Author: Alanna Shaikh

Expensive translation, cheap food: how a pro runs an international meeting

By Alanna Shaikh | | 0 Comments |


I’ve been to an awful lot of meetings that involve international participants. I’ve seen some go well, and some turn into complete disasters. I spent my last international meeting thinking about what makes some go well, and some go badly, and this is what I came up with:

1. Hire the best translator you can afford. I can’t stress this enough. Do not, under any circumstances, hire language students as translators or expert participants to also translate for others. Your meeting will fail completely if no one is able to understand each other, and I mean that literally. To help the translator, speak in short, clear sentences. If you are using simultaneous translation, speak slowly so the translator doesn’t fall behind. If the translator speaks after you, stop after every other sentence so she can translate. Avoid analogies and metaphors, especially sports metaphors. Anything that requires your translator to stop and figure it out will ruin the flow. Some phrases you may not think of as sports metaphors: gear up, take a shot at it, take a different tack.

2. Some cultures are very uncomfortable introducing themselves, and it can be hard for everyone involved to remember foreign names and faces. If you’re at a table, use placards with names and titles for each person.

3. Have an agenda which explicitly describes each item to be discussed. Think about whether you want to assign a time frame to each item. Meetings intended to share information and form relationships may benefit from being able to take extra time on productive topics and race through dull ones. If decisions need to be made or specific topics covered in detail, a time bound agenda may be useful.

4. Don’t make jokes. They never translate properly.

5. Don’t serve food. Cultural belief on when it’s appropriate to eat, or get up and collect food, differ widely and can lead to frustration or even resentment. Give every attendee a cup and a bottle (or pitcher) of water, and their own little plate of cookies or nuts, and stop there. If you absolutely must have a meal connected to you meeting, schedule it for before or after, and don’t do business during it. Or have coffee breaks and serve snacks there.

6. Know which delegation is hosting, who is chairing the meeting, and who will take the lead on each agenda point. Your chair must be comfortable moving things along to stay with the agenda.

7. Be as candid and informal as your feel comfortable being. Americans are known all over the world for being blunt. You might as well use it to your advantage. Be extremely courteous, but say what you need to say. You don’t have to fit perfectly into the other culture. Just make it very clear you are doing your best to be polite and respectful. Your translator is your ally here; he can make sure your good intentions come through. This is why you paid for the best one you could find.

Photo from John Connell.

Thinking about reconstruction

By Alanna Shaikh | | 0 Comments |


I heard a speech the other day on post-conflict reconstruction and state building by an analyst from a prominent NGO, and it made me do a lot of thinking about the best ways to provide assistance during a crisis and afterward. I’m not sure it was on the record, so I can’t give you details, but I’ll pull out some of the salient points:

1. Contemporary conflicts cross borders. It’s almost their defining characteristic. We cannot afford to ignore small, obscure conflicts because they do not stay small or obscure for long.

2. The development of a competent, professional police force is key to rebuilding a post-conflict state. It is a strong police force, more than a strong military, that supports peace in a country.

3. If you build up the presidency and the military as the only strong and credible national institutions, you are pretty much just asking for a coup to take place.

4. The responsibility to protect is intended to prevent state failure, not trigger or respond to it.

5. Rwanda and Congo (Zaire) are examples of the devastating consequences of allowing state failure.

6. East Timor is a prime example of the challenges of state-building. It’s a small, ethnically homogeneous state, but is still constantly on the verge of failure.

7. Regime collapse and state failure are not the same thing. Regime collapse can actually prevent state failure by allowing for change.

What does this mean to us with regard to international development?

I think the big thing is that we have to think very carefully about the impact of any aid we give. Are we supporting a healthy government, or encouraging NGOs to take over government functions?

Photo by Yewenyi

Things I don’t believe in #10 – Donating stuff instead of money

By Alanna Shaikh | | 1 Comments |

Give money. Don’t send food, bottled water, clothing or useful-seeming stuff. Give money.

Your old stuff costs money to ship. It is almost always cheaper to just buy it in country, and doing it that way benefits the local economy. It’s also more respectful to survivors of humanitarian emergencies, and allows relief agencies to procure exactly what is needed instead of struggling to find a use for randomly selected used junk. Disaster News Network talks about the used clothes problem in “The Trouble with Trousers.” which features a really depressing anecdote about Hurricane Hugo.

Your food costs money to ship, too. It is probably not food anyone in the recipient area would recognize. How exactly will the people of Burma know what to do with canned refried beans or artichoke hearts? Sending donated American food doesn’t drive income to local farmers or help local retailers start selling again. Buying in-country gets food people will actually understand how to cook and supports the local economy.

Here’s another example – some people wanted to send their old tents to China to house earthquake survivors. A sweet idea – provide quick, free housing. But every different kind of tent would have different set-up instructions, and how many people save their tent instructions once they’ve learned how to do it? It would take a huge time investment in figuring out each type of tent, and then training for the people in China who had to set up the tents. All of this time translates to a delay in providing housing, and it’s time used by paid staff, which means it is also squandered money.

Interaction, the coalition of disaster-relief NGOs, has a nice piece about why cash donations are most effective. They mention needs-based procurement, efficient delivery, lower costs, economic support, and cultural and environmental appropriateness as advantages of cash. World Volunteer Web has a good explanation too, breaking down the myths about post-disaster aid.

Usually people end these kinds of articles with links to the three or so places who will take your old clothes and possessions for international donation. I am not going to do it. Don’t waste everyone’s effort that way. Give your old stuff to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, or St. Vincent de Paul; they’ll make the best use of it. They’ll sell your things locally and use the money for their charitable purposes.

Giving stuff instead of money is easy for you, it’s cheaper for you, and it’s quick. It is not quick, easy, or affordable for the NGOs who are actually trying to help people.

If you want to help, give money.

[Picture of old clothes in Haiti from Flickr by Vanessa Bertozzi]

Things I believe in #40 – Oral Rehydration Salts

By Alanna Shaikh | | 1 Comments |

Eight ounces of clean water. One pinch of salt. One teaspoon of sugar. Mix well. Give it to your child who has diarrhea. Save her life. It doesn’t cure diarrhea, but it’ll prevent fatal dehydration until the illness passes.

It’s not a perfect solution. Not everyone has access to clean water. You need to have a clean container, too, and you need to be able to measure. And it’s not the best possible fluid for rehydration; it’s merely very good.

But it’s cheap and finding the water, the container, the sugar, and the salt is something almost everyone can do. It is something a mother or a father can do at home to heal their child. You don’t need a doctor, a hospital, an expert of any kind. Oral rehydration salts will not hurt a healthy child, and they won’t make a sick child sicker, even if they don’t heal. No one goes broke providing them, or ends up dependent on an expensive foreign-made drug.

To the parents of a sick child, oral rehydration salts are nothing short of miraculous.

Put the water in the glass first. Add the salt. Stir well. It should be no saltier than tears. Add the sugar. At least a teaspoon; more is okay. Help your little girl drink it.

There. You just performed a miracle, yourself.

Things I don’t believe in #6 – All powerful expatriate leadership

By Alanna Shaikh | | 0 Comments |

This is the first thing – expats don’t stay forever. In two or three or four years, the expat will leave. If your whole program depends on her, or the staff believes that it does, things will go to pieces when she leaves. This is the second thing – it’s disempowering. You don’t want your staff, or your stakeholders, to believe change only comes from outsiders. You want people to find their own power and their own capacity to influence their lives and communities. You don’t want them to sit around waiting and starving for the Dutch to come back and rebuild the irrigation canals.

This is the third thing. You want your staff invested in the process. You want everyone involved to know your select your pilot schools because they meet the qualifications for your program. You don’t want them thinking the schools were selected because Mr. Thomas feels really bad for the villages, or worse yet, because he thought the teachers were pretty. You want people to know you’ve got a system and your apply it fairly.

This is the fourth thing. Country Directors who allow themselves to be seen as having and exerting that kind of power end up isolated. Staff members won’t be comfortable being part of a collaborative decision-making process. They won’t offer opinions on how to make things better, and they won’t go to the CD if they identify a problem.

Good programs come from good teams, not from little gods and their adoring worshippers.

Things I believe in #13: Giving your team hats and t-shirts

By Alanna Shaikh | | 0 Comments |

When I sat down to expand on this, I realized what I really meant was – make your staff into a team. Treat them as competent professionals working together for a common goal. Giving them swag is one way to do that; putting everyone in the same t-shirt makes them look physically like equals. It makes them feel commonality with headquarters, and with the other offices in the country and around the world.

Every single paid staff member and volunteer should know where your organization is based, who funds it, and the general outline of its national programs. Paid staff members should know more. They should know the basic details of all your country projects, not just the ones they work for. If you have behavior change messages, every single employee should know them. This includes your drivers, your cleaners, your gardeners, and your tea lady (and if your behavior change messages are too complex for the tea lady, you’ve got problems).

Your people should know what it means to work for you, and they should be proud of it. They should know your general country budget, and your global budget. They should know where the money comes from – DFID, USAID, private donors, or whoever. They should know your organization’s global mission.

Now you’re wondering, why bother with this level of staff integration? Because everybody wins when you make your staff into a team. A high-functioning team generates a synergy of local and expat knowledge that takes your projects to a new level. Your organization benefits by running more effective, more efficient programs. Your host country benefits because the quality of your work is better.

It takes more than a weekly staff meeting to make this kind of team effort happen. Personally, I like posters and diagrams in common areas explaining program components. I like using your whole team as your first focus group for behavior change materials. I like having your country director give periodic updates on budgets and progress toward program goals. I like giving your team free lunches and doing presentations on different program components. I like having people from different teams share drivers and office space.

Things I don’t believe in #18 – Bringing people to the US for medical treatment

By Alanna Shaikh | | 0 Comments |

I know it’s heartbreaking when you see children on the news with cancer or serious injuries that can’t be treated at home. I have a two-year-old and if, god forbid, he ever got seriously ill, I guarantee I would take him anywhere it took to save him. I have profound empathy with the families of sick kids. But sending one child to the US for care uses resources that could help an awful lot of kids in-country. It is the job of a parent to care for their own child first and foremost. It is the job of donors, governments, and NGOs to care for as many children as possible with the funding available. In my opinion, it is not an ethical use of limited resources to transport one child for health care.

When you bring a child to the US, you need to bring at least one relative as well, to look after the child in a strange place. If the relative is a parent, siblings at home will probably suffer emotionally and economically in their absence. If the relative is not a parent, they may have trouble making difficult decision about the child’s care. Assuming your medical care is donated, you still need to pay for their plane flights, housing, and food. For a long period, since they will need to stay in the US for all necessary follow-up appointments. The child and relative will need translators so they can talk to doctors. They’ll need a lot of help with informed consent to risky procedures. Often, at the end of it all, neither the child nor the relative want to go home. There is generally no way for them to stay.

Assume the medical treatment is successful, assume everyone goes home happy. What happens to the next kid with the same problem? If she’s lucky, the same effort that was generated for the last child. Expensive transport, a long time away from home and family, frightening and unfamiliar doctors who don’t speak her language. If she’s not so lucky, nothing. The next child with the same problem probably won’t get as much media attention because it’s not a novelty. There will be donor fatigue – finding donated care will be harder. Probably she is stuck in her home country with medical care she may or may not survive.

How do we do it better? It’s not very realistic to argue that you should just ignore seriously ill children and spend the money on public health interventions. No human can do that. On a practical basis, you probably have people willing to donate money for that one compelling child. You can’t just take that cash and save fifty children from malaria or helminths. But you can fly in a team of specialists or oncologists. You can most likely talk them into donating their time for the chance to help someone in a faraway location.

Team up your foreign doctors with local specialists. They can train the local physicians in how to treat the illness or perform the necessary surgery. They can train local doctors in how to provide the follow-up care. You may have to bring the sick child to the capital where facilities are available, but he is still in his own culture, speaking his own language. His relatives can alternate who stays with him so his siblings are not neglected. You’ll need translators for the foreign doctors, food and housing, but that’s still a lot less than sending people the other way. Yes, there are lots of complications; you may need to purchase, or find, donated equipment and drugs.

But now consider the next kid. She’s received a scary and terrible diagnosis, which requires sophisticated treatment. She travels no further than her own capital for care. She is treated by doctors who’ve been trained by American specialists, and her doctors can contact those American colleagues if they have questions. She can go home right after her treatment, and come back as needed for follow-up visits.