Were the Dark Ages really that bad? W(h)ither Aidland?

I’ve been scanning a few articles and posts on LinkedIn about the crash&burn approach to USAID of the new Trusk administration.  There are two broad schools of thought being advocated. 

The Insider School: this is the worst possible and most unfair action taken against an agency that strives to do only good. The hardship faced by many tens of thousands employee, contractors and implementing partners down the food chain is the main objection, with many expressing solidarity with this newly and unexpectedly large cohort of jobless humanitarians.  Suddenly everyone has the green halo around their profile picture; I’m Open to Work.  

Indeed, this is a shitful way to begin a new year.  I am not directly impacted by Trusk’s actions but suddenly my already slim chances of finding employment within the sector I’ve worked in my entire career are as close to nil as they can possibly be.   

Imagine a series of ponds connected by a stream.  The one at the top is full with just a few fish in it. The middle pond has lots of water but also a huge number of fish.  The stream has been silting up for time and some fish have been struggling to breathe for years. Yet, for the most part the pond has just enough water and oxygen to maintain the status quo.  In the third pond, the water levels are really low but the fish are smaller and seem to be able to do ok though they are constantly aware that the stream from the middle pond is getting dammed and blocked.  

Overnight the top pond is drained of all its water. In a panic, the fish there move into the middle pond. But this is not a solution because the largest feeder stream is dry and the pond’s water supply has dropped by nearly 50%. But there are a huge number of new fish to accommodate. 

In the third pond, fish are dying fast.  Not to mention the many animals surrounding the ponds that depend on the water to survive.  

It’s easy to understand the solution demanded by this group school of thought. Reinstate USAID and all its funding immediately. Turn the tap back on and let the water flow once more.  

The Opportunity School of Thought: This is advocated mainly by (many) fish in the middle and lower ponds. And fisheries experts who work at think tanks and write blogs. The basic argument is: the structure of the ponds and streams was inherently unfair and broken.  The top fish have always determined the quantity and quality of the water flowing to the lower ponds and for the fish in the lower ponds and the animals who depend on the water in the pond, the emptying of the top pond is probably an opportunity to rebuild the system so that it is more equitable. 

No one has yet articulated what a new system might look. The prescriptions are finely articulated statements of principle that have been echoing around Aid-Land forever. They all appear to ignore the cruel reality that we fish, and the animals we support, need water. And if we are going to support a lot of animals and really attack the problems that the animals face, we need lots of water for a long, long time.   

Ok, enough already of this silly analogy. 

The point is that large scale development and humanitarian responses require large volumes of money. And on a steady basis. Governments are generally the only source of such largesse.  Sure, there are billionaires and rich corporations but their interests are extremely narrow and self-serving.  The private sector will never be a reliable source of base funding for humanitarian or development work. 

So, I’m sceptical of the Opportunity school. Of course, if USAID is gone for good NGOs will adjust. Many will cease to exist altogether (not bad in itself); almost all will downsize, shrink their ambition and keep their heads down even lower.  But I’m not holding my breath for a new government led aid infrastructure and financing system to emerge that will be better than the one we love to hate currently. 

And there is a lot to hate. Bureaucracy. Hypocrisy. Conditionality. Compliance over assistance. Risk transfer. Salaries. Bad CEOs with no accountability. Lack of diversity at the top. Recycled thinking. Opaque transparency. Salaries. Sexual harassment and abuse. Baked-in white middle-class privilege.  Over-weening earnestness. Commerical firms who market themselves as humanitarian but are profit making machines for shareholders. 

But the one thing, above all other things, that sucks about the aid business is the donor-implementing partner (be they big hairy international behemoths or a local disabled persons NGO in the south Pacific) relationship. Governments are not just the only viable source of sustainable financing for aid but they call the shots. Their Congresses and Parliaments put so many ridiculous conditions on the receipt of and spending of their funds that many NGOs spend as much time, if not more, filling out reports for donors to ensure they are not violating an ever-growing number of conditions, as they do actually helping actual people.  

For all our claims to be innovative and independent, we have always been beholden to what the State Department or Foreign Office wants.  

This doesn’t put me in the Insider’s camp. I sympathize with those who lost their jobs. Doing away overnight with such a major pillar of the Aidland superstructure will be nothing but disastrous.  And given how most countries take signals from the White House the impact on Aidland is going to be widespread and indefinite.  

I don’t have a solution but frankly I cannot think of any group that can replace government funded aid agencies. 100 Soros’ can’t compete.  I don’t see new scalable financing models emerging. Innovation will happen but at the local level only.  Like democracy, government funded aid is the best of many flawed systems.

The Golden Age of International NGOs and AID is well and truly over. Maybe the Dark Ages weren’t really so bad.