MONTHLY DEVELOPMENTS: APRIL 2012 WORD COUNT: 644 Reflections from the President Failures and Tradeoffs in Humanitarian

and Development Work Earlier this year, I was interested to see a video making the rounds on the Internet that featured an aid worker describing in detail to a large audience his failures in a certain project. He argued persuasively for the importance of admitting failure and the need for ongoing learning. This comes in the wake of a record amount of media scrutiny of NGOs work in Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. Traditional media outlets have focused on the failures of aid in Haiti, highlighting the many severe challenges that remain and the responsibility that rests with NGOs. Professional NGOs welcome these critiques. Regardless of media attention, InterAction members are constantly evaluating the effectiveness of their projects and of the humanitarian or aid system as a whole. However, many criticisms that allege failure either miss or ignore the hard reality of all humanitarian and development work: There are always difficult tradeoffs. Failure due to poor program design certainly does occur, and should be taken extremely seriously. But too often, what is called failure is actually the cost of applying resources to different competing priorities. Development and humanitarian practitioners face tradeoffs between speed, sustainability, scale and local ownership, and furthermore always have limited resources and work in complex environments. For example, if an NGO wants to provide sturdy permanent shelters, it will solve a familys housing problem but will not reach as many people as if it first provided tents and then temporary wooden shelters, which are cheaper but flimsier. In Haiti, many NGOs helped build the more than 100,000 temporary shelters that are now scattered around Port-au-Prince. Other NGOs have used their resources to build a few thousand permanent homes that will better withstand future disasters. Neither approach is perfect; there is no one right answer. Both help families and save lives. There are also tradeoffs around the pace of recovery. If an NGO wants a project to be locally owned to ensure sustainability, implementation will inevitably take more time as the local community shapes the efforts to often-conflicting local needs. If the highest priority is reaching people as fast as possible, the effort will be less locally tailored and may leave out the voices of beneficiaries and stakeholders. NGOs respond to these tradeoffs by setting minimum standards (such as the SPHERE or InterAction PVO Standards). Inevitably, it is often necessary to take the middle road between two extremes, based on local context and operational realities. Unfortunately, the media sometimes call attention only to the problems that were not solved, failing to see the progress that was made or the complexity of the challenge. Donors also play a part in creating unrealistic expectations by placing a high premium on rapid, visible results directly attributable to specific projects. This was the case with the Build Back Better mantra for Haiti. Development and humanitarian interventions are incredibly complex, and achieving results that are effective and sustainable takes a great deal of time. The desire for quick and attributable results biases the aid system against projects that target local capacity, coordination, governance and other less tangible outcomes. The increased concern with the effectiveness of NGOs and the projects they deliver is not a bad thingit is right that the world take an interest in our work and that we are held accountable

to our donors and the populations we strive to serve. Many failures are avoidable and criticism of NGOs work in Haiti and elsewhere is often valid: projects can fail because of poor design and NGOs must take responsibility in these cases. But there is a difference between failure and operating with the tradeoffs that characterize much effective humanitarian and development work. NGOs critics should focus on what is possible and be mindful of the constraints that limit what NGOs can do.