Scope of Work is just a complicated way of saying “job description,” if it refers to an individual. If it refers to an organization, it means the whole task an organization has promised to do. I am pretty sure “Terms of Reference” is another synonym.
(photo from Enough blog)
Updated on July 13 – Enough has issued an apology for this poorly handled distribution, and committed to doing better in the future. You can see their apology here. I was impressed; it was like a case study in how to take criticism with grace.
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The Enough project works in advocacy against genocide, particularly on Darfur. All well and good. I don’t know much about the intricacies of Darfur, or the intricacies of advocacy. I know some people think Enough is too heavy on the celebrities, and others think they do good work. That’s not what this post is about.
This post is about the idiotic, dehumanizing, tacky stunt they pulled in a refugee camp in Eastern Chad. They brought a limited number of New York Knicks jerseys on a visit to the camp, and made the kids fight for them. You don’t believe me? I will quote the blog:
“(We) separated the children into groups based on which blocks in the camp they lived. Then we began to hand the jerseys out as evenly as possible. The scramble began, and within minutes the jerseys were devoured. Though we informed them that we had no more to give, the children still scrambled up to us to peer into the empty bag to ensure a jersey had not escaped our notice.”
Okay, not fight – scramble. And note the dehumanizing language – devoured – like the kids are starving animals. This makes me mad. Refugee children are human beings with human dignity who should be treated as such. Enough just came and taught the kids that there isn’t enough for everyone and the good stuff goes to the strong and fast.
Now you ask – what would I have wanted them to do? Well, first of all, I would posit that there is no reason to bring New York Knicks jerseys to a refugee camp except to feel good about yourself. If you are determined to bring the jerseys I still have three suggestions:
All of these would take more time and effort than just carrying basketball jerseys to a refugee camp and throwing them at kids. It’s worth it.
At this point, I would like Enough to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I’d like them to develop guidelines on appropriate donations and methods of donations for visitors to camps. They should refuse to visit camps with any group or individual who does not follow those guidelines. And they should publish those guidelines on their blog for public review and comment.
PS – If you don’t want my advice on how to handle a distribution to refugee children, may I recommend the Sphere standards?
I’d appreciate it if anyone who reads this post would go over to the Enough post, tell them what you think of this dumb stunt, and leave a link to this post.
Last note: Before you post a comment telling me that Enough means well and we shouldn’t criticize them, read this post.
Have you ever seen a really great project run by a terrible leader? I never have. I’ve seen competent development work done by bad leaders, but not great work. I’ve never seen it in a company, either. No amount of quality systems can make up for a lack of good leadership at the top.
But we give our grants and contracts to development work based on the structure of the project, as though the logframe and the staff chart are all that matter. This is a problem. It’s not the shape of the staff chart that matters, it’s the names you find in the chart.
We should give money to people who can do good things with it. I once worked with a Ministry of Health official who ran one small department of the Ministry of Health. He was committed to his work, and to his country, and he was flat-out brilliant. He was my go-to advisor for everything my project did, not just the stuff that involved his center. He had ideas – great ideas – about how to improve health in a whole range of different ways.
He should have been running a project. Some donor should have been bankrolling him to improve his department and then the health of the people in his country. With appropriate safeguards, of course. Reporting on how the money was used and what impact it had and so on. But he could have done amazing things with the right support.
The project I work for now, which I won’t name because nothing I write here is their opinion etc. etc. blah blah blah, does really good work. I am proud to be part of it. But our chief of party is the smartest human being on earth. She leaves Marilyn Vos Savant in the dust. She could be doing anything, and she’d do it well. Someone should give her the development equivalent of a MacArthur genius grant (note to self – find way to nominate boss for MacArthur grant) to use her big brain to attack development problems any way she wants to.
Instead of supporting people who can get things done, we support structures. Some of that is an effort to support fragile states and build democratic institutions, and we should keep it up. Some of the support for structures, however, is just intellectual laziness, and a desire to do things how they have always been done. That needs to change. I know this sounds like a recipe for corruption, but anything is a recipe for corruption if you do it badly. We can still ask for financial accountability, and for proof of results.
Innovation comes from individual people with ideas and passion. We should find and support those people to bring change in their countries and communities.
