Deepening the conversation regarding ‘local aid workers’ [updated 12 Aug 2018] Guilty as charged I have been researching and blogging about ‘local aid workers’ for a couple years now. (You can click elsewhere on this space to see my posts about national aid and development workers in Zambia, the Philippines, and Jordan.)  In this short post I hope to deepen the conversation regarding ‘expat’ versus ‘local’ aid workers.  My first act is to remove this phrase from my vocabulary, ‘expat versus local’.  I must admit to being among those -guilty!- who are too imprecise in their usage of terminology, not just with this particular issue, but regarding many others relevant to the humanitarian ecosystem. That said, the humanitarian aid system is an ever expanding and adapting global system that is extraordinarily dynamic and complex. Describing it with precision can be a bit like trying to grab smoke. How to talk about … Continue reading Deepening the conversation regarding ‘local aid workers’