Representing the needs of humanitarian workers

Voices added together
For the last half decade the central purpose behind my research has been to hear and then amplify humanitarian voices from around the globe. Collaborative efforts all, I have administered four major
Internet based surveys, reaching a total of 1,397 humanitarians. By providing a place where individuals can anonymously voice their opinion, the hope of me and my collaborators has been that data collected from these surveys can inform useful discussion, perhaps eventually leading to policy changes.

One question key question on our survey targeting humanitarians from the ‘global South’ is  Do you feel there is a need for an organization whose primary mission is to represent the needs of humanitarian workers?”

Our survey to this point has generated 186 responses from around the world, with most of the responses coming from three nations:  Jordan, Iraq, and Ethiopia. Here are the results overall and then broken down by region and nation.

All countries

 

Middle East (including Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria)

 

Africa (including Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, and Mali)

 

Jordan

Iraq

Ethiopia

Looking forward
As can be seen from the above pie charts, the numbers vary little by nation/region, with the African nations indicating a need for such an organization at an only slightly higher percentage than those in the Middle East. Our data indicates a clear majority -55.3%- of national (‘global South’) humanitarians feel there is a need for an organization whose primary mission is to represent the needs of humanitarian workers. That another 34.1% feel that such an organization would ‘fill some needs’ is not inconsequential, indicating that overall the vast majority -a total of 87.4%- are at least somewhat receptive to the idea.

There is such an organization in the exploratory phase just now. “AID-U” has begun preliminary work on crafting a rationale that you can see here. AID-U is “a membership organisation for all workers within the humanitarian and international development sector to struggle for fairness, respect and rights of all aid-workers and the communities we aim to serve.”  The “(Potential) International Humanitarian and Development Workers Association” also has a Facebook page here.

More survey updates coming soon.  In the meantime contact me here with questions or comments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom Arcaro

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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Research update: by the numbers

[If you would like to take the survey, click here.]

Research update: by the numbers

Context
Our survey targeting humanitarians from the ‘global South’ has been open since mid February

  • 8          Versions of the survey live online (2 x 4 = 8)
  • 50        Questions on the long version
  • 25        Questions on the short version
  • 4          Languages available (English, Arabic, Bangla, and French)
  • 180      Total survey responses as of 12 May 2019
  • 75         Survey responses to English Long version; 71% completion
  • 71         Survey responses to English short version; 76% completion
  • 21         Survey responses to Arabic long version; 62% completion
  • 8           Survey responses to Arabic short version; 75% completion
  • 2           Survey responses to French short version; 100% completion
  • 1           Survey responses to French short version; 0% completion
  • 1           Survey responses to Bangla long version; 100% completion
  • 1           Survey responses to Bangla short version; 100% completion
  • 61%      Completion rate overall 
  • 24         Nations represented 
  • 4,140    Total number of minutes devoted collectively by respondents 
  • 500       Visits to this blog site in the last month
  • 14         Members on the research team (representing 6 nations)

What next?
The survey will remain open until the research team decides to close it. As an additional method to reach as many humanitarians as possible, our team member in Ethiopia will duplicate and distribute paper copies of the survey in the coming days. Access to the Internet and computer time can be an issue for some.

Please contact me if you have any questions, comments, concerns or if you would like to be profiled in an extended interview.

 

Tom Arcaro

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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Research update: Humanitarians from the ‘global South’

Research update:  Humanitarians from the ‘global South’

[Note:  If you are a national (local) humanitarian aid or development worker from the ‘global South and have not done so already, please take the time to have your voice heard by taking our survey.  Click here for links to all versions.]

Update: Nice surge in responses, total now at 156

Overview
Our survey targeting humanitarian aid and development workers has been open since mid February, and to date has 139 responses from 22 different nations. Respondents are from Bangladesh (Cox’s Bazar), Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Panama, Venezuela, Argentina, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria, Mali, Burundi, Somalia, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and, all the way from the South Pacific, comes one respondent from Vanuatu. Representation from Ethiopia and Iraq is very strong, each having 44 respondents just now, largely due to the effective networking efforts of Samuel Lemma Kibret in Ethiopia and Hero Anwar Brzw in Iraq.

The English language ‘long’ version has 55 respondents, while the English ‘short’ version has 65. The Arabic versions have 14 total, with 6 completing the short version and 8 from the long. The two French versions have a total of 3 hits and the Bangla versions have 2.

As you can see to the on this map, our research blog has been has visitors from across the globe, many from the so-called ‘global South.’  Indeed, this is where many have been accessing the survey.

More on the ‘research team’
Numerous humanitarians have had a part in constructing the survey questions, translating the survey, spreading the word to others in their home nation and beyond encouraging participation, and in general providing support, feedback, mentoring, and colleagueship. This research has truly been a collaborative effort. In an earlier post I introduced members of the ‘research team‘, and these numbers continue to rise. To date there are twenty men and woman from eleven nations who have joined me in this effort to hear, amplify, and report the voices of humanitarian workers across the globe.

New additions include Nooralhuda F. Saleh, currently a Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University. From Lebanon, Noor is here in the US working on her graduate degree in civil engineering.  Her contribution to the project is critical, and I will soon be honored to share the fruits of her labor.  She is now constructing the data base framework for all survey responses. This is a big project given that there are 8 versions of the survey (four language versions each with a ‘short’ and ‘long’ form), and blending all that data together would be impossible without proper data management.

A second addition to the team is Amnah Samara, the HR Manager at Action Against Hunger in Amman, Jordan. Amnah is also the team leader of the HR cluster group in Amman, and will be reaching out to personal contacts to spread the word of the survey.  In our recent conversation she agreed wholeheartedly on two main points.  First, she expressed full support for the survey and agreed that getting more voices could lead to “national humanitarians finally being heard.”  A second point of strong agreement was that a strength of the survey is the fact it is totally independent of any organization within the humanitarian ecosystem. Respondents can know that no national or international organization nor any government or government Ministry has any control over the data or how it is used.

How long will the survey remain live?
The process of reaching out to national humanitarians is labor intensive, involving face to face meetings, phone, Skype, and WhatsApp calls, and all manner of social media communication. There is no compelling reason to rush the process, so survey will remain open at least for the next several weeks and perhaps even longer.  That said, we do want to pass along the message that it is urgent that as many voices as possible are heard as soon as possible.

In you have any questions about this research or want to know how you can help, please feel free to contact me.

 

Tom Arcaro

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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White savior complex

White savior complex

[Updated 22 April 2019]

More preliminary results
One month ago I posted a very early glimpse at the data coming in from our survey of humanitarians from the ‘global South’. At this writing we have 120 responses from over 16 different nations from all over Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and even the Pacific islands.

When the survey does close there will be a full analysis and reporting of the data, but until then I will continue to scan all responses and report trends and themes I see emerge. [Note:  If you are a national (‘global South’) humanitarian and would like to participate in this survey click here.]

In my earlier post I reported on questions related to #AidToo, noting that there are two questions on the survey hitting on that topic. As more data come in, the results remain somewhat consistent and predictable on those questions.  In short, yes, the results indicate a problem with sexual harassment or exploitation both between humanitarian staff and between humanitarian staff and the affected community. More on that later.  This post is about systemic ‘baked in’ racism.

White savior complex
Humanitarians are very quick to point out instances of what has come to be called the ‘white savior complex,’ especially among those outside the sector and sector ‘wannabe’s’ doing voluntourism.  The ‘white savior’ trope has been active for many years, certainly predating Teju Cole’s March 2012 article in The Atlantic The White-Savior Industrial Complex which was based on his reaction to the Kony2012 video. Cole’s article garnered a great deal of attention and has shown great staying power, becoming part of the cannon in the ‘anti do-gooder’ literature.

Recent critiques of the ‘white savior complex’ are wide ranging and include the “White Savior Barbie” parody site (Barbie has her own Instagram page), the kurfuffle over Louise Linton’s memoir about her gap year in Zambia, In Congo’s Shadow (one Zambian called the book ‘Conradian racist rubbish’), and the (seemingly) annual controversy over Comic Relief’s ‘Red Nose’ fundraising efforts. There has been an uptick of comments and articles about racism in the humanitarian sector lately, though much more light need to be shed. Still not sure about the white savior complex? Resources and information can be found on a fairly new web site organized by some humanitarians from Uganda. Visit No White Saviors.

Two respondent’s views
To what extent does ‘white savior’ behavior exist within the humanitarian sector?

There is no simple way to measure this phenomena for many reasons, not the least of which is that there is no agreed upon operational definition of this term. I’ll work with my national humanitarian colleagues and see if we can arrive at a reasonable and measurable list of indicators, but in the meantime it will remain as is, a useful referent.

As I was drafting this post I came across this Tweet (see right) on my social media feed.  Much truth there, methinks, all relevant to understand as we parse out the many nuances of ‘white saviorism’.

Bunmi Laditan states, “They call them ‘developing countries’ because ‘countries struggling to recover from being ruthlessly pillaged and systematically destabilized’ doesn’t have the same ring.”

And then ‘@nonwhitesaviors’ notes, “If they can keep us destabilized, dependent and in need of their aid, they can continue to exploit and bleed our natural resources dry.”

Adding an even more egregious example, I’ll quickly insert the ongoing controversy related to the $23 billion that Haiti paid to France for its independence, dramatically hindering the new nation’s economic development.

Most who work in the humanitarian sector -both from the global North and South- are acutely aware of the colonial past and how this past has directly and indirectly contributed to many economic, social, and political ills. But to state the obvious, there is a dramatic and critical difference between an academic outsider’s view (global Northerners) and the the one lived by those who dwell in nations with a past marked and modified by colonization.

With all that in mind, here is what one woman said on the survey,

“White saviour mentality is difficult to compete against. Sometimes even beneficiaries would rather listen to the nice westerner who is giving them the wrong advice than national staff who know what is right. Many times national staff can’t even stand up and correct people who are coming in with irrational idealistic ideas that do more damage than good. So we sit and watch things crumble… and then the saviours leave, and locals are left to pick up the pieces alone, trying to explain to beneficiaries what went wrong. Then in local communities, just by sheer association, we are either seen as traitors or are expected to provide the same freebees that the westerners used to give.”

-female humanitarian from Kenya

 

Before examining her comment in more detail, it may be useful to provide some context. Backed by the rhetoric of the Grand Bargain, the stated goal of many humanitarian organizations is to make incremental progress toward the (ill-defined) goal of ‘localization’, albeit with a myopic focus on the ‘financing gap’ in aid and development.  Here is how Charter for Change phrases it: “An initiative, led by both National and International NGOs, to practically implement changes to the way the Humanitarian System operates to enable more locally-led response.”  But regarding “Localisation of Aid: Are INGOs Walking The Talk?” Perhaps not in all cases, it would seem, and this brings us back to our respondent.

There’s a lot to unpack in her statement.

  • It is very clear from her tone these words come from a place of high frustration “….So we sit and watch things crumble” and ”we are seen as traitors…
  • One of the more insidious legacies of long term Western/white colonialism is the deeply baked in nature of racist assumptions that can permeate the consciousnesses of both the ‘outsiders’ and the indigenous (‘local’) peoples, as in this respondent’s lament, “Sometimes even beneficiaries would rather listen to the nice westerner who is giving them the wrong advice than national staff who know what is right.
  • Sometimes the core mandate of all aid and development work “first, do no harm” seems to be at risk. Her statement infers that efforts can “go wrong” and need to be fixed after the “westerners” leave.
  • One final point she makes is fallout from the outside efforts is that the local humanitarians “…are expected to provide the same freebees that the westerners used to give.”  What these freebees may be, I am not sure, but it is clear that this respondent feels she is set up to fall short in the eyes of the beneficiaries.

Another respondent said,

“As a global south humanitarian worker with both experience of working locally and internationally… I do feel white people have this sort of confidence on things they don’t know and global south staff having doubts but it’s not set in stone. People are different and there are incompetent people from different parts of the world. As a global south humanitarian worker, I have had to stand my ground a few times and felt condescended. Maybe it also counts that I am younger than many colleagues, and female.”

Taken together these two responses also indicate another ‘ism’ which is even more deeply baked into the histories of virtually all cultures.  Sexism exists in many forms all over the world, and it is no surprise that it also can be found manifesting itself within the humanitarian sector. A deeper look into this issue will have to wait for another post.

White savior mentality
These two responses are just that, two responses. There are more comments from others and ample quantitative data yet to be analyzed (and more data yet to be collected, of course). One critical point I will offer is that the white savior mentality is -in many cases at least- not overtly intentional; the ‘westerner’ may not even realize that sh/e is perceived to be embodying this mentality.

Indeed, we may be stressing the wrong unit of analysis, only seeing the “white savior mentality’ to be characteristic of individuals.  Perhaps more so, this mentality is woven into the very fabric of the humanitarian organizations and indeed the entire humanitarian ecosystem. As much is inferred in Cole’s original phrasing ‘white-savior industrial complex’ (emphasis added).

Post script: ‘Saviourism’?
I had one sector veteran suggest that we could perhaps just use ‘Saviourism’ or ‘Saviour Complex’, inferring that even some non-Western POC operate at some level motivated by a desire to ‘save’ other people from their circumstances.  Let’s examine that thought.

I am reminded that although historically race is an ugly and rapacious divider, social class/caste has through the ages also worked in a similar manner, renting apart peoples and ossifying layers of privilege. In addressing class inequalities, most faith traditions around the world, and most certainly the three Abrahamic religions that dominate much of the globe currently (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) encode in their major documents and preach on a regular basis that it is the duty of followers to ‘minister to the poor.’ ‘Saviourism’ is indeed woven into the fabric of many cultures -in both the global North and South. Point granted.

That said, the trope ‘white-savior industrial complex’ as popularized by Cole’s The Atlantic article explicitly and specifically calls attention to race, not class. I will leave this as a question: Is it possible that the use of the more ostensively inclusive term ‘Saviour complex’ is in the same category as saying ‘all lives matter’?


More to come soon.  In the meantime, please contact me if you have any questions, comments, or would like to talk to me about the ‘global South’ survey.

Tom Arcaro

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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A call to national humanitarians from research team

A call to national humanitarians from the research team


Have your voice heard!

What good can come from this survey? Why should humanitarians from the ‘global South’ take the 15-20 minutes to fill out an online form?

This method of reaching out to humanitarians has its challenges, to be sure, but we are committed to pushing through these difficulties.  I asked my research team to speak directly to their counterparts around the globe. where is some of what they said.

Samuel
Humanitarian consultant Samuel Lemma Kibret based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia had this strong message,

“Humanitarian and development organizations are a hidden world where injustice is prevailing. This research is very important as it focuses on hearing voices of humanitarian and development workers that try to contribute in changing the lives of needy but are being pulled back by injustices. Please take the time to have your voice heard.”

 

Hero
I asked Hero Anwar, Deputy Director at REACH in Erbil, Iraq to comment on why people should fill out the survey.  She said, in part,

“Not immediately, but the results of this [survey] contributes to the cause of localization. First, I think for local humanitarian workers when we fill out the survey -if we do it mindfully and think about the questions- it helps us have a reminder about what we are lacking. It is a reminder about our rights and how many areas we haven’t gotten our rights, that there is no equality for us.  So just by reading the questions this will remind us or raise our awareness.

The other reason is when this survey is published it will raise awareness about local humanitarians. Also for us we will be able to cite what is written since it is a credible, academic source, something that people take seriously. It is [seen as] different if I say or write something in a meeting or in an email, report, or proposal because it might seem like just my opinion or from my organization’s perspective.  If what I cite is from an academic, represents the viewpoints of many people, and there is research about it this can mean more when I am making some points about changes I would like to see from donors or policy in general.”

As for Hero’s first point, those who have taken this so far have in most cases thanked me for the opportunity to share their views, most simply adding “Thanks for the survey.” Here are a couple more words of encouragement, both from humanitarians in Ethiopia

“Please undertake this survey in an extensive manner.”

“I think the survey is very important for engaging oneself in humanitarian or development works.”

Evil Genius
My long-time collaborator and friend humanitarian silverback that goes by ‘J’ (aka Evil Genius) noted that while most people are quick to complain about the sector, here is a chance to actually do something (his emphasis).  He said, that national humanitarians who want to impact the direction of localization should take the survey.

More statements from the research team will be added soon, but in the meantime, here’s the Tweet I made yesterday.

As always, contact me if you have any questions.

Tom Arcaro

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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Methodology notes and ethnocentric assumptions

Methodology notes and ethnocentric assumptions

Some thoughts on the methodology
Our survey has been live now for a couple weeks, and the response has been, by any measure, weak.  To date 40 people have started the survey (27 in the ‘long’ version and 13 the ‘short’ version, all in English).

Exploratory research 
The target population for this global survey of humanitarians from the ‘global South’ is, well, exactly that. According to ALNAP there are over 500,000 national humanitarians serving globally. Realistically, there is no means possible to make every one of these women and men aware of this survey, nor would it be possible to translate the survey into the many dozens of languages and dialects used by this global population.

Translating the survey from English into Arabic, French, and Bangla makes it possible to reach, perhaps, a sizable majority of the half million national humanitarians.  That said, we can never be sure that the nuances of meaning in each question have been perfectly or even adequately captured in any of the translations, and so this is an additional necessary limitation of the survey.

For a survey to be properly generalizable, the responses must come from those who are representative of the overall population and reach a statistically representative sample of that population.  Even if the survey were translated into all languages, it is not realistic to think that a majority have access to a computer or smart device and also a stable wifi connection sufficient to take an online survey.

So, to be clear, this research is -and has always been intended to be- exploratory and, as such, the data from the survey can best be used to describe broad, tentative patterns and to suggest further lines of inquiry.

Why take an online survey?
Why would any humanitarian take the time to complete a survey from a US based researcher? This is a key question, and given our response rate to this date, demands an answer.

But first, why not go through established pan-sector organizations to do such a survey? The quick answer is that would be perceived as a ‘top down’ initiative. My collaborators and I talked about the fact that it would be better if the survey was totally independent from any umbrella sector-wide entity, INGO or UN organization. For this research effort to be, and be seen as, an entirely independent undertaking, we thought, would increase the likelihood that people would feel less pressured to fill out the survey.  But again, why should they?

Whenever anyone gets the invitation to fill out a survey -I do frequently here at my university- it typically comes in the form of an email with the survey link embedded.  My first impulse is to do a quick cost vs benefit analysis. Some factors I -and I assume most others- consider include:

  • How much time is this going to take and is it worth my precious minutes to complete the survey?
  • What good can come to me personally by going through this effort?
  • What ‘greater good’ can come to my organization (university, for example) from
    my efforts?
  • What ‘greater good’ can come to other entities or to humanity as a whole as a result of my efforts?
  • What will be done with the data that is being collected, and can these data directly or indirectly cause any harm to me, my organization, or to anyone else?
  • Are there any personal questions being asked and if so, why?  How will my personal information be used?
  • Do I owe any social capital to the person (or organization) making the request and/or can I gain any social capital from the person (or organization) making this request if I complete the survey?
  • Lastly, and perhaps most critically, from whom did this request come? Do I respect and trust the person or organization making this request of my time?

Who knows, this academic from the USA could be CIA or some other nefarious entity wanting to get information. As a potential respondent from the ‘global South’ when weighing the risk versus benefit factors going into the decision to participate -or not- it seems to be certainly a no brainer. Pressing the ‘delete’ icon and doing nothing is far less risky than filling out a survey from some American academic who might be working for a government agency.

Embedded ethnocentrism?
As a typical American and as an academic I get requests to take surveys very frequently
both from within my academic institution, my professional associations, and as a consumer. Even from my doctor I get a message wanting me to complete a survey giving feedback on the service that I received.

That is all to say, in the United States we certainly have a culture of survey taking that makes it seem not unusual to have that request.

There is deep ethnocentrism embedded in my optimism that the survey will be well received by national aid workers globally. Indeed, why should it be? In many nations there does not exist nearly the same culture of survey taking, nor the luxury of being able to trust the source from which the survey is being requested.

In my next post (soon to come) I will provide some answers to the key question I raise above, namely why should national humanitarians invest the time to complete an anonymous survey.  In the meantime contact me if you have any comments or questions.

 

Tom Arcaro

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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Some early results from global humanitarian survey

Some early results from global humanitarian survey

Quick update
With just several dozen responses so far, to call this even preliminary data seems premature.  All of the responses have been to the English versions of the survey, 10 from the ‘short’ and 26 from the ‘long.’   Scanning the data thus far, I am already struck by a few of the narrative responses.

Emotional toll
In her comment responding to the question “In general, do you like your job as a
humanitarian (aid or development) worker?” one female humanitarian working as permanent national staff stated,

“I think I would like it more if took care of the people working in the space. A lot of what we do [is] physically and spiritually taxing and I sometimes feel that there aren’t a lot of spaces where we get to revive and rejuvenate ourselves. We are unfortunately expected to move to the next project without dealling with the effects of the last. Furthermore working in a space where we have an unresponsive government further exacerbates the feelings of burnout.”

This comment squares with the many informal conversations I have had with national humanitarians over the past year.

Race and ethnicity
In her final comment, another female humanitarian working as permanent national staff stated,

“The aid world is a very racist world in which career development opportunities are easy for white people. We can easily witness the growth of a white colleague from officer position to sometimes manager and director level while a dedicated and diligent black professional works in the same position for years.”

Among the same lines, one male pointed out,

“Ethiopia is ethnically divided country. Job seekers can get job easily if they belong to ethnic group of employers.”

Race and ethnicity are a factor virtually everywhere in all industries.  That it is a factor in the humanitarian aid sector surprises few, but hearing these voices again underlines this fact.

#AidToo
There are two questions on the survey that hit on the “#AidToo” topic that has rocked the humanitarian sector for well over a year now, beginning with the OXFAM-Haiti revelations. Our first question is fairly straightforward, asking “Do you believe that sexual harassment or exploitation of national aid workers in the workplace is an issue?”

The results thus far show a remarkable -though I think predictable- difference in perception between males and females. As you can see, the vast majority of the female respondents indicated that “sexual harassment or exploitation of national aid workers” was a significant or moderate issue.  By stark contrast, none of the males saw harassment as a significant issue and only a quarter saw it as even a moderate issue. None responded that it was a significant issue.

Here are the pie charts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Spread the invitation
Please spread the invitation to participate in this survey. Our purpose is to hear and report as many voices as possible and then to use this information to inform discussions among thought leaders. Having ample and detailed data can be an additional step toward improving working conditions for all humanitarians.

This research has been approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Elon University.

Below are the full urls for all versions:

Long versions (50 questions)
English (long version):      https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JB8JB5T
French (long version):       https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/33WF2R2
Arabic (long version):         https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YD3SX6Y

Short versions (25 questions)
English (short version):    https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3DQRFJ
French (short version):     https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3BJGRN
Arabic (short version):      https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3MZFG2

Bangla versions are in translation and will be linked as soon as they are available.

Below is the invitation to participate as it appears on the survey:

Our purpose
The purpose of this survey is to learn about the views and lives of national humanitarian workers. More specifically, we want to hear from humanitarians who are from the so-called ‘Global South’.  Our goals are to share this knowledge with the humanitarian (aid and development) community.

This survey covers a wide range of topics. Though most questions require only a short answer, you are encouraged to offer additional insights in the spaces provided throughout. Your written responses are all OPTIONAL, but please take the time to offer your views if at all possible.

Please be confident that this survey is completely anonymous (including the IP address) and that nothing you say can or will be attributed to you individually or to your organization.  Express your views freely.

This research has been approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Elon University.

The summary results of this survey will be made available to all respondents in a timely and appropriate fashion soon after the survey is closed. You can look for updates and the results at https://blogs.elon.edu/aidworkervoices.

Thank you in advance for your gift of time and effort completing this survey. Please feel free to make other colleagues aware of this survey by passing on the url via email or social media.

Please contact me if you have any questions, comments, or would like to be interviewed for this research.

Tom Arcaro

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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The research team for the ‘Humanitarians from the ‘global South’ survey

The research team for the ‘Humanitarians from the ‘global South’ survey

 

The team
This global survey project has been in the works for many months and is an extension of research I have already done in the Philippines and Jordan. Dozens of humanitarians have read, commented on, edited, and even added questions to various drafts of this survey. Our common interest is in hearing the voices of ‘global South’ humanitarians and then bring these voices into conversations that might inform meaningful dialogue in various forums.

Min Wah Voon has 14 years experience in the development and humanitarian sector with various UN agencies and NGOs in Asia, the Pacific, and Washington, DC. She has been working with the Rohingya refugee population and the local Bangladeshi host community in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, since 2008.

In July, 2018 Min Was reached out to me for counsel on an essay she was writing about humanitarianism.  Having read my book Aid Worker Voices she thought that I might have some useful feedback.

Our conversations eventually turned to my current research and she very quickly encouraged me to include the humanitarians working in Cox’s Bazar in my studies of ‘national’ aid and development workers. We have been working together closely for the past several months on this research.

Min Wah connected me with Tawhid Hamid who is from Bangladesh but deployed just now to Afghanistan. His input was critical in early stages of survey construction.  Another team member introduced to me by Min Wah is Sifat Reza from Bangladesh.  I am working with her on reaching out to humanitarians working in Cox’s Bazar.

Samuel Lemma Kibret lives and works in Ethiopia and has a long history in both the humanitarian sector and working with a INGO/NGO focused consultancy firm called Karamara Consultancy Service which is based in Addis Ababa. His work there has a focus on  operational and academic research – baseline, assessment, evaluation of programs/projects. He is experienced at working in different cultural settings from rural Ethiopia to international staffs and scholars from Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia and Americas. 

I was introduced to Samuel through a mutual friend based in Erbil, Iraq.  He in turn connected me with Kenyan humanitarian Lucy On’gera.

Hero Anwar Brzw is Deputy Director of Rehabilitation, Education and Community Health (REACH), a LNGO headquartered in Erbil, Iraq and is a past executive board member for the NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI). Hero has worked in the humanitarian sector in Iraq for nearly 2 decades and most recently was a member of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (ISAC) Localization Works Field Mission team, traveling to Bangladesh late last summer to help learn how localization efforts were progressing, particularly in the Cox’s Bazar Rohingya response.

I was introduced to Hero through my colleague J, who described her as an ‘amazing woman’.  He understated.  I have been Skyping frequently with Hero for the past five months and each time learn more about the inner workings of the humanitarian sector in Iraq. For more on Hero and her work in Iraq look at this and this. She shares my passion for hearing the voices of Iraqi humanitarians and for sharing with both the sector and the wider public a more accurate, nuanced, and meaningful picture of the lives of humanitarians and the issues they face.

Heba Ayouby has over ten years working experience in Recruitment within three industries: Hospitality, Information Technology and Humanitarian Aid. Of the three she is most passionate about Humanitarian Aid. Growing up in the middle eastern countries of Jordan, Lebanon and the United Arabi Emirates, she continued her bachelors degree in Political Science and Human Relations in Montreal Canada, and did graduate work at Hult International Business School in the UK, earning her MBA . Heba is a avid believer in research, data and its outcomes, and is happy to be part of this endeavour. Heba is also a coffee lover!

Additional contributors
My research focus on national ‘global South’ humanitarians began with a collaboration with Voster Tembo who at the time worked with Habitat for Humanity-International in Lusaka, Zambia. He helped me begin to formulate the core of this research.  My blogs describing our data were enticed by Arbie Baguois, a young humanitarian from the Philippines, and he and I collaborated on the survey of Filipino aid and development workers.

My long time colleague J and I then talked about doing similar research in Jordan.  In Amman I met and worked with many humanitarians and got wonderful support and guidance from Jordanian humanitarian Lina Maraqa, a multi-year veteran of the sector.  Mahmoud Shabeeb, Hanadi Riyal, and Hala Abu-Maizer, all from Jordan, have been exceptionally generous with their time and feedback especially in earlier stages formulating questions for that version of the survey.

Through this research I was put in contact with Maryann Naman, an Iraqi working in northern Iraq for a major INGO. Maryann has also been working with me for many months.

Humanitarian Annalisa Addis, an Italian expat living now in the UK, has provided unwavering support through editing, suggestions, and true friendship throughout this and my previous research.

Most recently, I have been working with translators who have made it possible to have the survey available not only in English but also in Arabic, French, and Bangla.  My good friend and Elon University colleague Ahmed al Fadaam has be a steadfast supporter and has done all of the Arabic translations, Alice Perseval, a student from France doing two years at Elon University, has done the French translation, and Shahreen Srabon is working with me just now to get the Bangla versions live.

To be clear
To this point the feedback, support, and colleagueship contributed to this project has been substantial and is deeply appreciated. Though this has been a truly collaborative project, all failings of the survey design, methodology, or any other aspect of the project are all my responsibility.

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback please contact me by clicking here or by emailing arcaro@elon.edu.


 

Tom Arcaro

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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National humanitarians: you are invited to share your voice

“Humanitarian and development organizations are a hidden world where injustice is prevailing. This research is very important as it focuses on hearing voices of humanitarian and development workers that try to contribute in changing the lives of needy but are being pulled back by injustices. Please take the time to have your voice heard.”

-Sammel Lemma, Ethiopian humanitarian

Listening to humanitarians from the ‘Global South’

Our invitation to share your voice
If you are a humanitarian worker (aid or development) from the so-called ‘global South’ you are invited to share your views by responding to our global survey. More detailed information about this research can be found linked here and you can meet the research team here.

By ‘global South’ we mean people from nations in red in the image to the right.

There are two versions of the survey, each in three languages. The ‘long version’ with 50 questions may take near 30 minutes to complete. Please take this version if you have the time.

The ‘short version’ with 25 questions should take about 15 minutes or less.

Please take the one version that fits your schedule and interests the best. Any gift of time you take completing the survey is deeply appreciated.

This research has been approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Elon University.

Links to all versions:

Long versions (50 questions)

English (long version)
French (long version)
Arabic (long version)
Bangla (long version)

 

Short versions (25 questions)
English (short version)  National humanitarians from the ‘Global South’ Short Version
French (short version)   
Arabic (short version)  
Bangla (short version)


Below are the full urls for all versions:

Long versions (50 questions)
English (long version):      https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JB8JB5T
French (long version):       https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/33WF2R2
Arabic (long version):        https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YD3SX6Y
Bangla (long version):       https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XV3KSFL

Short versions (25 questions)
English (short version):    https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3DQRFJ
French (short version):     https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3BJGRN
Arabic (short version):      https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3MZFG2
Bangla (short version):     https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YR8QGZJ

 


Below is the invitation to participate as it appears on the survey:

Our purpose
The purpose of this survey is to learn about the views and lives of national humanitarian workers. More specifically, we want to hear from humanitarians who are from the so-called ‘Global South’.  Our goals are to share this knowledge with the humanitarian (aid and development) community.

This survey covers a wide range of topics. Though most questions require only a short answer, you are encouraged to offer additional insights in the spaces provided throughout. Your written responses are all OPTIONAL, but please take the time to offer your views if at all possible.

Please be confident that this survey is completely anonymous (including the IP address) and that nothing you say can or will be attributed to you individually or to your organization.  Express your views freely.

This research has been approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Elon University.

The summary results of this survey will be made available to all respondents in a timely and appropriate fashion soon after the survey is closed. You can look for updates and the results at https://blogs.elon.edu/aidworkervoices.

Thank you in advance for your gift of time and effort completing this survey. Please feel free to make other colleagues aware of this survey by passing on the url via email or social media. 


Please contact me if you have any questions, comments, or would like to be interviewed for this research.

Tom Arcaro

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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Follow Me:
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A global survey targeted at national humanitarian workers

A global survey targeted at national humanitarian workers

[Updated 4-23-19]

English, French, Arabic, and Bangla versions are now live.

A global survey targeted at national humanitarian workers
In the last seven months I have been working with humanitarians in several nations drafting a wide-ranging survey instrument. Our goal now is to get the word out as broadly as possible and, ideally, find ways to reach all national humanitarians, making them aware of the opportunity to share their voice via this survey. Our target population includes humanitarian aid and development workers that are from and are working in the so-called ‘global South.’

The purpose of this survey is to learn about the views and lives of national humanitarian workers and then to share this knowledge with the humanitarian (aid and development)
community.  Tentative plans have been discussed to hold one or more mini-summits among thought leaders in various locations, including Iraq, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia. At these meetings the data will be presented and discussed and potential action points emerge.   Updates and preliminary analysis of the data will appear on this blog in the coming months. An additional deliverable to come from this survey is a book-length treatment of this and other research, tentatively titled ‘Local Aid Worker Voices.’

This research has been approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Elon University.

Global South image from Wikipedia

Why ‘Global South’?
The term ‘Global South’ was chosen despite the fact it is imprecise and may not be commonly understood by all national humanitarians.  In was chosen acknowledging that it is widely used in the blogosphere, academia, and even in official sector communications. For additional background, this essay expresses well the history and current usage of the term.

[Note:  The term ‘Majority World’ was coined by Bangladeshi activist and photojournalist  Shahidul Alam in the early 1990’s and has since remained known to and used by only a small -albeit growing- subset of writers, academics, and activists.  ‘Majority World’ refers to the fact that the majority of people in the world do live in these spaces and ofttimes in the shadow of the minority (e.g., Group of 8 countries). Should I have ‘branded’ our survey with the term ‘Majority World’ and not with ‘global South’? Perhaps.]

The countries that appear in red in the image to the left are in the so-called ‘global South.’

If you are from one of these nations, I invite you to take the survey now. Simply click here for the English version, here for the French version and here for the Arabic version.  The Bangla version will be linked in the coming days. Please feel free to pass on these links to others.

Deep background
In 2013 I met and began to work with humanitarian a sector insider who goes by the non de guerre J, otherwise know as Evil Genius. After long conversations, J encouraged me to do a survey of humanitarian aid workers with the goal of hearing and then reporting their voices. We worked together on a series of questions, ending up with a 61 item survey that was made available via the Internet in the spring of 2014. That survey generated robust interest and, in the end, yielded over 1000 responses. Though long, the survey had an amazing 92% completion rate. Over the next year those data were presented in a long series of blog posts, and eventually were eventually edited into my book Aid Worker Voices, published September 2016.

That title, however, is misleading. What I know now is that there are over 500,000 humanitarian staffers around the world and that approximately 90% of those are women and men who are from and are working in the ‘global South’, that is, they are working with affected communities in their own nation. Those that responded to the 2014 survey were virtually all -95%- international humanitarians or what is otherwise known as ‘ex-pat’ aid workers. They were from places like the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and so on. In other words, the title of my book should have been ‘Primarily Global North Aid Workers Voices.’

Since 2016, I have been working aggressively to make up for the sampling bias that is represented in my original data; I have been focusing very specifically on ‘national’ or ‘local’ humanitarians. I have since done country-specific surveys in the Philippines and Jordan, and data from both of these surveys has been presented, discussed, and analyzed elsewhere on this blog.

As word of this research spread, I was contacted by humanitarians working in Iraq and also in Bangladesh, specifically in Cox’s Bazar. I began to work with several humanitarian colleagues to design more country-specific surveys, but the suggestion was made by a colleague in Iraq that it might make more sense to have one global survey that would be a ‘global South’ specific follow-up to my original 2014 survey.

Where the survey project stands now
At this moment the 50 item survey is now live in English, Arabic, French, with a Bengali version ready in the next several days. This global survey is phase one of a two phase project. Both quantitative and qualitative data that come from the current global survey, broken down by nation, will help inform the construction of country specific surveys, drilling down into issues relevant to specific national responses. My research colleagues in Iraq, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and elsewhere are using various strategies to get the word out using, among other techniques, word of mouth, social media (e.g., Facebook groups, Twitter, etc.), email lists, and message boards of various types.  Our hope is that we far surpass the 1000 responses from the 2014 survey that was dominated by ‘expatriate’ humanitarians.

As indicated above, this post will be updated in the coming days.  Please contact me if you have any questions or comments.


URLs to all versions:

Long versions (50 questions)
English (long version):      https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JB8JB5T
French (long version):       https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/33WF2R2
Arabic (long version):         https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YD3SX6Y

Short versions (25 questions)
English (short version):    https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3DQRFJ
French (short version):     https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3BJGRN
Arabic (short version):      https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3MZFG2

Tom Arcaro

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

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:
Twitter