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1 Mapping Aidland
Jean worked for a bilateral development agency in Central Africa from the 1970s until the 1990s. After the Rwandan genocide, he decided to enrol in a humanitarian studies programme and started to specialize in refugee issues. He has worked as consultant and lecturer, focusing in particular on the link between relief and development. Furthermore, he has experience as election observer and as a trained psychologist has selected candidates for overseas missions. In addition, he has volunteered for the Red Cross and held short appointments with various UN agencies and the OSCE.
Jeanâs brief biography spans several decades and encompasses work experience in relief and development, a long-term appointment in a bilateral aid agency and volunteering for the Red Cross, in addition to consultancies, lecturing and personnel development. The decision to change from development to relief and election observation was influenced by political developments and by personal career decisions. Jeanâs biography illustrates changes within the aid sector and the variety of work opportunities that Aidland offers, reflecting the different mandates, cultures and histories of aid organizations. This chapter gives a brief historical overview of the emergence and transformation of humanitarianism and development, and covers colonialism, de-colonialization, cold war, new wars and the War on Terror. In the course of the changing social, political and economic relations between the Global North and the Global South, the relationship between humanitarian relief, development and human rights also changed constantly. Furthermore, Aidland includes a range of actors, including faith-based and secular, governmental and non-governmental, international and local organizations which compete and collaborate with one another. The shifting practices and priorities of these organizations shape the job opportunities of people working in aid, whether as volunteers or as paid staff.
Modernization, humanitarianism and development
The roots of Aidland lie in the modernization processes in the Global North which were co-constituted through colonial and imperialist endeavours constructing the âless developedâ Global South as âotherâ (Bhambra 2014; Go 2013; Steinmetz 2013). Thus, the less developed South serves at the same time as a contrast to the highly developed North which in turn seeks to âimproveâ the South, even though, for example, India played a critical role in the industrialization of English textile production (Go 2013). Aidland is rooted in missionary movements, colonialism and imperialism, and is thus shaped by unequal power relations between North and South. This has long-lasting consequences for NorthâSouth relationships in contemporary aid encounters. Postcolonial theories remind us to understand âthe otherâ as being embedded in and constituting identities and positions, whether these positions and identities are privileged or marginalized.
Humanitarianism and development are rooted in religious as well as imperial traditions, and âcolonialism and human rights have been intermeshed over the past 200 yearsâ (Taithe 2004, p. 155). Colonialism has been justified by a humanitarian argument: the duty to âcivilizeâ presumably less enlightened peoples. Humanitarianism is inextricably embedded in colonial governmentality and is one of the roots of modern development discourse (Lester and Dussart 2014). Different types of colonialism may be distinguished which varied in their impact on the economic and political development of the former colonies (Acemoglu et al. 2001; Lange et al. 2006). Colonial institutions, in particular those regulating race and ethnicity, had long-term consequences for social development resulting in ethno-racial stratification between European settlers and colonial administrators, local elites, privileged racial ethnic groups and indigenous populations. These deeply rooted divisions re-emerge in contemporary social conflicts and play an important role in occurrences of violent confrontations, including the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
Missionaries have been labelled âhandmaidens of colonialismâ (Maxwell 2005) and education was primarily a means of evangelism rather than improving living conditions in the colonies. Medical service was even more ambivalent than missionary education, since missionaries and other settlers were not necessarily able to cure diseases that had been brought to the colonies by the colonial settlers (Etherington 2005a). The relationships between Christian missionaries, colonial administrators and settlers and the indigenous populations were complex and contradictory (Stanley 1990; Etherington 2005b). Furthermore, missionary work also offered an alternative to marriage and career opportunities for single, middle-class women who were not allowed to work as doctors or teachers in their home country (Grimshaw and Sherlock 2005). By the late nineteenth century white women outnumbered men in imperial missions, which offered opportunities for single as well as married women. In addition to supporting missionary men, missionary wives were engaged in public activities; for example, running schools or standing in for their absent husbands. Thus Aidland has been gendered from the very beginning, offering white middle-class women from the Global North opportunities to âstretch and bendâ (Ferree 2009) gendered norms.
Haskell (1985a; 1985b) explains the emergence of a new humanitarian sensibility in Europe in the late eighteenth century with a higher level of conscientiousness combined with the confidence of having the capacity to act on behalf of human suffering and injustice. Yet, British industrialists who were active in the abolitionist movement were not necessarily concerned with labour exploitation in their own country (or enterprises), thus distinguishing between the suffering overseas and that in their own communities. This distinction is still relevant today, if fair trade activism that addresses working conditions overseas is not linked to the situation of low-paid workers, including migrants and ethnic minorities in high-income countries. Kapoor (2013) describes the contributions of billionaires such as Bill Gates to philanthropy as âdecaf capitalismâ or âphilanthrocapitalismâ â giving with one hand but taking with the other by engaging in profit-making, the creation of inequality and the accumulation of wealth.
The battle of Solferino (1859) which led Henry Dunant to initiate the formation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the first Geneva Convention (1864) and the founding of the Salvation Army (1865) represent important steps with respect to human rights and are decisive events for the emergence of the modern concept of humanitarianism (Redfield and Bornstein 2011). In the first half of the twentieth century in response to the First and Second World Wars a number of non-governmental organizations were created in response to poverty and other consequences of wars and other humanitarian crises. The Save the Children Fund was created in response to the First World War. Throughout the twentieth century, humanitarian crises resulted in the creation of organizations including a number of non-governmental humanitarian organizations addressing the needs of refugees, displaced persons and other victims of wars such as the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in 1933, Oxfam in 1942 and CARE in 1945. While these non-governmental organizations were initially involved in relief work, some of them later on included development activities, as I will discuss below.
Thus modernization, development and humanitarianism are inextricably intertwined and reflect unequal power relations between North and South. Benevolent individuals and organizations which sought to address these sources of inequality through acts of charity were acting from a position of privilege which remained unchallenged.
Development post-independence
Some missionary interventions had unintended side effects and missionary education inadvertently undermined colonial rule, as it provided crucial training for the leadership of nationalist movements and was central in the creation of nationalist elites. Overall, the stance of missionaries towards de-colonialization has been characterized as âambivalent and aloofâ, and only a few missionaries actively supported African nationalist movements (Maxwell 2005). The reluctance to support nationalist movements was to some extent grounded in self-interest and concerns that the communist and cultural nationalism in China and South Asia might provide a model for anti-colonial movements in other parts of the world. Mission-educated African elites were therefore disappointed to realize that missionary leaders provided little support for equality and social justice, and therefore turned to voluntary organizations, trade unions and political parties as allies (Maxwell 2005). The trajectory of post-independence development and transition to democracy were shaped by legacies of colonial rule (Subramaniam 2006).
Following de-colonialization processes, development assistance was introduced in the late 1940s and led to the transformation of existing organizations, namely former colonial administrations, and the formation of new organizations. Newly established organizations included the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which was based on the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) responsible for the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan which had proved successful in rebuilding war-damaged Western Europe offered a model to provide aid to âdevelopingâ countries, the majority former colonies and newly independent states. It was run by the OEEC which was formed of 18 European countries and was established in 1948. Based on the success of the Marshall Plan, the mandate of the OEEC was extended globally, leading to the formation of the OECD with the declared goal to âcontribute to lasting peace through economic collaboration and reconstructionâ. The OECD and its Development Assistance Committee (DAC) does not provide funding, but seeks to contribute to economic development through monitoring, providing data and policy recommendations. Like the Marshall Plan, development aid for the newly independent countries had a political agenda reflecting the cold war dichotomy. Thus, in the mid-twentieth century, Europe (and other industrialized countries) provided the model for modernization of the newly independent states who became the targets and recipients of aid, initially in the form of large loans for infrastructure which resulted in a debt crisis. The institutional foundations for an aid system were laid between 1944 and the end of the 1960s, and included the World Bank and International Monetary Fund which were established at Bretton Woods in 1944, as well as bilateral and multilateral organizations. Simon (2009) characterizes the post-Second World War period as the heyday of development.
Bilateral organizations
Many OECD countries established bilateral development organizations, which were part of the foreign policy agenda and trade policies of donor governments. For example, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) combined various goals, including the promotion of democracy, freedom and human rights, and the creation of job opportunities for Americans while supporting economic growth and development in poor countries (Riddell 2007). Donor countries tended to forge a special relationship with their former colonies. The British aid programme may serve as a good example here. It goes back to the colonial administration which addressed economic development and responded to social unrest to the welfare of subjects in the colonies (Barder 2007). Following independence, Britain provided technical assistance grants and loans (including concessionary loans) to former colonies as well as to other Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth states. The trajectory from colonial rule to contemporary international development is thus characterized by continuities and divergences (Kothari 2006a). Aid organizations experienced tensions between former colonial officers and post-independence development âexpertsâ who disagreed concerning the importance of in-depth knowledge of the countries obtaining âaidâ (Kothari 2005a). Aid credits and projects were tied to the use of British goods and services, not only pursuing development aims, but also serving British political, industrial and commercial interests (Barder 2007). This practice was not unique to Britain; until recently, most bilateral donors provided tied aid to a greater or lesser extent. For example, it is estimated that Germany obtained returns at 50 per cent or higher (Randel and German 1997, p. 71). In contrast to (West) Germany and Britain, France, which had been Europeâs largest donor until 2005, did not have a single comprehensive aid budget or ministry. Instead, a number of ministries, including the Ministry for Economic Affairs, Finance and Industry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, were responsible for the allocation of aid, thus indicating policy priorities (Riddell 2007). Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands constitute smaller donors, but exceeded the 0.7 per cent ODA/GNI target of the Millennium Development Goals and are thus deemed generous donors. Among the DAC countries, the bilateral share of overseas development assistance is 70 per cent and about 8 per cent of overseas assistance goes to humanitarian aid.1 The United States remains the largest donor, with a larger bilateral share (83%) than the DAC average and a higher proportion of humanitarian aid (15%). However, the US have been less generous with respect to the GNP/ODA ratio. In 2012, the ODA/GNI share for the United States was 0.18 per cent compared to a DAC average of 0.28 per cent and thus nowhere near the 0.7 per cent demanded in the Millennium Development Goals. In contrast, the Scandinavian countries which are smaller donors were more generous; for example, Swedenâs GNP/ODA ratio was 0.97 in 2012. This means that the United States give a lower proportion of ODA to bilateral organizations than the DAC average and â compared to the GNP â more generous countries such as Sweden. Moreover, in contrast to other donors discussed above, since 1962 Swedenâs core objective in providing ODA is not foreign policy and economic interests, but the desire to improve the living conditions of the poor and to support independence movements. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) administers Swedenâs aid programme, while development policy is the responsibility of the ministry for foreign affairs (Riddell 2007). Australia and New Zealand also established official aid programmes in the 1960s which expanded in the 1970s. While both aid programmes address poverty reduction, they also pursue foreign policy objectives and have primarily targeted the Pacific and some Asian countries, but also gave aid to other regions. The Australian Development Agency (ADA) was founded in 1974 and was renamed several times; the most recent incarnation of the Australian government agency was AusAid (the Australian Agency for International Development) which was integrated into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2013. Before AusAid ceased to exist as an independent agency, it had over 1,500 employees.
Bilateral aid agencies offer employment opportunities in country offices as well as the head office. Due to the size and hierarchical structure, these organizations also offer career opportunities and full-time, permanent and pensionable positions (Eyben 2003; Coles 2007). In addition to permanent staff positions, bilateral organizations also offer consultancies (Stirrat 2000). Indeed, employment practices of international aid agencies have shifted to cost-saving short-term appointments which significantly affects the lives of people working in aid (Hindman 2011). Since the 1980s, in the context of neoliberalism and efforts to improve the efficiency of public administration, Western governments have reduced staff in ministries of foreign affairs and development (Borton 2009). This has resulted in new approaches to management and the administration of humanitarian funds which I will discuss further below. First, I will turn to a brief overview of multilateral organizations, in particular UN agencies, which are recipients of bilateral aid which is then further disbursed to implementing non-governmental organizations.
Multilateral organizations
The creation of the United Nations (UN) in 1945 led to the formation of a range of UN agencies which obtain funding from national governments and subcontract bilateral as well as non-governmental organizations. These include the United High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to name a few. UN agencies provide a broad range of employment opportunities in head offices and regional offices for permanent staff and consultants, international and regional staff. The UN system includes different categories of staff, interns and volunteers, some of whom are hired locally, others internationally. In each category, several tiers associated with different levels of education and work experience, as well as levels of experience, are distinguished. Professional and higher categories are usually internationally recruited and involve different duty stations throughout a career. General Service and related services as well as National Professional Officers are generally recruited locally, but do not require a particular nationality. In contrast to those on permanent positions who are expected to rotate between various countries and assignments, the work opportunities for staff hired locally are more restricted.2 UN agencies such as UNDP also offer internships to graduate-level students and volunteer opportunities through UN Volunteers (UNV). The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) offers volunteer opportunities in development assistance, humanitarian and peacekeeping operations. In 2013, UNV comprised nearly 8,000 volunteers.3
UN personnel has increased from approximately 500 in the founding year to 75,000 (excluding peace operations, IMF and World Bank) in 2011 (Weiss 2012). Kofi Annanâs presidency (1997â2006) introduced comprehensive reforms which included a reduction of posts as well as a phasing out of permanent contracts. Only a very small proportion of staff on fixed-term contracts who meet the âhighest standards of efficiency, competence and integrityâ are eligible for continuing contracts (Weiss 2012). Staff on fixed-term contracts are thus under considerable pressure to perform and can hardly expect a lifelong UN position. While these reforms are meant to increase the efficiency of the organization they may have counter-productive effects, as limited lateral and upward mobility can be a disincentive. Furthermore, these policies seem to conflict with the demand of the UN Joint Inspections Unit to address âworkâlifeâ and âworkâfamilyâ issues to prevent the resignation of young qualified staff (Weiss 2012).
Gender and development
As a result of several UN World womenâs conferences,4 gender has increasingly been addressed in development (Porter and Sweetman 2005) and humanitarianism (Hyndman 1998). Just like âparticipationâ, âgender mainstreamingâ is a âbuzzwordâ which has been widely adopted throughout the aid world (Cornwall 2007). The introduction of gender mainstreaming demonstrates how women put gender on the agenda and âtransformed international developmentâ (Fraser and Tinker 2004). In 2000, the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 which requires attention to gender in all aspects of gender management, conflict reconstruction and peace-building was adopted (for a critical review see Shepherd 2011).
Gender â mostly understood as referring to women and girls rather than to gender relations â is now firmly established in Aidland and is reflected in donor requirements, project design and hiring decisions. However, this does not necessarily mean that gender mainstreaming is successfully implemented or that gender equality is achieved. Nevertheless, it opens up job and career opportunities for gender specialists and women in Aidland (White 2006; Eyben 2007). Gender equality and gender mainstreaming not only affect the programmes of UN agencies, but also hiring and promotion which is reflected in conscious efforts to bring more women into leadership positions by appointing gender and diversity advisers and creating units addressing the composition of staff. The UN and some NGOs are mo...
