MONDAY

DEVELOPMENTS
The Latest Issues and Trends in International Development and Humanitarian Assistance

2008
Mapping the Future of International
Relief and Development

Jan/Feb 2008
Vol. 26, No. 1/2
InterAction
 Take a learning break—
explore powerful ways to scale up Features
your organization’s social impact 03 Inside this Issue
06 Revamping U.S. Foreign Assistance
Try out the newest tools
and approaches in 10 The HELP Commission Report on
five one-day workshops Foreign Assistance Reform

• Technologies for Scaling 12 Public Opinion, Foreign Aid, and the

Up Collaboration (March 4) Next President’s Global Development
• Going Viral: Spreading Big Ideas Agenda
through Networks (March 20)
15 Foreign Assistance: Proposals for
• How Innovation Happens Reform
(April 24)
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(September 25) Direction
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of Value Chains (October 16) Development
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Inside this Issue

People-Centered Development and

U.S. Development Assistance
By Sam Worthington, President and CEO, InterAction

A
s a community of U.S. non-profits (NGOs) we deliver a very wide array of good devel-
opment programs. Some organizations focus on youth and children, others on entre-
preneurs or civil society, and still others have developed technical areas of expertise
in such diverse fields as health, water, sanitation, reconstruction, animal husbandry,
microfinance and education, to name just a few areas. Every year, these programs impact the
lives of millions of people. What they all have in common is their focus on people and the part-
nerships NGOs have with individuals throughout the developing world. They are all people-
centered approaches to development.

Over the past half-century, the InterAction community has partnered with local civil society,
NGOs and community-based organizations, engaged in community-level development and
learned many lessons while delivering effective people-centered development programs.
These lessons now shape how U.S. NGOs deliver their development programs, with a pro-
poor orientation, local partnerships and an emphasis in creating real, positive changes within
poor communities and villages around the world. Beyond the positive results they achieve,
U.S. NGO approaches to development also should help shape how the U.S. government deliv-
ers its development assistance programs and, ultimately, change the scope and nature of the
bilateral and multilateral institutional dialogue on global
aid effectiveness.

We witness good, people-centered development when an

individual is able to shape her future in a manner that in-
creases her ability and her community’s ability to thrive.
Development is a process that enables a person to work
at a sustainable livelihood, to care for and support those
she loves, to have access to health and educational ser-
vices that meet her needs, aspirations and rights, and to
live at home in an environment or habitat that is safe, at
peace – a place where she can improve her family’s bal-
ance with nature, and manage and build on the limited
resources at her disposal. People-centered development
happens in a home, in a family, in a community or a vil-
lage. It is a very local, human-centered activity.

Good development enables a person to hold her head

high with dignity as she makes decisions supported by
laws, government services and political institutions that
positively shape her life and the lives of her children.
Good community development is based on the ability of
the world’s poor, of its most vulnerable people, to advance
their own well-being and their rights to live their lives,
not as poor, hungry, oppressed, victims of disease or war,
but as individuals who, thanks to a partnership with
others, can ultimately benefit from and participate within
functioning societies.

People-centered development efforts are not just small,

do-good projects or band-aid approaches filling gaps Photo: courtesy of Kyla Springer
continued on page 5

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 

continued from page 3
within broader economic forces.
Collectively, the U.S. NGO com-
munity spent around $6 billion
provided directly from the Ameri-
can people on programs that make
a real difference around the world.
While these programs are by no
means perfect, by working through
local civil societies, U.S. non-profits
enable Americans to reach out and
touch the lives of others. We en-
able someone who cares, living in
Collectively, the U.S. NGO
community spent around
$6 billion provided directly
from the American people on
programs that make a real
difference around the world.
our affluent society, to meet a per-
son halfway and help that person’s
efforts to live a healthier, more pro-
ductive and fulfilling life.
Good governance and the effects
of a globalizing world shape de-
velopment efforts targeted at a
nation state. A nation state’s abil-
ity to function as a “democratic,
well-governed state that responds
to the needs of its people, reduces
widespread poverty and conduct
itself responsibly in the interna-
tional system” is a reasonable goal
for U.S. foreign assistance focused
on nation states. And beyond for-
eign assistance, the evolution of
the global economy, the orientation
of future trade agreements, con-
tinued massive transfers of remit-
tances, and the overall stability of
a nation or a region, all contribute
or detract from the well being and
development of a poor family liv-
ing in a poor community.
Yet hundreds of millions of people,
the poorest of the world’s poor, live
on the margins of the global econ-
omy or at best have very limited
access to jobs and the benefits of
economic growth. If global devel-
opment efforts limit themselves to
contracted services between do-
nors and recipient governments a
crucial ingredient is often missing.
Development ultimately is about
people and programs that directly
help people change their own lives
for the better. The work of InterAc-
tion members and the work of the
global development NGO move-
ment reside at the very heart of
these people-centered efforts. U.S.
NGOs help link local communities
with the services of their govern-
ments. We help local governments
reach out to communities that lie
beyond the reach of a govern-
ment’s limited infrastructure. And
NGOs directly support local gov-
ernment and private sector efforts
to reach marginalized populations.
As part of civil society, our role is
to strengthen communities and lo-
cal institutions so that all individu-
als, no matter how poor, can take
advantage of and eventually shape
the benefits of their societies.
Unfortunately, global declarations
on aid effectiveness such as the
Paris Declaration only recognize
nation state-to-nation state ap-
proaches to assistance. Within U.S.
foreign assistance efforts and the
broader global dialogue on aid ef-
fectiveness there must be a great-
er space for this type of NGO-led
community and people-centered
development. (Less than 20 per-
cent of USAID’s direct funding to
its implementing partners went to
U.S. NGOs.) For every dollar the
InterAction community received
through a cooperative agree-
ment with the U.S. government, it
raised at least two dollars from the
American people. Just as we rec-
ognize the role business must play
in changing people’s lives in the
developing world, there must be a
global recognition that civil society,
and that includes U.S. civil society,
plays a crucial role in global devel-
opment.
There is a great need to reform
U.S. foreign assistance, especially
from the perspective of non-profit
organizations that meet people
halfway in expanding opportuni-
ties and supporting local empow-
erment in education, health care,
agriculture, small business, gender
equity and other areas. It is from
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
It is in the U.S. national
interest to build a positive
partnership with the world’s
billion poorest inhabitants,
a partnership built on
advancing the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs)
and other goals aimed at
reducing abject poverty.
this perspective of a partnership
between the American people and
the world’s less fortunate people
that InterAction promotes a major
overhaul of U.S. foreign assistance
and increased attention to develop-
ment and humanitarian assistance
in our nation’s foreign assistance
program. It is from this perspective
that InterAction calls for a modern-
ization of foreign assistance and
the need for global recognition of
the role NGOs play in effective de-
velopment programs.
U.S. government foreign assis-
tance centered on efforts that pro-
mote a positive relationship with
the world’s poor, their civil society
institutions and governments is in
the interest of the American peo-
ple. It is in the U.S. national inter-
est to build a positive partnership
with the world’s billion poorest
inhabitants, a partnership built on
advancing the Millennium Devel-
opment Goals (MDGs) and other
goals aimed at reducing abject
poverty. It is in our national inter-
est as the world’s richest country
to invest in people-centered de-
velopment and to acknowledge
the values of a moral investment
to promote the well-being of oth-
ers. The globalized world, with its
threats and economic realities, is
simply too small and too dangerous
a place to not establish this type of
national partnership. Working with
U.S. non-profits, America has the
means to make a difference in the
lives of the world’s poorest inhab-
itants, to meet their goals, and to
reposition the U.S. as a partner for
development, hope, justice and
freedom around the world.

Revamping U.S. Foreign Assistance
By Jeffrey D. Sachs, Leo Hindery, Jr., and Gayle E. Smith
T
he U.S. development assis-
tance effort must be updated
to the conditions of the early
years of the 21st century.
This means that the development
goals must be made clear and ap-
propriate, the technologies must be
identified, the systems for delivery
must be assessed, and the multilat-
eral financing must be assured. Our
own governmental organization
must be up to the task in assessing
needs, working between the execu-
tive and legislative branches to en-
sure sustained programming, and
working with other governments to
coordinate global efforts.
The Goals
The priorities for U.S. development
assistance should be based mainly
on the development commitments
that the U.S. and the rest of the
world have made in recent years af-
ter considerable diplomatic and sci-
entific discussions and negotiations.
At the core of the effort should be
the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). These goals are already
the central organizing tool for most
development agencies and mul-
tilateral development institutions
around the world. The MDGs have
the profound advantage not only of
specifying explicit and quantitative
targets, but also of automatically
aligning U.S. efforts with those of
partner countries, thereby massive-
ly leveraging American resources
and expertise.
The focus of the development chal-
lenge is in those regions still trapped
in extreme poverty, or those places
suffering extremely high burdens
of hunger, disease, or lack of infra-
structure. This means that U.S. ef-
forts should be mainly directed to-
 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
wards sub-Saharan Africa, Central
Asia, the Andean region, Haiti, and
the remaining pockets of extreme
poverty in South Asia.
Using Proven Technology
For each of the Millennium Devel-
opment Goals, there is a set of core
interventions based on proven low-
cost technologies that can spur rap-
id advances toward the Goals. The
UN Millennium Project, among oth-
er studies, has identified the power-
ful tools at our disposal in each of
the key areas. While much can be
said about each area, the following
highlights should be noted.
Income poverty: microfinance;
electricity generation (off-grid and
on-grid); all-weather roads; access
to cell phones and internet; and im-
proved population health (see be-
low).
Hunger: improved food production
through the extension of “Green
Revolution” technologies (high-
yield seeds, fertilizer, small-scale
irrigation, agricultural extension
services); micronutrient supplemen-
tation for Vitamin A, iodine, zinc,
and iron; monitoring of low-weight
children; and school feeding pro-
grams, with take-home rations for
pre-school-aged children.
Universal school completion:
construction of schools; training of
teachers; wireless internet connec-
tivity for (solar-charged) computers
at schools; separate hygienic facili-
ties for girls and boys; and mid-day
feeding programs.
Gender equality: time-saving in-
frastructure for rural women (wa-
ter, power, mills, and clinics, within
reach of villages); micro-finance for
women’s groups; and improved in-
heritance and property rights
Reduced maternal mortality:
emergency obstetrical theatres in
all sub-district hospitals; training of
assistant medical officers (AMOs)
to perform emergency procedures;
and use of wireless phone systems
to create emergency-response units
for ambulance services.
Reduced child mortality: inte-
grated management of childhood
illnesses (IMCI), including diarrhea,
malaria, acute lower respiratory
infection (ALRI), vaccine-prevent-
able diseases, parasitic infections
(worms), micronutrient deficien-
cies, and expert systems for neona-
tal care; and increased use of com-
munity health workers, supported
by mobile phone and internet con-
nectivity.
Control of AIDS, Tuberculosis,
and Malaria: packages of preven-
tative and curative health services,
e.g., access to medicines and univer-
sal protection by insecticide-treated
bed nets in the case of malaria.
Universal access to family plan-
ning and contraceptive services:
logistics and supply chain manage-
ment for contraceptive availability;
community-worker outreach to en-
sure the access to family planning
services and contraception on a vol-
untary basis.
Safe drinking water and sanita-
tion: application of modern hydro-
logical tools to identify sustainable
water sources, based on seasonal
and annual runoff, rainwater har-
vesting, sustainable use of ground-
water, and improved year-round
water storage; and investments in
sanitation systems, including septic
tanks and recycling of human and
animal wastes in rural areas, and
piped wastewater treatment in ur-
ban areas.
The Delivery Systems
Much is made of the difficulty of
delivering such technologies to the
poor, with perceived high risks of
corruption, mismanagement, and
other delivery failures. Yet such
fears have been shown time and
again to be misplaced as long as the
aid is practical, subject to monitor-
ing, adapted to local circumstances,
endorsed by local communities, and
embedded in a sensible delivery
system with audits and evaluation.
In recent years, enormous success-
es have been achieved by govern-
ments and NGOs in the mass dis-
tribution of anti-malaria bed nets,
the mass scale-up of new vaccines
(through the Global Alliance for
Vaccines and Immunizations), the
mass treatment of children for worm
infections, the mass increase in pri-
mary school enrolment and com-
pletion rates by eliminating school
fees, and the mass access of farmers
to high-yield inputs through vouch-
er systems. Holistic, community-led
development efforts such as the
Millennium Villages have achieved
enormous successes across a range
of interventions. In all of these cas-
es, success has resulted from trans-
parency, specificity, accountability,
and auditing of delivery systems.
should be a mix of bilateral and mul-
tilateral initiatives, divided roughly
half and half. The U.S. will not, and
should not, aim to fund the delivery
of services on its own. Fourth, and
most importantly, the aid should
be sufficient to achieve the MDGs.
Donor governments need to fulfill
their long-standing commitment to
provide aid equal to 0.7 percent of
gross national product (GNP).
Current U.S. official development
assistance (ODA), alas, remains
stuck at 0.17 percent of GNP, the
second-lowest of all donors (see Fig-
ure 1). Unlike the European Union
(EU), which has agreed to achieve
0.7 percent by 2015, the U.S. has no
timetable or political consensus to
reach that goal, despite the pledge
of the U.S. at Monterrey to make
concrete efforts to do so. By con-
trast, military spending in the U.S.
is around 5 percent of GNP, when
one combines the Pentagon budget
with supplemental appropriations
FIGURE 1
to finance the wars in Iraq and Af-
ghanistan (for U.S. allocation of Na-
tional Security Outlays see Figure
2). The U.S. should now join the EU
in setting a specific timetable for in-
creasing aid through the period to
2015. As did the EU, the U.S. should
commit to reach 0.5 percent of GNP
by the year 2010 and 0.7 percent
of GNP by the year 2015. Such a
trajectory of aid would ensure suc-
cess in achieving the Millennium
Development Goals by 2015, and
would put the world on a trajectory
to achieve the end of extreme pov-
erty by the year 2025.
Other Special Challenges
In addition to improved interna-
tional cooperation and financing
mechanisms to achieve the Millen-
nium Development Goals, U.S. de-
velopment assistance (in conjunc-
tion with global partners) needs to
focus on a set of specific additional
challenges of critical concern.
continued on next page

The Financing FIGURE 2

The basic principles of financing
should be clear. First, donor aid
should be directed at communities
and regions that cannot fund their
own development efforts. As the
Monterrey Consensus rightly noted,
this means an emphasis on the least
developed countries, particularly on
sub-Saharan Africa as a major focus
for financing. Second, aid should
avoid program designs that aim to
have the poorest of the poor pay
for vital services. Third, donor aid

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 


continued from previous page
The Crisis of the Dry Lands: The
instability that ranges from North-
ern Mali to the east through Niger,
Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia (notably the
Ogaden Desert), Somalia, Yemen,
Iran, and Afghanistan has a basic
and important underlying dimen-
sion: a dry lands crisis. Rather than
viewing the crises in these areas
through the lens of global terror or
a “clash of civilizations,” it is vital to
view them through the lens of liveli-
hoods and survival. Only a develop-
mental approach can resolve basic
and urgent challenges in this vast
region, in order to restore political
stability and create the basis for
long-term economic wellbeing.
The Challenge of Emerging and
Re-Emerging Diseases: The U.S.
development program will need to
support a greatly increased global
 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
investment in infectious disease
control, epidemic surveillance and
monitoring, and improved safety
in handling of livestock and other
domesticated animals in the global
food chain.
The Emerging Crises of Climate
Adaptation: The world has agreed
on an Adaptation Fund under the
auspices of the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change to
enable the poorest countries to un-
dertake adaptation measures in the
face of the existing and growing
climate changes. The U.S. should
plan to be a major source of fund-
ing and scientific leadership in that
new global effort.
The Reinvigoration of Global
Population Policies: The rate of
population growth in the world’s
Photo: courtesy of Michaela Hackner
poorest regions remains staggering-
ly high, posing enormous dangers,
including insufficient public servic-
es to keep up with a fast-growing
population; falling farm sizes per
household; increased environmen-
tal degradation under the pressures
of rising populations; and a “youth
bulge,” in which a high proportion
of young men (aged 15-29) in the
population make an outbreak of
violence and conflict more likely.
Global Trade which Works for All:
Development aid can play a large
role in fostering export competi-
tiveness, and hence the importance
of increased “aid for trade” which
should accompany trade liberaliza-
tion measures under the ongoing
Doha trade round.
 The Structure of U.S.
Report: Revamping U.S. Foreign Assistance Development Assistance
The Helping to Enhance the Livelihood of People Around the Globe, or There is a strong case for moving
HELP, Commission was charged with implementing U.S. Public Law 108- development assistance to a new
199 to study all U.S. foreign development assistance. Its mandate has separate cabinet-level Depart-
been set as follows: ment of International Sustainable
“The HELP Commission shall develop and deliver actionable proposals to Development (DfISD). The new
the President, Secretary of State and Congress to enhance and leverage Department would house the exist-
the efficiency and effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance programs to ing USAID, PEPFAR (Emergency
reduce poverty through sustained economic growth and self-sufficiency. Plan to Fight AIDS), the President’s
The Commission will communicate the need for change and will make Malaria Initiative, the Millennium
bold recommendations for mechanisms, structures and incentives Challenge Corporation, and emerg-
which will create definable, achievable and measurable outcomes that ing initiatives in climate change,
empower recipients and meet U.S. national security and foreign policy especially vis-à-vis the developing
goals and objectives.” countries. The case for a separate
Department rests on the following
This Monday Developments article draws upon the Minority Report of principles:
HELP Commission, Revamping U.S. Foreign Assistance, November 2007.
The full report may be found at: http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/ a The need to upgrade U.S. de-
File/about/director/documents/HELP_Minority_Report.pdf velopment assistance as a pil-
lar of U.S. national security.
The authors of this article are members of the HELP Commission and
jointly authored Revamping U.S. Foreign Assistance. a The need to improve U.S.
government management
and expertise in public health,
climate change, agronomy,
Jeffrey D. Sachs demography, environmental
Jeffrey D. Sachs is Director of the Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable engineering, and economic
Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia development.
University. He is also Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban
Ki-Moon. From 2002 to 2006, he was Director of the UN Millennium Project and a The need to work effectively
Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium with similar cabinet-level de-
Development Goals. Prof. Sachs is a Research Associate of the National Bureau partments and ministries in
of Economic Research. He has been an advisor to the IMF, the World Bank, the partner countries.
OECD, the World Health Organization, and the UNDP, among other international
agencies, and is the author of numerous books and articles. a The need to de-politicize
development assistance so
Leo Hindery, Jr., Vice Chairman that it can be directed at the
long-term investments that
Leo Hindery, Jr. is currently Managing Partner of InterMedia Partners. He is an
Executive-in-Residence at Columbia Business School, a member of the Board of are critical in the fight against
Advisors at Columbia School of Journalism, a member of the Council on Foreign poverty, hunger, disease, and
Relations, and the author of two books. Mr. Hindery founded the YES Network and deprivation.
served as its Chairman and CEO until 2004. Prior to that he served as President of
a The need for coherence of
Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) and CEO of AT&T Broadband.
U.S. policies that impact in-
Gayle E. Smith ternational sustainable devel-
opment, including official de-
Gayle E. Smith is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. She served
velopment assistance, trade
as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at
relations with low-income
the National Security Council from 1998-2001, and as Senior Advisor to the
Administrator and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development countries, efforts on climate-
from 1994-1998. As a journalist, Ms. Smith was based in Africa for almost 20 years. change adaptation and miti-
She has also consulted for a wide range of NGOs, foundations and governmental gation, and efforts on global
organizations. public health and disease
control.

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 

The HELP Commission Report on Foreign
Assistance Reform
By The Honorable Mary K. Bush, former Chairman, HELP Commission
T
hank you members of Inter-
Action, for your important
work helping people who
are less fortunate around
the world. I also thank you for in-
viting another voice to weigh in on
the state of foreign assistance.
Let me provide a brief synopsis of
the HELP (Helping to Enhance the
Livelihood of People around the
globe) Commission’s work, espe-
cially for those not familiar with the
Commission. This bi-partisan con-
gressionally-chartered commission
was created to conduct an in-depth
study of U.S. foreign assistance.
Our 21 Commissioners came from
government, business, academic
and philanthropic backgrounds. I
came into this assignment knowing
that foreign aid was important to
U.S. foreign policy in helping other
people around the world. It soon
became clear that it is also critical
to America’s national security.
As we engaged in our delibera-
tions and listened to the advice
of as many as 75 experts over the
course of 22 months, we came to
view foreign assistance as falling
into roughly three categories: hu-
manitarian, security and develop-
ment assistance. With regard to
humanitarian assistance, America
gets very high marks. We use U.S.
government aid well for humani-
tarian purposes and Americans are
wonderfully generous people when
tragedies strike – such as the Asian
tsunami, destructive hurricanes,
famines, etc. And, of course, secu-
rity is a high priority and we focus
funding to meet security needs.
However, assistance aimed at long-
10 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
term development, is the area most
in need of attention.
The HELP Commission Report,
“Beyond Assistance,” stresses the
urgent need for stepped-up devel-
opment in many places around the
world and recognizes that long-term
development requires, among other
things, the right policies and insti-
tutions, economic growth and trade,
leadership and good governance
and long-term commitments. Ma-
jor recommendations of the HELP
Commission are summarized be-
low. At www.helpcommission.gov,
you will find further explanations of
our recommendations.
Recommendations
A jointly-developed Executive-Leg-
islative foreign assistance strategy
must lay out the strategic goals and
objectives for meeting 21st cen-
tury challenges. When more than
one-third of the people on the globe
survive on less than two dollars a
day, the contrast with developed
countries is acute and unavoid-
able. Unless there is a way forward
for the world’s poor, America’s own
peace and prosperity will be at risk.
Just as President Bush directed the
Defense Department to draft a Na-
tional Defense Strategy for meeting
21st century defense challenges,
so too should the next administra-
tion launch and bring a strategy for
development to the forefront of our
nation’s attention.
Perhaps our greatest challenge will
be adopting and sustaining a long-
term approach to development as-
sistance. War-torn societies are
not healed in 12 months; weak and
failing states cannot be rendered
capable in two years. The U.S.
government needs strategies and
multi-year budget commitments
that reflect necessarily longer time
frames. Unlike highly visible emer-
gency relief efforts, development
assistance rarely produces iden-
tifiable results in days, weeks, or
even months. But development
assistance, if executed well and in
concert with committed developing
country partners, can in many cases
prevent the need for costly diplo-
matic, military, or humanitarian in-
terventions.
We need a new Foreign Assistance
Act that reflects the “National For-
eign Assistance Strategy,” with
new development goals and pro-
grams for a vastly different world
and that consolidates legislation
enacted over the last 45 years. We
have witnessed the steady prolif-
eration of aid programs, accounts,
instruments, and initiatives across
multiple agencies and departments.
We need a Foreign Assistance Act
that fixes these problems and that is
reviewed and updated on a regular
basis.
The U.S. government should care-
fully study how best to organize
and fund our foreign assistance
organizations to support the over-
arching National Foreign Assis-
tance Strategy. The Commission
offered options for further delibera-
tion by policymakers. However, the
weight of opinion within the Com-
mission is that foreign assistance
must be under the purview of the
Secretary of State. After all, our se-
curity and development goals are
inextricably linked—the same forc-
es that seek to threaten America’s
security frequently prey upon poor
underdeveloped countries. How-
ever, it would be unhelpful to try to
decide the precise wiring diagram
for a revamped structure without
an overarching strategy. Similarly,
while there is general recognition
that more resources are needed for
foreign assistance programs, the
majority view in the Commission
was that reforms such as those we
recommend should go hand-in-
hand with additional resources.
At a broader level, the majority of
Commissioners recommend that
policymakers view our defense and
civilian foreign affairs (U.S. State
Department, USAID [United States
Agency for International Develop-
ment] and other foreign aid) bud-
gets as combined spending under
national security budgeting. If we
were to devote as much as ten per-
cent of this “national security” bud-
get to civilian foreign affairs, these
funds would enhance the other tools
of “smart power” such as public di-
plomacy, security assistance, and
development and humanitarian aid
in order to help prevent crises and
promote peace and prosperity.
We must act now to strengthen the
management capacity of our na-
tion’s foreign assistance agencies.
We know that today, there are not
enough direct-hires in USAID to do
the job properly. Our professional
development corps has been erod-
ed. Too much of our professional
capacity is focused on managing
outside contractors. That dynamic
has to change. Better training is
required to prepare our foreign as-
sistance professionals for their work
overseas—much like our armed
forces does for its sailors, soldiers,
and airmen. The procurement and
contracting functions need to be
completely overhauled to encour-
age greater, more direct access by
more and smaller firms. We also
need a monitoring and evaluation
process that measures results.
The nation must do more to help
developing countries build vibrant
private sectors. Business can and
should be the engine of growth in
the developing world, as it is in the
developed world. We recommend
increasing technical assistance and
funding for small and medium en-
terprises that have inadequate ac-
cess to private capital. We should
put our technological prowess to
work by coming up with a research
and development capability to cre-
ate new and commercialize existing
technological products that could
improve the lives of people in de-
veloping countries.
America’s trade and development
policies need to be realigned.
Some of our highest tariffs affect
goods that we import from some of
the poorest countries. For example,
the very countries that are eligible
for grants from the Millennium
Challenge Corporation (MCC)—
the new U.S. government agency
that aims to help a select group of
countries that have demonstrated
a commitment to growth and good
governance—often pay more in tar-
iffs than they receive in aid.
Create a new business model and
engage new non-governmental
partners. Foreign assistance has
too often been delivered in a top-
down fashion and driven by univer-
sal prescriptions that might or might
not be relevant for every country.
Where possible, U.S. foreign assis-
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
tance programs should be carried
out in concert with local private or
public partners that are themselves
committed to development. Pro-
grams should be demand-driven
so that they respond to local needs
and therefore have a better chance
of creating lasting solutions. The
MCC is a good example of this ap-
proach. We must also actively en-
gage new non-governmental actors
and leverage the resources from the
explosion of growth in philanthropy
and private investment. We believe
that new initiatives, increased fund-
ing and, most importantly, lasting
results, will occur if we more proac-
tively collaborate with non-govern-
mental actors.
In this age of global interdepen-
dence, the developing world mat-
ters more than ever to the United
States. We applaud President Bush
and Congress for the expansion of
aid to Africa, launching of the Mil-
lennium Challenge Corporation
and powerful initiatives to fight
HIV/AIDS and malaria. We com-
mend the President’s call to put de-
velopment on par with diplomacy
and defense for the sake of Amer-
ica’s national and security interests.
Yet, much remains to be done.
We urge this and the next admin-
istration and Congress to act with
due speed to overhaul our system.
We urge you to join in this endeav-
or. We must leverage our effective-
ness with an agreed, overarching
strategy. We must also have coor-
dinated, cohesive U.S. government
programs carried out in partnership
with private and multi-national in-
stitutions and the recipients them-
selves. We believe that Americans
will rise to the call from our leaders
with their compassion, their energy
and their talents. When Americans
come together to support a common
goal, as with the Marshall Plan 60
years ago this year, there is no limit
to what we can accomplish.
11

Eighty-one percent of
the U.S. public want
Congress to increase
funding to reduce
hunger, poverty and
disease in Africa.
12 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
Public Opinion, Foreign Aid,
and the Next President’s
Global Development Agenda
By Andrea Barron, Adjunct Professor of History, George Mason
University
W
hat kind of commitment will the next president of the United States
make to global development after taking the oath of office on January
20, 2009? Will he or she continue the policy of the current administra-
tion, whose major foreign policy goal has been to “defeat global terror-
ism” and win the war in Iraq? Or will the next administration decide that combating
terrorism should be a priority but so should dramatically increasing humanitarian
and development aid to poor people throughout the world?
And what do the American people think the country’s priorities should be? Accord-
ing to public opinion polls conducted from 2000 to 2006, Americans support U.S.
humanitarian and development assistance to foreign countries by overwhelming
majorities—83 percent according to Zogby International (2006). Eighty-one percent
want Congress to increase funding to reduce hunger, poverty and disease in Africa
(McLaughlin and Associates, 2005). And almost two-thirds (65 percent) believe the
U.S. should commit seven-tenths of one percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to
reducing poverty and disease in poor countries, especially Africa, if other developed
countries do the same (Program on International Policy Attitudes [PIPA]/Knowledge
Networks, 2005); according to Ken Forsberg, Manager for Legislative Affairs at In-
terAction, the president just requested $11.6 billion for humanitarian and poverty-
focused foreign assistance in fiscal year 2009, about one-tenth of one percent of
GDP.
Americans tend to favor certain types of foreign assistance, and some of the eight
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), more than others. They express the most
support for emergency assistance in the event of natural disasters; combating hun-
ger, especially in children; promoting education; disease prevention and treatment;
investing in women and girls; microfinancing and other programs leading to self-suf-
ficiency; and increasing access to safe drinking water. In 2004, for example, Public
Opinion and Talmey-Drake found that the MDGs with the most public support are
achieving universal primary education (23 percent); combating HIV/AIDS, malaria
and other diseases (20 percent); and reducing by half the number of people who lack
access to potable water (16 percent).
Polls also demonstrate high support for aid to Africa, although the public thinks much
of the money sent there never reaches the people who need it. One-third of Ameri-
cans (33 percent) said aid to Africa should be increased, compared to only 13 percent
who want to see it cut and 46 percent who want it to remain the same (PIPA/Knowl-
edge Networks, 2003). The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations found similar re-
sults in 2002: 35 percent of Americans wanted aid to Africa increased, 37 percent
thought it should stay the same, 13
percent wanted it decreased, and
only 9 percent favored ending aid
to Africa completely. At the same
time, a majority of Americans (53
percent) believe that “corruption in
the governments of African coun-
tries is so widespread that U.S. aid
does little good there” (PIPA/KN,
2003).
Even though Americans consis-
tently support foreign assistance,
they do not believe that global pov-
erty should top the agenda of U.S.
and world leaders. In 2004, only 1
percent of Americans said poverty
should be the most important prior-
ity, and 1 percent said it should be
hunger. By contrast, one-third of re-
spondents (33 percent) named ter-
rorism as their top priority, followed
by the economy and jobs (Public
Opinion Strategies and Talmey-
Drake, 2004). The public is also not
very knowledgeable about foreign
assistance. A majority of voters say
they have not heard or read any-
thing about it (Lake Snell Perry &
Associates, 2003), and they greatly
overestimate how much of the fed-
eral budget goes toward foreign aid.
The U.S. spends a little less than 1
percent on foreign assistance. But in
2001, the Program on International
Policy Attitudes found that the me-
dian estimate of how much the fed-
eral budget devotes to foreign aid
was 20 percent, 20 times more than
the actual amount.
How can advocates for humanitar-
ian and development assistance
make their case to the American
public? Josh Weissburg, who ana-
lyzed a series of surveys on hun-
ger, poverty and development
assistance for the Global Interde-
pendence Initiative at the Aspen
Institute, says the public wants to
hear that aid is effective, an invest-
ment in the future, can build a safer
world, and show that Americans are
a caring and giving people. He said
“the key is to convey effectiveness
and tangible results without resort- Obama would double foreign aid
ing to a numbers game that focuses to $50 billion by 2012 to cut ex-
on the technical aspects of funding. treme poverty in half by 2015, the
Voters need to hear positive stories first MDG. Last December, Obama
about foreign assistance set within joined Senators Chuck Hagel, R-
a context that emphasizes the goals Neb., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.,
and effectiveness of assistance pro- in introducing the Global Poverty
grams.” Act, which makes this first MDG of-
ficial U.S. policy. The Act would re-
And what about the candidates for quire the U.S. to coordinate poverty
president? How much do they care reduction with other development
about global development and how goals such as expanding education,
much will they be guided by the using trade as a tool for economic
public’s overwhelming support for development, and cooperating
foreign assistance? with businesses, non-governmen-
tal organizations, and international
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack
institutions as well as with govern-
Obama argue that the U.S. must ag-
ments. Obama also emphasizes the
gressively wage war against Al Qa-
need to “combat the corruption that
eda and global terrorists by focus-
rots societies and governments from
ing on Afghanistan and Pakistan,
within” but says he would do this
not Iraq. At the same time, both
“not in the spirit of a patron but in
senators are strong proponents for
the spirit of a partner” (Foreign Af-
increasing foreign aid to the devel-
fairs, July/August 2007).
oping world.
For John McCain, the presumptive
Clinton wants to spend an addition-
Republican nominee, “defeating
al 1 percent of the federal budget
radical Islamist extremists is the
on development assistance; a little
national security challenge of our
less than 1 percent of the budget
time.” In his Foreign Affairs article
now goes toward poverty-focused
(November/December 2007), Mc-
foreign aid. “Education is the foun-
Cain focuses almost exclusively
dation of economic opportunity and
on terrorism and Iraq. He devotes
should lie at the heart of America’s
only two paragraphs to global de-
foreign assistance efforts,” Clinton
velopment, where he discusses
wrote in the November/December
encouraging an “African Renais-
2007 issue of the journal Foreign
sance” by working with “friendly”
Affairs. Her Education for All Act
African governments to combat
would develop a comprehensive
HIV/AIDS, eradicate malaria, and
plan to achieve universal basic
increase trade. McCain wants to ex-
education by 2015; only half of all
pand trade and investment in Latin
children in sub-Saharan Africa now
America as well, but acknowledg-
complete primary school (World
es that the benefits of trade do not
Bank, 2003). The bill would provide
reach everyone. He says the U.S.
up to $10 billion over five years to
should establish a “major” aid pro-
developing countries to train teach-
gram in Latin America that would,
ers and build schools. Clinton’s
among other things, improve edu-
other major development priorities
cation, reduce corruption, and “tar-
are fighting HIV/AIDS and other
get assistance and micro-lending to
diseases, which she calls “both a
the economically isolated and often
moral imperative and a practical
indigenous populations among our
necessity,” and fully integrating
free trade partners” (address to
women’s rights into international
Florida Association of Broadcasters,
aid programs.
June 2007).
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 13
 SUBMIT A PHOTO TO
OUR 6th ANNUAL
PHOTOGRAPHY
CONTEST!
InterAction’s annual photography contest
traditionally focuses on the tremendous work
done by our members in the field. The amazing
submissions help us raise awareness about the
impact of our members’ work, and the powerful
images introduce the American public to the
enterprising spirit of the people we work with
around the world. This contest provides an
opportunity for photographers to add their
voice to the rest of the international relief and
development community, by communicating the
character and heart of our work.

This year, we are challenging you to submit

pictures that will lay the foundation to our 2008
Annual Forum theme, “New Visions to End
Poverty.” The NGO community has six decades of
effective development experience in transforming
the lives of men, women, and children around the
world. We would like to build on that success by
using your pictures to tell our story. We encourage
you to capture the spirit of our innovative,
effective, and inspiring programs (or program
recipients) by sending us intriguing and revealing
pictures that offer a glimpse of NGO impact in
international relief and development. All images
should be of work in the field, outside the U.S.

There will be a grand prizewinner and five

outstanding winners. The grand prizewinner will
receive a complimentary one-year subscription
to Monday Developments, one free half-page ad,
and a copy of an InterAction publication of his/her
choice. The grand prizewinner’s photograph will
run as the cover of the special Forum issue of
Monday Developments in June 2008.

Outstanding winners will receive a complimentary

copy of an InterAction publication of his/her
choice. All winning photographs will be displayed
in an online gallery at www.interaction.org

Submit your entry online: www.interaction.org

You may submit up to three photographs.
DEADLINE: March 20, 2008

14 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS

Foreign Assistance: Proposals for Reform
By Congresswoman Betty McCollum

The following comments are based on Representative McCollum’s January 23, 2008 remarks to the
House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs

M
odernizing America’s engagement with the de-
veloping world and improving coordination of
foreign assistance across dozens of federal de-
partments and agencies must be a top priority for both
Congress and the next President.
and the complexity of local conditions. Our failures and
lessons learned in Iraq clearly demonstrate this.
We need development investments in which one dollar
yields two, three or four dollars worth of results.

We need to be smart and use our nation’s great military,
political and economic power wisely. This means our de-
velopment investments need to be focused, effective, and
yield real outcomes in the lives of needy people around
the world. I strongly support the recommendations of the
CSIS [Center for Strategic and International Studies] Com-
mission on Smart Power, on which I served.
We need development to be an equal partner with de-
fense and diplomacy.
The National Security Strategy put forth by the Bush Ad-
ministration in 2002 and 2006 is based on defense, diplo-
macy and development.
Our nation’s investments in development, democracy,
global health and human capacity building need to take
a view focused on generational impact, not quick political
fixes.
We need to make a commitment to outcomes that are not
only based on quantity, but also result in real improve-
ments in the quality of life for families in the world’s poor-
est countries.
Finally, we need restore the civilian expertise within our
government to achieve our development strategy – we
need to invest in Americans who are willing to serve their
country and the world.

Today, it is clear that development, both strategically and In short, we need a cabinet level Department of Develop-
structurally, is not an equal partner, but all too often an af- ment.
terthought or secondary concern.

There is an ever growing chorus that believes the U.S. needs

a cabinet level “Secretary of Development” – a champion
to advocate directly to the President for development, aid
effectiveness, and coordination across departments and
agencies, and to give strategic focus to our investments.

I strongly support this idea. I strongly support Congress

and our next President developing a strategy, a structure,
and a level of resource commitment to support a cabinet
level secretary who has the statutory authority to give fo-
cus, impose coordination, and champion a long-view of
development.

Foreign assistance modernization must demonstrate

America’s commitment and ability to partner with govern-
ments, but also with the world’s two billion people strug-
gling to escape oppression, poverty and disease. We need
to make investments in development assistance that re-
flect the challenges of the 21st century and the realities of
globalization.

We need a strategy that is rooted in innovation, coordina- Photo: courtesy of www.mccollum.house.gov

tion and an understanding of cultures, customs, languages

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 15

Foreign Aid: Diagnosis without Direction
By Nancy Birdsall, founding President, Center for Global Development
I
hate to admit it, but I liked this
book. William Easterly is a pro-
fessor of economics at New York
University who earlier spent
more than 15 years as a research
economist at the World Bank. I
knew him in his early years there
and he was already original and
independent. As a scholar he was
devotedly evidence-based—that is,
he let the results of empirical work
speak for themselves. I imagine he
liked surprising results best, seeing
them as inspiration for new ideas
rather than distractions to be buried
in newly specified regressions. East-
erly left the World Bank soon after
the publication of his first book, The
Elusive Quest for Growth. In that
book he was critical of the World
Bank and other well-intentioned in-
stitutions for their misguided efforts
to help developing countries find
the elusive growth elixir.
In his new book, The White Man’s
Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to
Aid the Rest Have Done So Much
Ill and So Little Good, Easterly is
equally critical of the establishment,
this time focusing on the failures of
Western aid to make a difference in
what he calls the “rest” of the world.
He also skewers nation building in
two chapters on colonialism and
military intervention.
What I liked about the book is that
besides being richly researched and
accessible, it is clearly, indeed pas-
sionately, argued. Easterly grounds
his argument in a rich and plentiful
set of his own peer-reviewed jour-
nal articles, complemented by am-
ple references to others’ academic
work. You don’t need to buy the
argument whole cloth to enjoy the
exposition.
16 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
Why do I hate to admit I liked the But official donors, who are often
book? Because while I think East- not only outsiders but development
erly’s exposition of the aid system’s utopians, don’t want to wait for
problems is excellent, his recom- evolution. They arrive in develop-
mended alternative is to go around ing countries with comprehensive
rather than fix the system. Readers solutions (Millennium Develop-
may conclude that if the roundabout ment Goals [MDGs]) discussed at
method is impractical, then the only an endless series of conferences,
good option is to reduce aid alto- and set out in thousands of pages
gether. Yet the development com- of documents, further worked out in
munity has been riding a wave of endless and feckless “coordination”
enthusiasm for increasing aid—for among themselves. Easterly identi-
doubling or even tripling aid to Af- fies these official donors (the various
rica—in a movement supported by agencies of the United Nations, the
celebrities, politicians, and the U.S. World Bank and the regional de-
evangelical community, in which velopment banks, the International
Bono, Tony Blair, Bob Geldof, and Monetary Fund, the bilateral aid
Jeffrey Sachs have been prominent agencies of the donor countries) as
figures. This is the moment to try well-intentioned but fundamentally
to channel that enthusiasm toward misguided top-down “Planners.”
improving the aid system, not going They are trying to plan the market
around it. Both more and better aid, (for example, with comprehensive
though hardly sufficient to end pov- structural adjustment reforms and
erty in the world, ought to be on the shock therapy), without under-
policy agenda.
What exactly is Easterly’s argument
(which I like)? And what does he
propose as an alternative (which I
find insufficient) to the current aid
system?
The argument starts with the simple
point that markets don’t work well
in the absence of some elusive (to
outsiders) social and political ar-
rangements peculiar to each soci-
ety. Before there are formal proper-
ty titles and uncorrupted courts and
bank supervisors (all of which come
later in the elusive process of mod-
ernization), there are social institu-
tions and customs at the “bottom”
The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s
of society, which permit trade and
Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill
implicit contracts between parties. and So Little Good
In successful societies they evolve
By William Easterly. New York: Penguin,
(“Bottom-Up Legal Evolution” is 2006, 448 pages. $27.95 (hardcover)
one of Easterly’s chapter subtitles).
standing local realities—cheating,
predation, ethnic and other rival-
ries—and the social and political in-
stitutions that are compensating (or
not) for market imperfections. They
are trying to plan the reform of bad
and incompetent government pro-
grams—but they get caught be-
tween the ideal of local ownership
and the reality of some awful gov-
ernments.
Planners in every realm, these of-
ficial donors, according to Easterly,
favor big, comprehensive, visible
projects rather than trying to solve
narrow, immediate problems. In
contrast to Planners are “Search-
ers,” who learn through trial and
error in the field and concentrate on
piecemeal improvements. Search-
ers work on a small scale and keep
plugging away until they find a so-
lution. Examples include Mohamed
Yunus, who lost his own money on
loans for irrigation tube wells to
farmers who didn’t repay before
he realized it was smaller loans to
the truly poor that could work; and
Dr. Jana, who broke tradition and
trained prostitutes to educate their
fellow workers on AIDS prevention
in Calcutta.
In an aid system that Planners dom-
inate, Easterly makes a key point:
official donors lack accountability
for the effectiveness of the programs
they offer the largely voiceless poor.
They are unaccountable even to
their own taxpaying supporters and
independent observers since they
often operate together and shared
accountability equals no account-
ability. Without accountability, do-
nors have no incentive to install
mechanisms for feedback from the
poor they are trying to help, so they
often blunder on, repeating mis-
takes.
Chapter by chapter, Easterly in-
dicts the International Monetary
Fund (Chapter Six, “Bailing out the
Poor”); James Wolfensohn’s 1999
In an aid system that
Planners dominate, Easterly
makes a key point: official
donors lack accountability
for the effectiveness of the
programs they offer the
largely voiceless poor.
Comprehensive Development Plan
(including “a checklist of 14 items,
each with multiple sub items”); Jef-
frey Sachs’ Millennium Project (13
reports from 10 task forces leading
to a framework with 18 indicative
targets for the eight MDGs, 36 rec-
ommendations, 17 Quick Wins, sev-
en investment and policy clusters,
and 10 problems to be solved in the
international aid system); the World
Bank’s disastrous neglect of AIDS
prevention programs (prevention
is not visible and sexual behavior is
an uncomfortable issue); President
Bush’s President’s Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program
to combat AIDS (the U.S. Congress
restricted spending on prevention
to 20 percent of the funds); top-
down programs of property titling
(“Titling Toward Confusion in Ke-
nya” is a subtitle in Chapter Three);
aid bureaucrats (ignoring tradeoffs,
focusing on frameworks and aid
volume instead of outcomes);—and
to cite one example outside the for-
eign aid arena, the French and Brit-
ish legacy in the Middle East (“The
British Palestinian triple-cross still
causes the blood to flow today,” he
mentions in a chapter on colonial-
ism). Whew.
So what’s to be done to help the
world’s poor? Easterly’s solution
boils down to big donors becom-
ing valiant searchers trying many
piecemeal solutions, and specializ-
ing heavily with individual account-
ability for individual tasks. Donors
should stick to getting observable
things done (no more big structural
reform programs) and should be
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
taxed on their expenditures, with
the taxes financing independent
third-party evaluations. (That idea
is independently coming to fruition
thanks to the nearly three-year ef-
fort of my colleague Ruth Levine
at the Center for Global Develop-
ment).
What’s wrong with this picture? It’s
ironic: Easterly advocates small,
piecemeal, and specialized pro-
grams—“It’s easier to correct small
mistakes,” he claims—while calling
for major surgery to the entire aid
system. About fixing the aid system,
he is not modest and piecemeal,
but incredibly ambitious: End the
existing official aid system and in-
crease a thousand fold (at least) the
number of individual, small experi-
ments. That may be why cursory
readers assume he is in favor of
drastically reducing official aid, not
really fixing it.
In fact, between the lines East-
erly does propose incremental re-
forms. He notes that sectoral aid
(to health, education, water and so
on) sometimes works. But he never
acknowledges that most official do-
nors—including the World Bank,
which he knows well— though
run by Planners at the top level,
have staff working in the spirit of
Searchers on the ground, financing
projects that operate at the sectoral
level (PEPFAR on AIDS for ex-
ample; UNICEF on childhood sup-
port; the World Bank on roads, and
on, to use an example he applauds,
“distilling practical knowledge on
operating banking systems”). It is
true that accountability for results
and independent evaluation are
too rare. Well, then let’s fix that. He
proposes vouchers the poor can use
to buy services from competing aid
providers. Good idea—but the aid
community is already encouraging
replication of the success Mexico
has had with its Progresa (now
called Oportunidades) program of
exactly that nature. And even that
continued on next page
17
continued from previous page
program requires some Planner to
determine how to distinguish the
poor, work out the distribution of
the vouchers, and for some services,
certify or regulate suppliers to mini-
mize cheating and predation.
There is a bigger problem. The aim
of aid, Easterly says, should be to
make individuals better off, not to
transform societies or governments.
But between piecemeal change and
transforming governments, there is
a lot of ground. Surely some sub-
stantial portion of aid should sup-
port big, locally owned public sec-
tor initiatives, and in the end, even
the budget itself of decent national
governments. Liberia today, with an
outstanding new leader in President
Sirleaf-Johnson, needs massive aid
to rebuild roads and schools and to
reconstitute its civil service. Admit-
tedly aid Planners haven’t always
done well trying to get governments
to “own” poverty-reducing growth.
But some new “system” ideas are
worth trying, such as the U.S. Mil-
lennium Challenge Corporation’s
targeting of aid to selected govern-
ments that have met key standards
of honesty and sensible policy. Part
of the challenge facing the aid com-
munity is to find ways to support
good governments and encourage
better ones, rather than sidestep-
ping government altogether.
White Man’s Burden is terrific on
the nature of the problems with aid.
But it starts by implying that the
only solution is major surgery and
a risky organ replacement. What
about recommendations more in
the spirit of moving to a healthy diet
and more exercise—aren’t these
worth trying before risking the
patient’s life altogether? This book
is a great read. I just hope readers
are discriminating about the story it
purports to tell.
18 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
Contribute a story to USAID for
International Women’s Day!
USAID’s Bureau for Global
Health will commemorate
International Women’s
Day, March 8, with profiles,
photos, and success sto-
ries that feature the work
of women – from Mission
staff to development part-
ners at the national, local,
and village level. USAID is
calling the feature Women
Making a Difference and
will include as many sto-
ries and photographs as
they receive. All organiza-
tions will be credited.
Stories submitted should
be no more than 1,000
Photo: courtesy of Jenny Matthews
words and each should be
accompanied by a photo
of the woman being featured. They would like to showcase the
broad range of development partners, from USAID staff – mission
and Washington, host country representatives, CAs, and individu-
als who make programs happen on the ground. Not only will this
feature spotlight the contributions of women to development
assistance in health, but will help show people how health pro-
grams are implemented and the varied work involved in bringing
good health to millions.
Please send your recommendations, success stories, and photos
by February 28, 2008 so that they can pay tribute to the women
who have made a difference in advancing global health. Send
your submissions to both Sandra Jordan at sjordan@usaid.gov
and Wendy Coursen at wcoursen@usaid.gov
ABOUT INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
International Women’s Day has been observed since in the ear-
ly 1900’s. Each year on March 8, thousands of events are held
throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate their
achievements. While there are many large-scale initiatives, a
rich and diverse fabric of local activity connects women from all
around the world ranging from political rallies, business confer-
ences, government activities and networking events through to
local women’s craft markets, theatric performances, fashion pa-
rades and more.
Institutional Drivers of High-Impact Development
By Sarah Newhall, President and CEO, Pact
G
ather a group of international development people
in a room and it doesn’t take long for talk to turn to
how we can “get it right.” There is a deep collective
realization that the way we are doing development
is not adequate, despite all our hard work and good faith efforts
to produce lasting, high-impact results. A confluence of pres-
sures has brought us to this point. Development programs now
compete for scarce public dollars alongside urgently needed
other federal programs, forcing us to more quickly demon-
strate evidence of return on the public investment. Likewise,
new donors emerging in the private sector accustomed to re-
porting on the bottom line, expect their investments to meet
measurable metrics of success. Everyone wants high impact
… and wants it now. In this issue Monday Developments looks
at several significant development trends that can potentially
help us get there. Below are four emerging practices stemming
from Pact’s experience in building organizational, community
and institutional capacity across sectors that we think reflect
some of the best new high-impact drivers. All share aspects of
our evolving world: connectivity, communication, collabora-
tion and cultural sensitivity.
Purposeful networks
Purposeful networks are networks created to produce specific
results toward a well-articulated objective. At their best they
enable us to weave together people and organizations across
the globe – pooling talent, knowledge and resources that spark
innovation and nurture partnerships for scale and impact.
Many of us are comfortable with networks as formal structures
disseminating information or coordinating expanded service
delivery, but the new frontier is the world of social network-
ing and informal learning. The spectacular rise of websites like
Facebook and MySpace demonstrate the tremendous value
found in enabling people to connect around diverse interests.
These new web-based platforms allow us to expand participa-
tion through networks in ways not possible just a few years
ago. We need to push beyond our comfort zone and continue
to explore how to unleash the power of expansive peer partici-
pation.
Hybrid institutions: working outside the
boundaries
The world is calling us more and more to work “outside the
boundaries.” The same old organizations and institutions won’t
solve the daunting social and environmental challenges we
face. True leaders understand this and are developing new
types of organizations that can bridge the traditional bound-
aries of public, for-profit and nonprofit organizational models.
These hybrid organizations are emerging everywhere. The pub-
lic sector is embracing public-private partnerships as a way to
leverage capacity and resources beyond their traditional reach.
Civil society organizations are promoting practices imported
from the business world to achieve social goals. And business-
es are celebrating ventures that help them achieve their bot-
tom line while addressing the problems of those left out of the
global economy. These new organizational models go beyond
traditional multi-stakeholder engagement. They are creating
true hybrids where different actors come together to innovate,
problem solve and produce high impact results. In the process
they are transforming the way development happens.
Culturally-appropriate rule of law
In recent years international, donor-funded, rule-of-law pro-
grams in developing countries have often struggled to gain
traction, or worse, have clashed with local institutions and cul-
tural mores, generating backlash and violating the first rule of
development: “Do no harm.” Increasingly we are being asked to
step outside traditional assumptions and approaches in order
to make space for programs more compatible with local cul-
tures and practices. For example, key tenets that we often take
for granted (i.e., that legal rulings should be based on prece-
dent; that justice should be administered by formal institutions;
or that legal codes should be universal for all citizens) often do
not hold in developing countries. Incorporating the role of in-
formal justice institutions (such as village councils), differenti-
ated legal systems (such as when Shia and Sunni communities
answer to different sets of laws on certain issues), and the role
of culture and information campaigns offer promising new di-
rections in governance programming.
Intersectional capacity
For most of our organizations, and us the best chance to in-
novate lies at the intersection of development and technol-
ogy, ecology, culture, national security, science and finance.
We have only to look at the growing buzz around social entre-
preneurship, corporate-community engagement, “nonprofit
business models,” and leveraging technology such as Kiva and
Global Giving for evidence of intersectional ideas and relation-
ships. During the past decade we were all about creating effec-
tive organizations. Capacity building was directional and fairly
predictable: improve management performance, create more
high-functioning boards, mobilize resources. In a world full of
intersections, it is not surprising that we have outgrown these
traditional approaches. Intersectional capacity building can cre-
ate change in leaps, but it requires organizations to adopt a
network mindset. New tools and approaches must help organi-
zations to work with and through other organizations as much
as support effectiveness and efficiency. Tools include organiza-
tional network analysis, evaluation of social development value
chains, and metrics for measuring social capital. Yes, we live in
an interconnected world. But organizations need to make these
connections. This is intersectional capacity.
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 19
Recent Trends in Humanitarian Assistance
By Jim Bishop, Vice President, Humanitarian Policy and Practice, InterAction
A
quarter of InterAction’s 170
members provide humanitar-
ian assistance to those affect-
ed by natural and man-made
disasters. They are generously sup-
ported by the American public, which
contributed $1.7 billion to finance their
activities in the countries struck by the
tsunami of late 2005. Many InterAction
members also receive U.S. government
funds for their work as implementing
partners for USAID’s Office of Foreign
Disaster Assistance and/or the State De-
partment’s Bureau of Population, Refu-
gee and Migration Affairs. In addition,
members are supported by UN agen-
cies for their programs implementing
the mandates of the UN High Commis-
sioner for Refugees, UNICEF, the World
Food Program and other UN bodies
delivering humanitarian assistance. A
few InterAction members also receive
financial support from the European
Community and individual European
governments.
No respite from disasters
Among the most evident trends in the
work of these agencies is the increasing
frequency of natural disasters. The UN’s
Office for the Coordination of Humani-
tarian Affairs issued a record number
of appeals for assistance to countries
struck by natural disasters in 2007. As a
positive correlation with global warm-
ing is posited by experts in the field, the
trend is expected to accelerate in the
years to come. Simultaneously, rates of
HIV/AIDS infection continue to climb,
and the spread of Avian Flu increases
the risk that the virus will mutate to a
form efficiently transmitted among hu-
mans, setting the stage for a worldwide
catastrophe exceeding Biblical propor-
tions.
20 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
Although inter-state conflict has be-
come less frequent, civil wars are com-
mon and in many cases protracted with
devastating humanitarian consequenc-
es. The conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region
has left four million people dependent
on international assistance for survival.
There are also fears that the Compre-
hensive Peace Accord between north
and south Sudan could break down
and a decades old conflict could again
threaten the lives of millions. In neigh-
boring Chad, renewed civil war has dis-
placed 180,000 Chadians, who join over
200,000 Sudanese refugees in looking
to relief agencies for survival. The re-
newed peace accord in the Democratic
Republic of Congo has not halted the
excess mortality due to conflict and
destruction of the infrastructure. An
International Rescue Committee sur-
vey found that since 1998, 5.4 million
more Congolese have died than would
have died if mortality rates were at lev-
els common to the region in times of
peace.
The continuing conflict in Iraq has
produced an estimated two million
refugees and an equal number of in-
ternally displaced Iraqis. An upsurge
in Somalia’s 17-year civil war has cre-
ated over 400,000 additional internally
displaced. The situation is similar in Sri
Lanka where the government formally
renounced a cease-fire that had come
to exist in name only. There has been
no improvement in conditions for over
a million internally displaced people
in Colombia. Zimbabweans are flee-
ing economic chaos to become illegal
migrants in neighboring countries. Hu-
manitarian conditions in the West Bank
and Gaza worsen as the Israelis tighten
their controls on the population of the
occupied territories. An up-tick in vio-
lence in Afghanistan impedes repatria-
tion of millions of refugees who sought
protection in Pakistan and Iran. Kenya
may be on the verge of a major ethnic
crisis as political rhetoric exacerbates
decades-old resentments. And in North
Korea, government secrecy hides the
plight of its isolated population.
Structural reforms
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee
(IASC), a UN General Assembly-man-
dated grouping of UN relief agencies,
the Red Cross Movement and three
NGO consortia including InterAction,
has three major reforms underway. The
Clusters System assigns lead agencies
to each of the typical disaster response
activities. In principle, the lead agency
has not only the responsibility for coor-
dinating the activities of cluster mem-
bers, but also for being the provider of
last resort should other cluster members
not meet the challenge they are con-
fronting. The Consolidated Emergency
Response Fund (CERF), administered by
the UN’s Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Response (OCHA), now
receives roughly $500 million per year
from donors to accelerate relief efforts
of IASC members and supplement funds
available for neglected emergencies. Ef-
forts also are under way to improve the
procedures to select, train and support
the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinators.
A parallel initiative has been the cre-
ation of the Global Humanitarian Plat-
form. This expands beyond the IASC
membership to include more than a
dozen of the larger international NGOs
engaged in disaster response. It is in-
tended to foster a genuine partnership
through implementation of Principles
of Partnership agreed among the par-
ticipants.

Challenges
Widespread impunity for those who
attack innocent civilians and humani-
tarians attempting to assist them have
forced many NGOs to resort to “remote
control” arrangements in Afghanistan,
Iraq and Somalia. In these arrangements
international staff of some agencies
provide leadership and supervision by
email or radio from outside the country,
supplemented by occasional in-country
visits. Even where they are present on
the ground, NGOs frequently encounter
obstacles to access in the form of bu-
reaucratic delays, harassment of staff,
government-sponsored media attacks
and other similar tactics by regimes that
would prefer to exercise a heavy hand
with populations they consider suspect
or hostile. Several peacekeeping mis-
sions have been rendered impotent by
the absence of peace accords, the un-
willingness of the UN Security Council
to insist on enforcing the Responsibility
to Protect endorsed the by UN General
Assembly, and the reluctance of sophis-
ticated military powers to provide the
advanced weapons required to protect
UN or regional peacekeepers from un-
willing hosts and/or dissidents.
In the United States, and to a grow-
ing extent in Europe, militarization of
foreign aid is blurring the distinction
between military “hearts and minds”
campaigns and the genuine humani-
tarian assistance essential for success-
ful interventions and the safety of hu-
manitarian personnel. Faced with a lack
of resources to deal with civil admin-
istration of disputed territory, the U.S.
government has chosen to assign tasks
to the military that are normally the re-
sponsibility of USAID, NGOs and other
civilian groups. AFRICOM, a new U.S.
military command for Africa, aspires to a
mandate that would have it heavily en-
gaged in both humanitarian assistance
and development. SOUTHCOM, the
sister command for Latin America and
the Caribbean, appears to have a similar
desire. At the request of the Pentagon,
Congress is providing the combatant
commanders who head these regional
commands with $1 billion annually to
undertake development and humani-
tarian projects for which they have little
expertise. Only recently has Secretary
of Defense Gates begun to call on Con-
gress to increase funding for USAID and
the State Department so those entities
can improve their surge capacities.
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
Photo: courtesy of Ayotte
The U.S. government has chosen to try
to further restrict humanitarian space
by initiatives it justifies in the name
of its global war on terrorism. Having
asserted without any proof that NGOs
are a significant source of terrorist
financing, the government has had the
Department of the Treasury produce
voluntary guidelines on overseas
funding by American charities. Many
assert that the guidelines have had a
chilling effect on contributions. More
ominously perhaps, USAID has indicated
it intends to set up a “Partners Vetting
System” that would require American
NGOs to collect and hand over personal
information about their officers, key staff
and members of their board of directors,
as well as those of their foreign partners
– data that would be shared with U.S.
intelligence and security agencies. As
InterAction’s members have stated
publicly, compliance with such a regime
would not only violate their civil rights,
but would also put their employees
oversees at heightened risk of physical
violence. InterAction and its members
are resisting these initiatives while
exercising due diligence to protect their
funds and other assets from misuse by
those supporting terrorists.
21
Acceptance
An Approach to Security as if People Mattered
By Michael O’Neill, Senior Director, Security, Save the Children

R
ecent events in Kenya actually enable development pro- and positive local perceptions of the
should prompt develop- grams to continue to be effective in organization and its staff. Local per-
ment professionals to real- the most complex, insecure envi- ceptions are influenced by project
ize what many in emergen- ronments. design and accountability, agency
cy response have already concluded adherence to transparent principles
through painful experience: that in Security strategy and staff behavior that respects cul-
order to reach one’s development tural norms.
Three distinct approaches to se-
goals and meet a duty of care to
curity management offer a range An organizational security strate-
one’s dedicated staff, it is time to
of options for developing an effec- gy is derived from the combination
get serious about security manage-
tive security strategy. The protec- of approaches an organization ap-
ment. We can no longer claim with
tion approach employs technolo- plies within a defined operational
any conviction that security man-
gies and procedures that reduce context. In developing a particular
agement is unnecessary for devel-
organizational exposure to threats security strategy, one must first con-
opment programs in non-conflict
– “hardening the
countries. Bolivia, Côte d’Ivoire,
target.” Exam-
Myanmar, Nepal and Venezuela Acceptance
ples of protective
are all countries with extensive
measures include
development programs that have
installing locks,
either slid into conflict and chaos
window grates
or currently hover on the precipice
and security light-
of insecurity. On the other side of
ing, erecting high
the equation are nations emerging
compound walls,
from conflict where new develop-
using armored ve-
ment initiatives have begun but the
hicles and estab-
remnants of conflict remain (Koso- Protection DETERRANCE
lishing facility ac-
vo, Liberia and Sierra Leone). Even
cess procedures.
in the best of times, many of these
The deterrent
countries are plagued with poor in-
approach uses counterforce to in- sider the organizational mission
frastructure, treacherous road con- and programs to be implemented.
timidate or deter aggressors in or-
ditions and crime.
der to negate the threat. Examples Factors that define operational
Development practitioners justifi- of deterrent measures include use context include: understanding the
of military and peacekeeping forc- overall operational environment,
ably resist the imposition of onerous
es, threat of violent reprisals, eco- demographics, history, economy,
security regulations on their staff
nomic sanctions and withdrawal of and other similar factors; identifying
and operations for fear that such
services. The use of armed escorts key stakeholders and the dynamics
regulations will negatively affect
and armed guards falls into this cat- of power and influence, motivation
successful programs. Perhaps this
view is informed by an incomplete egory. The third approach, accep- and intent; assessing and prioritiz-
understanding of the range of se- tance, is based upon developing ing likely threats; and analyzing
relationships and gaining consent risk and the organizational risk
curity management alternatives
from beneficiaries, local authori- threshold. A particularly important
available or by a reaction to an
ties, belligerents and other stake- element of this context is the range
unfortunate experience where dra-
holders for organizational program of likely safety and security threats
conian security measures were im-
operations as a means of reducing in the operational environment.
posed from above. In recent years,
or removing threats. Gaining ac- When one determines the type and
security management approaches
ceptance among stakeholders is di- scope of proposed program activi-
have evolved that are compatible
rectly related to an agency’s mission ties and how the identified threats
with development prerogatives and

22 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS


CONTEXT
THREATS Mission
might impact the relative vulner-
ability of personnel, assets and pro-
grams, then an appropriate, effec-
tive security management strategy
can be derived.
Acceptance
In order to provide development
assistance, organizations strive to
establish and maintain effective re-
lationships with local partners, com-
munities and influential leaders.
Because the acceptance approach
to security is consistent with this re-
lationship-driven development ap-
proach (albeit with some elements
of the protective approach applied
as the threat environment war-
rants), it is usually the cornerstone
of effective security management in
a development context.
Sustainable development programs
are often designed to address ben-
eficiary needs in a manner that fos-
ters transparency, accountability,
local participation and empower-
ment. These very same values are
the hallmark of the acceptance ap-
proach to security. The responsibil-
ity of each staff member is to strive
to understand the host culture and
behave in a manner that respects
the cultural norms while remain-
ing vigilant to any changes in the
operational environment that might
increase individual and/or program
exposure to threats. In this way
the acceptance approach dovetails
nicely with development program
Vulnerability
approaches and is neither oner-
ous nor expensive to implement.
The acceptance approach is not a
panacea for addressing all security
threats, but it provides a foundation
for effective security management
for development organizations.
Security management
system
Through a security approach (or
combination of approaches) an or-
ganization determines a security
strategy, and the strategy informs
the operational security manage-
ment system. Feedback from many
development managers over many
years has highlighted the following
basic components of a functional
security management system, each
of which is discussed in further de-
tail below:
a information gathering,
analysis and dissemination;
a site selection and facilities
management;
a personnel;
a communications;
a transportation;
a reporting and responding to
security incidents; and
a security planning.
Information gathering, analy-
sis and dissemination. A reliable
means of gathering, analyzing and
disseminating information is essen-
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
tial for effective program and secu-
rity management. It allows an orga-
nization to establish and maintain
a clear understanding of the oper-
ating context and changing threat
environment that influence how an
organization should design and im-
plement its development programs.
Needs assessments often address
the operational context and local in-
stitutional capacities. They should
also analyze the overall security en-
vironment. Doing so provides valu-
able insights for program design and
implementation. It also helps iden-
tify the most appropriate approach
to security management, which in
turn affects proposals and budgets,
and staff selection and orientation.
Since the operating context is rarely
static, a means of constantly gather-
ing and analyzing information is es-
sential. The availability of updated
analysis allows program managers
to keep staff well-informed, adjust
program approaches, orientate new
employees and brief visitors. Partic-
ipatory assessments involving local
partners, beneficiaries and organi-
zations have the added benefit of
building greater acceptance among
these stakeholders.
Site selection and facilities man-
agement. Secure facilities estab-
lish a physical space that offers a
productive work environment and
provides access to constituents,
beneficiaries and colleagues while
maintaining the capability to pre-
vent intrusion from undesirable
elements and delay attack. An op-
timal mix combines positive local
perceptions, physical construction
and technology, and procedures
consistent with the organizational
mission.
An acceptance approach focuses on
neighborly relations and culturally
appropriate means of welcoming
and screening visitors. In the face
of increasing insecurity, more
overtly protective measures may be
instituted.
continued on next page
23
continued from previous page
Personnel. All staff members
should be selected, supervised and
provided with appropriate training
and support in an ongoing manner
to fulfill their assigned responsi-
bilities and to work effectively and
safely in their respective areas of
operation.
Each staff member plays a pivotal
role in developing and maintaining
positive relationships with the vari-
ous stakeholders in an operational
area. Local people often ask drivers
and guards about the
organization’s mo-
tives, programs and
potential opportuni-
ties. Are these cadres
of staff sufficiently in-
formed and empow-
ered to accurately
explain your organi-
zation’s development
mission, program ac-
tivities and to refer in-
quiries appropriately?
Are staff selection and
orientation designed
to ensure that staff
behave and commu-
nicate in a respectful
and culturally appro-
priate manner?
Communications. Successful secu-
rity management relies on effective
communications. While technology
is important in facilitating commu-
nication, the procedures by which
messages are developed, delivered
and confirmed under difficult con-
ditions are the essence of effective
communication.
Every environment presents unique
challenges to effective communi-
cations. In many developing coun-
tries, communications infrastructure
is weak or unreliable. Determining
the most appropriate combination
of communications technology and
providing staff with the relevant
training to use the technology is
key to effective program manage-
ment and security.
24 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
Communications with local stake-
holders should be clear about what
the organization represents and
provide an avenue for local feed-
back. This allows an organization
to manage its profile and maintain
stakeholder consent.
Transportation. Organizational
personnel are at greatest risk of ac-
cident, assault and detention while
traveling. Transportation policies,
procedures, equipment and train-
ing should address the risks asso-
ciated with dangerous road condi-
tions, banditry, hostile checkpoints,
land mines and other transporta-
tion-related threats. Road accidents
remain a major cause of injury and
death for development workers.
Vehicle choice and maintenance,
driver training, appropriate policies
and procedures all contribute to re-
ducing staff exposure to transporta-
tion risks. Personnel should be in-
structed to drive in a manner that is
safe and respectful of pedestrians in
order to foster a positive organiza-
tional image and gain acceptance.
Reporting and responding to se-
curity incidents. Collecting, ana-
lyzing and sharing incident report
data is essential to good project
management and decision-making.
Better understanding of incident
factors, patterns and trends contrib-
utes to improved security planning,
staff training and resource alloca-
tion. Each organization should de-
velop clear reporting and post-inci-
dent staff support protocols, and, to
the extent possible, share incident
report data internally, with partners
and other NGOs.
Security planning. Security plan-
ning is an ongoing consultative pro-
cess that involves a broad range of
agency staff and external personnel.
It defines the threat environment,
sets forth agency policies, proce-
dures and staff roles and responsi-
bilities, and provides guidance for
responding to likely contingencies
in an accessible, user-friendly man-
ner.
Conclusion
Experience reminds us that even for
development programs, the opera-
tional environment rarely remains
static. Seemingly stable countries
can descend quickly into insecurity.
Given the constant flux of political
fortunes, increasing crime and in-
security, it behooves development
organizations to take a hard look at
their security management systems.
The acceptance approach provides
a foundation for effective secu-
rity management that is consistent
with the values that underpin de-
velopment: relationships based on
mutual respect and effective com-
munications. For the sake of dedi-
cated staff and for the continuation
of valuable programs that benefit
partners and beneficiaries, effective
security management in a develop-
ment context is a must.
In addition to his work in the secu-
rity sector, the author also has spent
well over a decade working in the
field on development projects.
CAREER DeVELOPMENTS

Sharing your Salary History

The practice of organizations asking job applicants for salary history
information can be off-putting for job seekers. We asked human resources
professionals from the non-governmental organization (NGO) community
their thoughts on the practice of asking job applicants for their salary
history. Does your organization do it? If so, why? Do you think the practice
is fair? Intrusive? How does your organization factor this information into
salary negotiations? Here are some of the responses from HR professionals:

It is perfectly acceptable to ask job applicants about

I’m not aware of that practice in Canadian NGOs and
we certainly do not apply it. If anything, it’s budgets
and current salary levels that dictate what a new per-
son will be offered.
We most definitely ask for salary history. Obviously it
has different effects on different positions as it would
pertain to experience and level of the position. With
higher-level positions it helps us to determine the fol-
lowing: 1. Are we in the same ballpark with their ex-
pectations and our ability to pay? 2. Is it an obvious
financial step for the individual, as we want to invest
in them and keep them around? For entry-level posi-
tions, it doesn’t necessarily have the same impact as
it does on the higher-level positions but it provides
similar background and information for the offer. We
have salary minimums, midpoints and maximums set
for each position so it helps us position them appropri-
ately within a range. Plus, it keeps the process fair.
Our organization does not usually ask for salary histo-
ries when applicants apply for positions. We do get the
salary history when those applicants who will be inter-
viewed complete an employment application.
Yes, my organization does ask this and applicants re-
port this on the application. It helps in negotiating sal-
aries for positions at [my organization] and whether or
not the applicant salary is out of range .... just to name
a few reasons. We do not see this as a problem and no
applicant (to my knowledge) has balked at reporting
this information.
their current salary, if not their salary history. For USAID
funded projects, this information is required. Addi-
tionally, it helps employers fit applicants into a salary
range for the position to which they are applying. It is
not reasonable to expect a person to take a job for less
than they were making in their last position. Knowing
their salary history means, for example, you could jus-
tify starting them in the mid-range rather than at the
starting point. The private sector generally pays more
than the nonprofits. For certain jobs, such as commu-
nications, fundraising, and IT, private sector pay scales
push up nonprofit salaries that have to be competitive
in order to attract good people.
I always ask for a salary history going back to 2000.
Sometimes I also ask about benefits. It factors heavily
into our starting salary figures.
For my searches, I ask for recent salary history. It’s one
more piece of data, besides the resume, cover letter,
etc. that helps me assess the fit. Salary helps me know
the level of responsibility a person has had, especially
if title doesn’t do that well. If the person will have to
take a pay cut, that’s an important topic to discuss, es-
pecially since it can influence how long a person will
stay at the job, or why the person is interested in being
a candidate. –from an independent executive recruiter
Many of the responses above sound perfectly reasonable.
However, none addresses the fact that many people con-
sider salary history private information. Would it be ac-
ceptable to ask the person interviewing you his/her salary,
so you can get a sense of what your salary might look like
a few years down the road? And where does sharing salary
history leave the applicant when it comes to salary nego-
tiations? For those on the other side of the issue—the job
seeker—Career Developments would love to hear from
you. Send your thoughts on sharing salary history to pub-
lications@interaction.org, and we’ll publish them anony-
mously in next month’s column.

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 25

Climate Change Adaptation: Progress on Finance
By Gawain Kripke, Policy and Research Director, Oxfam America
C
limate change has
emerged as a singular
challenge to development
and humanitarian aid. Poor
people have always been more
vulnerable to natural disasters,
with 97 percent of all natural
disaster-related deaths occurring
in developing countries. Now,
weather-related disasters are on the
increase, in line with observations of
warming and computer simulations
that model future climate. 2007 was
a year of weather extremes: Africa’s
worst floods in three decades,
unprecedented flooding in Mexico,
massive floods in South Asia,
and heat waves and forest fires in
Europe, Australia, and California.
By mid-November, the United
Nations had launched 15 “flash
appeals” – the greatest ever number
in one year – all but one in response
to weather-related disasters.
Photo: courtesy of Matthew Willman/Oxfam AUS
26 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
Over the last two decades, the to-
tal number of natural disasters has
quadrupled – most of them floods,
cyclones, and storms. Over the
same period, the number of people
affected by disasters has increased
from averages of around 174 million
to more than 250 million per year.
One shock after another, even if
each is fairly small, can push poor
people and communities into a
downward spiral of destitution and
further vulnerability from which
they struggle to recover. Climate
change has the potential to mas-
sively increase global poverty and
inequality, punishing first and most
severely the very people least re-
sponsible for greenhouse-gas emis-
sions and increasing their vulner-
ability to disasters.
While preventing the most dramatic
climate change must be a high pri-
ority for humanitarians, we must
also face the fact that some climate
change is inevitable. Regardless
of actions taken to reduce carbon
emissions, decades of greenhouse
gas build-up in the atmosphere
have set in motion changes that
cannot be prevented.
While communities have devel-
oped strategies to cope with natural
variability in the weather, climate
changes will likely create unprece-
dented stresses by making weather
patterns less predictable and in-
creasing the intensity and frequen-
cy of floods, droughts, hurricanes
and storms. Building resilience
and promoting adaptive strategies
is a critical component of a climate
change response.
These actions require resources. Ox-
fam has analyzed the level of adap-
tation funding needed to support a
range of activities from build-
ing climate-resiliency into ex-
isting development projects
to financing new adaptation
strategies in developing na-
tions. Estimates of the cost of
adaptation across developing
countries range from $28-$67
billion per year according to
the UN Framework Conven-
tion on Climate Change, to
more than $86 billion accord-
ing to the recently released
Human Development Report
of the UN Development Pro-
gram. Financing for adapta-
tion should not be viewed as
aid, but instead as a form of
compensatory financing and
should not come out of long-
standing donor commitments
to provide 0.7 percent of gross
domestic product to eradicate
poverty.
There has been a flurry of activity
in recent months around the issue
of “adaptation finance,” both in the
domestic and international context.
Mechanisms to provide increased
funding for adaptation have been
incorporated into broader policy
frameworks to reduce climate
change emissions.
Action in the U.S. Senate
In December 2007, the Senate Envi-
ronment and Public Works Commit-
tee approved the Climate Security
Act of 2007, also known as the “Li-
eberman-Warner Bill” for the lead
Senate sponsors of the legislation.
The Lieberman-Warner Bill is cur-
rently the most prominent vehicle
for legislative action on U.S. climate
policy.
This action is a landmark: the first
time a Congressional committee
has voted for comprehensive man-
datory measures to reduce U.S. car-
bon emissions. More specifically,
the Lieberman-Warner Bill sets an
important precedent by providing
funding assistance to vulnerable de-
veloping countries for adaptation to
climate change impacts. It includes
an “International Climate Change
Adaptation and National Security
Program” that would set aside a
portion of the revenues from a gov-
ernment auction of greenhouse gas
emission permits, for adaptation and
clean energy technologies for least-
developed countries. If enacted, the
legislation’s funding mechanism
will generate approximately $1 bil-
lion a year for international adap-
tation funding at the outset (2012),
and would increase to more than $2
billion for that purpose as the car-
bon auctions expand over time.
This funding would surpass any
other currently available source for
international adaptation assistance
in developing countries. The funds
would be overseen by the U.S.
Agency for International Develop-
ment and used for:
a development of climate
change adaptation plans and
adaptation research in least-
developed countries;
a assistance to least-developed
countries and small island de-
veloping states for the plan-
ning, financing and execution
of adaptation plans;
a support for capital and invest-
ments to reduce vulnerabil-
ity to climate impacts such as
drought, floods, sea-level rise,
agricultural shifts and refu-
gees; and
a identification and adoption
of low-carbon and energy ef-
ficient technologies in least
developed countries.
Action in Bali
Also in December, the UN hosted
negotiations in Bali to produce a
roadmap for an international agree-
ment to update the Kyoto Protocol
and the UN Framework Conven-
tion on Climate Change. The final
agreement for the Bali Action Plan
sets out negotiating pillars around
mitigation (emissions reduction),
adaptation, and finance and tech-
nology. While the objectives for
these areas are not well defined,
there was striking progress on some
issues – particularly on climate
change adaptation.
After 10 days of surprisingly ardu-
ous negotiations, an agreement
was struck on implementation of
the Adaptation Fund under the
Kyoto Protocol. This fund was cre-
ated in 2001 to provide assistance
to developing countries for specific
climate-related adaptation projects.
But implementation of the Adapta-
tion Fund was an unresolved issue
from the previous Conference of
Parties (COP) in 2006. At issue was
a dispute between developing and
developed countries about which
institution would oversee the fund.
In Bali, negotiators agreed that the
Global Environment Facility would
administer the Adaptation Fund,
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
but that the adaptation operations,
including choice of projects and
programs, will be managed by an
executive board with a majority of
representatives from developing
countries.
This agreement allows the Adapta-
tion Fund to get up and running in
2008. Initial funding will come from
a small, two percent levy on all
transactions under the Clean De-
velopment Mechanism. The Clean
Development Mechanism helps
governments and companies in de-
veloped countries offset excess car-
bon emissions by purchasing carbon
credits from projects in developing
countries. This levy is expected to
generate a relatively modest $200-
$300 million annually.
Other elements of the Bali Action
Plan provide a solid basis for creat-
ing needed revenue for adaptation.
The negotiating mandate includes
“improved access to adequate, pre-
dictable and sustainable financial
resources and financial and tech-
nical support, and the provision
of new and additional resources”
for both adaptation and emissions
reduction activities in developing
countries. The text specifically calls
for “innovative means of funding
to assist developing country Par-
ties that are particularly vulnerable
to the adverse impacts of climate
change in meeting the cost of adap-
tation.”
For both the Bali Action Plan and
the Lieberman-Warner Bill, much
more work remains to bring these
opportunities to fruition – including
identifying potential new funding
mechanisms for adaptation. And
the measures included can be im-
proved by adding focus and clarity
to the implementing mechanisms.
But these decisions in Bali and
Washington offer very encourag-
ing signals that new resources may
be generated to assist the poorest
countries in addressing global cli-
mate change.
27
What Do Do-Gooders Do?
By Barbara J. Wallace, Vice President, Membership and Standards, InterAction
S
ome years ago, my father,
who was suffering from
early stages of Alzheimer’s
disease, asked me, “Are you
still doing that do-gooder stuff?”
I remember smiling wryly to my-
self as I marveled that, with all the
things he had forgotten about me
and our lives together, he so iden-
tified me with my lifelong commit-
ment to make a difference, that this
was the one thread of the fabric of
our lives that remained. He was
both teasing me and honoring the
essence of who I am.
“Doing good” – making a differ-
ence in the ability of individuals
and communities to survive and
even thrive – is a treasured value in
the InterAction community. It is the
primary reason that we do what we
do, every day, collectively in every
country in the world. Perhaps be-
cause of that focus our sector has
often been undervalued as a vital
part of the economy, and the profes-
sionalism of our leaders and staffs
is seldom recognized in the way
that corporate excellence is. Only
recently have top financial publica-
tions begun to recognize “social en-
trepreneurship” or the “social profit
sector” – yet the nonprofit sector is
a large part of the U.S. economy, ac-
counting for 5.2 percent of the U.S.
gross domestic product (GDP), 8.3
percent of wages and salaries paid
in the U.S., and revenues totaling
$1,050 billion in 2004-2005 as re-
ported in the Nonprofit Almanac
2007. Nearly all of these organiza-
tions began with individuals act-
ing as entrepreneurs, dealing with
social problems discussed in liv-
ing rooms, church basements, and
neighborhood gatherings – estab-
28 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
lishing business structures and all
that entails as necessary to accom-
plish the need that spoke to him or
her, and developing cutting-edge
solutions to some of the most chal-
lenging problems of our world.
The InterAction community is a
valuable and active subset of the
U.S. nonprofit community. Our col-
lective community of U.S.-based
non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) working on international
issues manages annual revenue ex-
ceeding nearly $17 billion, of which
over $9 billion is for international
work. InterAction member organi-
zations range in size from very small
to very large, the smallest having
total revenue under $65,000 while
our largest rises above $940 million
total revenue (revenue for interna-
tional work greater than $875 mil-
lion). These numbers do not include
the monetary equivalent of person-
hours of the thousands of volunteers
who support the work of our mem-
ber organizations here and around
the world. The number of volun-
teers in many organizations far ex-
ceeds the number of paid staff. Our
largest organization employs more
than 54,000 staff and the smallest
has no paid staff at all.
Our members are diverse in other
ways as well. Faith-based (25.5 per-
cent) and faith-founded (5.5 per-
cent) organizations make up about
31 percent of our members; secu-
lar organizations account for about
69 percent. Just over 40 of our 165
members work on humanitarian
relief and disaster response; more
than 100 are focused on internation-
al development, including health,
education, economic empower-
ment, and the environment; while
18 work exclusively on advocacy
or public education related to those
issues but have no direct service
component.
While this diversity raises challeng-
es for our community in speaking
with a united voice, coordinating
effort, and learning from each oth-
er, InterAction serves as the vehicle
through which our diversity reaches
common ground.
Our members make a difference,
meeting meet people halfway in
remote areas of the world, expand-
ing opportunities and developing
capacities for individuals and com-
munities across the globe. Face-
to-face, around the world, our
relationship with local peoples is
different than that of corporate or
political interests. Our focus is also
different from the military face of
America, or even the diplomatic
face. We represent the best of the
American people when and where
it really counts. In towns, villages
and neighborhoods, the InterAction
community of NGOs has a genuine
interest in building the capacities of
these individuals and communities
through programs supported by the
public, and in some cases, by U.S.
government grants.
At home, InterAction and its mem-
ber organizations educate the
American public, connecting them
to the condition of the world’s poor-
est peoples, sharing our deep field-
based experience in very different
ways and from a very different
point of view than that of the me-
dia or political interests. InterAction
leverages the impact of the private

support given our member organi-
zations by advocating for the ex-
pansion of U.S. government invest-
ments and by insisting that policies
and programs are responsive to the
realities of the world’s poorest and
most vulnerable populations.
We see the advocacy and public
education role of InterAction and
our members as providing a very
different flavor than that of the me-
dia or of our government. We con-
nect the American people to the
world’s poor: to the people, to their
experiences and to the conditions in
which they live. We represent them
to the public and we represent our
field-based, direct experience in
our advocacy. While only 18 of our
165 members are advocacy-only
organizations (provide no direct
operational services), more than
57 percent of our members who
responded to our Member Profiles
survey of information indicated that
their organizations are engaged
in advocacy at some level. (Since
only 77 percent of our members re-
sponded to this question, and some
of them are organizations with ad-
vocacy as their mission, the number
could be quite higher.)
As I close this commentary about
InterAction and its member orga-
nizations, I am moved to note that
there is a lot more that I wanted to
report on as I began to write about
the work that InterAction and our
member organizations do, the lev-
el of professionalism and exper-
tise that we represent in our work
around the world, the programs and
the countries we work in, the level
of our members’ advocacy and pub-
lic education, and more, but I don’t
have the data to share with you.
The data we have doesn’t begin to
scratch the surface of an accurate
description of our community.
I ask that we realize the value that
compiled accurate, up-to-date in-
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
Photo: courtesy of Bill Weaver
formation about InterAction’s mem-
bers has in sharing our work with
the public in advocating on behalf
of the community with the weight
of our impact on lives around the
world, and on describing our com-
munity as a substantial part of the
American economy and its relation-
ship with the world outside of its
borders. In the coming months and
years, InterAction will be asking
you, our members, the “do-good-
ers,” the professional experts on the
developing world, for information
about the work that you do to en-
able us to more accurately describe
the community we represent. We
are building systems to gather data
and developing methods to sim-
plify your ability to keep informa-
tion about your work current. We
are building a bank of information
to map the work of our community,
for your benefit and for the benefit
of the work that we all hold so dear.
29
 Measure What You Treasure
By InterAction’s Evaluation and Program Effectiveness Working
Group (EPEWG)

InterAction asked its Evaluation and Program Effectiveness Working

Group (EPEWG) to contribute an article to Monday Developments
on the evaluation issues of greatest concern to us today. We received
input from a range of program area and context perspectives. A
common thread throughout the responses was a desire to figure out
how to give as much attention to accountability to those we seek to
serve, evidenced in longer-term outcome and impact assessments,
as we give to accountability related to short-term output measures,
often prioritized by donors and charity watchdogs. Accountability to
whom and for what? With what evidence?

W
hen discussing ac-
countability and the
evidence produced to
demonstrate effective-
ness, non-governmental organiza-
tions (NGOs) dedicated to interna-
tional development face a particular
challenge: those who fund their in-
terventions and those who partici-
pate in them are distinct. Thus, the
NGOs ask: accountability to whom,
for what, within what time period,
and with what type of evidence?
If an NGO’s goal is to improve the
lives and environments of the peo-
ple it serves, then the NGO wants
to show that it has done so over the
long term and from the participants’
perspectives. But, to receive future
funding that is essential to its ongo-
ing work and is frequently awarded
with relatively short durations, it
must prove on an annual basis that
it has met donor requirements. Of-
ten, these two accountability de-
mands – to participants and to do-
nors – are in conflict.
Further, what constitutes evidence
of effectiveness and the timeframe
in which it must be reported can
differ greatly for donors and inter-
vention participants. These differ-
ences result from different goals
– the nature of the desired change
– and donor constraints. Equally
importantly, NGOs’ abilities to un-
dertake evaluations that measure
behavior change and impact and to
learn from those evaluations vary
due to time and budget availability,
capacity and willingness to collabo-
rate with others. All of these factors
have significant implications for
how NGOs focus their monitoring,
evaluation and related activities.
What measures tell us:
outputs vs. outcomes
Participants’ and donors’ goals may
be different. Participants may want
to see evidence of lasting disaster
recovery, poverty alleviation, im-
proved health, increased opportu-
nities or strengthened democracy.
Donors, and particularly bilateral
donors, on the other hand, may be
more interested in international
assistance’s contribution to foreign
policy objectives, including security
and political and financial stability,
often with a short-term time hori-
zon.
Bilateral donors can also face budget
constraints that make them weigh
international assistance against
other priorities, and demand short-
term results that can inform an an-
nual budgeting cycle. In the United
States, the President’s Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has
demanded primarily output-level
measures as evidence of how funds
are spent, but that do not necessar-
ily show evidence of longer-term
changes resulting from that invest-
ment. Based on PEPFAR as a model,
the U.S. foreign assistance reform
process similarly has required fund-
ing recipients to report annually on
primarily output-level indicators to
inform congressional budget alloca-

30 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS

tions, but does not necessar-
ily focus on longer-term pro-
gram outcomes or impacts.
Charity rating systems, such
as Guidestar and Char-
ity Navigator, also value
standard business financial
ratios over impact assess-
ments when judging NGO
effectiveness: the ratio of
overhead to program ex-
pense serves as a key mea-
sure. Yet, those who have
worked in NGOs know
that this measure can be
misleading. To bring the
ratio down, expenses can
be carefully allocated or an NGO
can rely on a small number of large
program expenses to offset over-
head costs. NGOs that value impact
measures over financial ratios as
means to show their effectiveness
recognize they are in a bind: to in-
vest in good measurement systems
and impact evaluations, they must
increase overhead costs, and thus
worsen the overhead to program ra-
tio on which their donors will judge
them.
New donors: challenges
and opportunities
Within this context, the proliferation
of different types of donors provides
NGOs with both opportunities and
challenges. Some foundations have
encouraged NGOs to place more
emphasis on managing for results.
This has encouraged NGOs to be-
come more internally coherent and
strategy-driven, improve the quality
of their interventions, and provide
better evidence of their effective-
ness. Further, this opportunity for
NGOs to develop a more diversified
funding base offers them greater
freedom to pursue longer-term
goals that address the underlying
causes of poverty without being be-
holden to a single or a few funders
and their constraints.
Yet, the evaluation methods some
foundations favor, while rigorous,
might not be appropriate to the in-
terventions they are promoting or
the contexts in which international
development efforts take place.
Compounding this challenge is the
lack of agreement among donors
regarding the focus and nature of
evaluation activities. Thus, NGOs
with support from multiple donors
are often required to set up multiple
systems to respond to their distinct
reporting demands.
Additionally, witnessing this more
competitive funding environment,
NGOs feel the need to distinguish
themselves from others in the eyes
of donors. Unless a donor explic-
itly encourages it, this competition
serves as a disincentive for col-
laboration in intervention design,
assessment, learning and improve-
ment – collaboration that is neces-
sary if NGOs, limited in their re-
sources and reach, are to make a
measurable contribution to poverty
alleviation and social justice.
Looking for solutions:
individual and joint
capacity building
In general, and primarily in re-
sponse to donor demands, NGOs
are investing increasingly in moni-
toring and evaluation (M&E). Num-
bers of staff members dedicated to
M&E are increasing, NGOs are in-
vesting more in building their M&E
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
capacity, and M&E prac-
titioners talk less about
a lack of resources and
attention and more
about how best to de-
velop global M&E sys-
tems. Some NGOs are
even investing system-
atically in operations
research and program
impact assessments to
help them improve their
effectiveness.
In some instances,
NGOs have success-
fully come together, of-
ten with donor financial
support, to help each other improve
their M&E capacity and then use
their findings to improve program-
ming and inform advocacy efforts.
An example of this is NGOs imple-
menting U.S. Agency for Interna-
tional Development (USAID)-fund-
ed Child Survival programs. Tom
Davis, Director of Health Programs,
Food for the Hungry and Chairman
of the Board, CORE Group, offers
the following:
Because of the presence of
communities of practice such
as the CORE Group with robust
and active M&E working groups,
new and improved indicators
and M&E methods … have been
refined and rolled-out to more
and more PVOs [private voluntary
organizations ] and FBOs [faith-
based organizations] working in
development. These tools help us to
take a more comprehensive look at
where we are succeeding and where
we are failing, and assure that we
are focusing on the right things and
truly listening to our clients. Using
more advanced methods, such as
measurement of mortality changes,
has allowed organizations to better
understand the impact of their
projects, and also has permitted
them to use their results for high-
level advocacy.
continued on next page
31
continued from previous page
The CORE Group, a 501(c)(3) mem-
ber-led association of international
NGOs that work in health and de-
velopment, has received funding
from USAID and other donors to
strengthen the capacity of its mem-
bers and in-country partners’ M&E
capacities to improve program per-
formance and quality.
Similarly, USAID’s Office of Food
for Peace (FFP) funded the Food
and Nutrition Technical Assistance
Project (FANTA) to help USAID/
FFP and its implementing partners
design, monitor, evaluate and learn
from their food security and nutri-
tion programming. While FANTA
is not NGO-owned, it works closely
with NGOs to develop and share
guidance for measuring the change
brought about by USAID/FFP-fund-
ed programs. Forums like these
provide organizations with a place
where they can discuss good M&E
practices, and come up with inno-
vative, low-cost solutions to M&E
problems. Working together, NGOs
can also leverage their individual
knowledge to more compellingly
advocate for policies and funding
that support international develop-
ment needs.
In another model, seven large in-
ternational NGOs came together
to build their emergency response
capacity. Under the Gates Foun-
dation-funded Emergency Capac-
ity Building (ECB) project, among
other activities, they sought to build
their M&E capacity and promote
joint evaluations and learning. The
guidance they produced has re-
ceived broad distribution. Mean-
while, from their joint evaluations,
they extracted valuable lessons
learned regarding the broader per-
spectives and learning that can re-
sult from collaboration, but also the
importance of common agreement,
coordination and resource commit-
ments.
Yet another collaborative effort is
bringing together an even broader
32 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
range of actors: governments,
multi-lateral donors, philanthropic
foundations, think tanks and NGOs.
Through the International Initiative
on Impact Evaluation (3IE), they
are supporting evaluation work
prioritized by policymakers in
countries that receive assistance;
that is, they are recognizing the
need to better understand the
impacts of international assistance.
Acknowledging that financial
and capacity limitations dissuade
individual organizations from
investing significantly in impact
evaluations, and acknowledging
that what we learn from impact
evaluations comprises a public
good, these entities chose to invest
in a new, independent organization,
charged with addressing enduring
development questions via impact
evaluations whose results will be
made widely available. Already,
three NGOs are members. (See
Jessica Gottlieb, “Doing Better
at Learning: Impact Evaluation
for Development,” Monday
Developments, Vol. 25, No. 4,
April 2007, 16-17.) The Network
of Networks for Impact Evaluation
(NONIE), which started with three
donor evaluation networks and now
also includes evaluation associations
based in recipient countries, is a
similar new effort.
Looking for solutions:
establishing principles
and standards
As another approach to showing
evidence of their accountability to
various stakeholders, NGOs are
establishing mutually agreed upon
principles and standards. These in-
clude InterAction’s Self-Certifica-
tion Plus process, Sphere standards,
Humanitarian Accountability Part-
nership—International’s qual-
ity assurance scheme, self-assessed
programmatic and management in-
ternal standards, and others. (Please
see Monday Developments, Vol. 25,
No. 12, December 2007, which is
dedicated to this topic.)
In an intergovernmental effort that
is now beginning to include civil
society organizations, the Organi-
zation for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD)/De-
velopment Assistance Committee
(DAC) recognized the need to work
closely with recipient governments
to achieve the Millennium Devel-
opment Goals (MDGs). In March
2005, they established the Paris
Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
At the Third High-Level Forum on
Aid Effectiveness being held to as-
sess governments’ adherence to the
Aid Effectiveness Principles, civil
society organizations will also par-
ticipate in recognition of the signifi-
cant role they play in aid delivery.
Civil society organizations will be
urging governments to assess aid
effectiveness from the perspectives
of their citizens, and they will be ex-
amining measures of their own con-
tributions to aid effectiveness.
Each of these efforts offers hope to
those who ask how NGOs can best
demonstrate accountability to dif-
ferent stakeholders and what con-
stitutes evidence of effectiveness.
Increasingly, donors are valuing ev-
idence of outcome and impact-level
results, complementing participant
demands. And increasingly collab-
orative efforts are emerging that
help all stakeholders produce and
learn from that evidence in order to
improve aid effectiveness.
Primary InterAction EPEWG member
contributors to this article were
American Red Cross (ARC), CARE,
Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Church
World Service (CWS), Floresta, Food
for the Hungry, Heifer International,
Interplast, Save the Children, and World
Vision.
For more information about
InterAction’s EPEWG, please contact
InterAction Senior Program Associate
Hilary Nalven (hnalven@interaction.org)
and EPEWG Co-Chairs Carlisle Levine
(clevine@care.org) and Juan Carlos
Alegre (jcalegre@savechildren.org).
Working Together for Good: The United Nations and NGOs
By Deborah Derrick, Executive Director, Better World Campaign
N
on-governmental organizations (NGOs) have
been active participants in the United Nations
since its founding. They work with the UN Sec-
retariat, UN programs, funds and agencies, and
they consult with and advocate to Member States. NGOs
can have a formal connection to the United Nations, as de-
fined by the UN Charter, through official UN accreditation.
However, NGO work related to the United Nations extends
far beyond into activities including joint humanitarian and
development projects, technical and field expertise, policy
advocacy, information dissemination, and raising aware-
ness, all in collaboration with and support of the United
Nations. In an increasingly connected and complex world,
the ways the United Nations and NGOs work together
have necessarily changed to meet the needs of the world
community, forming a more dynamic and interrelated re-
lationship.
The most traditional way that NGOs have worked with the
United Nations is through accreditation for conferences,
summits, or other events organized by the United Nations.
NGO participation in the preparation process and in the
event itself ensures civil society’s views and input are con-
tributed and heard. For example, at the December confer-
ence on climate change in Bali, more than 5,000 interna-
tional representatives from NGOs and intergovernmental
organizations attended and participated in the summit.
Their role in advocating positions helped put pressure on
Member States, and their presence and reporting provid-
ed a window into the internal negotiations for the rest of
the world.
The United Nations and NGOs work in partnership on
important fieldwork in the arenas of development, relief,
and health. NGOs, particularly InterAction members, are
often the first on the ground following humanitarian cri-
ses, where the UN agencies are deployed and the United
Nations is often serving a key coordinating role. Following
the catastrophic tsunami in 2004, logistical challenges led
Member State governments to give the United Nations the
role of primary coordinator of the humanitarian and relief
operations. Given the number of U.S. and international
humanitarian organizations working on the ground, this
role helped ensure all the agencies and organizations were
working in an integrated way to support the victims.
Humanitarian coordination of the United Nations and
NGOs continues all over the world. In the Darfur region
of Sudan, the United Nations is working in partnership
with operational NGOs to provide much-needed care for
the two million refugees and internally displaced persons.
NGOs are, in turn, reliant upon the UN peacekeeping mis-
sion to maintain security and for the logistical support pro-
vided by the UN World Food Program in assisting with the
airlift of relief workers into the region.
NGOs are also important advocates for the United Na-
tions, particularly with regard to funding, and the mission
in Darfur is a notable example of this. In December 2007,
the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Asha-
Rose Migiro, spoke at a meeting of InterAction members
in Washington about the United Nations’ work in humani-
tarian assistance and development. She noted the “out-
standing outreach capacity” and “strong advocacy skills”
that that the NGO community uses to mobilize citizens in
support of issues on the United Nations’ agenda. The Unit-
ed Nations cannot directly lobby Member State govern-
ments, despite being reliant upon them for financial sup-
port. Large donor countries, such as the United States, can
make or break the success of a UN peacekeeping mission
or critical humanitarian interventions, depending on their
willingness to support the operation and follow through
with their commitments. At the end of last year, advocates
in the U.S.—including InterAction and its members—suc-
cessfully pressured Congress to include nearly $400 mil-
lion in emergency funding for the Darfur peacekeeping
mission in its final appropriations.
A strong relationship between the United Nations and civil
society ensures that everyone can do their work better. In
the field, the United Nations provides international access
and established on-the-ground capacity, while NGOs can
quickly deploy and bring vital resources and staffing. On
policy, the United Nations provides the convening power
to bring together all of the world’s governments, while
NGO participation provides an independent and expert
voice. And for the betterment of international peace,
prosperity, and security, the United Nations provides the
preeminent platform for bringing the nations of the world
together, and NGOs provide vital support to ensure the
United Nations can continue achieving its mandates and
serving its mission.
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 33
Can You Hear Me Now? New
Uses for a Ubiquitous Device
By Katrin Verclas, Co-Founder and Coordinator, MobileActive.org
I
n the past decade, non-govern-
mental organizations (NGOs)
have been making strides in
adapting existing technologies
and adopting new ones to deliver
programs, engage with constituents
and raise visibility.
One technology finding new life
among NGOs is the cellphone.
Cellphones have become the most
ubiquitous communication device
in human hands, with an estimated
3.5 billion in use and coverage ex-
tending even to the remotest cor-
ners of the world. With each new
generation, they are becoming more
powerful multi-function devices,
used for taking pictures, finding lo-
cations, handling complex data and
payment services. Fishermen in
India, using cellphones to transmit
and negotiate prices directly from
their boat, have increased prof-
its by eight percent while cutting
consumer prices by four percent.
Elsewhere, day laborers receive
job information through cellphones
and rural farmers access weather
and agricultural information. In mi-
crofinance organizations, trials are
underway to transmit lending data
via cellphones to conduct on-the-
spot credit assessments and track
payments.
Text message “infolines”
Text message information channels
are gaining in popularity with the
savvy omni-consumer. According
to recent IBM consumer research,
just-in-time information at the point
of purchase increasingly influenc-
es buying behavior. For example,
some 53 percent of consumers sur-
veyed by IBM used the Internet to
34 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
compare features and prices among
retailers in the 2006 holiday season.
A woman in South Africa can use
FishMS, a text service of the South-
ern African Sustainable Seafood Ini-
tiative and the World Wildlife Fund,
to learn within seconds whether the
fish at her local supermarket is le-
gally and environmentally harvest-
ed. A consumer in the United States
can text the name of a company to
the nonprofit organization Climate
Counts and receive instant infor-
mation comparing its commitment
to stopping climate change with its
competitors.
People are also tapping the po-
tential of cellphones on matters of
health. A recently launched cell-
phone service in Johannesburg,
for example, allows South Africans
to send a text message with their
postal code and learn the location
of the two nearest HIV/AIDS travel-
ing testing facilities. A similar ser-
vice in Mumbai, India provided by
the Heroes Project received 25,000
inquiries in its first month for HIV
prevention, testing and counsel-
ing information via text message.
There is compelling evidence that
sending reminders to patients by
text message increases their likeli-
hood of taking medication properly,
avoiding unnecessary clinic visits
and increasing compliance, which
is vital for public health. A 2003 trial
in South Africa sent daily reminders
(complete with personalized mes-
sages, jokes, and lifestyle hints) to
patients to take their tuberculosis
regiment. “You get a lot of different
types of messages,” said a patient.
“Like ‘Did you know Nelson Man-
dela had TB?’ or ‘Beware TB is con-
tagious.’ They keep you informed
and mean you never forget to take
your drugs.”
Another area of great interest where
mobile phones are being used is in
democratic participation, particu-
larly election monitoring and voter
outreach efforts. In emerging de-
mocracies, speed of reporting is of
the essence, especially when fraud
is suspected. Cellphones have
proved an important transforma-
tional tool for independent civil so-
ciety organizations to not only send
voice reports, but also transmit data
directly into databases, eliminating
the need for slow and error-prone
manual transcription. In Sierra Le-
one’s 2007 election, the National
Democratic Institute (NDI) tested
the use of cellphones in broad-
based election monitoring through
a coalition of local citizen groups
and hundreds of volunteers who
used their own phones to report
hourly via coordinated text messag-
ing from 500 polling stations.
As Chris Spence, Chief Technology
Officer at NDI, recalls: “In 2003, we
had 24/7 shifts of college students
in five locations across Nigeria en-
tering data from paper forms that
were faxed or hand-carried into the
data centers. Timeliness and qual-
ity control were huge issues when
nearly 15,000 forms containing
dozens of responses each had to be
manually entered into a database.
Today, in the elections where we’ve
used SMS [Short Message Service,
or text messages], you watch the
data flow into the database directly
when it is time for the monitors to
report. The system automatically
sends confirmation messages back
to the observer in an interactive ex-
change of SMS messages, so accu-
racy increases.”
Cellphones have not only revolu-
tionized how individuals access
information and engage with each
others throughout their societies,
but the way NGOs operate globally
as well.
MobileActive.org, a global network
focused on the use of mobile phones
in civil society, has been track-
ing how organizations working
in health and disease prevention,
economic development, humanitar-
ian relief, democratic participation
and advocacy are using cellphones
experimentally to make their work
more effective and efficient.
NGOs are exploring other uses of
cellphones within an advocacy con-
text. Greenpeace Argentina, for ex-
ample, has an urgent alert network
of 350,000 “movile activistas” who
can be sent a text message dur-
ing legislative action campaigns.
These examples and others will be
tracked in a forthcoming research
publication commissioned by the
UN Foundation-Vodafone Group
Foundation Technology Partnership
with MobileActive.org. The study,
“Mobilizing Social Change: Strate-
gies for a Wireless World” is due to
be published in April 2008.
Effective practice in the use of mo-
bile technology is only now emerg-
ing, and as NGOs gain experience
using cellphones and text mes-
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
sages, these technologies can eas-
ily parlay into other uses for civic
participation. Imagine, for example,
citizen oversight of public works
projects where people might report
via SMS on whether a clinic is actu-
ally built as indicated in a local bud-
get. Other applications may include
monitoring of elected officials, and
dissemination of voter registration
information, voting day reminders,
or polling locations. There is am-
ple room for innovation, learning
and collaboration, and a number
of promising approaches emerging
through case studies such as those
discussed above.
Related links
MobileActive.org
www.mobileactive.org
OneWorld Mobile
www.oneworld.net/article/view/112833/1/2061
35
Principles of Alliances
By John Ruthrauff, Senior Manager of Member Advocacy, InterAction
A
n alliance is a relationship
between individuals or
groups that is character-
ized by mutual coopera-
tion and responsibility. This article
explores how you can use alliances
to increase your organization’s abil-
ity to influence institutions, organi-
zations and governments.
Background
Many InterAction members strive
to influence the policies of institu-
tions and governments on issues
that impact their work. However,
few individual non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) have suf-
ficient leverage or power to make
the changes they desire by them-
selves. To increase their influence,
NGOs are forming alliances. Much
of InterAction’s activity takes place
in “working groups” which are al-
liances created with our members
and which sometimes include other
allies. The following principles can
be useful in building strong alli-
ances to increase influence on poli-
cies, for example the United States
Agency for International Develop-
ment (USAID), the World Bank, or
the F Bureau at the State Depart-
ment, which coordinates certain
parts of U.S. foreign assistance.
The principles.
1. Timing: pick your goal before
you recruit members
Alliances can be ongoing or limited
to the duration of a particular advo-
cacy effort. When building a new
alliance it is useful for a core group
of leaders to agree on an issue and
a goal before recruiting additional
members. Selecting an advocacy
goal after the creation of an alli-
ance can lead to delay and debates
36 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
among members, as organizations
may differ on the primary advocacy
focus, because each member will
naturally want their primary issue
to be the focus of the campaign.
2. Identify the people who will
control decision-making and
recruit alliance members based
on their ability to influence
these people
An alliance is not a random group-
ing of organizations. Members of an
alliance should be recruited based
on their ability to influence the indi-
viduals and institutions to be target-
ed in the advocacy work. The first
step is doing a power analysis of the
key actors. This involves identifying
and analyzing the powers and per-
spective of key decision-makers, the
individuals with the most influence
over your goal. The power analysis
focuses on networks, relationships,
and influence between key indi-
viduals and institutions. It is also
important to understand who wants
to influence your targeted policy,
who wants to maintain the current
situation, and who is neutral or un-
decided. The analysis should also
identify the individuals who have
influence over or provide advice to
the key decision-makers.
The power analysis should then help
you identify the type of ally or spe-
cific individuals and organizations
that can help meet your goal. Alli-
ance members should enhance the
power or operations of the alliance
in some way. They should have as-
sets to contribute to the effort, and
not detract from it. For example,
advocating an issue with a Repub-
lican administration when you have
trade unions in your alliance may
detract from your power; Catholic
and evangelical churches and orga-
nizations are likely to increase your
influence with a Republican admin-
istration. On the other hand, trade
unions can be powerful allies if you
are advocating issues with Demo-
cratic politicians.
3. International issues need
international partners
Though the United States govern-
ment is powerful, it cannot neces-
sarily implement all the changes
you may seek. Therefore, when
working on multilateral issues, for
example, those involving the G8 or
the World Bank, seek and cultivate
allies in the various countries with a
stake and influence in the issue.
The G8 Summit Debt Cancellation
Campaign provides a good example.
In 2004, British Prime Minister Tony
Blair decided to push for increased
international debt cancellation for
heavily indebted poor countries.
An independent debt cancellation
campaign had been underway for
over a decade and there had been
important victories, but many poor
countries still carried significant un-
sustainable debt. Because of Tony
Blair’s leadership, InterAction de-
cided it was an opportune time to
re-engage on the issue. Leading
up to the 2005 G8 Summit in Gle-
neagles, Scotland, InterAction and
its members developed alliances
with U.S., European and Canadian
allies to promote InterAction’s posi-
tion concerning debt cancellation at
the summit.
4. Require agreement on
the advocacy goal but not
tangential matters
It is necessary for the members of
an alliance to agree on the advo-
cacy goal. But the members do not
need to agree on all other issues
addressed by the organizations. To
require agreement on all organiza-
tional issues greatly reduces the po-
tential size, and therefore the power
and influence, of an alliance.
5. Act as you want others to act
An alliance should work to model
the values and principles for which
the alliance is striving. For example,
decision-making should be par-
ticipatory and open yet sufficiently
rapid to be able to respond to fast-
changing situations. Also, the lead-
ership of an alliance should reflect
the diversity of the membership.
The principles in practice.
As mentioned above, in January of
2005, the InterAction World Bank
Working Group agreed to focus on
debt cancellation at the G8 Summit.
This involved a number of Inter-
Action members and allies includ-
ing Bread for the World, American
Jewish World Service, Oxfam, RE-
SULTS, World Learning, and the
Catholic Conference of Bishops,
among others. We also developed
alliances with NGO alliances in
Canada and Europe as well as in
several southern countries.
By the end of February, InterAction
had developed a policy position on
debt cancellation and began pre-
senting it to the U.S. Department of
the Treasury, the White House, the
World Bank, and the United King-
dom government. A short policy
paper was published to be utilized
in recruiting new allies and in ad-
vocacy meetings, and to distribute
to InterAction members and allies.
The Working Group developed re-
lationships with the U.S. Treasury
staff responsible for the World Bank
and with the G8 Summit sherpa
team at the White House (National
Security Council). (The U.S. gov-
ernment selects officials to serve as
“sherpas” for major international
meetings. These sherpas handle
the preparations for the meeting
and work to ensure that as many
points as possible are agreed upon
before the meeting even begins.)
The multilateral alliance that Inter-
Action helped mobilize was possi-
ble due to established relationships
with allies in key countries. In ad-
dition to communicating by e-mail
and telephone, a key activity was a
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
coordination meeting held with 25
international NGOs and networks at
InterAction during the 2005 World
Bank/International Monetary Fund
(IMF) Spring Meetings. The meet-
ing allowed each of the national al-
liances to outline the debt cancella-
tion position of their country as well
as their own position. Developing a
unified position with all the country
alliances was not practical, so the
purpose of the multi-lateral alliance
was to understand and coordinate
each national position so they were
complementary and not contradic-
tory.
InterAction’s debt campaign in al-
liance with European, Canadian
and southern pressure, was highly
successful and resulted in the G8
Finance Ministers announcing an
agreement to eliminate 17 poor
countries’ debt over the following
year with an additional 20 coun-
tries eligible for future debt relief.
It was necessary for the advocacy
campaign to continue to pressure
the World Bank and IMF over the
course of a year to implement the
G8 agreement. By June of 2006,
most of the 17 countries had re-
ceived significant debt relief.
Photo: courtesy of Jon Warren
37
Inside our Community
Federal 2009 Budget Presents Mixed
Picture for International Funding
The Bush administration’s final budget request for fiscal
year (FY) 2009, was presented to Congress and released
to the public on Feburary 4. The budget and related doc-
uments are available online at http://www.whitehouse.
gov/omb/budget/fy2009/
InterAction’s reaction to the request was a mix of ap-
plause and concern. The applause was for the overall
funding level requested for the International Affairs Ac-
count (also known as Function 150): $39.5 billion. This
amount would constitute an increase of about 8.5 per-
cent over FY2008 funding levels, a significant percent-
age increase. Yet the requested levels for many of the hu-
manitarian and poverty-focused development accounts
did not show anything near this kind of increase, and
many reflected reductions. InterAction’s full analysis of
the administration’s FY2009 budget request for humani-
tarian and poverty-focused development accounts was
not ready at press time, but you can find it now online at
http://interaction.org/advocacy.”
AMIGOS, Plan Announce Renewed Partnership
Amigos de las Américas (AMIGOS) and Plan have re-
newed their partnership to promote worldwide youth
leadership, cultural understanding and community ser-
vice. They will continue to partner together in five Latin
American countries, while expanding their partnership
to the United States by promoting Plan’s Youth United for
Global Action and Awareness (YUGA) program to AMI-
GOS veterans. Plan’s youth network will provide AMI-
GOS graduates with a way to work with other youth to
address issues facing communities abroad.
Through AMIGOS, high school and college students
spend their summer living and working in Latin Ameri-
can communities on sustainable health, construction and
environmental projects. Volunteers also promote civic
engagement of local youth.
YUGA is part of a global youth-led grassroots movement
that provides a forum for youth to come together to dis-
cuss and address important youth issues like global pov-
erty, HIV/AIDS, sustainable development, child exploita-
tion and violence against children.
Emily Untermeyer, Executive Director/President of AMI-
GOS, said that the renewed partnership will help further
the powerful missions of both organizations. “AMIGOS
and Plan have similar missions that encourage youth
leadership and service,” she explained. “Both have
spent decades striving to make the world a better place
for all – regardless of income, country of origin or other
factors. Our expanded partnership represents our shared
belief that youth have the power to make a positive dif-
38 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
ference in the world.” For more information, visit www.
amigoslink.org and www.planusa.org/yuga.
Children Around the World to Benefit from
Increased U.S. Funding
For the first time in a decade, U.S. funding for child and
maternal health received a substantial increase in the
fiscal year 2008 State and Foreign Operations budget.
Through the leadership of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
and Representative Nita Lowey (D-NY), critical programs
for children and their mothers received a boost of more
than $90 million, bringing total U.S. investment in pro-
grams funded by USAID to $450 million. This increase
represents a notable change in the funding picture for
poor children and their mothers from 1997 to 2007. When
adjusted for inflation, funds for child and maternal health
had declined by nearly 20 percent, a significant drop in
light of the increasing numbers of children under five in
high mortality countries.
In addition, the Africa and Global Health Subcommittee
of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Rep-
resentative Donald Payne (D-NJ), will hold a hearing on
February 14 on child survival. Panelists will discuss child
mortality rates from preventable diseases, review simple,
cost-effective interventions that have saved the lives of
countless children, and stress the critical need for legisla-
tion like the Commitment for Global Child Survival Act
of 2007.
The Global Child Survival Act, introduced in both the
House and the Senate in May 2007, calls for an increase
in U.S. government funding for global child and mater-
nal health to $1.6 billion by 2012. It also calls for a com-
prehensive strategy to reduce mortality and improve the
health of newborns, children, and mothers in developing
countries.
Christian Children’s Fund Assists Families as
Violence Rages in Kenya
Security remains a top concern in Kenya as violence
stemming from the December 27, 2007 presidential elec-
tion continues. CCF staff in Nairobi report that ethnic
tension is high, which severely restricts movement with-
in the slum areas. Informal roadblocks slow the move-
ment of minority ethnic groups to other slums. The lack
of easy and safe mobility throughout the city has resulted
in increased food security issues. “Virtually everyone we
spoke with said that lack of food was the single greatest
problem faced by families right now,” a CCF staff mem-
ber in Kenya said.
CCF staff also report that access to education is poor. In
the few open schools enrollment is low as parents are
afraid to send their children to school. The risk of attacks
as children make their way to school and isolation be-
cause of ethnic origin are top concerns for parents.
CCF remains committed to child protection and is poised
to open five Child Centered Spaces in Nairobi. CCF also
boasts a strong presence in western Kenya, where vio-
lence continues.
Many families, including those working with CCF, have
been displaced. Thousands of families have fled to
neighboring Uganda, where CCF is responding. CCF
has worked in Kenya since 1960 and currently assists
approximately 1.3 million children and family members
through community-based initiatives.
Mercy Corps to Open Center in New York City
The Action Center to End World Hunger, scheduled to
open in the fall of 2008, will offer visitors an opportunity
to learn about global hunger and poverty, efforts to com-
bat these global challenges, and how to get involved.
Mercy Corps will open a companion center in its new
global headquarters when construction is completed in
2009. The Center aspires for a platinum LEED rating—
the highest level assigned by the U.S. Green Building
Council.
“For 28 years, Mercy Corps has been at the forefront of
addressing the challenges that plague the world,” said
CEO Neal Keny-Guyer. “We are so pleased to join the
New York City and Battery Park City landscapes to raise
awareness about global issues, arm individuals with the
information to make a difference, and help revitalize a
neighborhood that understands so well the results of hu-
man strife.”
The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) chose Mercy
Corps to create the Center as part of NYC’s post-9/11
recovery. The Center has been given a public amenity
lease for 60 years along with a BPCA pledge of $1.25
million in support. Other city organizations supporting
the center include The Lower Manhattan Development
Corporation through a grant of $1 million, The New York
City Council with $250,000, and The Mayor’s Office with
$500,000. The Center has also received funding from pri-
vate sources.
BPCA Chairman Jim F. Gill said, “The Action Center
to End World Hunger will complement the nearby Irish
Hunger Memorial, and together they will remind all of
us that human suffering persists throughout the world to-
day. This new center will give people the opportunity to
take action and participate in alleviating the world hun-
ger crisis.”
Action for the Poor and Hungry
Concerned that millions of the world’s poorest and hungry people remain in poverty and hunger, the International Food Policy
Research Institute (IFPRI) and collaborators organized “Taking Action for the World’s Poor and Hungry People.” The international
conference, held in Beijing October 17-19, 2007, examined the question of what new and different action is required to improve
the welfare of the world’s poorest populations. Participants identified areas of consensus on policies, strategies and actions to
achieve food and nutrition security and to reduce poverty and its consequences for the poorest and hungry people. Full confer-
ence information and issue briefs are available at www.ifpri.org
The Action Center demonstrates Mercy Corps’ commit-
ment to environmental stewardship and social responsi-
bility as it considers lowering operating costs, reducing
waste sent to landfills, conserving energy and water, and
reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
“This is a new kind of cultural institution both for New
York City and the country,” said Edwin Schlossberg,
founder and principal designer at ESI Design. “The Ac-
tion Center to End World Hunger will prepare visitors to
make a lasting change – both at the Center and in their
communities – by providing interactive displays and dis-
patches from the field overseas that immerse them in the
daily Mercy Corps experience.”
The Action Center will feature engaging displays and ex-
ercises to inspire visitors to join efforts to end hunger and
poverty. Plans include interactive training towers with
in-depth features on four key areas in the world; a news
bureau with live feeds from countries in which Mercy
Corps is offering assistance, a screening space for films,
presentations highlighting people and countries in need,
and action stations that provide opportunities to make a
difference. To learn more, please visit ActionCenter.org.
APVOFM Announces 2008 Workshop Schedule
The Association of PVO Financial Managers has pub-
lished its workshop schedule for 2008 at http://www.
apvofm.org/workshops.htm. The training courses in-
clude:
a USAID Rules and Regulations;
a European Commission Development Grant
Funding;
a Opening and Closing Field Offices, Food Aid Rules
and Regulations;
a Introduction to Financial Management;
a Contracting for Non-Profit Organizations (new
workshop); and
a Subgrants (new workshop).
These workshops will be held in the U.S. and overseas
locations including: Bangkok, Dar es Salaam, Jakarta,
Johannesburg, Kiev, London, Nairobi and Vietnam. They
are conducted by practitioners from member organiza-
tions and experienced presenters.
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 39
Inside INTERACTION
InterAction Study Finds U.S. Foreign Assistance Lacks Focus on
Reducing Poverty
By Suzanne Kindervatter, Vice President, Strategic Impact, InterAction
L
ast year, 2007, marked the midpoint toward
achieving the Millennium Development Goal
(MDG) of halving world poverty by 2015. Many
donor nations prepared reports to assess progress.
A conspicuous exception was the United States.
In response to this gap, InterAction produced its own
assessment of U.S. contributions to the MDGs from the
viewpoint of the U.S. international non-profit (U.S. non-
governmental organizations [NGOs]) community. The
report—“The United States and the MDGs: U.S. Contri-
butions to Reducing Poverty”—was released last October
and is being widely distributed to policymakers on the
hill and members of the administration.
The MDGs are the first and only framework that the
entire world, encompassing donor and recipient coun-
tries, has adopted to improve the human condition of the
world’s poor. To date, the U.S. government has not fully
embraced the MDGs, which U.S. officials have portrayed
as flawed and overly ambitious. The U.S. does not use
the MDGs as a framework for its official development as-
sistance (ODA), nor does it track spending according to
the goals.
Overall, InterAction’s study shows, the U.S. is still the
largest donor in absolute terms. At 0.22 percent, U.S.
aid as a percentage of gross national income more than
doubled from 2000 to 2005. However, a comparison of
the U.S. and the European Union (EU) countries that are
members of the Organisation for Economic Coopera-
tion and Development (OECD)/Development Assistance
Committee (DAC) showed that the EU DAC members
provided twice the amount of U.S. ODA in 2004.
While U.S. ODA totaled a record high of $27,682 billion
in 2005, most U.S. assistance does not go to the poorest
countries and regions. In fiscal year 2006, the poorest
countries received only 27 percent of U.S. aid. Consider-
ing the top 20 recipients of U.S. aid, only four countries
are amongst the world’s 20 poorest (Ethiopia, Uganda,
Burundi, and Tanzania). The increases in ODA are at-
tributable to debt relief operations and reconstruction
aid for Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as to funding for
PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief)
and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (with a focus
on infrastructure and economic growth). Without funding
for these two programs, other forms of development as-
sistance to many countries in health, education and other
40 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
areas of the MDGs actually diminishes, particularly in
Africa and Latin America.
Another key finding of the report is that the current
framework for U.S. foreign assistance reform appears to
define development goals either as being in competition
for resources with security goals or as being subservi-
ent to them. U.S. aid also has become more militarized.
ODA managed by the Department of Defense rose from
3.5 percent in 1998 to 5.6 percent in 2002 to 21.7 percent
in 2005.
Lack of coordination, amongst U.S. agencies and with
other donors, emerged as another critical issue. More
than 26 U.S. government agencies are involved in foreign
assistance with no unifying goals or country-level coor-
dination. In addition, the U.S. provides less multilateral
ODA and “untied” aid than do the other 21 major donors
that are part of the OECD/DAC. The U.S. is not in har-
mony with the other bilateral donors, who have adopted
the MDGs as their framework for foreign assistance and
country-level cooperation. By aligning its contributions
with the MDGs, the U.S. can coordinate effectively with
other donor countries and best leverage the impact of its
funding.
The U.S. has a long and noteworthy history of global
leadership in development assistance, and the report
examines U.S. contributions to the specific MDGs for
education, health, and other areas. The U.S. more than
doubled bilateral funding for basic education from 2000
to 2005; to meet the global commitment to get all children
in school, the U.S. must ensure that resources are concen-
trated in countries with the greatest need.
While global poverty cannot be reduced without women
and girls at the center of any and all strategies, gender
equality and women’s empowerment are no longer U.S.
policy and spending priorities. Regarding child mortality,
the U.S. needs to build on and expand its positive, long-
term track record in supporting and providing technical
leadership in promoting child survival. U.S. assistance for
maternal health has remained stagnant over the last de-
cade, especially when compared to investments in other
areas such as HIV/AIDS. Investment in improving mater-
nal health should be comprehensive and not overlooked
in the fight against any particular disease.
The U.S. has been the global leader in the fight against
HIV/AIDS and continues to make significant investments.
Changes in U.S. policy are needed to make U.S.-funded
programs more effective. Especially important is building
the capacity of health systems and making women and
girls a priority in program planning and implementation.
Considering environmental sustainability, the U.S. has
made strong progress in reducing consumption of chlo-
rofluorocarbons, but carbon emissions and energy use
remain high. To reduce poverty, the U.S. must commit
to global efforts to respond to climate change. The U.S.
should require that climate adaptation be integrated into
its development programs in order to reduce the risk that
climate change will undermine the effectiveness of its
current investments in poverty alleviation, health and the
environment.
U.S. trade preferences are promising, but the U.S. has yet
to live up to its commitment to building a trading system
that is open, rule-based, predictable and non-discrimina-
tory, and that accounts for the special needs of least-de-
veloped countries. The U.S. is on track to meet its MDG
commitment for debt relief and has been a leader in re-
moving debt as an obstacle for development. Offering
terms more generous than other Paris Club members,
the U.S. has cancelled 100 percent of bilateral debts with
heavily indebted poor countries. Additionally, the U.S.
pledged 100 percent of its target contribution to the In-
ternational Development Association (IDA), freeing up
much-needed resources for development. The U.S. can
also exercise its leadership to extend debt relief to more
debt-burdened countries and to ensure money saved
in debt service actually goes into needed public invest-
ment.
The report concludes with InterAction’s call for the U.S.
to focus its ODA on poverty reduction and to align with
the global development community around the MDGs;
see box for the specific recommendations.
Introduction to Advocacy Training
InterAction will sponsor its first “Introduction to Ad-
vocacy” training day on Tuesday May 6, from 8:30
a.m. to 5 p.m., at InterAction, just prior to the opening
of InterAction’s Forum (May 6-9). Preference will be
given to staff traveling to Washington for the Forum.
The training is designed for full-time staff with less
than a year of advocacy experience. Please contact
John Ruthrauff, Senior Manager of Member Advoca-
cy, at jruthrauff@interaction.org or at 202-552-6523
for information.
The United States AND the MDGs
Recommendations to the United Nations Under-
Secretary-General (USG)
1. Make addressing the causes and consequences of poverty
the primary objective of U.S. ODA. To promote poverty-reduc-
ing growth, U.S. policy and programs should:
Help create conditions and remove obstacles to participation of
the poor in both the economic growth process and the develop-
ment efforts that improve the quality of their lives by advancing
all of the MDGs.
Enable impoverished people to earn a living with dignity and ac-
cumulate assets that can be sustained over time.
Enable poor communities to reduce vulnerability to disaster and
adapt to the growing impact of climate change.
Help to strengthen the voice of the poor – especially women;
empower them to participate in their countries’ decision-mak-
ing (particularly in their own development efforts) and to foster
democratic accountability.
Improve poor people’s access to, and ability to shape, local, re-
gional and global markets.
We advocate for a comprehensive, multifaceted approach to
poverty reduction that directly invests in the poor and their
ability to engage in efforts that shape their future prosperity.
2. Consolidate the management of all U.S. ODA under a new
Cabinet-level department to ensure coordination in planning
and implementation. The new department should be able to
track its investments in the MDGs and development assistance
programs, which have the primary objective to halve global
poverty and directly address the devastating impact of pov-
erty.
3. Improve and substantially increase coordination and harmo-
nization of U.S. ODA with other donors to increase the effec-
tiveness of U.S. assistance, avoid duplication and leverage aid
efforts based on the principles of the OECD/DAC Paris Declara-
tion.
4. Ensure that climate change adaptation is addressed in devel-
opment programming – the relationship between the environ-
ment and poverty reduction should be a crosscutting theme for
U.S. ODA-funded programs.
5. Translate the proven knowledge on women and girls’ central
roles in reducing poverty into action by expanding support for
women’s empowerment and requiring that gender is integrat-
ed into all U.S. ODA in alignment with OECD/DAC guidelines
and indicators.
The full report can be downloaded at www.interaction.org.
Contact Laia Grino at lgrino@interaction.org for a printed copy.
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 41
Interested in placing a job announcement or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org
POSITION
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Chief Executive Officer > New
York, NY
Pro Mujer is a women’s development
organization whose mission is to pro-
vide Latin America’s poorest women
with the means to build livelihoods for
themselves and futures for their families
through micro-lending, business train-
ing, and healthcare. PMI (www.promu-
jer.org) seeks a Chief Executive Officer
to be based in New York who will be a
strategic leader with demonstrated fi-
nancial and administrative skills, strong
operations experience, analytical abil-
ity, and outstanding communication
skills in Spanish and English. She/he
will have a record of achievement and
established credibility in finance and
banking in Latin America. Please send
resume and cover letter to PMI-CEO@
PhillipsOppenheim.com.
Director of Government Affairs
> Washington, DC
Oxfam America is an international re-
lief and development organization that
creates lasting solutions to poverty,
hunger, and injustice. The Director for
Government Affairs directs the devel-
opment and implementation of strat-
egies affecting the Congress, federal
departments and agencies, the courts,
and international development agen-
cies and financial institutions to ensure
that Oxfam America’s goals and objec-
tives are met. Qualified candidates will
have a Graduate degree in relevant
field (e.g. political science, government
affairs, and international development.
They will also have work experience in
Congress or an administrative agency
in a legislative role, or an international
development or financial institution in
a similar capacity. A minimum of five (5)
year’s experience in policy and advocacy
work related to international issues, de-
velopment, or a related field , in-depth
familiarity with the mechanics of policy
making, ability to develop and maintain
relationships with key policymakers,
their staffs, and key allies, strong policy
42 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
analysis and strategic planning skills are
other important pre-requisites of the
job. View www.oxfamamerica.org/jobs
for a full job description. Send cover let-
ter and resume to jobs@oxfamamerica.
org, Subject line: Director Government
Affairs.
Development Director >
Washington, DC
The Bank Information Center is an inde-
pendent non-profit organization that
partners with civil society in developing
and transition countries to influence
the World Bank and other international
financial institutions to promote social
and economic justice and ecological
sustainability. The Development Direc-
tor will serve as the chief fundraising of-
ficer for BIC. Successful candidates will
have solid knowledge of foundations
and grant sources, and strong record
of achieving monetary goals. See full
description at www.bicusa.org. Send
cover letter explaining interest and re-
sume to jobs@bicusa.org. Applications
considered on a rolling basis until Feb-
ruary 29, 2008.
Senior Program Officer, Supply
Chain > Washington, DC
World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the global
conservation organization, is working
with a range of companies on identi-
fying and addressing the environmen-
tal impacts in their agricultural sup-
ply chains. WWF is seeking a Senior
Program Officer for Supply Chain who
will plan, manage, communicate and
implement program priorities related
to WWF-US’s supply chain partner-
ships. This includes providing strategic
advice to private sector partners in the
development of concrete activities in
their supply chain that support WWF’s
mission and priorities as well as acting
as day to day liaison with the relevant
teams. Basic requirements for this posi-
tion include a Master’s degree in natu-
ral resource management, agricultural
economics, business or related areas
is required. A Bachelor’s degree plus a
minimum of seven years relevant ex-
perience may be accepted in lieu of a
graduate degree plus five years of rel-
evant experience. Additionally, the suc-
cessful candidate must demonstrate
knowledge of market-based approach-
es to solving environmental challenges
and have specific experience working
on agricultural commodities (e.g. sug-
ar). Familiarity with the nonprofit sec-
tor, supply chain dynamics, corporate
social responsibility and industry best
practices is preferred. The final date for
accepting postings to this position is
February 22nd, 2008. AA/EOE Women
and minorities are encouraged to apply.
To apply visit http://www.worldwildlife.
org/about/jobs.cfm 28097.
Sr. Program Officer, Livestock >
Washington, DC
World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the global
conservation organization, seeks a Sr.
Program Officer (SPO), Livestock for its
Agriculture Program to plan, manage,
communicate, and implement program
priorities related to livestock produc-
tion, with a particular emphasis on beef
and dairy production. This includes
helping create and leading success-
ful business and policy partnerships at
WWF-US designed to promote more
sustainable livestock production. Also
provides strategic direction to WWF po-
sitions on livestock, on-the-ground pro-
grams, partnerships with universities
and research groups and businesses
related to livestock and as appropriate,
leads implementation of partnerships .
Works closely with internal staff, busi-
ness partners, other NGO’s, researchers
and other relevant partners. A gradu-
ate degree in a relevant field is required.
Position requires a minimum of five
years of work experience in livestock
and environmental policy, business or
economics. Specific knowledge of live-
stock (in particular cattle) is required. A
bachelor’s degree plus a minimum of
seven years relevant experience may
be accepted in lieu of a graduate de-
gree plus five years of relevant experi-
ence. The closing date for accepting
applications to this position will be
February 22, 2008. AA/EOE Women and
minorities are encouraged to apply. To
apply visit http://www.worldwildlife.
org/about/jobs.cfm.
Sr. Program Officer, Biofuels >
Washington, DC
World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the global
conservation organization, seeks a Sr.
Program Officer (SPO), Biofuels for its
Agriculture Program to plan, manage,
communicate, and implement program
priorities in the area of biofuel produc-
tion. The SPO leads efforts in WWF-US
to identify, benchmark and reduce the
negative impacts of biofuel and renew-
Interested in placing a job announcements or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org
ables production. Will also develop
successful business and policy partner-
ships at WWF-US to maximize positive
climate change impacts from biofuels
and renewables. Leads and manages
relationships with business partners,
potential business partners and other
NGOs where the primary interest is
biofuels and renewables. Plays a sup-
porting role in managing other busi-
ness partnerships and relationships
with Congress. A graduate degree in
a relevant field is required. Position re-
quires a minimum of five years of work
experience in energy or agricultural
and environmental policy, business
or economics. Specific knowledge of
biofuels and renewables and their pro-
duction impacts required. A bachelor’s
degree plus a minimum of seven years
relevant experience may be accepted
in lieu of a graduate degree plus five
years of relevant experience. The clos-
ing date for accepting applications to
this position will be February 22, 2008.
AA/EOE Women and minorities are en-
couraged to apply. To apply visit http://
www.worldwildlife.org/about/jobs.cfm
#28091.
Health Technical Advisor >
Washington, DC
Health Technical Advisor sought by
The Salvation Army World Service Of-
fice (SAWSO). Requirements: 3+ years
community based health programming
experience; familiarity with USAID
(Child Survival experience preferred);
knowledge of participatory training
techniques; consulting skills and MPH.
Travel: 30 to 40%. Position based in
Washington, DC area. Competitive sal-
ary/benefits. Position filled as soon as
right candidate available. Applications
accepted through March 15, 2008. See
www.SAWSO.org for additional infor-
mation. Resumes: SAWSO, P.O. Box
1428, Alexandria, VA 22313; Fax: 703-
684-5536 or by e-mail: sawso@usn.sal-
vationarmy.org.
Director of Development >
Cambridge, MA
EcoLogic Development Fund (www.
ecologic.org) Since 1993, EcoLog-
ic has advanced conservation of critical
natural resources in rural areas of Latin
America by promoting sustainable live-
lihoods that affirm local cultures and by
strengthening community participation
in natural resource management. The
Director is responsible for the strategic
direction and overall management of
fundraising initiatives. Qualifications:
6+ years of successful fundraising ex-
perience. 2+ years of supervisory ex-
perience. Strong communication skills.
Bilingual in Spanish and English. Email
a cover letter and resume to: Helena
Brykarz, Global Recruitment Specialists,
510-527-3316. hbrykarz@globalrecruit-
ment.net. See complete job announce-
ment at: www.globalrecruitment.net.
Senior Managing Director,
Crisis Management Services >
Milwaukee, WI or New York, NY
FEI is an internationally recognized
corporation providing employee as-
sistance and work-life services, with a
crisis management team focused on
workforce continuity and family as-
sistance in the event of a large-scale
trauma event. Reporting to the Presi-
dent/CEO, the Senior Managing Direc-
tor will be responsible for operational
planning, coordinating resources and
developing a team of consultants, also
working directly with core clients in de-
veloping and maintaining their crisis re-
sponse capabilities. Seeking 5-10 years
team management experience, includ-
ing response services for large-scale
emergency events, with the ability to
work externally in developing relation-
ships with client companies. Contact:
David Hinsley Cheng, DRG, dcheng@
drgnyc.com.
Director of Disaster Response
> Seattle, WA
World Concern, an international Chris-
tian disaster response and develop-
ment organization, is seeking a Director
of Disaster Response to direct disaster
response projects external to World
Concern’s current implementation ar-
eas. World Concern has been assisting
drought-stricken communities in So-
malia and Kenya, displaced in war-torn
Darfur and Goz Beida, flood victims in
Bangladesh, and tsunami survivors in
Thailand, Sri Lanka and Somalia. The Di-
rector will also provide technical consul-
tation to Regional Directors and develop
partnerships with agencies and donors.
Requires 10 years international disaster
response and large scale funding expe-
rience. Seattle-based, travel 30% in un-
stable conditions. Apply at http://www.
worldconcern.org/NETCOMMUNITY/
Page.aspx?&pid=929&srcid=427.
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
Vice President, Finance and
Administration > Baltimore,
MD
Vice President for Finance and Admin-
istration, Lutheran World Relief – Bal-
timore, MD. LWR seeks a professional
with a minimum of 10 years manage-
ment experience to serve as the Chief
Financial Officer and be responsible
for the overall management of LWR’s
fiscal planning and financial manage-
ment systems. The VP for F & A models
premier support of other LWR depart-
ments and motivates the finance and
administration staff to do the same. The
VP for F & A serves on the LWR Leader-
ship Team; and provides leadership and
oversight of LWR’s administrative op-
erations, information technology, and
facilities management. For application
instructions visit: www.lwr.org/jobs.
Executive Director > Santa
Cruz, CA
The Firelight Foundation, a private
foundation that works to advocate for
the needs and rights of children who
are orphaned or affected by HIV/AIDS
in Sub-Saharan Africa, seeks an Execu-
tive Director whose primary strengths
are strategic leadership, expertise as a
senior manager, and extensive knowl-
edge of grantmaking in Africa, with a
preferred background in children’s is-
sues and HIV/AIDS. Located in Santa
Cruz, CA. Bachelor’s degree is required.
Minimum of 10-15 years experience
as both a program and staff manager,
including senior management/leader-
ship experience. To apply, please sub-
mit a cover letter and resume to: Katie
Bouton at executivesearch@koyacon-
sulting.com. Please visit: http://www.
koyaconsulting.com/.
National Church Outreach
Associate > Washington, DC
Bread for the World, a collective Chris-
tian voice urging our nation’s decision
makers to end hunger at home and
abroad, is seeking an experienced pro-
fessional to build and strengthen Bread
for the World and Bread for the World
Institute’s church constituency at the
national church level. Will perform
fundraising and relationship building
among selected denominations and
other national church bodies. Coordi-
nates involvement with denominational
women’s organizations and theological
continued on next page
43
Interested in placing a job announcement or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org
continued from previous page
seminaries as well as efforts to develop
new leaders through denominational
youth and young adult ministry. Must
have a bachelor’s degree plus 1 to 2
years of professional work experience;
proven fundraising skill and experi-
ence; ability to build and maintain pub-
lic relationships; strong leadership and
public speaking skills; a broad knowl-
edge of the bible and Christian theol-
ogy; familiarity with denominations;
ability to work with diverse people; pro-
ficient computer literacy in MS Office
Suite and databases. A Christian faith
perspective is required. Must be willing
and able to travel overnight.Send cover
letter, resume, and salary requirements
to: Human Resources – NCOA, Bread
for the World, 50 F Street, N.W., Suite
500, Washington, DC 20001; Fax: 202-
639-9401; or email: human.resources@
bread.org.
Director of Development >
Santa Cruz, CA
The Firelight Foundation, a private
foundation that works to advocate for
the needs and rights of children who
are orphaned or affected by HIV/AIDS
in Sub-Saharan Africa, seeks a Director
of Development to play a critical role in
implementing the vision and direction
of the Foundation’s fundraising strategy.
The Director will be tasked with raising
approximately $3.5 million annually.
This position is located in Santa Cruz,
CA. Qualifications include: Bachelor’s
degree or equivalent and 5-7 years of
demonstrated success in fundraising.
To apply, please submit a cover
letter and resume to Katie Bouton at
executivesearch@koyaconsulting.com
or visit www.koyaconsulting.com.
Executive Director > Chicago,
IL
MayaWorks, a micro-enterprise non-
profit organization focused on market-
ing the handiwork of Maya artists in
Guatemala, seeks an Executive Director
who will be responsible for setting the
strategic vision of the organization, and
for overseeing all aspects of financial
management and fund development
for the organization’s $600,000 budget.
In addition, the Executive Director is
responsible for the hiring and manage-
ment of all staff and volunteers. This
position is located in Chicago, IL, with
periodic travel to Guatemala. To apply,
44 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS
please submit a cover letter and resume
to Dana Levy at: executivesearch@koya-
consulting.com. For information, please
visit: http://www.koyaconsulting.com/.
Associate Vice President,
Policy, Planning and Budget >
Westport, CT or Washington,
DC
Save the Children, the leading inde-
pendent organization creating real and
lasting change for children in need in
the U.S. and around the world seeks
an AVP to lead the budget, planning,
policy and financial systems functions
by setting the vision for the depart-
ment and to the vision of high quality
financial management globally for the
Agency. S/he contributes to develop-
ment of multi-year strategic plans and
supporting operational plans; monitors
progress and results of departmental
plans and budgets; models organiza-
tional change; and serves as a key advi-
sor to the SMT on budgetary, regulatory
and policy matters. Advanced degree
in Accounting, Finance, Law, or related
degree required; MBA or CPA preferred.
12 years’ proven managerial, problem
solving and planning capability and fi-
nancial responsibility in a public, private
or nonprofit sector organization known
for its strong financial disciplines and
sophisticated environment. Significant
exp in all aspects of finance, policy, and
organizational planning & budgeting to
include capital budgeting is preferred.
Ability to develop and oversee all finan-
cial modeling for the Agency. Proven
management of decentralized/glob-
ally-dispersed organizations. Please go
to http://www.savethechildren.org/ca-
reers/index.asp for detailed job descrip-
tion and to apply; reference Job #3514.
EOE M/F/D/V.
Project Manager, Education
Projects > Qinghai Province,
China
Trace Foundation is a non-profit orga-
nization which funds and implements
initiatives related to social, cultural,
economic and environmental devel-
opment in Tibetan communities in SW
and NW regions of China including Qin-
ghai and Sichuan Provinces and the Ti-
bet Autonomous Region. The founda-
tion is dedicated to finding sustainable
ways to meet the challenges of these
unique communities while respecting
traditional ways of life. Trace Founda-
tion seeks an individual with relevant
academic training and project manage-
ment exp. to serve as Project Manager
for the Foundation’s education projects
based in Qinghai Province. Please sub-
mit your CV and cover letter to trace@
trace.org. For more detailed job de-
scription, please visit our website at
www.trace.org.
IDRL Senior Officer > Geneva,
Switzerland
Purpose: International Disaster Re-
sponse Laws, rules and principles(IDRL)
programme works to improve legal pre-
paredness for disasters and the effec-
tive application of existing internation-
al legal tools in disaster management.
Responsibilities: Develop systematic
contacts with National Societies, Gov-
ernments and other potential donors;
Participate in the development of global
and regional advocacy strategies for the
Programme. Education: University qual-
ification in a relevant area (e.g. commu-
nications, law, international relations).
Experience in the area of humanitarian
advocacy in intergovernmental bodies.
More details on: https://jobnet.ifrc.org/
public/ Applications must be submit-
ted using JobNet. To register and apply
please click on the link: http://www.ifrc.
org/jobs/geneva.asp.
Development Specialist >
Bethesda, MD
DAI’s Crisis Mitigation and Recovery
Practice seeks an individual to join its
home office team. The ideal candidate
will have technical expertise in the field
of post-conflict reconstruction, transi-
tion, conflict prevention, conflict miti-
gation, and conflict recovery programs,
and a record of managing development
projects, particularly in post-conflict
and transitional countries. Responsi-
bilities include project management,
short-term technical assignments, and
new business acquisition. Key quali-
fications include a relevant university
degree, five years of work experience,
strong second language ability, and su-
perior communication skills. Responsi-
bility and salary will be commensurate
with background and experience. Inter-
ested candidates should email a cover
letter and resume to jobs@dai.com.
Program Officer, Health &
Evaluation > Kansas City, MO
Children International. Provides over-
sight and technical assistance on global
Interested in placing a job announcements or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org
program activities in areas of preven-
tive health, HIV/AIDS, TB, and nutrition.
Provides technical input on all issues
relating to program evaluation. Works
closely with regional and field program
staff, and the Director of Programs in
the design, monitoring and evaluation
of CI programs. Principle liaison on
agency health and nutrition programs
for other CI departments. MPH or other
advanced health degree and quantita-
tive data analysis skills required. 3 years’
relevant work experience required in
international development practice in
health programs and evaluation. In-
ternational travel up to 30%. Spanish
preferred. Send resume to: neetagoel@
vsnl.net.
Senior Development Specialist
> Bethesda, MD
DAI’s Crisis Mitigation and Recovery
Practice seeks an individual to join its
home office team. The ideal candidate
will have technical expertise in the field
of post-conflict reconstruction, transi-
tion, conflict prevention, conflict miti-
gation, and conflict recovery programs,
and a record of managing development
projects, particularly in post-conflict
and transitional countries. Responsi-
bilities include project management,
short-term technical assignments, and
new business acquisition. Key quali-
fications include a relevant university
degree, 10 years of work experience,
strong second language ability, and su-
perior communication skills. Responsi-
bility and salary will be commensurate
with background and experience. Inter-
ested candidates should email a cover
letter and resume to jobs@dai.com.
Press Secretary > Washington,
DC
Bread for the World, a collective Chris-
tian voice urging our nation’s deci-
sion makers to end hunger home and
abroad, seeks an experienced profes-
sional to lead the media team. This
person will develop and implement a
comprehensive and diversified media
relations program to support Bread’s
agenda on hunger and poverty issues.
Must have five years of related experi-
ence in Capitol Hill, campaign, grass-
roots organizing and/or media relations
setting. Should bring a proven track
record of developing and maintaining
relationships with journalists inside the
Beltway and beyond. Must be an excel-
lent writer and have a strong knowl-
edge of the legislative process. Ability
to speak Spanish is a plus. Send cover
letter and resume to: HR-Press Secre-
tary, BFW, 50 F Street, #500, Washing-
ton, DC 20001 or fax: 202-639-9401;
email: human.resources@bread.org.
Deadline for accepting resumes is Feb-
ruary 18th. We offer excellent benefits,
401(k) plan and employer paid pension
plan, flexible spending program, and
Capitol Hill location.
International Human Resource
Officer > New York, NY
The Human Resources department
recognizes that staff are an essential re-
source upon which the achievement of
the IRC’s objectives depend. As such we
are committed to ensuring that the IRC
is consistently staffed with people who
have the necessary skills, personal qual-
ities and levels of motivation to compe-
tently meet the objectives outlined by
our Overseas Programs, Resettlement
Programs, and Headquarters depart-
ments. The Human Resources Officer
will be based in New York is responsible
for recruitment & retention efforts, em-
ployee administration, and employee
relations in support of specific regional
and technical program areas. This in-
cludes monitoring and promoting the
quality, sustainability and efficiency of
HR services provided to IRC employ-
ees worldwide. The Human Resources
Officer also assists the Director of Hu-
man Resources by providing direction
for the development of employment
policies and practices for IRC staff. This
position reports to the Director of Hu-
man Resources and includes a limited
amount of int’l travel to IRC field offices
in developing countries. Some require-
ments for this position are: a Bachelors
Degree + Masters Degree in a related
field or at least 5 years comparable re-
lated experience; a Min. 3-5 years pro-
gressive non-profit work experience,
with supervisory experience; Some
overseas work experience or experi-
ence working in a multi-cultural setting
is a plus as well as strong spoken and
written French highly preferred. To ap-
ply visit www.ircjobs.org.
Regional Human Resources
Development Manager >
Bangkok, Thailand
Christian Children’s Fund seeking for
their regional office located in Bangkok,
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
Thailand a Human Resources Develop-
ment Manager. Responsibilities include
develop and support Regional Office
and National Offices in recruiting and
developing high caliber Leaders and
Managers through implementation of
strategic HR initiatives relating to Lead-
ership and Teams as well as establish-
ing performance architecture to sustain
performance. Offices that this position
will support currently include Thailand,
Indonesia, The Philippines, Timor Leste,
India, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. 6 years
experience in senior Human Resource
Development position. Appropriate
tertiary qualifications in related field,
e.g. Psychology, Organizational Behav-
iors, Professional Education, Human Re-
sources. 5 years experience living and
working overseas, cross-cultural sensi-
tivity & experience in Asia region coun-
tries. High level ability to design and
facilitate OD strategy and related pro-
grams. Outstanding English language
skills (written & oral). Demonstrated
high level coaching skills. Willingness to
work outside core business hours and
to travel frequently both within and
outside of the Asia region. For further
details and to express interest in this
position, please visit www.christianchil-
drensfund.org. EOE.
Country Director > Vientiane,
Laos
World Education directs projects in UXO
education, war victims support, anti-
trafficking, and sustainable agriculture.
Duties: Oversee financial and adminis-
trative systems and manage 35-person
office; Program development, including
proposal writing and budgeting; En-
sure technical oversight and program
quality; Coordinate regularly with fund-
ing agencies; Represent organization
with government officials and INGO
community; Ensure staff professional
development. Qualifications: Excellent
management and cross-cultural com-
munication skills; Lao language ability
desirable; Experience living in a devel-
oping country; Degree in relevant field
with minimum three years manage-
ment experience. To Apply: Submit CV
and cover letter to LaosCountryDirec-
tor@worlded.org by March 7, 2008.
Start date: May 2008.
45
Interested in placing a job announcement or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org

World Vision International

Senior Multi-Lateral Grants Advisor
World Vision International [WVI] is the world’s largest Christian
humanitarian and relief aid organisation. We, team of 23,000
employees in 95 different countries, are dedicated to helping
children and their communities worldwide.

The position of Sr. Multi-Lateral Grants Advisor’s primary

purpose is to provide global leadership to WVI’s current portfolio
of AIDS and Health grants from the Global Fund to fight AIDS,
TB, & Malaria (GFATM), and lead its growth. The position will
create and lead a strategy that is in alignment with World Vision
integrated focus (child focused, community based, and Christian)
to expand WVI’s engagement with other multilateral donors to
Health and AIDS programs. The position will represent WVI’s
HIV and AIDS and Global Health portfolio in selected global
meetings and may eventually form part of a larger WV global
grant management unit.

For a complete job description, visit our website: www.wvi.org

under the Employment section. To apply, please submit your
resume and application to iojobsmc@wvi.org. Please include
your name and desired position title in the subject line.

PROJECT CONCERN INTERNATIONAL (PCI)

Regional Desk Officer
Latin America and US & Border Programs

PCI is seeking a Regional Desk Officer (RDO) to be based in their San Diego, CA office. The primary responsibility of the RDO is the
management of the day-to-day operational needs of PCI’s programs in Latin America and the United States. The RDO is the primary contact
between the field staff and the different departments in the International Office (IO) for operational matters. In addition, the RDO ensures
grant compliance, provides financial management support, and assists PCI’s program development efforts. He/she coordinates, tracks and
manages communication between field offices and IO departments, defining needs, setting priorities, matching resources to needs, and tracking
completion of tasks; provides and/or coordinates effective guidance to the field on grant compliance issues, such as grant amendments, donor
regulations, and other substantial involvement clauses and communicating with donors as necessary, such as for prior approvals and amendments.
Ensures organized filing of key documents related to each grant reports, communication with donors, etc. Maintains growing knowledge of
US government regulations and works with the Operations Unit and Finance Department counterparts to apply and interpret them. Conducts
financial analyses of key grants with Finance Department counterparts, manages, in coordination with field staff, the process of budgeting
and budget monitoring for all major programs in his/her region. Leads the development of the cost application section of proposals, including
budget, budget narrative and certifications. Assists in the timely submission of proposals. Requirements: Bachelor’s degree required (in public
health, international development or other related field). Advanced degree in public health and/or development, with a particular emphasis on
project management, grant management and backstopping, strongly pref. 3-5 years exp in public health and/or international development fields.
Familiarity with financial management principles (i.e. budget preparation and execution, analyzing financial data, tracking projections to actuals,
IDC management, etc.). Familiarity with federal regulations on the administration of grants and cooperative agreements strongly pref. Fluency
in English and Spanish req. International overseas development experience preferred. Ability and willingness to travel approximately 10-15%. If
you are interested in applying for this position. Please forward your resume and cover letter to careers@projectconcern.org or mail to HR Dept,
5151 Murphy Canyon Rd, Ste 320, San Diego, CA 92123.

46 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS

Interested in placing a job announcements or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org

Clements International continues to meet the

unique international insurance needs of
individuals and organizations abroad, now as
it has for more than five decades. Our
programs provide complete international
insurance protection including worldwide
coverage for automobiles, property, liability,
health and life. In addition, we offer critical
insurance protection for projects in high risk
areas including Kidnap & Ransom and War &
Terrorism coverage.

1.800.872.0067 or 1.202.872.0060

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 47

Interested in placing a job announcement or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org

Demographer - Climate Change/Environment is being sought by Population Action International (PAI), an organization that works to improve individual
well-being and preserve global resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning and reproductive health policies and
programs. Through research and advocacy, PAI seeks to strengthen public awareness and political and financial support worldwide for population programs
grounded in individual rights. At the heart of PAI’s mission is its commitment to universal access to family planning and related health services, and to
educational and economic opportunities, especially for girls and women.

This position will provide demographic expertise to a well-established organization that researches and advocates for evidence-based policies on population
and reproductive health/family planning and women’s centered development. Primary responsibilities include:

q Lead PAI’s demographic research efforts to assess the links between population and climate change and the environment. Conduct
relevant demographic analysis in collaboration with climate change experts, including staff and consultants.
q Develop methodologies to assess quantitative aspects of population and reproductive health/family planning that build public and policymaker
awareness of, and contribute to, advocacy for sound population policies, programs and funding.

This position requires a Master’s Degree or PhD in population studies, demography or related social science with 5-10 years experience in demographic/
population research, including research related to climate change and/or environmental issues. Other qualifications include: excellent research and analytical
skills; ability to communicate complex technical issues to a policy and advocacy-oriented audience; experience conducting demographic research; working
knowledge of public health, epidemiology and international development, ability to identify important demographic/population issues and related-policy
trends and challenges; and fluency in English. Overseas field experience in public health or development and fluency in a second language are pluses. In
addition, a team player with a sense of humor, collaborative spirit and creativity is needed for this position.

PAI is a family friendly organization, offering a highly competitive benefit package. PAI is an equal opportunity employer and encourages people of color
to apply for this position. Resumes with cover letter and salary requirements can be e-mailed to RMR@popact.org or fax to (202) 728-4177 Attn: Rachael
Murray Rakestraw.

Salary: Commensurate with experience.

Date Posted: February 5, 2008

Deadline for applications: Open until filled.

Research Associate sought by Population Action International (PAI), an organization that works to improve individual well-being and preserve global
resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning and reproductive health policies and programs. Through research
and advocacy, PAI seeks to strengthen public awareness and political and financial support worldwide for population programs grounded in individual
rights. At the heart of PAI’s mission is its commitment to universal access to family planning and related health services, and to educational and economic
opportunities, especially for girls and women.

PAI has a long history of tracking financing for population, family planning and reproductive health programs and advocating for resources. The position
will lead PAI’s work in this area by initiating, executing, and collaborating on cutting-edge research and writing that conveys the importance of full
financing for sound policies and programs for reproductive health, family planning and HIV/AIDS in developing countries.

Master’s degree or PhD in economics, or a public health, international affairs, population studies, public policy or related social science and three to
10 years of relevant work experience in international health and development; or equivalent combination of education and experience. International
experience and proficiency in a language additional to English are pluses. Other qualifications include: excellent research skills, specifically a familiarity
with sources of international health and development data; ability to gather, analyze and organize quantitative and qualitative data and information;
excellent writing skills and ability to communicate complex technical issues to a policy and advocacy oriented audience; ability to work closely with
other researchers and manage time between multiple research projects; good knowledge and understanding of a wide range of international development,
population, reproductive health and family planning programs and policies; proficient in the use of relevant databases and software to analyze financial,
costing, economic and population data; and strong proficiency in Excel and creation of charts and graphs. In addition, a team player with a sense of humor,
collaborative spirit and creativity is needed for this position.

PAI is a family friendly organization, offering a highly competitive benefit package. PAI is an equal opportunity employer and encourages people of color
to apply for this position. Resumes with cover letter and salary requirements can be e-mailed to RMR@popact.org or fax to (202) 728-4177 Attn: Rachael
Murray Rakestraw.

Salary: Commensurate with experience

Date Posted: February 5, 2008

Deadline for applications: Open until filled

48 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS

Interested in placing a job announcements or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org

Senior Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition Advisor

The Academy for Educational Development (AED) is recruiting for the position of Senior Maternal and Child
Health and Nutrition (MCHN) Advisor for upcoming proposals. The Senior Maternal and Child Health and
Nutrition (MCHN) Advisor position would be responsible for coordinating activities that support improved MCHN
programming in the field. In addition, a Senior MCHN Advisor would serve as a senior technical advisor to USAID/
Washington and its partners for improving the implementation of proven strategies related to the prevention and
management of malnutrition in women, adolescents and children.

Qualifications include: advanced degree in nutrition or related nutrition or public health discipline, or equivalent
education and experience; ten years experience in MCHN programs, including program technical assistance, design,
and management; ten years experience in research, including operations research, and in policy development and
analysis. HIV-related knowledge and experience is preferred. USAID project and developing country experience
is essential. Other requirements include, familiarity with MCHN policy and operations of foundations and
multilateral donors, such as the World Bank and UN agencies; experience presenting policy analysis to policy
makers and program managers, and in supervising other technical specialists; excellent interpersonal, oral/written
communication, managerial, and organizational skills; ability to travel 25 to 30% of the time. French or Spanish
desirable. Please send cover letter and resume to mch@aed.org. We thank all respondents; only those selected for
an interview will be contacted. AA/EOE/M/F/D/V

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 49

Interested in placing a job announcement or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org

Senior Advisor, Agribusiness & Resource

Medical Teams International is a non-prot, Christian humanitarian
aid organization dedicated to demonstrating the love of Christ
to people affected by disaster, conict and poverty around the
world. We focus on health. Our volunteers and local partners
treat those who are sick, train local health workers, help people
increase their access to clean water and sanitation and teach
people how to prevent disease and improve their health.
HEADQUARTERS BASED POSITIONS
—Portland, Oregon
Commodity Support Ofcer
Regional Manager, Latin America
Program Manager, Latin America
Senior Technical Advisor, Health
Director, Strategic Church Partnerships
INTERNATIONAL POSITIONS
Country Director —Sri Lanka
For more information and to apply online, please visit our website:
www.medicalteams.org
Management
Chemonics International seeks a long-term senior advisor for
an anticipated USAID-funded agribusiness and natural resource
management project in Sierra Leone. The project will focus on
linking democratic governance, economic growth, and natural
resource management while working to empower women and youth.
Responsibilities include: increase market access and trade, improve
agricultural production and extension, promote community-based
natural resource management and producer organization development,
and increase rural access to savings and loans. Qualifications:
advanced degree in agribusiness, natural resource management,
or other relevant field; minimum five years of field experience in
designing, managing, and implementing agribusiness or natural
resource projects; proven capacity to manage and mentor staff
with various levels of skills and experience; experience working
successfully as part of a multidisciplinary team and in partnership with
other organizations; Sierra Leone or West Africa experience desired;
USAID experience strongly preferred. Application Instructions:
send electronic submissions to SierraLeoneJobs@chemonics.com by
February 20, 2008. Please include a cover letter and recent curriculum
vitae noting relevant experience. No telephone inquiries, please.
Finalists will be contacted.

Costing/Pricing Analysts
Arlington, VA
International Relief & Development (IRD) is a charitable, non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to improving the quality
of life of people in the most economically deprived regions of the world by facilitating and supporting assistance tailored specifically to
their needs. IRD seeks Costing/Pricing Analysts for our headquarters office located in Arlington, VA. In coordination with program staff
in HQ and field offices, the Costing/Pricing Analysts will prepare cost proposals for submission to donor agencies.

Primary Responsibilities:
q Prepare cost proposals for submission to donor agencies
q Complete all cost requirements identified in the RFP’s or RFA’s
q Assist with the maintenance of a negotiation audit trail of changes/adjustments from initial proposal through final price agreement
q Write budget narratives/justifications

Requirements:
q Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance or other relevant field.
q Minimum 2-5 years of experience preparing cost proposals for USAID or other donors
q Established experience with all types of contracts.
q Knowledge of USAID rules and regulations required.
q Demonstrated knowledge in federal compliance rules, regulations and standards associated with federal funds and non-profit
accounting (A-110, A-122, A-133 and 22CFR226).

Please apply online at www.ird-dc.org under “Careers” reference, “Pricing/Costing Analysts” under Headquarters Positions.

50 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS

Interested in placing a job announcements or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org
SENIOR ADVOCACY AND
PUBLIC POLICY OFFICER
Arlington, Virginia
The Senior Advocacy and Policy officer
is responsible for key public policy and
advocacy activities relating primarily to
USG policies and their implementation,
impacting relief and development issues
and appropriations. The position is part
of the Communications and Advocacy
office and will serve as a primary source
of analysis of US policies, policy makers,
policy implementers and legislation.
Essential Responsibilities:
Coordinates work with the director
of communications and advocacy
and the communications team to
include advocacy and public policy
priorities in integrated strategic
objectives. Proactively identifies
public policy priorities, including
issue- and sector-based policies and
relief and development appropriations.
Coordinates the identification of key
policy makers and their staff, with a
focus on developing policy support and
an active constituency for IRD’s global
and domestic program development
objectives. Coordinates, and as needed,
initiates advocacy efforts with other
non-governmental and public/private
sector organizations to ensure that IRD’s
views are advanced effectively in broader
coalitions. Develops and implements
effective strategies to achieve priorities.
Promotes IRD brand to target audiences
(Capitol Hill, USAID, organizational
networks).
Experience:
Requires 10 to 12 years related
experience, with at least 8 years working
either directly on Capitol Hill or on
advocacy and public policy issues with
Non-profit. Knowledge of USG and
private donor networks, regulations,
policy mandates, objectives and functions
strongly preferred.
Please apply online at www.ird-dc.org
under “Careers/Headquarters Positions”
ADVOCACY AND PUBLIC
POLICY OFFICER
Arlington, Virginia
The Advocacy and Policy officer is
responsible for research, analysis
and advocacy activities relating
primarily to public policies impacting
relief and development issues and
appropriations. The position is part
of the Communications and Advocacy
office and will serve as a key source
of information of US policies, policy
makers and legislation.
Essential Responsibilities:
Coordinates work with the director
of communications, the senior public
policy officer, and advocacy and the
communications team to include
advocacy and public policy priorities
in integrated strategic objectives.
Coordinates research and identification
of public policy priorities with IRD
Program and Technical Staff and
the Senior Policy Officer, including
issue- and sector-based policies and
relief and development appropriations.
Researches and provides analysis for
key policy makers, implementers,
and their staff, with a focus on
developing policy support and an
active constituency for IRD’s global
and domestic program development
objectives. Promotes IRD brand to
target audiences (Capitol Hill, USAID,
organizational networks).
Experience:
Requires 5 to 8 years related
experience, with at least 5 years
working either directly on Capitol
Hill or on advocacy and public policy
issues. Knowledge of USG and private
donor networks, regulations, policy
mandates, objectives and functions
strongly preferred.
Please apply online at www.ird-
dc.org under “Careers/Headquarters
Positions.”
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008
Professor and Director,
International Development
Studies
The Elliott School of International
Affairs at The George Washington
University invites applications for a
full-time, non-tenure accruing, faculty
position to serve as Director of the
School’s International Development
Studies Program. Appointment will
be as Professor of the Practice of
International Affairs (or Associate
Professor, if appropriate) beginning in
September 2008 for an initial term of
three years. Salary commensurate with
experience.
Basic Qualifications: Applicants should
have a strong academic and professional
record, with substantial experience in the
international development community.
Graduate degree required, teaching
experience essential.
Preferred Qualifications: Ph.D. in a
relevant social science discipline or
related interdisciplinary field strongly
preferred, previous academic program
management experience highly desirable.
As a member of the Elliott School’s
faculty, the successful candidate will
teach courses, pursue research, and
publish in scholarly and policy-related
venues on international development.
As Director of the International
Development Studies Program, he or she
will be responsible for the administration
of one of the Elliott School’s M.A.
programs, including oversight of
curriculum and program events. The
University seeks to attract an active,
culturally and academically diverse
faculty of the highest caliber; women
and minority candidates are particularly
encouraged to apply.
Application Procedure: To be
considered, submit a letter of application,
at least three letters of reference, a
summary of teaching evaluations
if available, and samples of written
work to: International Development
Studies Search Committee, The Elliott
School of International Affairs, 1957
E Street NW, Suite 401, Washington,
DC 20052. Only completed application
dossiers will be considered. Review of
applications will begin on March 1, and
will continue until the position is filled.
The George Washington University is an
Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action
employer.
51
Interested in placing a job announcement or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org

Development Director
IREX (International Research & Exchanges Board) is an international
nonprofit organization providing leadership and innovative programs
to improve the quality of education, strengthen independent media,
Associate Vice President, and foster pluralistic civil society development. Founded in 1968,
IREX has an annual portfolio of $50 million and a staff of over 500
Community and professionals worldwide. IREX and its partner IREX Europe deliver
Reproductive Health (CRH) cross-cutting programs and consulting expertise in more than 50
countries.
World Neighbors, an international community
SUMMARY OF POSITION: The Development Director is
development organization, is seeking an Associate
responsible for leading IREX’s new business efforts, to include a
Vice President Community and Reproductive
focus on US Government, private and foundation, and international
Health (CRH). This position is responsible for
donors. The director is expected to have substantive knowledge of and
leading and coordinating World Neighbors efforts,
access to government and private donors, recent trends in funding,
consistent with its purpose and holistic approach,
and different systems for managing a variety of contracts. Division:
to strengthen the excellence and impact of its
Development. Reports To: President. Position based in Washington,
global program in community and reproductive
DC.
health, to facilitate learning on good practice
between World Neighbors programs and with other
Principal responsibilities include:
development organizations, to document program
q Developing and coordinating new business strategies in
experiences, and to enable World Neighbors to
cooperation with IREX’s three program divisions and senior
become an effective leader and advocate in this
management.
field. He/she will be accountable to the associate
q Developing and implementing marketing strategy to support new
vice president/team leader for program learning
business outreach and networking.
and Innovation and coordinates closely with other
q Gathering and analyzing information on upcoming business
members of this inter-disciplinary team, the area
opportunities.
representatives, operational staff of International
q Developing and maintaining relationships with current and
Programs, and CRH program coordinators in the
prospective funders.
field. Collaborates with the grants team in raising
q Directing Indefinite Quantity Contract (IQC) task order proposal
funds for CRH programming, and collaborates
process (recruiting, costing, partner negotiations etc.).
with other staff teams (e.g., Marketing &
q Managing proposal process, including supervision of
Communications, etc).
development division staff and coordination with program staff.
q Managing development division staff.
Requires master’s degree or equivalent in public
health, community health, nutrition or equivalent
Qualifications:
with a minimum five years program development
q Bachelor’s Degree with at least 15 years experience in
experience in community and/or reproductive
international development and at least five years in new business
health in Africa, Asia and/or Latin America or a
proposal development.
bachelor’s degree or equivalent with minimum of
q Preference given for knowledge and experience in one or more
eight years experience.
of the following regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Eurasia, Middle
East.
Preferred requirements include international
q Demonstrated knowledge of donors and regional/institutional
experience, non-profit experience and proficiency
funding trends in the industry.
in English and a second language.
q Demonstrated experience with USG funding.
q Demonstrated ability to work and lead in a team environment.
The location for the position is negotiable but the
q Excellent interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills.
preferred location is Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,
USA.
IREX offers competitive salaries and an excellent benefits package:
http://www.irex.org/careers/benefits.asp. TO APPLY: Send cover letter
Information at www.wn.org. Deadline for
and resume to IREX/DD/PA via fax at (202) 628-8189 or send an e-
application is February 29, 2008.
mail message with the subject IREX/PA to resumes@irex.org. EOE.

52 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS

Interested in placing a job announcements or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 53

Interested in placing a job announcement or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex,

and more violent. It takes a touch of genius— and a lot of
courage—to move in the opposite direction.”
—Albert Einstein, at whose suggestion the IRC was founded

Gillian Dunn
Director, Emergency Preparedness & Response Unit

it takes the best to prevail against the worst of crises.

To join us, please visit: theIRC.org/Jobs

54 InterAction MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS

Interested in placing a job announcements or advertisement? Email publications@interaction.org

SkIll
and
paSSIon
aT woRk
Current
openings

Protection Coordinator,
Uganda
State Field Coordinator,
Sudan
GBV Coordinator, Liberia
Deputy Director of Programs,
Burundi
Deputy Director of Programs,
Afghanistan
Human Resources Officer
Staff Development Officer

To learn more about

working with us,
please visit

theIRC.org/Jobs

FORUM ‘08 MAY 6-9, 2008

Crystal Gateway Marriott , Arlington,VA

For more information on participating, exhibiting,

or sponsoring... visit www.interaction.org/forum

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS January/February 2008 55

1400 16th Street, NW, Suite 210
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 667-8227
Fax: (202) 667-8236
publications@interaction.org
www.interaction.org

FIRST CLASS MAIL

InterAction is the largest alliance of U.S.-based international
development and humanitarian nongovernmental
organizations. With more than 160 members operating in every
developing country, we work to overcome poverty, exclusion
and suffering by advancing social justice and basic dignity for
all.

Welcome to our new look!

Join us for the next 75 years of our mission.

Bridging cultures. Transforming lives.

Learning and Doing

High school and undergraduate study abroad,
graduate education, and international development
programs aimed at solving critical global problems

www.worldlearning.org