urgent and pressing need to demystify the social development sector that is fraught both with lights and darknesses.
We are in a critical juncture, with more and more requests for aid efficiency, more “value for money”, better and tangible results quantifiable and also understandable by the local communities, the real stakeholders of any development process must always hold a real say in all the phases of the projects.
The key now is “smart aid”, sustainable, replicable and effective. The one that is so good that it has an expiration date as there will be no need of it anymore for the beneficiaries are really getting better. A wishful thinking? Not really. But there is a need to award the best practices in the sector. There is a need to rethinking modalities of how aid is delivered.
Should the perks and benefits enjoyed by many of us be the only benchmark for any kind of prejudice against the sector? Organizational efficiency that means bringing real benefits to the people we are supposed to serve, indeed is something that should be deeply analyzed and understood and possibly compared as happens in the most advanced nations with a long history in the not-for-profit sector.
The perks and benefits are not the problems. The real problem arises when we are not able to bring the desired changes, when somehow we are out of the targets. If you are good at your job and if you are really able to bring results, it is understandable that you have to get benefits of good pay checks and facilities. Look at the managers of the biggest American private but not-for-profit universities’ endowments: They have the daunting job to increase the value of donations, investing in the stock markets and generating profit in order to bring more resources to the university. Their perks and salaries are normally linked to the performance of the endowments and if they are really good at their jobs, they can really make awesome money, millions of dollars per year.
Maybe something like that should be applied to development sector: The more and better results you achieve, the more you will be paid. It is a win-win situation, with local communities able to see and benefit from the projects and with the managers of the program able to get extra incentives as rewards.
This may be easier said than done. Common notion may be that at the end of the day spending charity money is easy. But I believe that this is the most difficult and daunting job in the world. For me it is not about how to spend charity money but how to make the best use of an investment on behalf of those people in the world who decided to donate their savings for a just cause.
The problem is also that development sector, not only in Nepal but all around the world, is not well regulated and supervised as effective monitoring and evaluation system is missing. The key to smarten this sector up is a strong regulatory system, with clear roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders.
The fact that not-for-profit organizations, both national and international, are more and more scrutinized (like I was feeling in my conversation) for their achievements and success story as a result of increased demand for accountability and transparency is already bringing some good results and setting higher standards for service delivery. The current global crisis is doing the rest, with many organizations forced to lay off staff and reduce and minimize the overheads.
My chat with the foreigner went on, with me trying to explain to him that there are both best practices and some rots in the development sector. When we were almost ready to wrap up the conversation, he almost “knocked me down” with a lethal blow. He had the idea that salaries of professional development workers should be “capped” following the regulations applied in certain countries where salaries of banks’ CEOs have been limited and regulated by the government. I found the idea little provocative yet it has something interesting to offer.
Should we really reach that level of regulamentation? How do we determine the limits? I believe that there are some international standards to follow in terms of ratios between administrative and project costs. A level of transparency on perks and salaries of the aid workers should be maintained. At the same time, both the donors and beneficiaries should be able to express their level of satisfaction with the achieved results. This should be the ultimate benchmark to judge the overall development sector too.
The success of development sector, with all its pros and cons, lies, ultimately, in its own nature: Being and remaining relevant to the beneficiaries. If not, we will all succumb to our fate, becoming something anachronistic and out of touch with reality. At the end of the day, it is not just a question of benefit and perks. It is more about the level of prosperity and success our actions are able to guarantee.
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