Though I don’t have any firm numbers to go by, a quick scan of available data is that English is not the first language of most humanitarian aid workers. While it is a fact of life that the default language of many (most?) organizations in the aid world industry is English (with French coming in a very strong second), of the over 300,000 aid and development workers globally I’ll repeat: for most English is at best a second language.
This fact is perhaps reflected in our data in that we have attracted a very small number of local aid workers:
Our main goal in taking on this project was to provide a space for more discussion about the lives and views of aid workers and so, toward that goal and more specifically toward the goal of hearing more -and more diverse- voices, we are working on translating the survey into Arabic, French, Spanish and German. Please send us a Tweet if you have suggestions for other languages – especially if you have someone able to do the translation.
In other news, check out this article in Devex International Development Career Forum that mentions our survey and also quotes my collaborator J.
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
Some context
In my very first professional presentation as a sociologist I made use of the anthropological terms “ideal culture” and “real culture” in describing the huge gap between the published/public statements on how tenure and promotion judgements were supposed to be made and how they were made. The “ideal culture” as it existed in university statements regarding criteria for tenure and promotion were very far from what I collected in dozens of extensive interviews with faculty and department chairpersons in terms of the operative criteria, i.e., the “real culture.” No big surprise there for any academic. I have always been interested in this gap between what we say and what we do, the ought and the is, and so as I have pored through our survey data I was taken aback by how extreme some of the gaps appeared to be. I will claim no deep insider insights into the aid industry -like my co-author J can legitimately make- but in any case methinks our data indicates a problem which deserves -and needs- to be further described, analyzed and at various levels processed and addressed.
Data!
Let’s start with some data from the survey. In response to the question (Q50), here are the results to date.
This is a huge gap by any measure. Out of all the people who have taken the survey up to this point only 1% reported the “ideal” to be the case, i.e., that there is a complete understanding between the field and the home office, and nearly 38% -as you can see- report that the home office and those in the field -the “real culture” if you will- are on the same page.
When we followed Q50 with Q51 adding a more personal twist the results were as interesting:
People is general were more positive about the connections between the home office and the field, though the massive gap still remains.
As we begin the do more detailed analysis of the data we will explore these questions in more detail, in the meantime here is a quick look at the data when we examine Q50 separating out according to where people reported they were doing their work. Perhaps not surprising data to many of you but interesting to see some numbers, yes? As we get into the last stages of translating and making available the survey in Arabic, French and Spanish -our explicit goal to hear more voices from local aid workers- I am anxious to see how the data fleshed out.
Voices
Here is what some said in the open-ended response section regarding Q50 and Q51:
HQ voices
There is often a large disconnect between the two and while field offices are more intent on doing, HQ’s can often be more intent on process – usually implementing systems which are time heavy and not that useful for the field. Field offices can see HQ management/advisors as pestering, and HQ’s can see field staff as renegades. However, having one good liaison officer between the two can make all the difference, ensuring better relationships and better outcomes for both.
When an organization is large, as is the one I work for, many initiatives have a top down approach. The home office I work for often strives to understand the implications but realise that many of them are unrealistic from what we know from the field office. Thus, the requirements we are aware of and the reality that we know often don’t line up.
Local aid worker voices
Home offices are dwelling in idealism and bureaucracy. They see the big picture, which might sound positive, however often it’s important e to see the small picture. Sometimes, the smaller it is the better. This is exactly where the main issues are closer to the eye, inspected carefully and well understood.
Many in ‘home office’ have not had any ‘field’ experience and therefore have little or no concept of what conditions are like. A bad day in Sydney is missing a bus. A bad day in the field is being shelled, or watching people die.
Expat aid worker voices
There is a disconnect between workers in the field, experiencing and seeing individual issues and struggles first hand, and those that control the purse strings. Home offices seem to be much more bogged down in the politics of aid and humanitarianism, whereas field workers don’t care about the politics, just the work.
The two ‘realities’ are often widely different and it can be difficult to communicate one to the other. The pace at which ‘field’ functions and the daily pressure they face often mean that their priorities and processes are not going to be as aligned as they should with the ‘home office’ which doesn’t face the same pressures and operates at a slower pace.
I recognize that I have implied above that the field is somehow the “real” and the home office is the “ideal”, and that is a misrepresentation: both are real, of course. But the fact remains that there is demonstrative lack of sync between the two. Is this just the nature of the beast or can there/should there be structural and/or policy changes that could address the gap?
The answer is both.
Complex bureaucracies of any sort will, as they grow larger –and there is an inexorable tendency toward growth and greater complexity in most organizations; if you stay the same size you get smaller comparatively– naturally encounter communication problems directly proportional to the number of levels and channels through which messages are transmitted. Additionally, in many cases not being able to make that which is real measurable, the organizational leaders will tend to see -and act as if- that what is measurable is real. This phenomena is much like in the bad joke where one person comes upon a drunk wandering around a lamp post. “What are you looking for?” “I am looking for my watch,” is the response. “Is this where you lost it?” “No, but this is where the light is best,” the drunk answers. Complex organizations must base decisions on “facts” and numbers, though those in the field recognize that much that is true and “works” cannot be distilled to numbers. Max Weber was a realist, to be sure.
In the coming days I will add to this post more illustrative responses from all three groups above regarding their views on the sync between the home office and the field. Stay tuned!
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
As we pass 600 hits, what does our “sample” population look like so far?
And why is “sample” in quotation marks? As we mention in the FAQ, our target population -those who are now or have in the past worked in the aid/development industry- is not a homogeneous, database available-at-the-ready population. Just the opposite: you are all spread across the world in an astonishing array of locations and work circumstances, from New York City-urban to South Sudan-rural. We have here is a snapshot of a necessarily self-selected group of souls who have invested some precious time on our survey.
Some bits from the data:
Age/gender/’race’
Though those who identified as female make up 68% of our respondents, there is a markedly higher percentage of ‘long in the tooth’ males responding: “I have been doing humanitarian aid work for ten or more years.” Male: 33%, Female 17%, with males having a higher percentage of respondents in all age groups from 36-40 on up.
The population is overwhelmingly “white” at 84%. The responses to the open-ended question related to self-identification have been fascinating, edifying and entertaining. Most of you we very mindful -thank you!-about what you wrote. Here are a couple intense responses:
I am Filipino-American. Colleagues in the Philippines treat me as a local/national with a foreign passport. I have similar experience in other countries within South East Asia. In West and East Africa, I am often perceived as Chinese. In the Middle East, my ethnicity is often associated with hired domestic help. I am extremely proud of my ethnic background and cultural heritage but there have been times in the field when I wanted to look like the typical expat aid worker – 6 feet tall, blond and very white. The color of one’s skin shouldn’t matter especially in this line of work, but who are we kidding?
I was adopted from Colombia as a baby, have grown up “white” but feel that to deny my “latina-ness” isn’t doing race discussions any favors either, so I am conflicted as to what to identify myself as, but in terms of privilege, opportunity, and perspective, I am white.
Vast majority of the sample -83%- self-identifying as working for or volunteering in a humanitarian aid organization, with the remaining 17% divided among UN System (3%), donor agency or charitable foundation (5%), consultant or contractor (9%).
Education
A very well educated lot, these humanitarian aid workers: 74% report having Masters level or more formal education. The open-ended question “How would you describe your non-institutional educational background?” has yielded some nuggets:
Good question. Extensive experience in the university of life perhaps? I’ve learned more from fieldwork and discussions with experienced colleges and ‘uneducated beneficiaries’ than all my degrees put together, but they help pad out my CV.
Took some courses here and there – e.g. evaluation, DRR, humanitarian practice, human trafficking.
Much hands on experience and self study in terms of humanitarian aid standards. Taken several workshops on a variety of topics as well as led workshops on a variety of topics. Community courses, through community centers of continuing education forums.
Being thrown in at the deep end in Somalia and going from there. You learn fast in the field when you get practical hands on experience, rather than all the theoretical drivel they teach us in university.
As a university professor who has taught classes on “global citizenship for the last few years this final one was my favorite.
Home?
The respondents thus far have reported “home” as predominantly the US, UK, Canada and Australia with a sizable number calling home various nations around the globe. To this point there have been 720 visits to this blog from all over the world, though the biggest lot is from the US. Here’s the blog cluster map indicating from where the blog was accessed.
Relationships Of those that responded (572), most are in a relationship -58%- though interestingly 26% reported being “Single and not dating.” The qualitative data indicates that this is very likely a life-style reality fore those in the aid world. The gender breakdown on this question is significant. While 71% of the males report being in a relationship that number drops to 51% for females. When we break down “single and not dating” the numbers look like this: 31% females and nearly half that number -16%- for males.
Though 35% of the respondents report being married, the gender disparity -50% male, 28% female- merits a closer look. Most (76%) have no children but a remarkable 4% reported having three or more.
Travel and work environment
This is a well traveled group, 53% report having traveled 11 or more times outside of their home nation for their work and over 65% reporting having been deployed for over a year (46% 2 years or more).
Most -80%- work in non-faith based organizations, 54% are in development (community development, long-term development, etc.), 28% doing relief work (disaster response, emergency response, etc.).
So, above is just the very tip of the data iceberg that we are only just beginning to explore. Please keep us on our toes with your Tweeted, Facebooked, emailed or otherwise transmitted comments and feedback.
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
Cancer of corruption or the culture of corruption?
How can we define, discuss and analyze this social phenomena? I will agree completely with the many who will point out that corruption is impossible to definitively operationalize and that cultural context, history, point of perspective, motivation, etc. are all factors. In fact I’ll argue that the term itself is a semantic land mine charged with power/Western-centric thinking.
So, what has appeared on the survey so far related to corruption?
There are three questions related to corruption on the survey, one about corruption in the organization of the respondent, one about corruption in the region where the respondent functions and then an open ended question encouraging elaboration on the closed ended question, namely what are your thoughts on corruption in general. I have tweeted a couple of the more pithy responses, but here are a few more to get our conversational juices flowing. For this post I have cherry-picked the ones below to make a few points.
First, there are some who report having seen little corruption:
I have heard of one or two instances of corruption.
It is rare and handled quickly.
And then there’s the more hard-nosed [realistic] voices:
It’s part and parcel of this line of work, particularly with contractors, suppliers, and national staff (logistics staff). Cannot be avoided no matter what people say or claim.
I work for the UN where unethical behavior is a constant.
Local corruption and corruption in other agencies, especially the UN.
Most recent region, little corruption, before that, daily occurrence, like the sun coming out in the morning.
Corruption is very common in Afghanistan and I don’t think any organization is immune against this issue.
Somalia. That is all.
Corruption is a way of life here and most of the local authorities see it very differently than in the West. national staff get a lot of family pressure and struggle to explain how things are done differently.
There were several that were both critical and insightful at the same time. Here’s my favorite:
Number one: this is another absurdly poorly worded question (are you a 19 year old undergrad? Seriously, where are your qualitative research skills?) What do you mean by “corruption within the organization”… are you talking about siphoning of donor funds for private use? Are you talking about organizations having to pay “tea money” to get project approval? Are you talking about employees stealing from the office? Seriously. For the second question, I work in governance and civil society strengthening in one of Asia’s most corrupt countries. Yes, dealing with corruption is a fact of life for us here. In fact, reducing corruption and pushing for transparency is one of our main objectives.
There were the philosophical and thought provoking:
One man’s corruption is another man’s wealth redistribution system. I find it hard to judge others on this.
Corruption is the biggest cause of poverty. If you are in aid, you deal with corruption.
The pointedly “culture of corruption” voices:
Corruption is a way of life here and most of the local authorities see it very differently than in the West. national staff get a lot of family pressure and struggle to explain how things are done differently.
Most of the corruption I deal with is not considered corruption by national standards, it is just a cultural norm. You look after yourself and those close to you first, and of course you have to pay a “facilitation fee” to get anything done.
And finally the “let’s look at this in a larger power-questioning context:
Corruption exists everywhere -and the biggest $ corruption over the years has been in the ‘first world’ banking/investment sectors. It is perhaps more obvious day-to-day in other places – but exists everywhere.
Four out of the last seven governors of Illinois have been charged with crimes related to corruption. It is a constant presence in all fields, aid work and otherwise.
Corruption is a problem everywhere. Worst corruption and influence peddaling is in my home country, the US. It bothers me that people complain so much about corruption in the developing world when it is literally magnitudes greater in the US political system.
At the end of the day I will support the argument that there is much to consider when beginning to look deeply into this concept of corruption. I am reminded of a comment by Antonio Donini: “Humanitarianism started off as a powerful discourse; now it is a discourse of power, both at the international and at the community level.” I think part of the power the West wields is the power to drive the narrative in a self-serving manner and, in the case of corruption, perhaps not looking in the mirror long enough. I also think that this is a conversation worth having often, in depth, with passion and with concrete out-come oriented action as its goal.
What say you?
Here are the results of the question related to corruption within the region:
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
Our survey of aid workers (read: anyone who’s ever somehow been part of the aid industry, ever) has been live for about one week, now. We’re seeing some interesting patterns begin to emerge out of the quantitative portions, and we’re getting some really interesting responses from you in the open-ended boxes. Thank you, and please keep those responses coming!
One piece of the picture of who you are (and me, too. I’m an aid worker), which I find particularly interesting, is what’s starting to emerge from multiple-choice questions #44 and #46, and “elaborate your thoughts” open-ended answer boxes which accompany them both. In their entirety, these two questions read:
Question 44: Many (most?) humanitarian aid workers will ultimately become ex-humanitarian aid workers. Excluding those few -but tragic- that will die in service, which below do you think is the *most* common reason why humanitarian aid workers choose to leave this line of work?
Question 46: Many (most?) humanitarian aid workers will ultimately become ex-humanitarian aid workers. Excluding the unlikely and tragic possibility that you will die in service, if you do so by choice which below do you think will be *your* reason for leaving this line of work?
So, basically, why do you think most people leave the aid industry? And then why do you think you will eventually leave?
Bear in mind that we’re not anywhere near closing the survey, so this obviously preliminary analysis could (and very possibly will) change before we’re all done. But one week in, here’s how you answered (screenshots directly from Survey Monkey):
Responses to why *others* are likely to leave the aid sector
responses to why *you* are likely to leave the aid sector.
My quick read-outs:
Retirement & Leave the Sector: It looks as if it’s fairly common to assume is that you will all eventually retire. There appear to be similarly strong assumptions around simply leaving the sector, say, for work in another industry. My (again, very initial) takeaway here is that this probably points to the reality that we increasingly see work in the aid sector as exactly that: work.
Maybe we work somewhere in the aid industry until we retire. This assumes that we will retire, which assumes some sort of retirement planning, which in turn assumes we’re somehow compensated enough to enable an actual retirement. There will come a time when we say, “okay, I’m done. I going to stop making the world better, and just play golf…”
Leaving the sector, while pretty broad and encompassing, also suggests that many of us see this all as “just another job.” Other studies have shown that it is common for people to shift industries several times over the course of an adult working lifetime. The aid industry is one of those industries, like many others, that people increasingly cycle through, as one option among many.
Termination: It was very interesting to see that almost none of you view termination (being fired) as much of a possibility, either for others (0.34%), or for yourselves (o.69%). Many elaborated this in the open-ended box following question #48 (“what do you think is the most common reason humanitarian workers are fired?”). In the words of one respondent, simply:
“Overall, I think you have to try pretty hard to get fired.”
Yep. This rings true, based on my experience. Outright termination is fairly rare.
Burnout & Disillusionment: The most interesting for me, personally, were the results that came out of Burnout and Disillusionment. Look at the tables above. Almost as many of you see disillusionment as almost as common a reason as retirement for others to leave the aid industry.
Tabulating views on “others” versus “you” were interesting as well. Based on results so far, many of you see others as more likely to leave because of disillusionment than you, yourself (others, 19.32%; self, 16.96%). This contrast is even more marked if we look at “burnout.” More of you chose burnout as the reason for others leaving the sector than any other option (27.8%), but “termination” was the only option with fewer choices than burnout as the reason why you would likely leave (9.69%).
My read: Basically we see others as burnt-out and disillusioned, or at least highly at-risk, while we still see ourselves as less so, or perhaps somehow immune. What does it mean? I’m not sure—still pondering. There’s a level at which it feels as if many of us have a generally negative view of our sector, yet remain basically optimistic (or maybe wishful) ourselves.
What do you think? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments thread below this post. You can also tweet to @tarcaro and @talesfromthhood with the hashtag #humsurvey. Be sure to follow my own snapshots of the #humsurvey results and discuss me and other respondents in more or less real time over on my Facebook page.
And of course, be sure to get as many as possible of your aid industry friends to take the survey.
J. is a full-time professional humanitarian worker with more than twenty years of experience in the aid industry. He currently holds a real aid world day job at a real humanitarian organization as a senior disaster response manager.
In a previous blogosphere life J. wrote a blog about aid work called Tales From the Hood, and was half owner/curator of the uber-awesome Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like.These days he occasionally blogs about serious topics at AidSpeak (aidspeak.wordpress.com).
J. has written several books, including the world's first humanitarian romance novel, Disastrous Passion, and a non-fiction book entitled Letters Left Unsent.
Follow J. on Twitter @evilgeniuspubs
I’ve spent the better part of the past twenty years believing that something was wrong with me. I knew the cause, of course: I am a professional aid worker, and I have been for some time. And that fact alone seemed, for a while, to explain it all. Aid-work-induced weirdness was for many years something easy to hold up as a pseudo-explanation for why I couldn’t or couldn’t be bothered to try to fit in or get along.
But you get to a point—or at least I did—where the simple acknowledgement that “aid work affects you” is no longer sufficient. It’s not sufficient because we want to understand ourselves, and others like us. I am now in a space where I need to understand, supervise, lead, and in a few cases even mentor actual, young, newly-minted aid workers. The ability to analyze and make some sense of my own experience, including those moments of jarring disconnect, is a critical attribute.
“A persistent and exclusive focus on the ‘other’ obstructs more open and necessary debates on the role of aid workers. Such academic invisibility allows popular and misleading stereotypes of aid workers to flourish; more pertinently, it hinders honest appraisals of the experiences of aid work and its challenges.”
In other words, it is important to understand us, too. Aid workers. We are part of the aid equation, too, and if we’re not understood, neither can our roles and contributions be understood. And if our roles and contributions cannot be understood, then we cannot make improvements to it all. Good aid requires good aid workers, and good aid workers require and understanding about what an aid worker is in the first place.
All that having been said, we’re an understudied and largely misunderstood group.
Which is why, I’m particularly proud and pleased to be part of a new project meant to address exactly this. It’s my privilege to be able to collaborate in my personal time with Dr. Tom Arcaro of Elon University on a project to study us! The first step, as any real aid worker will appreciate, is to do a survey, and that is what brought you to this blog.
This project, according to Tom:
As founding Director of the Periclean Scholars program and Mentor of the inaugural Class of 2006, I have mucked around on the edges of aid work for the last 12 plus years. Guiding my Class through their experience partnering with HIV/AIDS related NGO’s on the ground in Namibia gave me a deep appreciate for the complexity of aid work and thus began my long and serious emersion into the world of humanitarian outreach and development work. In the last several years I have been teaching a course on ‘global citizenship’ in general and more specifically about the issues related to humanitarian aid. The work that I am doing now in studying the aid world is important to be on many levels but most critically because (1) I believe that a robust conversation about the realities of how we are responding to our global issues is vitally important and that (2) knowing more about the views of those most directly involved in this response is a positive step toward a more just world for all.
So, thanks for being part of the conversation. Stay tuned to this blog for frequent ‘mini’ polls which will appear on the right side up this page (see above now for the first one), ongoing presentation and analysis of the emerging data from the survey and, we hope, both heat and light.
Thanks for stopping by! Please promote this survey on your Facebook page, Twitter, or by any other mode you might prefer. Be sure to check back here often for updates and discussion as our research progresses.
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
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