MONDAY

DEVELOPMENTS
Chec
Out O k
JS obsur
ectio
Page 3
2
n !

The Latest Issues and Trends in International Development and Humanitarian Assistance

Developing Networks Kidnapped!

As Community Assets The Worst
Possible
Payment for Scenario
Environmental Services
The
Debate
Over
Civil-Military
Relations
The 2009
DATA Report

August
2009
Vol. 27, No. 8
InterAction
 MONDAY
DEVELOPMENTS
Managing Editor/Art Director
Chad Brobst
Copy Editor
Kathy Ward
Advertising & Sales
Michael Haslett
Communications Department
Nasserie Carew, Public Relations
Tawana Jacobs, Public Relations
Tony Fleming, New Media
Leslie Rigby, Writer/Editor
Chad Brobst, Publications
Michael Haslett, Publications
Margaret Christoph, Admin Associate
Editorial Committee
InterAction Communications Team
InterAction
1400 16th Street, NW
Suite 210
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202.667.8227
publications@interaction.org
ISSN 1043-8157
Monday Developments is published 11
times a year by InterAction, the larg-
est alliance of U.S.-based international
development and humanitarian non-
governmental organizations. With more
than 170 members operating in every
developing country, InterAction works to
overcome poverty, exclusion and suffer-
ing by advancing social justice and basic
dignity for all.
InterAction welcomes submissions of
news articles, opinions and announce-
ments. Article submission does not guar-
antee inclusion in Monday Developments.
We reserve the right to reject submis-
sions for any reason. It is at the discretion
of our editorial team as to which articles
are published in individual issues.
All statements in articles are the sole
opinion and responsibility of the authors.
Articles may be reprinted with prior per-
mission and attribution. Letters to the
editor are encouraged.
A limited number of subscriptions are
made available to InterAction member
agencies as part of their dues. Individual
subscriptions cost $80 a year (add $15
for airmail delivery outside the U.S.)
Samples are $5, including postage.
Additional discounts are available for
bulk orders. Please allow 4-6 weeks for
delivery. Advertising rates are available
on request.
Features
Cover Story: What’s the
Story on Militarization? | 8
Lack of U.S. government civilian
capacity hampers efforts to
create the desired civilian-
military balance in the U.S.
presence abroad.
The Pentagon as a
Development Agency | 11
The U.S. military’s increasing
role as an aid provider.
Civil-Military Cooperation:
An Opportunity for
Women? | 13
Recent developments present
possibilities to improve
participation by women.
Quantum Blur | 15
Bringing clarity to civil-military
relationships in a ‘3D’ world.
Building the Bridge | 17
A conversation starter for formal
information sharing between
and among NGOs and the U.S.
government.
Heard with One Voice | 19
Developing networks as
community assets.
5
20
21
Contents
8
August 2009 • Vol. 27 • No. 8
The Worst Possible Fifteen and Counting | 29
Scenario | 20 Countries in Latin America and
The second article in a the Caribbean have much to do
to meet the 2015 targets of the
continuing series covering a
fictional kidnapping scenario ICPD Programme of Action.
and how an NGO might respond.
Payment for
Environmental
Services | 23
Changes in market demand
and use of profit incentives are
creating new opportunities to
further human development
and environmental protection at
the same time.
Liberating Nonprofits | 25
A conversation with Dan Pallotta.
The G8’s Annual
23
Report Card | 27
ONE’s 2009 DATA Report reveals
some donors keeping promises,
others facing credibility crisis.
Departments
15 Inside This Issue | 3
Letters to the Editor | 4
Step By Step Advocacy | 5
Inside Our Community | 6
Inside InterAction | 7
Events | 31
Employment
Opportunities | 32
 INSIDE This Issue

Civil-Military Relations:
NGOs Must Shape the Debate
I
n recent years, debate has intensified about
the use of the U.S. military to perform humanitarian and
development roles that have historically been the respon-
sibility of civilian agencies of the government and NGOs.
While many recognize the military’s unique capabilities to
support relief efforts, the rapidly expanding involvement of
the armed forces in long-term development and reconstruc-
tion strategies, combined with the growing proportion of aid
funding now channeled through the Department of Defense,
has heightened the U.S. NGO community’s concern about
the militarization of U.S. foreign assistance.
Tension over this blurring of boundaries is felt not only
where U.S. troops are carrying out military and humanitarian
missions simultaneously but also where they have no pres-
ence or direct involvement in development and relief work.
Increasingly, the face of U.S. foreign assistance is projected
and perceived globally as a soldier in helmet and fatigues, U.S. military help to push a truck loaded with
and humanitarian workers everywhere confront firsthand USAID-donated relief commodities for victims
the challenges and risks engendered by the apparent inter- of the Dec. 2004 tsunami in Indonesia.
twining of U.S. military and humanitarian objectives. The
appearance of counterinsurgency language in solicitations NGOs as such. But InterAction members do not rely exclu-
for development programs is of serious concern to the NGO sively on U.S. government dollars; they bring substantial
community—especially against the backdrop of the Obama private resources—almost $6 billion, more than twice what
administration’s delay in appointing a USAID administra- they receive from the U.S. government—and the support of
tor in time to contribute to key interagency debates that will a broad constituency of Americans. Military personnel are
shape future U.S. engagement with the world, especially its also often unaware that much of NGOs’ work is carried out
most poor and those whose lives are shaped by conflict. by local staff, who play a vital role in designing and delivering
In response to these growing concerns, InterAction has effective development services and in strengthening NGOs’
taken a lead role in facilitating a learning exchange to ability to build trust and help maintain stability. On the flip
broaden military awareness of NGOs’ roles, principles and side, the NGO community has learned through these discus-
expertise and to reaffirm the appropriate parameters of mili- sions that many in the armed forces do not want to take on
tary involvement in the humanitarian arena. As many read- expanded humanitarian and development roles and share
ers know, one product of this dialogue was the publication our community’s belief that NGOs are the best providers of
of the “Guidelines for Relations Between U.S. Armed Forces these services.
and Non-Governmental Humanitarian Organizations in This issue of Monday Developments features a range of
Hostile or Potentially Hostile Environments” in July 2007. articles on civil-military relations, drawing on the experi-
One of the InterAction website’s most popular downloads, ences and perspectives of very diverse groups and offering a
the Guidelines have also been written into military doctrine forum to encourage future discussion and debate. In addi-
as an appendix on how to work with other stakeholders on tion, the issue looks at the use of profit incentives to encour-
the ground—not only NGOs but interagency colleagues as age environmental protection. It also features an update on
well. More recently, the Army has sought the input of the the G8’s financial commitments to Africa, as well as an inves-
NGO community on its Field Manual on Stability Operations, tigation into the use of networks as community assets. MD
reflecting an awareness that it needs a better understanding
of the actors in environments and activities that are wholly
new to the military.
Photo: USAID

This ongoing dialogue can also help the military under- Sam Worthington
stand that NGOs are key stakeholders in their own right. President and CEO
The military is used to working with contractors, and sees InterAction

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 3

 Letters
Defining PVO Space in Today’s Environment
The May issue of Monday Developments contains
the text of a letter to President Obama in which more than 90
InterAction member agencies call for the swift appointment
of a USAID administrator, urge that the new official be given
a place in the National Security Council and “look forward to
partnering with your administration as you redefine the way
America engages with the world’s poor.”
The fact that American private and voluntary organiza-
tions are speaking out in support of U.S. foreign aid seems
unexceptional, yet it has not always been thus. When Church
World Service and Lutheran World Relief opened a joint office
in Washington in 1976, they were, if memory serves, the first
agencies to reach beyond a desire for grants and contracts
to seek to influence broader U.S. policy. A comparison of the
legislative agenda of InterAction with its predecessor Ameri-
can Council of Voluntary Agencies in Foreign Service would
underscore the extent to which private groups have embraced
broader advocacy goals, becoming major players in formulat-
ing U.S. humanitarian, development and human rights policy.
American presidents and USAID administrators come and
go, bringing with them changes in foreign policy and in relations
with U.S. nongovernmental groups. However, this historical
moment and this transition are especially momentous, recall-
SIT Graduate Institute
International Development
Programs
• Education for Global Social Change
Master’s degrees/concentrations
Sustainable Development/Development Management
Conflict Transformation / Conflict and Development
Management/Development Management
• NEW: Fall 2009 in the Sultanate of Oman
Master of Global Management
focus in Middle Eastern Studies,
International Organizational Development,
Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Scholarships and Financial Aid Available
www.sit.edu/graduate
www.worldlearning.org
4 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
Send your letters to:
comments@interaction.org
ing in some respects the period following the Reagan years. I
remember writing in Foreign Policy back in 1988 of the chal-
lenge to policymakers and agencies at the end of the Cold War:
“To identify the United States once again with humane values.
Reaffirming the tradition of solidarity with humankind deserves
centerpiece status in American thinking about national secu-
rity and in the day-to-day conduct of American foreign policy.”
No time should now be lost in implementing new directions,
which in their proposed emphasis on human security and
cooperative problem-solving resonate strongly with the views of
many private agencies and their constituencies.
Private voluntary organizations (PVOs) today are better posi-
tioned to influence U.S. policy than in earlier eras. During the
second Reagan term, InterAction CEOs examined the extent to
which, in the words of then President Peter Davies, agencies
“need to match their well-known warm-hearted compassion
with hard-headed professional and political expertise.” More
recent experience has reinforced PVO awareness of the role
played by political factors in creating human need and shap-
ing public and private responses, although their traditional
reluctance to criticize U.S. policy has not altogether vanished.
The policy directions needed today, however, are far more
debatable than the InterAction letter’s expressed desire for
“partnering” acknowledges. There is no doubt that effective
programs of humanitarian, reconstruction and development
assistance contribute to a safer and more secure world. Nor
is there any doubt that better coordination of U.S. govern-
ment policies programs will contribute to the more effective
use of available resources.
The debatable issue concerns the place of nongovernmental
organizations in that mix. Are they extensions of U.S. govern-
ment efforts, independent actors in their own right, or some
combination of the two? Should PVO programs, whether
funded with private or government resources, be integrated
into the tightly orchestrated national security policy which
Presidential Policy Directive 1 envisions? Can PVOs engaged
in humanitarian work be assured of the necessary space to
implement U.S. government-funded programs of emergency
assistance? How should PVOs relate to State Department-led
reconstruction and stabilization programs and to the growing
Pentagon role in civil-military affairs?
Relationships with a succession of administrations have
had varying degrees of mutuality, but the partnership that
emerges is often that of horse and rider. When push comes
to shove, U.S. national security goals, defined largely without
reference to the human security needs of the world’s poor,
generally prevail. While InterAction staff may continue to be
vigilant in monitoring developments that erode PVO inde-
pendence and integrity, agencies should be careful in for-
mulating what they wish for. Rather than a blanket embrace
of U.S. policy, greater wariness and selectivity, even with a
sympathetically inclined administration, are clearly in order.
The moment is propitious and the issues of critical impor-
tance. I wish InterAction and its members well in their impor-
tant advocacy work.
Larry Minear
 Step By Step Advocacy
Advocacy
Activities: Part 2
By John Ruthrauff
Senior Manager of Member Advocacy, InterAction
Note: This is the sixth installment in a series of articles on
developing an effective advocacy strategy. The series began
in the March 2009 edition of Monday Developments, and the
installments to date have examined selecting an issue, defin-
ing your goal and “asks,” conducting a power analysis, build-
ing strategic alliances, developing objectives and part one on
advocacy activities.
A
dvocacy consists of a
series of planned activities
that organizations undertake
to press for policy changes related
to a specific issue. The activities are
the steps you use in your advocacy
campaign to influence key actors
who can bring about your desired
change. They should be based on
a power analysis and designed to
attain an objective. Advocacy activi-
ties can strengthen allies, increase
pubic awareness of your issue,
reduce the influence of opponents and/or convince undecided
actors to join your effort. An advocacy campaign does not
mean you need to take to the streets in protest or physically
confront anyone; in fact, doing so is often counterproductive
and can literally be dangerous.
When choosing your activities for a particular campaign,
make sure they take into account the local culture, religious
practices, social norms and the political and security situa-
tions. They should also draw on and reflect the strengths and
interests of your alliance members. Last month we explored:
(1) building relationships; (2) email, phone calls and letter
writing; and (3) meeting with individuals. Additional exam-
ples of possible advocacy activities include:
Social Media
As evidenced by Obama’s groundbreaking 2008 presidential
campaign, social media is an invaluable tool for mobilizing a
broad network of supporters. Using social media is a quick and
Photo: Haider Yousuf - Fotolia.com
easy way to advertize campaigns, identify potential support-
ers, educate existing supporters, build relationships and com-
municate updates. The most popular sites for advocacy cam-
paigns are Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Negotiations
During an advocacy campaign partners in an alliance often
have the opportunity to undertake negotiations with people
and groups who represent differing positions and/or deci-
sion-makers. Negotiation entails exchange and compromise,
so it is important to select your negotiating team and enter
negotiations with the understanding that the team will prob-
ably not be able to secure every facet of your goals. The team
will need to compromise on some or even many points. The
following are key points to keep in mind:
• Before each meeting or formal negotiation session, your
team should hold a “pre-meeting” to review its positions
and priorities for the meeting, and to make sure every-
one is clear on who will be the leader for the team in the
meeting and who will address each point you want to
raise and each topic likely to come up.
• Determine your fallback positions and bottom lines for
each point before negotiations begin and make sure
everyone on the team understands what they are.
• Presentation matters. Make sure
your negotiating team presents
your alliance and themselves in a
way that maximizes their poten-
tial to be effective. Not only should
the membership of the team reflect
the diversity and strength of your
alliance (including its most power-
ful members), they need to pres-
ent themselves in a way that puts
their best collective foot forward.
That includes the way they dress
for meetings, being on time and
presenting a disciplined and coordi-
nated face in negotiations.
• Make sure the team has clear instructions and a com-
mon understanding of its authority. For example, can it
agree to a negotiated position on a particular point on
its own or does it need to bring the best offer back to
an executive committee, board or the membership of the
alliance?
• Know and understand the people and groups with whom
you will negotiate. It is very important to do this bit of
homework in advance and to use what you learn about
your counterparts to determine your strategy and tac-
tics. Who will represent the other party(ies) in the negoti-
ations? What can you learn about their bottom lines and
primary concerns related to the issues at hand? What
other major concerns may they have before them on
other matters that might influence their bargaining posi-
tions and abilities on the issue(s) of interest to you? Why
have the groups and individuals they represent agreed to
meet with you at this time? What are these people like as
individuals and negotiators?
• If your team at any point during the negotiations is unsure
about what to do next or how to respond, the team can
meet privately (caucus) to address those questions. Team
members should never argue or disagree with each other
during the meetings with the other party(ies).
continued on page 7
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 5
 INSIDE Our Community
Honduras: Political Unrest Disrupts Delivery of Aid
The recent political unrest in Honduras is causing delays in
providing valuable humanitarian aid for communities in one
of the most disadvantaged regions of the country, reported the
Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA). ADRA
is currently completing the implementation of the Develop-
ment Assistance Program in Support of Subsistence Farmer
Households, a food security project funded by USAID.
“As we near completion of the project, to ensure project sus-
tainability, we begin to transfer responsibilities to the benefi-
ciaries, and local governmental authorities,” shared Roberto
Brown, country Finance Director for ADRA Honduras. “Unfor-
tunately, due to the current political situation, most of the
mayors and government offices in our targeted regions are
unavailable. It is a real setback in achieving our goals.”
Country Director Claudio Sandoval also noted that other
logistical challenges included getting aid to targeted regions,
due to insecurity, political demonstrations and roadblocks.
“We are trying not to put our staff and our commodities at
risk, because our trucks cannot pass,” said Sandoval. “It’s
not every day that something happens, but it is difficult,
because we don’t know where it’s going to happen, or which
day...this is causing problems for our staff in the region.”
On June 28, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was
deposed by the Honduran military, after months of rising
InterAction’s
Online
Job Board!
Visit: careers.interaction.org
Talk about interacting!
To compliment Monday
Developments’ popular monthly
job section, InterAction’s online
job board instantly connects
you to the latest international
development jobs as they
become available. Search by
job sector, level, region and
country—or post your resume
and let the hiring managers
come to you!
6 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
tension. Scores of demonstrations both in protest and sup-
port of the recent events continue, disrupting travel and
encouraging many businesses to remain closed.
HealthRight International Appoints
Mila Rosenthal as Executive Director
The Board of Directors of HealthRight Interna-
tional Inc. (formerly Doctors of the World-USA) recently
announced the appointment of Mila Rosenthal as the
organization’s next Executive Director.
Rosenthal succeeds Tom Dougherty on Sept 8, 2009, as
Dougherty completes his term of nearly seven years. “We
were sorry about Tom’s decision to seek new challenges,
but extremely pleased with the great strides we made
under his tenure,” said Steven J. Berger, Chairman of the
Board and Co-Chair of the search committee. “Thanks
to Tom and his team, HealthRight has grown in size and
impact, with an impressive record of success doing critical
work building lasting access to health for excluded com-
munities around the world. We are confident that Mila will
help us continue and expand on this success.”
Rosenthal brings 17 years of experience in interna-
tional affairs and development to HealthRight. She
is currently a Deputy Executive Director of Amnesty
International USA (AIUSA), responsible for research
and policy. She has directed AIUSA’s advocacy address-
ing global human rights challenges, including oversee-
ing an upcoming research report on maternal mortality
in the U.S. and discrimination in access to health care.
Report Finds Climate Change a Driver of Migration
Unless aggressive measures are taken to halt global warm-
ing, the consequences for human migration and displacement
could reach a scope and scale that vastly exceed anything
that has occurred before, according to a report released dur-
ing recent climate change talks in Germany.
Climate change is already contributing to migration and
displacement, the report from CARE, the United Nations
University and Columbia University found. All major esti-
mates project that the trend will rise to tens of millions of
migrants in coming years. Within the next few decades, the
consequences of climate change for human security efforts
could be devastating, according to the report, In Search of
Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human
Migration and Displacement.
The exact number of people that will be on the move by
midcentury is uncertain. The International Organization for
Migration estimates that there may be 200 million environ-
mentally induced migrants by 2050. ‘’While human migration
and displacement is usually the result of multiple factors, the
influence of climate change in people’s decision to give up
their livelihoods and leave their homes is growing,’’ said Dr.
Charles Ehrhart, CARE’s climate change coordinator and one
of the report’s authors. MD
 INSIDE InterAction
InterAction Welcomes New Members
The Board of Directors in its July meeting unanimously
voted for six new member organizations to join InterAction.
InterAction welcomes the following new member organiza-
tions:
AmericasRelief Team was formed by a collaboration of
corporations and nonprofit organizations to expedite relief to
the Caribbean and Latin Amer-
ica in response to natural disas-
ters and human crises. Ameri-
casRelief Team focuses on coordinating logistics through
guidance, education and state-of-the-art techniques while
planning and implementing effective distribution of humani-
tarian aid.
Development GATEWAY provides web-based platforms
to make aid and development efforts more effective around
the world. It envisions a world
in which the digital revolu-
tion serves people every-
where—creating opportunities
through increased access to critical information; greater reli-
ance on local capabilities; and more effective, better-coordi-
nated international aid.
International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) pro-
motes an enabling legal environ-
ment for civil society, freedom of
association and public participa-
tion around the world. ICNL has
worked in over 90 countries, col-
laborating with civil society orga-
nizations (CSOs), scholars, government officials and repre-
sentatives of the business community.
Operation Blessing International (OBI) aims to alleviate
human need and suffering in the United States and around
the world. As a worldwide
relief organization OBI has
touched the lives of more
than 209.3 million people in more than 105 countries and all
50 U.S. states. Its primary goals are to help break the cycle
of suffering by providing hunger relief, medical aid, disaster
relief, clean water, orphan and vulnerable children programs
and other basic necessities of life that will make a significant,
long-term impact on those in need.
Rural Development Institute (RDI) works to secure
rights for the world’s poorest peo-
ple. RDI partners with developing
countries to design and imple-
ment laws, policies and programs
that provide opportunity, further
economic growth and promote social justice.
The Solidarity Center’s mission is to
help build a global labor movement by
strengthening the economic and political
power of workers around the world
through effective, independent and dem-
ocratic unions. MD
Step By Step Advocacy
continued from page 5
Media
Media attention to your issue can often be helpful, so if
this seems to be the case in your situation, it is important
to consider reaching out to relevant media outlets and mem-
bers of the press. Sometimes this is easier in small cities
and towns than in large cities like New York or Washington,
D.C.—unless your issue already is or neatly ties into an issue
already on the national press agenda, or unless one or more
members of your alliance have close contacts with a member
of the national press corps that your member(s) knows would
be interested and able to take up your issue. In any event,
media coverage brings your issue to the attention of a wider
audience. Ideally, you obviously would like that attention to
convert into greater support for the change you seek. But you
cannot control reporting, so there is always a risk that the
coverage you get might not take the track you want or, even
worse, could come across as more sympathetic to your oppo-
sition. The bottom line is to remember that working with the
media is complicated and requires careful research, consid-
eration and often the involvement of people with particular
experience in such outreach. This is a bigger topic than we
can take on in this article, so just keep in mind that you will
need to do more research if you want to explore this option.
Research and Publications
Having carefully conducted and well-presented research
to back up your positions and ideas is important. This often
takes the form of reports. But the reports used in conjunction
with advocacy campaigns need to follow a couple of rules that
aren’t always part of reporting in more academic environments.
Reports used in advocacy campaigns need to be concise and
begin with an executive summary. If you have lots of informa-
tion you really feel you need to include (and which you have
carefully vetted line by line), you can attach it in appendices. If
respected universities, think tanks and experts with respected
reputations are associated with the reports you use (either as
the authors or as endorsers of the report), it can increase the
credibility of a report. Publishing your research (or summary
articles related to it) in respected journals can also increase the
credibility of your findings and help you reach a wider audience.
Indirect Persuasion
Sometimes the most effective method for convincing a deci-
sion-maker to adopt your position is indirect and behind the
scenes. Indirect persuasion can involve informal “off the record”
meetings or discussions with officials and supporters. Or it can
involve meeting with people whom the decision-maker respects
and then letting those individuals carry your message forward
to the decision-maker in a more informal manner. This sort of
indirect persuasion is often conducted quietly and may never
be something that can be discussed publicly, but it can, at
times, be the most effective way to achieve your goals. MD
Part seven of this series will continue to describe activities and
will appear in the August edition of Monday Developments.
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 7
 Militarization

T
he sprawling, isolated desert town of Nema, 1,100 kilometers

Photo: Jason Seagle

from the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott, has a new, U.S.-funded health
clinic. But the clinic is unused. In fact, it never opened. Fully constructed,
the clinic sits abandoned because people cannot get to it
and because the Ministry of Health cannot support it.
This sounds like the beginning of a story where the good
intentions of donors are for naught because the host
nation lacks the capacity for follow-through. Well, not
exactly. The Ministry of Health can’t support the clinic
because the Ministry was not consulted before
construction began. Funds to build the clinic
came from the U.S. Department of Defense,
and the Special Forces soldiers who coordi-
nated the construction worked through the
Mauritanian Ministry of Defense.
But this isn’t just a story about the mili-
tarization of America’s foreign policy. While
a critic would say that if the soldiers had
coordinated with USAID maybe this
would not have happened, the prob-
lem is that there is no USAID office in
Nouakchott. There is no USAID pres-
ence for the soldiers to coordinate
their activities with.
The Nema medical clinic is a monu-
ment to poor U.S. interagency coordi-
nation due to a staggering lack of civil-
ian capacity in foreign affairs. So this is a
story about the effect in the field that the

M
absence of civilian capacity has on the
recipients of our assistance and on Amer-
ican’s image in the world.

8 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009

 Militarization

Lack of U.S. government

civilian capacity hampers
efforts to create the desired
civilian-military balance in
the U.S. presence abroad.

What’s the Story on

Militarization?
By Ron Capps, Peacekeeping Program Manager, Refugees International

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 9

 Militarization
The numbers are overwhelming. While
there are over 2,300,000 uniformed
service members, there are fewer than
6,800 Foreign Service Officers at the
Department of State and about 1,400
Foreign Service Officers at USAID. The
General Accounting Office claims nearly
30 percent of language-designated posi-
tions at American embassies are filled
by inadequately trained officials, and a
recent article in Foreign Affairs noted
that American embassies in Africa are
short 30 percent of their assigned staffs.
Things are so bad the State Department
has hired over 2,300 family members to
fill embassy positions.
Personnel numbers alone still don’t
tell the whole story. A recent study by
the Association for American Diplo-
macy and the Henry L. Stimson Cen-
ter repeatedly cited a lack of program
management skills at State and USAID.
Congress has granted the Department
of Defense authorities and funding for
security and development assistance
that should reside with State and
USAID; and it did so principally because
the civilian agencies cannot carry their
load. A congressional report cites a wan-
ing of diplomatic effectiveness in repre-
senting U.S. interests as foreign officials
“follow the money,” increasingly empha-
sizing defense relations over diplomacy.
The RAND Corporation calls these dis-
crepancies “a dysfunctional skewing of
resources-to-tasks.”
In 1971, former Secretary of State
Dean Acheson wrote in Foreign Affairs,
“For over a decade it has been received
as accepted truth in the highly charged
political atmosphere of Washington that
the role, power and prestige of the Sec-
retary and Department of State in the
conduct of foreign affairs have steadily
declined.” Things have not gotten any
better in the 38 years since Acheson
wrote his article. For the past two gen-
erations, the Department of State and
USAID have atrophied thanks to budget
cuts and reductions in force driven by
a misguided belief that American secu-
rity is solely the provenance of the mili-
tary and the intelligence services. But
recently, Congress and the executive
branch have begun to reverse the trend.
In 2004, a presidential order gave
the Office of the Coordinator for Recon-
struction and Stability (S/CRS) at
State the task of coordinating a “whole
10 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
of government” approach to recon-
struction and stability operations. At
that time, interagency processes were
strained by struggles over power and
influence at the highest levels of gov-
ernment and staff were overwhelmed
by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Over time, the office produced a blue-
print for civilian response.
S/CRS has also created a Civilian
Response Corps to serve as the civil-
ian expeditionary capability the United
States so urgently needs as a comple-
ment to its unparalleled military capac-
ity. Once complete, it will include 250
active officers, 2,000 government offi-
cials on standby and 2,000 in a reserve
corps. These officers will bring civilian
The Department of
State plans to hire 700
new officers this year,
while USAID wants to
bring in 300. These
numbers are insufficient
to meet the needs.
expertise from State, USAID and the
Departments of Commerce, Homeland
Security, Health and Human Services,
Treasury, Agriculture and Justice.
In 2008, Congress funded the active
response corps and hiring began.
RAND, among others, has called for
a multiagency National Security Col-
lege to address interagency planning
and management shortcomings. In the
2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, the
Department of Defense offered to turn
the National Defense University into a
university for national security profes-
sionals. The National Security Council
(NSC) approved a management system
for interagency operations in March
2007.
So now we have a civilian expedition-
ary force, an education and training
program and an interagency manage-
ment system. Is this the happy ending?
No, the story isn’t finished yet.
The officers in the civilian response
corps are an expeditionary force. They
don’t increase the staff of the Depart-
ment of State or USAID, only rearrange
it. The Department of State remains
critically short of personnel, particu-
larly in the mid- and senior-level ranks.
USAID is embarrassingly understaffed.
State plans to hire 700 new officers
this year, while USAID wants to bring
in 300. These numbers are insufficient
to meet the needs.
The interagency management system
approved by the NSC and the support-
ing structures of S/CRS and the Civil-
ian Response Corps remain substan-
tially untested. As of late May, there
were only about 35 active response
corps officers on the job. Training pro-
grams at the Foreign Service Institute
were scheduled to begin in July. At
a recent war game at U.S. European
Command, officials stated that the mil-
itary officers involved seemed reluctant
to cede authority over reconstruction
and stability activities to the civilians.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is
often lauded for his public calls for
increased civilian capacity. However, in
October 2007 he laid down his marker
on the expanded role of the Department
of Defense: “All these so-called ‘nontra-
ditional’ capabilities have moved into
the mainstream of military thinking,
planning and strategy—where they
must stay.” Once the Department of
State regains the personnel strength
and capacities to lead America’s foreign
affairs enterprise, Congress should
pass the funding and authorities it has
granted to the Department of Defense
back to State.
The real story here is that America
has just passed the outermost point
of one of our regular foreign policy
pendulum swings and we are headed
back to a more centered approach.
Right now, we in the development,
humanitarian assistance and advo-
cacy communities have an opportunity
to influence the political story line. Now
is the time to press for greater fund-
ing for civilian personnel, more train-
ing to increase civilian capacity and a
return of authorities and funding and
oversight of development and security
assistance to the Department of State
and USAID. MD
To learn more, please visit www.
refugeesinternational.org.

The Pentagon as a
Development Agency
The U.S. military’s increasing role as an aid provider.
By Gerald Martone, Director of Humanitarian Affairs
International Rescue Committee
W
ith mounting concern,
NGOs have been watching
the U.S. military take on
more direct service activi-
ties for disaster, poverty and conflict-
affected populations. These relief activ-
ities were traditionally the domain of
civilian agencies including USAID, the
Department of State, United Nations
agencies and humanitarian nongov-
ernmental organizations (NGOs).
This expansion of the military’s role
is as much a result of policy directives
aimed at reducing the impoverished
environments that nurture extrem-
Photo: DoD\Master Sgt. Ken Hammond, U.S. Air Force
ism in the global war on terror as it is
an inevitable response to the need to
fill the void left by chronically under-
resourced civilian agencies.
On a daily basis we confront the
obscene disparity of resources between
the U.S. military and civilian agencies.
The International Rescue Committee
(IRC), for example, operates in over 40
countries and resettles refugees in 23
U.S. cities. Its 10,000 staff members
around the world assist more than 16
million conflict-affected people each
year. The IRC’s extensive global ser-
vices are provided on a lean annual
budget of only $285 million. It is hard
to believe that IRC’s budget for the
entire year would run the U.S. military
for a mere 3.5 hours.
The Pentagon, with $600 billion a
year in funding and over 1.5 million
uniformed personnel, also dwarfs the
Department of State, which has an
annual budget of only $30 billion and
less than 7,000 permanent employees.
During frustrating budget discussions
within the State Department, some
employees cynically refer to their mod-
est accounts in measures of “FJEs”
(Fighter Jet Equivalents).
The U.S. federal budget allocates
about 1 percent for critical foreign
assistance and policy initiatives com-
pared with 22 percent for military
defense and weapons.
Since the State Department’s abil-
ity to carry out effective, long-term
strategies to rebuild countries recov-
ering from conflict is underresourced,
the U.S. military has stepped in to
fill the gap. The USAID budget has
Pentagon Aid
also shrunk over the past few years.
As a result, the proportion of assis-
tance funding that the Department of
Defense controls has grown dramati-
cally to as much as 20 percent all of
U.S. official development assistance.
We have arrived at a situation where
the Pentagon is now one of the largest
shareholders in U.S. foreign policy. In
more than a couple of countries, the
face of U.S. presence abroad is a sol-
dier in camouflage fatigues carrying
a rifle. Humanitarian assistance has
become a weapon of war. Even the U.S.
Army Field Manual No. 3-24 states that
counter-insurgency “operations can be
characterized as armed social work.”
Rather than politicizing the humani-
tarian agenda, we must humanize the
political agenda. It is unfortunate that
the leading edge of U.S. foreign assis-
tance is increasingly of a military char-
acter. What does it say to our detrac-
tors abroad when the armed forces
occupy the highest profile of Ameri-
can engagement outside our borders?
When questions of American motives
arise, we face the burden of trying to
explain away fears that our nation’s
actions are driven not by largesse but
by a desire to dominate others.
Even Secretary of Defense Rob-
ert Gates acknowledged this when he
stated, “the U.S. military should never be
mistaken for a Peace Corps with guns.”
Assistance delivered by the military
is often skeptically perceived as the
“instrumentalization” of aid that serves
U.S. national interests. It would be
naïve to assume that relief assistance
delivered by armed forces would be seen
as anything other than a pretext for mil-
itary adventurism. Civilian-led efforts
on the other hand are more likely to be
viewed as a collective manifestation of
America’s commitment to help others.
Of course, civilian disaster relief
agencies do not hold the monopoly on
responding to populations in crises.
Armed forces have provided assistance
to civilian populations since the very
beginnings of organized armies. In the
time of Alexander the Great, command-
ers viewed relief assistance as not only a
humane gesture but a way to win pub-
lic loyalty of the vanquished popula-
tions to their conquerors. Ancient Chi-
nese Moguls used relief aid to “soften”
resistance. Marcus Aurelius reminded
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 11
 Pentagon Aid
his generals that “benevolence is a
great weapon of war.” And throughout
the American Revolutionary War, army
physicians routinely helped civilians
such as settlers, trappers, hunters and
even Indians at frontier posts.
We must acknowledge that the U.S.
military has a particular competence to
offer in sudden-onset natural disasters
due to its colossal logistical capacity.
Its ability to deliver quality engineering
capabilities, transport personnel and
materials and provide emergency tele-
communications is unmatched by any
civilian agency in the world. Its contri-
butions to affected populations after
the Indian Ocean tsunami and the
Pakistan earthquake were invaluable.
But even in these dramatic examples,
the U.S. military’s efforts were most
effective when they were coordinated
with civilian agencies on the ground,
such as USAID, the United Nations and
NGOs that are experts in disaster relief.
Many of the IRC’s relief workers,
like other NGO workers, spend their
careers cultivating the craftsmanship
of aid delivery that emphasizes empow-
erment and participation of local com-
munities, capacity building of national
institutions, gender equity and self-reli-
ance of individual beneficiaries. State-
of-the-art relief interventions empha-
size evidence-based projects that are
empirically informed by past successes.
Minimum operating standards, evalua-
tion and monitoring and data-driven
projects are among the “best practices”
in our arsenal of relief technology.
Both the military and civilian agen-
cies should each focus on what they do
best. For the military, that is providing
security and conducting war opera-
tions. For civilian agencies, that is car-
ing for civilians and providing assis-
tance to those in need. As Gen. William
E. Ward, Commander of AFRICOM
(the U.S. military command for Africa),
suggested in a meeting with NGOs, we
should each “stay in our lanes.”
The civilian humanitarian community
is often critical of costly and paternalis-
tic military relief projects as they tend
to emphasize high-profile and high-visi-
bility projects such as rebuilding roads,
wells, schools and hospitals rather than
promoting community involvement.
This urge to build imposing monuments
of goodwill—cynically referred to by one
12 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
colleague as the “edifice complex”—is
harshly criticized by many professional
aid workers. In Iraq, some field staff
mockingly referred to military relief proj-
ects as the “re-painting” of Iraq since
some rehabilitated schools had no stu-
dents, no teachers, no curricula and no
community support.
These superficial and unsustainable
projects were intended more to win the
“hearts and minds” of people than to
provide meaningful solutions to depri-
vation and underdevelopment. This type
of activity may meet short-term goals
of outreach to local populations and
harvesting public opinion, as well as
an exercise in team-building and troop
morale, but it is not a good use of tax-
payer money.
What we have repeatedly heard from
the very people whose hearts are trying
to be won is that if you want to win their
favor, protect them. By making people
safe from rebel attacks, lawless environ-
ments and sectarian violence, the U.S.
military can gain more confidence from
local communities than it can by imple-
menting ill-conceived aid projects.
When the U.S. military conducts
assistance projects, it can compromise
the security of NGO staff by blurring
the lines between military and civilian
humanitarian personnel. NGOs become
vulnerable to accusations that we are
agents of the global war on terror rather
independent humanitarian workers. The
unfortunate and stinging characteriza-
tion of NGOs as “force multipliers” by the
U.S. military in Afghanistan still lingers.
This problem is exacerbated even
further in those instances when the
U.S. military has chosen to conduct aid
projects while driving civilian vehicles
and dressed as civilian aid workers—a
dangerous practice referred to by field
staff as “cross-dressing.”
One of the most crucial compo-
nents of NGO staff security is our
acceptance by local communities. We
cultivate acceptance through a deep
understanding of local custom, cul-
tural sensitivity, long-term commit-
ment, employment of high numbers of
local community members and projects
designed to involve people in the very
projects from which they will benefit.
The best remedy for ensuring sep-
arateness and maintaining a firewall
between military activities and inde-
pendent, impartial NGO efforts is the
Guidelines for Relations Between U.S.
Armed Forces and Non-Governmental
Humanitarian Organizations in Hostile
or Potentially Hostile Environments,
jointly published in 2007 by InterAction
and the U.S. Department of Defense. 
The Guidelines provide practical rec-
ommendations on how NGOs and the
military should conduct themselves in
terms of dress and appearance, insti-
tutional visibility protocols, transpor-
tation, field activities, communication,
joint meetings and coordination.
The legitimacy of foreign aid depends
on the extent to which our efforts are
perceived as credible and morally unam-
biguous. The solution will not be found
in covert propaganda disguised as assis-
tance projects. The military experiment
in do-good projects lacks the dedicated
ethos of the humanitarian and develop-
ment guilds—tenacious, professional,
long-term aid programs that build trust
with communities and cultivate ongoing
relationships with affected populations.
As Secretary of Defense Gates stated,
“We cannot kill or capture our way to vic-
tory.” Might does not make right. We are
learning that the fight against extrem-
ism will not be won on the battlefield.
The enemy is not terrorism. The enemy
is poverty and ignorance. The remedy is
development and education. In this war,
the pen is truly mightier than the sword.
We must build people’s capabilities
and shape the security environment
in ways that obviate the need for mili-
tary intervention. Poverty reduction and
state building are the keys to reduc-
ing external threats to U.S. security.
The Department of State and USAID—
our Departments of Offense—must be
supported at rates greater than those
of the early 1990s. They must have
ample financial resources, an enhanced
cadre of experienced personnel and a
surge capacity of civilian staff ready for
deployment on short notice to trouble
spots around the world.
America’s moral leadership in the
world must be earned. It can only be
advanced when we secure our repu-
tation as a benevolent power, not an
imposing force. The recent trend of mil-
itarization of foreign assistance is coun-
terproductive. And it must be changed.
Questions and comments can be sent
to the author at gerald@theIRC.org. MD
 women

Civil-Military Cooperation:
An Opportunity for Women? Originally designed as a forum for
Recent developments present possibilities to improve equal partnership between civilian and
military actors engaged in the recon-
participation by women. struction efforts in Iraq and Afghani-
By Lyric Thompson, Policy Analyst and External Relations Officer stan, the PRTs quickly became mili-
Women for Women International tary-dominated. Inability to fill civilian
positions on the PRTs meant that the

I
n her testimony before the realm of civil-military cooperation, men and women of the armed ser-
Senate Foreign Relations Commit- there is some evidence that this is not vices were increasingly called upon to
tee this April, Secretary of State only possible but already an emerging perform development tasks for which
Hillary Clinton presented an image reality. The PRTs provide an interest- they often lacked necessary expertise.
of an egalitarian relationship between ing case study. Troops were tasked with such tradi-
civilian and military actors: “First, civil-
ians complement and build upon our Women are engaged in much of the reproductive work that rebuilds societies after conflict,
military’s efforts in conflict areas like and can be key partners in reconstruction efforts.
Iraq and Afghanistan. Second, they use
diplomatic and development tools to
build more stable and peaceful societ-
ies, hopefully to avert or end conflict
that is far less costly in lives and dollars
than military action.” We in the devel-
opment community welcome the idea of
an equal partnership after a period of
time in which funding for defense assis-
tance has exponentially trumped that
of development assistance; we welcome
the call for a “civilian surge.”
As the Obama administration looks
to define itself in the world generally
and in Iraq and Afghanistan in par-
ticular, a new opportunity is emerging
to redefine civil-military cooperation as
a true partnership in which both com-
munities participate fully. The admin-
istration’s evident emphasis on wom-
en’s issues (President Obama signed
the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law
his first day in office, created a White
House Council on Women and Girls on
International Women’s Day and has
created the new position of Ambas-
sador-at-Large for Global Women’s
Photo: Women for Women International

Issues in the State Department) cou-

pled with recent developments in the
mandate of civil-military mechanisms
such as the Provincial Reconstruction
Teams (PRTs) indicate an opportunity
for the engagement of women as lead-
ers and partners in the quest for global
security and development.
While this assertion may seem a
bit of a stretch within the traditional

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 13

 women
In post-genocide Rwanda, a
constitutional quota for women’s
parliamentary participation has
paved the way for the country’s
current achievement of 56 percent,
the world’s greatest female
representation in government.
tionally civilian-run projects as constructing schools and
hospitals, often with less-than-ideal results.
Women for Women International Afghanistan country
director Sweeta Noori recalls one example: “[The PRTs] built
a hospital in Jalalabad, a fine hospital, and were eager to
see it put to use. But they forgot to communicate this to the
Ministry of Health, which had no plans to support a hospi-
tal in that location, and the building stands empty to this
day.” Noori shakes her head as she recalls the confusion.
“Any mother or caretaker in the community could have told
them this was not the proper place to build a hospital. We
know where our sick and our injured have need for medical
facilities. It was unfortunate.”
In this instance, consulting community stakeholders—
especially women, who care for the sick and infirm—would
have quickly made clear the actual needs surrounding the
14 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
proposed hospital-construction project.
The conflict/post-conflict context in which much of civil-
military cooperation takes place has proven a unique opening
for advancing the status, participation and rights of women.
Quotas for women’s political participation are possible in new
constitutions, as we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. In
post-genocide Rwanda, a constitutional quota for women’s par-
liamentary participation has paved the way for the country’s
current achievement of 56 percent, the world’s greatest female
representation in government. (The country, one might add,
is an island of socioeconomic stability amid a tide of insecu-
rity and conflict throughout the Great Lakes region.) Also in
Rwanda, women led the way forward in the country’s recon-
struction and recovery efforts, organizing to adopt children
orphaned by conflict and participating fully in new structures
for democratic governance at all levels. This is an encouraging
body of evidence pointing to the critical role women have to
play in the construction of stronger communities and nations.
Remarks by Secretary Clinton at an April 2009 town hall
meeting of Iraqi PRT leaders demonstrate a renewed commit-
ment to women’s development, empowerment and full par-
ticipation in civil-military efforts. She said, “I believe strongly
that supporting and empowering women is good for countries
… I believe that Iraq will be much stronger if women are edu-
cated and empowered to participate on behalf of themselves
and their families, particularly their children, as Iraq makes
a new future.”
There are heartening indications that these words will
be translated into practice within the existing civil-military
framework. Noori reports encouraging conversations with
PRT representatives in Afghanistan who are newly interested
in engaging women in their efforts to rebuild the fractured
and poverty-stricken country. “I had a wonderful conversa-
tion with the PRTs, who are looking to support and learn
from Afghan women moving forward. I’m very excited by the
idea that women might access the opportunity to develop
their own potential as leaders and participants in Afghani-
stan’s social, political and economic realms, and, in so doing,
contribute to a stronger, more stable Afghanistan.”
Noori is hopeful that this and other developments signify a
genuine indication that progress is being made toward a new
era of balanced civil-military cooperation that leverages the
distinct knowledge and capacities of women toward the twin
goals of security and development. “I think that we can help
each other to achieve our common goals. In a recent survey
we conducted among 1,500 Afghan women, the women iden-
tified the inseparability of security and development: 66 per-
cent identified security as the primary challenge facing the
state, and 81 percent identified the need for commodities, job
opportunities and services as primary challenges they faced
on a daily basis. We need the military to provide a secure
environment in which we can do our work. And the military
needs us to sustain that stability and cement peace through
the creation of opportunities for social, political and economic
participation. I’m looking forward to working together for a
more peaceful, stable Afghanistan, of which women are going
to be an integral part. And in my conversations with the PRT
representatives in Afghanistan, they’re equally excited about
us and ready to support our work with women.” MD

Quantum Blur
Bringing clarity to civil-military relationships in a “3D” world.
By Lisa Schirch, Director, 3D Security Initiative and Professor of
Peacebuilding, Eastern Mennonite University
I
n today’s world, the line
between the military and nongov-
ernmental organizations (NGOs) is
blurring at exponential speed. Here
are some of the reasons for the civil-
military blur and what NGOs can do
about it.
The Security-Development Nexus
Research on the links between eco-
nomic inequality and conflict are creat-
ing a new breed of theories explaining
the complex nexus between security
and development. Every humanitar-
ian or development project or transfer
of resources can be done in a way that
exacerbates political conflicts between
groups or helps to ease the divisions and
build consensus and stability between
groups. Whether an NGO intends to
have a political impact or not, nearly
every move an NGO makes has an impli-
cation for civil-military relations.
Local Politics, Armed Guards
and Impartiality
Local armed groups interpret the
political interests of NGOs based on
whom they interact with and where
resource transfers end up, for exam-
ple. Armed groups increasingly tend to
lump NGO workers and U.S. military
Photo: USAID
personnel together. Sensing this dan-
ger, some NGOs in turn ask for mili-
tary or armed escorts. This reinforces
the perception that NGOs and military
personnel work together and have the
same goals, further complicating civil-
military relationships.
Security Terminology
NGOs simultaneously warn against
the “securitization of aid” (where mili-
tary personnel administer one-fifth of
U.S. development dollars for short-term
hearts and minds efforts) and make the
case that development contributes to
long-term security. The terminology to
describe the distinction between short-
term and long-term security goals
needs further elaboration.
Some scholars such as Reuben
Brigety offer terminological clarity to
the civil-military blur by distinguishing
between “fundamental” development
assistance aimed at reducing poverty
and “instrumental” development assis-
tance aimed at achieving short-term
political goals. Articulating the differ-
ent functions of development helps to
clarify the conversation.
More specifically, short-term, politi-
cal or “instrumental” development
assistance refers to helping the U.S.
achieve goals related to the counterter-
rorism, geopolitical power and secur-
ing access to global resources. In this
approach, counterterrorism still largely
means hunting down and killing, top-
down control of civil society, and using
quantum Blur
development funds for winning over
local populations rather than address-
ing root causes.
On the other hand, an increasing
number of policymakers are articulat-
ing U.S. national interests in develop-
ment-oriented human security through
efforts that build stable, participatory
governments that respond to the needs
of their citizens. The human security
approach seeks to prevent terrorism
and destabilizing violence by address-
ing root causes of economic disparity
and political exclusion.
Both approaches to security address
terrorism, but the goals and tactics are
significantly different.
Where the U.S. uses development to
promote political stability, participatory
governance, human rights and the rule
of law, many NGOs can and do share
those values and goals. In a situation
of shared vision, closer coordination
and communication between the 3Ds
of development, diplomacy and defense
may be possible and desirable to achieve
long-term human security goals. But
where U.S. military forces are given
short-term goals of hunting down and
killing, securing natural resources or
projecting geopolitical power, the goals
of NGOs and the military are often seen
as irreconcilable. In the growing num-
ber of places where policymakers make
the case for both approaches (in Iraq,
for example), civil-military relations are
understandably confused.
The Politics of Security Budgets
Underfunding for civilian-led human
security efforts contributes to difficult
civil-military relationships. Diplomats
and military leaders knock on congres-
sional doors over and over to ensure
that the purse-holders know the need
for a significant increase in funding for
development and diplomacy. Yet the
spring 2009 budget process shows that
only modest increases for foreign assis-
tance are possible even when the stars
align with the White House, the Defense
Department, the State Department,
USAID and NGOs all singing from the
same sheet of music about the need for
more funding for the civilian agencies.
The growing consensus on the need
for more development and diplomacy
cannot translate into a budgetary real-
ity for two reasons. First, while Con-
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 15
 quantum Blur
gress now widely accepts the contributions development and
diplomacy make to security, members of Congress do not
think constituents understand this new security narrative,
even though polls show the public does support greater fund-
ing for development and diplomacy. Second, Congress plays a
central role in the highly wasteful military-industrial complex,
demonstrated by this year’s fight over funding for the F-22,
a warplane the Defense Department does not want or need,
but which Congress continues to fund because it means jobs
for constituents. The development community simply doesn’t
have the lobbying clout of the defense industry.
Meanwhile, the Department of Defense is operating under
a directive to build military capacity to perform traditionally
civilian tasks such as conflict prevention, development and
other “theater shaping” nonkinetic activities. Insiders whis-
per that the Defense Department is building its own version
of USAID internally since Congress will not fund the real one
adequately. Even Afghan NGO workers admit that they pre-
fer working with the Commander’s Emergency Response Pro-
gram (CERP) funds the military can give out quickly to local
NGOs rather than the slow and administratively burdensome
funds available through USAID.
Toward Civil-Military Clarity
In this new era of civil-military relations, NGOs would do
well to help focus U.S. interests on human security. The civil-
military balance will never be right until there is a consensus
that the American way of life that U.S. foreign policy seeks to
16 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
protect has to do with human rights and participatory gover-
nance, not cheap oil and exploitative trade relations. Human
security requires a foundation of sustainable development,
backed up by diplomacy and defense. NGOs could take sev-
eral steps to help achieve this goal.
Strategic planning. Broad consultation and strategic
planning among local and international NGOs are needed
to develop joint strategies for proactive responses to civil-
military challenges and addressing the political and security
dimensions of working in conflict regions. It may be help-
ful for NGOs to develop more precise language to address
the new security-development nexus, to set criteria to assess
the nature of U.S. military interventions as per the diagram
above, and to distinguish different levels of civil-military
communication appropriate depending on the local context.
Long-term engagement. NGOs know that long-term
engagement and relationship building pays off in their devel-
opment programs. Likewise, NGOs should invest in making
sure their staff have funds to participate in conferences, train-
ings, meetings and simulations alongside government and
military personnel. If Congress eventually does fund civilian
agencies at significantly higher levels, the next challenge will
be how to dismantle or transform the dual structures that the
Defense Department felt it had to create in these interim years
when the interagency rhetoric does not match the severely
lopsided budgeting. Long-term commitment is needed to
ensure that authentic NGO voices with real on-the-ground
experience represent their perspectives and make their case
for long-term, human security-oriented U.S. policies.
Conflict assessment. Aid effectiveness and NGO impar-
tiality require increasing political awareness about the rela-
tionship between development assistance and local conflicts.
Conflict assessments such as Mary Anderson’s Do No Harm
approach should be fully integrated into NGO planning so
that NGOs themselves become aware of how they are blurring
the civil-military line. Local and international NGOs should be
part of the new U.S. Interagency Conflict Assessment Frame-
work (ICAF) processes to help determine the local resources
and resiliency that can be supported to address the key driv-
ers of conflict and instability in failing and fragile states.
Policy planning. Recognizing the long-term presence and
cultural intelligence of the many local and international
NGOs that already exist in every region of the world, new
U.S. interagency planning processes should ensure that both
local and international NGOs can participate in the policy-
planning process, particularly for regions in which both civil-
ian and military personnel are present. This could help pre-
vent the undermining of long-term poverty alleviation goals
by short-term political objectives.
Operational communication. Finally, further efforts need
to be made in creating more neutral spaces for communica-
tion between civilian and military personnel at the opera-
tional level in country. The humanitarian NGO community
and the Department of Defense successfully negotiated a set
of principles on civil-military engagement with the help of the
U.S. Institute of Peace. NGOs involved in development, con-
flict prevention and peacebuilding should create a similar
process to lay out principles for engagement in these more
long-term programs. MD
 Info Sharing

Building the
would provide basic cultural and infrastructure information
on a periodic basis. This information would be posted to an
open, Wikipedia-style database, available to the global NGO
community, international agencies and organizations, host-

Bridge
nation governments and the U.S. government. In short, the
ISP would provide digital infrastructure, standards and opera-
tional incentives for the NGO community to share basic infor-
mation amongst its members and with the larger audience.
Of course, whenever this type of arrangement is raised even
casually the NGO community rightly rises in defense of its
A conversation starter for formal core values of independence, neutrality and impartiality. The
information sharing between and problem is twofold: determining what kind of information, if
among NGOs and the U.S. government. any, it is acceptable to provide; and determining what kind of
assistance, if any, it is acceptable to receive. The conversation
never gets started because of long-standing fears of the poten-
By Colonel David W. Tohn, U.S. Army, National Security
tial cost of formally associating with the U.S. government.
Fellow, John F. Kennedy School of Government
Hard-nosed bureaucrats who dismiss these concerns miss
Harvard University
the point. The U.S. NGO community performs critical work for

S
hrinking resources, growing need and humanity while gently promoting America’s reputation and
deteriorating security place future humanitarian and standing globally. Facilitating greater effectiveness and cooper-
development assistance at risk. These three dynamics ation between and among the NGO community supports these
threaten the good and important work of helping people noble goals and greatly serves
and communities to survive and thrive. America’s nongovern- The conversation America’s long-term interests.
mental organizations (NGOs) are a critical element in maintain- Conversely, the NGO com-
ing progress in many of the darkest places around the world, never gets started munity has a vested interest
but many may soon face agonizing decisions to curtail opera-
tions where they cannot operate due to cost or risk. The impact
because of long- in more informed, capable and
nuanced government interven-
on the global community would be dramatic and unfortunate. standing fears tions. On a larger scale, the
Further complicating the outlook, the international secu- community has an interest in
rity environment implies an even greater potential of inter- of the potential opening channels to promote
ventions. As U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis
Blair noted, “[R]ising unemployment and reduced welfare
cost of formally practices that contribute to
sustainable development inter-
spending are leading to political instability in many coun- associating ventions beneficial to all stake-
tries, with a growing danger of civil unrest and violence.”
Of all interventions, military interventions are perhaps the
with the U.S. holders. The U.S. government
shares the very same interests.
most dramatic and potentially problematic. They are disrup-
tive by definition; and they are specifically disruptive to relief
government. The trick to forging this
relationship is finding the
and development efforts. As Gen. David Petraeus commented areas of common interest and mutual advantage. By adher-
at the Munich Security Conference in February 2009: ing to certain key principles—preserving values, transpar-
[T]o be effective… A nuanced appreciation of local ency and mutual respect—the ISP would serve this function.
situations is essential. Leaders and troopers have
to understand the tribal structures, the power bro- What kind of information can be provided?
kers, the good guys and the bad guys, local cultures The key to effective interventions is to have key informa-
and history, and how systems are supposed to work tion in place in advance: infrastructure, cultural, demo-
and how they do work. [Emphasis added] graphic and political/social information at a level of detail
that reaches down to neighborhoods, villages, towns and cit-
The same holds true for interventions by the Department ies. The tone and perception of an intervention are set early
of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development on, yet the information critical to determining the tenor and
(USAID) and others. image is least likely to be available in those early stages.
Yet never before have the needs and interests of the gov- But Principle 4 of the Code of Conduct for the International
ernment, the nongovernmental sector and the private sector Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disas-
been so keenly arrayed to support one another. So, within ter Response Programs addresses the heart of the issue of
this crisis, there is opportunity to match capability with deliberate collaboration with the U.S. government for this
need: a formal information-sharing program between the information:
U.S. government and the NGO community. We shall endeavor not to act as instruments of
What could be called the Information Sharing Program government foreign policy. …We will never know-
(ISP) would provide guaranteed government resources and ingly—or through negligence—allow ourselves, or
in-kind support to NGOs, ranging from funding to logistics our employees, to be used to gather information of
to operational and security support. In exchange, the NGOs a political, military or economically sensitive nature

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 17

 Info Sharing
for governments or other bodies that may serve pur-
poses other than those which are strictly humani-
tarian, nor will we act as instruments of foreign
policy of donor governments…
Clearly, this is perhaps the starkest obstacle to an ISP-like
relationship. The key terms are “political, military, or econom-
ically sensitive nature” and “instruments of foreign policy.”
Yet Principle 4 is not an impermeable barrier to cooper-
ation and information sharing. It frames the problem and
establishes the points of discussion. Rather, the ISP would
seek to formalize the mutual benefits while preventing inad-
vertent confusion or conflict.
How NGOs approach cooperation might be described as a
spectrum of tolerance. At one end, any overt and premedi-
tated cooperation may be so anathema that an NGO would not
consider any relationship. However, many more find coopera-
tion and collaboration acceptable, and even desirable. Indeed,
much of the proposed cooperation already occurs at the discre-
tion of NGO field workers and their government counterparts.
Finding the right level of acceptable information sharing,
in detail and subject area, is the first challenge. Information
of utility to the entire community might include:
• Road/infrastructure information;
• Ethnic/tribal affiliations and disposition;
• Leaders and key social and humanitarian issues; and/or
• Critical infrastructure improvement requirements.
This is information NGOs have access to in the course of
their normal operations.
While providing information on the general picture on
these issues might work, NGOs may feel that providing
more detailed information on these topics could raise greater
concerns for them. In addition, some may perceive certain
types of information or characterizations as offensive or inac-
curate. For example, an ISP entry describing a host-nation
medical or education program as failing or underresourced
due to graft or mismanagement could easily run afoul of the
local leaders running the program. The ISP proposal would
offer a pre-established set of procedural controls to manage
expectations and address these concerns:
• Strict transparency and open access of the information;
• Pre-established data fields, levels of detail and standards
of information;
• Funding through USAID or the Department of State; and
• A board of ombudsmen and robust editorial standards
and editorial standards.
Arguments that the U.S. government ought to rely on its
own resources (intelligence agencies, embassies and field
offices) to gather this information fall flat in the face of decades
of experience. If one focuses solely on military interventions,
which arguably draw on the most capabilities available, mul-
tiple military reviews reveal a pattern of failure through every
major intervention from Grenada to Somalia to Afghanistan to
Iraq, with no realistic prospect of improvement.
The State Department and USAID are even less capable of
filling this function. For example, USAID’s Knowledge Ser-
vices Center and its “Global Development Commons” initia-
18 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
tive do not yet serve as a clearinghouse. Moreover, neither
supports systemic deliberation or crisis planning.
The information-sharing benefits of the ISP are clear on
two levels. First, more accurate information supports a more
effective response and the wider policy. Second, more effec-
tive cross-NGO and international cooperation helps all par-
ties, improves the global condition and perhaps mitigates the
need for disruptive interventions to begin with.
What kinds of services can be accepted?
A list of what support an NGO might find valuable might
include:
• Funding;
• Security support, such as briefings, incidental or dedi-
cated convoy escorts, dedicated protection, landmine
mapping and/or clearing, and input into military priori-
ties to emphasize areas of focus;
• Emergency evacuation support;
• Medical evacuation;
• Communications support;
• Logistics support; and/or
• Infrastructure repair.
The specifics would be subject to negotiation and the
nature of U.S. government presence in the region.
The benefits are clear. Direct funding relieves pressure for
fundraising through other means. Services in-kind free up
resources and simplify contingency planning and responses
in fast-moving crisis. Finally, guaranteed access to medical
evacuation and emergency extraction may reduce the cost of
insurance and provide reassurances to exposed workers in
the field. All of these combine to make an NGO more effective
and capable than otherwise.
The road forward
Currently, there is a lot of distance between “now” and
a fully functioning ISP. The challenges begin with differ-
ent institutional cultures and ethos and extend to the most
basic details of implementation. Yet, if the past and present
are any indicators, the future holds more government-NGO
cooperation as they try to accomplish their respective mis-
sions efficiently and effectively.
Given these dynamics, the U.S. government and the NGO
community should expand their conversations to include
an ISP initiative. The first step would be hosting a leader-
ship conference to identify the spectrum of tolerance and to
describe the “realm of the possible.” Based on the outcome,
the two communities can lay out the road ahead.
Carefully planned and implemented, the ISP would pro-
vide the NGO community access to critical resources without
compromising basic values or endangering ongoing efforts. It
would also offer cost-effective access to the information nec-
essary for all parties. Clearly, the ISP can be a win-win for
all involved.
So let’s get the conversation started.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author
and do not reflect the official policy or position of Harvard Uni-
versity, the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense or the
United States Army. MD

Heard with One Voice
Developing networks as community assets.
By Rajyashri Waghray, Director of Education & Advocacy for International
Justice and Human Rights, Church World Service (developed the ‘Water
Network’ concept); Dawn Murdock, Nonprofit Management & Fundraising
Consultant; and Deborah Katina, Director, YANG’AT, Kenya
A
sset-based approaches
to poverty reduction are much
talked about these days. Peo-
ple typically consider tangibles
such as housing, savings and income-
generating resources as assets. Yet a
group of Kenyan nonprofit organiza-
tions is spearheading a water resource
strategy—Water for All—that incorpo-
rates developing networks as assets at
the community, district and national
levels. Their experiences illustrate on a
practical level how networks effectively
generate other resources to fuel pov-
erty reduction. These Kenyan examples
also demonstrate the value of integrat-
ing support for network development
with programs aimed at creating assets
to meet basic needs.
Maji kwa Wote / Water for All Network
Nine Kenyan agencies formed Maji
kwa Wote/Water for All Network to
spearhead the national segment of the
global Water for All campaign with the
support of Church World Service. These
organizations work in dry rural areas,
facilitating a process for communities to
create sustainable access to safe water,
thereby transforming a scarce natural
resource into a community-owned asset
managed by a local committee.
Specifically, the network’s objectives
are to:
• Promote implementation of com-
munity rights to water;
• Link local partners with govern-
mental water boards and other
stakeholders; and
• Advocate for and leverage public
resources for community-based
water resource development projects
Photos: Jefferson Shriver
Thus, while international aid may
fund specific community water resource
development over a 12 month period, the
ability of communities to register with
the Kenyan government as water pro-
viders and access a range of resources
including government funding helps
ensure the continued viability of the
water systems beyond the limited life of
an international grant.
The Co-Chair of the national network,
Deborah Katina, is the Coordinator of
Yang’at, a nonprofit dedicated to the
empowerment of girls and women in the
Pokot district. Katina facilitated the for-
mation of a district-level water network
comprised of community water asso-
ciations, the government water board
and representatives from government
ministries and other nonprofits, build-
ing on lessons from the regional Water
for All Network. Waghray and Katina
shared these in a workshop sponsored
by the Brookings Institution and the
Ford Foundation, and a related Brook-
ings study on the asset-based approach
in 2007, and tested the approach in
relation to their Water for All Network
and experiences in the region since
2005. The network provides training in
participatory water development and
management and works to solve com-
mon problems and access resources.
The water resource management offi-
cer commented that teamwork through
the network “helps us work on protect-
ing our catchment areas and empower
the Water User Associations.” By col-
laborating, these organizations and
Networking
the Kenyan government have begun to
tackle system-level changes related to
water in this district.
How does a network function
as an asset?
At the workshop for the national net-
work formation, Kenyan nonprofit rep-
resentatives identified values of being
in a network, including the following:
• Amplifying a unified voice;
• Sharing a common vision and
dream;
• Gaining power in numbers;
• Gaining a sense of belonging and
identification;
• Sharing essential skills and exper-
tise;
• Sharing common challenges and
problems; and
• Pooling resources.
These ideas reflect what Caroline
Moser identified in her 2007 piece for
Brookings, Asset Accumulation Policy
and Poverty Reduction, as second-
generation asset accumulation: creat-
ing psychological, social and political
capital. As communities living in pov-
erty acquire first-generation assets to
meet their basic needs, they can lever-
age that experience and continue the
development process.
Psychological capital
At the local community level, the
capacity-building and organizing pro-
cess augments the potential of people
accustomed to the isolation of poverty
to develop their own voices and their
ability to dialogue with others. Through
the accomplishments of developing
and managing their own water sys-
tems, community leaders gain self-
confidence and skills they put to use in
their wider networking.
Social capital
The networks strengthen civil soci-
ety and provide a vehicle for communi-
ties and NGOs to work effectively with
other stakeholders. As the networks
make tangible progress in the water
sector, they use their skills and experi-
ence to tackle other needs and meet the
requirements of larger donors to sup-
port the work. Partner organizations
learn from peers and are empowered
continued on page 32
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 19
 Kidnapped!
Continuing Series: Kidnapped!
The Worst Possible
Scenario
By Josh Kearns, Associate Security Coordinator, InterAction
This is the second in a four-part series
detailing a fictional kidnap scenario.
The purpose of the series is to high-
light appropriate and inappropriate
responses that organizations might
take, and resources that are avail-
able, when faced with the kidnapping
of staff. The scenario is based on a
recent hostage incident management
training conducted by the InterAc-
tion Security Unit, in conjunction with
InterAction’s Security Advisory Group.
All events and characters are entirely
fictitious, as are all organizations with
the exception of the United Nations
Department of Safety and Security, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and
Overseas Security Advisor Council.
20 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
T
ony, Wali, Sally and Hamid
had been missing for 24 hours.
NGOs Alpha and Bravo have
both been able to confirm that
their staff members are missing; how-
ever, they have not been able to con-
firm “proof of life.” Jack, the Chief of
Party for Alpha, is out of the country,
leaving his team on the ground to
handle communications. Bravo’s Chief
of Party, Billy, is taking the lead in-
country for his team. The kidnappers
have demanded $1 million for the safe
return of all four victims, threatening to
execute them if their demands are not
met. Meanwhile, headquarters for both
NGOs are mobilizing their responses.
“Tony and the girl will die unless one
million dollars are paid.” The words
echoed through Billy’s mind as he
awaited further instructions from NGO
Bravo’s headquarters. Bravo had told
the kidnappers that it did not negotiate.
Bravo headquarters had told Billy it was
in contact with NGO Alpha headquar-
ters, a much larger organization with a
full complement of options for this type
of contingency. Billy did not like the
idea of relying on Alpha for his people’s
safety. He was worried that Wali, his
Somali interpreter, might be used as an
example by the kidnappers to force his
organization’s hand. He knew the ruth-
lessness of criminal groups in impover-
ished Somalia, where a cottage kidnap-
ping industry generated revenue for a
range of bad guys operating around the
capital. He picked up the phone to get in
touch with Wali’s family.
Alpha’s field staff was scrambling to
respond in the absence of their Chief of
Party. Abdi, the Somalia security focal
point for Alpha, stepped in to fill the
vacuum and took the lead in organiz-
ing the staff to cope with the crisis. He
made a call to Aziza, Hamid’s wife, and
assured her that Alpha was doing all it
could to get her husband (the family’s
sole breadwinner and father of five chil-
dren) back safely. He assigned Laila,
Alpha’s administrator, the task of han-
dling communications with headquar-
ters until they were able to get orga-
nized. He knew that until then, fielding
calls from New York from a half-dozen
different people would only slow things
down. Once New York got organized and
assigned a single point of contact, com-
munications could be streamlined and
Abdi would take over. For now, he knew
that establishing proof of life was the
priority. But when he called the satellite
phone number the kidnappers had pro-
vided, there was no answer. Abdi began
to worry.
At headquarters, both NGOs were
now racing against the clock. In New
York, Alpha’s management went about
setting up a crisis management team
(CMT). Upon the advice of their secu-
rity director, they had gone through
annual crisis-response drills in which
they practiced setting up a CMT. This
afforded Alpha several advantages.
First, since it had been practiced, it
gave the staff a familiar procedure to
fall back on in uncertain times. Sec-
ond, the CMT created a clear chain
of command, crucial during a crisis
when quick decision-making is essen-
tial. Third, it provided a buffer between
Illustration: Bibanesi - Fotolia.com
the intense emotions experienced by
the staff and the job that needed to be
done. Finally, it removed the CEO from
incident management; more than ever,
her managerial skills would be needed
to make sure the rest of the organiza-
tion’s operations ran smoothly.
The CMT included a mix of personnel
 Kidnapped!
with decision-making power and subject
and area expertise. At its head sat Stan,
Vice President of Emergency Operations.
The highest-ranking employee working
in Alpha’s humanitarian response wing,
Stan had years of both field and man-
agement experience, as well as the trust
of his CEO. Dave, the security director,
brought knowledge and experience with
security incidents to the table. Ellen,
Alpha’s in-house counsel, was familiar
with the organization’s risk manage-
ment policies and liability exposure. The
director of Africa programs, Vivek, over-
saw Somalia operations and was the
chief of party’s direct supervisor. Nata-
lie, Alpha’s communications director,
would handle press calls. An adminis-
trative aide was seconded to the head-
quarters team for support.
The CMT’s primary goal is to facilitate
the resolution of the crisis. Its means
of doing this is communications, both
within the organization and with external
actors. Dave was given the job of brief-
ing the CEO on a regular basis. At some
point, the CEO would be asked to brief
the board of directors on the situation.
22 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
Dave would be at her side to help explain
events and what the likely outcomes
could mean for the organization. Mes-
sages to the rest of Alpha’s staff would
be tightly controlled, and would emanate
from Stan’s office. Communications with
the staff in Mogadishu and with staff in
Nairobi who might also have a role to
play were to be handled by Vivek and,
where appropriate, Dave. Vivek was also
tasked with communicating with the vic-
tim’s families. As mentioned, media calls
were to be handled by Natalie.
Bravo headquarters, though smaller
in size than Alpha, proved less nimble
in responding to the kidnapping. Vijaya,
Director for Programs, also served as
Bravo’s security focal point. Though
she took the responsibility seriously,
she simply did not have enough time to
devote to the role. As a result, Bravo’s
CEO, sensing a gap, stepped in and
began handling communications with
the field himself. Vijaya busied herself
by calling Bravo’s insurance company.
She was reminded that Bravo had not
opted for kidnap and ransom insur-
ance with their policy. This concerned
her, as she recalled that Bravo also
had a “no negotiation” policy when it
came to kidnappers. By Vijaya’s esti-
mation, Bravo’s hands were tied. Their
best bet was to rely on Alpha to get all
four hostages back.
Back in Mogadishu, as Abdi sat in his
office awaiting instructions from Alpha
headquarters on how to respond to the
ransom demands, his phone rang. On
the other end was Aziza, in tears and
barely coherent. Hamid’s dead body,
riddled with bullets, had been left in the
street in front of their house with a note
in his pocket: “No negotiation policy.”
Abdi felt sick. He knew that Alpha was
prepared to negotiate to get the four vic-
tims back safely. Something must have
happened on Bravo’s end, and whatever
it was, it had gotten his friend and col-
league killed. Now he knew he would
have to handle complicated negotia-
tions with Hamid’s family, while also
trying to negotiate Sally’s safe return
from a group of proven killers. It was the
worst possible scenario. MD
Next month: Dealing with the families;
setting up an incident management team.

Payment for
Environmental
Services
Changes in market demand and use of profit
incentives are creating new opportunities to further
human development and environmental protection at
the same time.
By Jefferson Shriver, Chief of Party, Nicaragua, Catholic Relief Services
P
overty alleviation pro-
grams have long championed
the goals of food security and
raising the incomes of the poor
as pillars of their missions. Yet envi-
ronmental destruction is often seen
as a necessary trade-off for social pro-
grams to succeed.
This pro-poor versus pro-environ-
ment split has serious environmental
consequences. More forests have been
Photos: Jefferson Shriver
destroyed in the last 50 years than
in the previous 500, as millions of
hectares are cleared for pastures and
farms. Earth’s natural sponge or “sink”
forests absorb and store greenhouse
gases such as carbon. Surface water
often originates in forests, and ground-
water is recharged there. Increased
water scarcity and desertification can
be directly attributed to deforestation.
Pesticides, herbicides and fungicides,
which have been misused and over-
used in commercial and family farm
agriculture, are contaminating the soil,
food chain and water table.
The pro-poor, pro-environment dichot-
omy is no longer viable. We need new
paradigms to bring the know-how, inno-
vation and resources of development pro-
fessionals and environmentalists under
one umbrella.
An alternative already exists. Land
users are beginning to respond to a con-
Environment
Fidencio Antonio Gutierrez, cacao farmer
in Waslala, Nicaragua.
cept called payment for environmental
services (PES). The concept of PES is
simple: pay the land users (e.g. farmers)
for the environmental services they pro-
vide, which creates a direct incentive for
the land users to include these services
in their land use decisions.
PES capitalizes on the fact that rural
farmer families make decisions about
their livelihoods based on profit motives.
Their choices can either destroy or
protect the environment. The concept
harnesses the power of the market to
achieve both poverty alleviation and
environmental protection. It has the
potential to be a major driver to alter
our current direction.
To work, PES mechanisms need both
an environmental service provider and
buyer of these services. One PES mech-
anism, sustainable agriculture ser-
vices, is providing a series of environ-
mental and social services, including:
• Incorporating organic, nonchemi-
cal fertilizer and pesticides to pre-
vent contamination of the water
table, soil, air and aquatic spe-
cies and reduce health risks to
the farmer and consumer. Organic
fertilizers have a cumulative effect
on topsoil and fertility, producing
sustained increases in soil fertility
over the medium to long term, and
require fewer inputs;
• Promoting genetic diversity of seed
and species varieties, and prohibit-
ing the use of genetically modified
organisms (GMOs);
• Managing pest, disease and
weeds using crop rotations, green
manures, mulching and integrated
pest management;
• Employing water and soil conser-
vation practices that reduce ero-
sion and sedimentation; and
• Using agroforestry systems, such
as integrating trees and tall woody
plants on farms and enhancing bio-
diversity within the farm ecosystem.
For producers to profit from sustain-
able agriculture services, the services
need to be packaged and commoditized
to the consumer. Such packaging of
environmental services is beginning to
happen through third-party certifiers
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 23
 Environment
such as Organic, Rainforest Alliance and the Smithsonian’s
Bird-Friendly (certified shade-grown crops) that provide an
objective guarantee that the farmer is employing sustainable
agriculture practices. Such certifications are applied and add
environmental value to a wide variety of products, and fetch
a price premium of 5 to 30 percent above market price in a
rapidly expanding market.
My book Reaping Profits While Restoring the Environment:
Lessons from Central America (VDM 2009) highlights one
potent example of how PES works. Germany represents the
largest and fastest-growing market in Europe for organic certi-
fied products. The German chocolate company Ritter Sport is
paying farmers who grow organic-certified, shade-grown cacao
twice what they would pay for other cacao. That has translated
into a business opportunity for small farmers in Nicaragua.
Cultivating cacao is so profitable that it is becoming as eco-
nomically viable for locals as cattle-grazing and logging. Thou-
sands of farmers in the area are now rehabilitating abandoned
cacao plantations or reforesting land that was deforested in the
past 20 years in order to create shade for cacao using diverse
fruit and forest tree species. Beautiful diverse plots of forests
of hardwoods, fruit trees and cacao are now being erected in
areas that only five years ago were barren cow pastures.
Cacao growers in Nicaragua are among the numerous
farmers in Latin America, Asia and Africa that have turned to
organic production. The number of hectares of organic crops
worldwide has increased from 7.4 million in 1999 to 31.5
million in 2006, with Latin America, Asia and Africa account-
24 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
ing for almost 10 million of that total.
Certified organic products are by far the leading market
for sustainable agriculture services. Certified organic prod-
ucts went from a $27 billion global industry in 2004 to a
$40 billion industry in 2008, representing 15 percent annual
growth. The market in the U.S. went from $1 billion in 1990 to
$12.3 billion in 2007, and in Europe from $13 billion in 2003
to $25.5 billion in 2007. While such growth is significant, the
market is still only 2.5 percent of the total global food mar-
ket. Moreover, these products have been marketed primarily
based on their health benefits to the consumer. Retail com-
panies are leading the way in
PES capitalizes on demonstrating to consumers
that such products are also
the fact that rural protecting ecosystems where
farmer families they are grown and in some
cases also helping to mitigate
make decisions climate change.
PES, however, is not lim-
about their ited to agriculture. Another
livelihoods based PES mechanism is recreation
and landscape beauty ser-
on profit motives. vices, packaged to the con-
sumer in what is commonly
called ecotourism. Ecotourism as a global industry is growing
by 20 percent annually, as travelers are increasingly looking
for “life enhancing” travel involving environmental and cul-
tural connections. Many are seeking isolated wilderness and
opportunities to learn about the environment and culture.
Creature comforts and accommodations are not the primary
criteria used when deciding on the travel destination.
This provides a window of opportunity for poor people who
may be the inhabitants of pristine environments. In Costa
Rica, which has branded itself as an ecotourism destina-
tion—and to a lesser extent in Nicaragua—ecotourists are
beginning to pay local inhabitants directly in ecotourism ven-
ues for maintaining the rich biodiversity found there.
Many poor communities receiving assistance from interna-
tional NGOs live on or near natural reserves, on organic farms,
in sustainable villages or on cultural heritage sites. If the host
country is promoting a tourist-friendly climate with safe access
and decent infrastructure to these areas, there are promising
opportunities for community—NGO collaboration to establish
ecotourism businesses owned and operated by the poor.
Watershed protection services represent a third PES mecha-
nism holding profit potential for impoverished communities.
Properly managed watersheds protect water quality, regulate
water flows, prevent floods, control soil salinization and sedi-
mentation and maintain aquatic habitats. They provide water-
spring protection and potable water for human consumption
and for agriculture. They also provide business opportunities.
Potential and current consumers of such services include
hydroelectric companies, beverage companies, water compa-
nies or local water authorities, local and national governments
interested in natural disaster prevention and users of potable
water for human consumption and irrigation.
Sustainable agriculture, recreation and landscape beauty,
and watershed protection services are just a few of a number
continued on page 30

Liberating Nonprofits
A conversation with Dan Pallotta.
Interviewed by Donna Stokes, Managing Editor, World Ark, the magazine of
Heifer International
I
n his latest book, Unchari-
table: How Restraints on Nonprofits
Undermine Their Potential, pub-
lished in December 2008, Dan Pal-
lotta argues that society’s separate
rulebook for nonprofits limits their
capacity to address the world’s prob-
lems in an effective way. An author and
entrepreneur, Pallotta has a degree in
development economics from Harvard
and has organized fundraising events
for AIDS, breast cancer, urban pov-
erty and suicide prevention. His com-
pany, Pallotta TeamWorks, has raised
$556 million for charity over nine
years. Donna Stokes of Heifer Interna-
tional recently interviewed him about
his views on the need to change the
way donors decide which nonprofits
deserve their support.
DS: In your book Uncharitable, you say do-
nors are told to ask the wrong question
when deciding which nonprofits to sup-
port, namely, “What percentage of my do-
nation goes directly to programs and not to
overhead?” Why is this the wrong question?
DP: It’s the wrong question for many
reasons. The questions we should be
asking are: “How do you intend to solve
this problem?” and “What are the things
you’re doing toward that end?” High
overhead doesn’t mean there’s waste-
ful overhead. Investing in leadership,
educating donors and marketing events
to raise money greater serve the end
cause. If as a donor you demand that
your favorite charity keep overhead low,
you may very well be demanding that
the charity be less effective for it. Chari-
ties can’t solve long-term problems if
we hold them to this higher moral stan-
dard and refuse to allow them to use the
same tools of capitalism that allow for-
profit businesses to succeed.
The overhead question is also the
wrong one because it doesn’t tell you
anything about the quality of the char-
ity’s programs. You may learn what per-
centage of your money is going to the
cause but not what long-term result or
effect it might have. For instance, you
can put two soup kitchens side by side
and one has lower overhead on paper,
but it serves rancid soup. The second
soup kitchen reports slightly higher
overhead but buys quality ingredients
and serves a healthful meal to more
people. We’re taught to give to the option
with lower overhead, with no further
questions. But which one is more effec-
tive and more useful to those who need
it? You don’t ask about overhead when
you buy a new pair of shoes; you’re inter-
ested in the quality of the shoes. Why
should that be different when you’re
talking about donations to charity?
Interview
DS: What are the right questions to ask
nonprofits?
DP: Some of the right questions for
charities are:
1. What are your goals and what
progress are you making toward
those goals?
2. What challenges are you facing
and how are you trying to over-
come those challenges?
3. How do you know that you’re being
effective? Tell me what you know
about the effectiveness of your work.
The answer to the overhead question
tells you nothing about those three
things.
DS: How do you answer the questions
about trust that arise from arguing that
nonprofits be allowed to use the tools of
capitalism, such as higher CEO salaries and
more spending on marketing and advertis-
ing, to be more effective?
DP: Trust is a completely different issue
from the rules by which the game will
be played. People who are untrust-
worthy are that way regardless of
where they are. I don’t think we as a
society, despite all the problems we
have right now, are saying let’s jettison
capitalism. We’re still trying to bail out
auto companies, still buying laptops,
groceries, clothing, etc., all produced
by the wheels of capitalism.
Because we cling to old ways of think-
ing, some people will look to examples
such as Bernie Madoff to find reasons to
not donate to charities. One has noth-
ing to do with the other. People will be
greedy; people will bend the rules. That’s
not an argument for denying nonprofits
equal access to the tools that can help
them better achieve these ambitious
world goals. We’re never going to solve
big problems until we apply equal stan-
dards of economics to nonprofits.
DS: You said that your book is about
dreams, not management. What are your
dreams and goals for the future of nonprof-
its and for the causes you care about?
DP: I think our dreams ought to be out-
rageous. End AIDS in 10 years. Make
poverty obsolete. If you say let’s end
hunger within the next decade, it cre-
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 25
 Interview
ates a whole different urgency. You
start to see that to end AIDS in 10
years, you’re going to have to consoli-
date these hundreds or thousands of
groups to get this done. A whole set of
plans comes together that’s completely
different than not setting a definite goal.
On a plane ride back from Toronto
recently I watched the DVD Moon
Machines on the building of various
pieces of the Apollo space program.
I’ve always been a huge fan of Apollo,
the last truly great thing that America
achieved. And what’s interesting and
distinctive about Apollo is that Presi-
dent Kennedy in 1962 set the goal in
time; he said we will see a man on the
moon before this decade is out.
The nonprofit sector has lots of
seductive phrases like “let’s find a
cure” or “we won’t stop walking until
AIDS is over” or “let’s end poverty” but
no one puts their rear end on the line
and says by when. When you listen to
the Apollo engineers and see how they
turned that nine-year deadline into
reality, it’s awe-inspiring. When I talk
about dreams, I mean solidifying them
26 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
in space and time. Nonprofits need to
assert real leadership and set goals in
time for the eradication of these great
social problems, take our cues from
the Apollo program. Apollo offers amaz-
ing lessons for anyone trying to engage
some huge, vexing problem. And isn’t
it time we find inspiration in something
that’s happening now?
DS: What other steps are necessary?
DP: Educating and challenging donors.
We have to educate donors about what
we need to solve these problems. We
live and breathe that stuff so we should
be holding big workshops and seminars
to change the perspective instead of
cowering when they say our overhead
is too high. Nonprofits need to say,
“Investment in our future is necessary
and produces results and let me show
you why.” Charities need to stop follow-
ing what donors want and start leading
donors. That’s our real responsibility—
to set bold goals and educate donors.
Which is more inspiring to a donor: to
say that we’re on a campaign to end
poverty in the next seven years, or that
our overhead is less than 22 percent?
Educate them about spending money,
and you’ll find a powerful new under-
standing and more willingness to give.
DS: And do the donors have a role?
DP: The donor’s responsibility is to just
show up. It is the charity’s respon-
sibility to figure out how to get more
donations, and the donor’s role is to
listen to what the charity has to say. I
think we’ll find donors already bright-
eyed and open-minded about doing
what it takes to make the biggest dif-
ference. I’ve found from my talks that
all it takes is 45 minutes and they say,
“I’m with you.” People are anxious to
make a change, to make donations
smarter. The nonprofit sector and
America’s compassion have so much
more potential than we’ve allowed it so
far. I believe if we take the shackles off
charities, we can reap benefits the likes
of which we can never imagine. MD
For more information please visit
www.uncharitable.net

The G8’s
Annual
Report Card
ONE’s 2009 DATA Report reveals some
donors keeping promises, others facing
credibility crisis.
By Joshua Lozman, Deputy Director, Global Policy, ONE
I
n 2005 at the Gleneagles Summit, the G8 made
a host of historic promises to Africa. In an effort to help
the continent reach the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs), the G8 (excluding Russia) pledged to double
official development assistance (ODA) by 2010, promote
increased trade and investment, achieve universal primary
education by 2015, cancel debt and improve access to health
care, clean water and sanitation.
On June 11, 2009, at simultaneous events held in Lon-
don, Berlin, Rome and Washington, D.C., ONE released its
fourth annual DATA Report, its in-depth look at how the G8
are progressing toward these targets. With the 2010 deadline
quickly approaching, have the G8 lived up to their important
promises? According to the Report, the past year’s efforts call
for both applause and alarm.
Development Assistance
By the end of 2008, the G8 had delivered only a third of
the ODA increases promised by 2010: just $7 billion of the
committed $21.5 billion. While the G8 is collectively at fault
for this disappointing progress, some countries deserve more
of the blame.
Three countries are on track to meet or beat their modest
targets: a significant increase in ODA to Africa between 2007
and 2008 meant that Canada surpassed its modest Gle-
neagles commitment; Japan exceeded its 2010 target with
a significant increase in 2008 and for the first time in three
years, it significantly increased its global ODA and its ODA to
Africa; and U.S. ODA rose by 26 percent in 2008, placing it
solidly on track to surpass its 2010 commitment.
Two other countries are making progress toward much
more ambitious targets. In 2007 and 2008, Germany signifi-
cantly increased ODA to Africa, and while it has budgeted for
further increases in 2009, it remains a bit offtrack to meet
its significant 2010 goal. And despite small increases in ODA
to Africa in 2008, the United Kingdom’s recent budget called
for historic global ODA increases, which, when achieved, will
make it the first G8 country to meet its goal of spending 0.7
DATA report
percent of national income on ODA.
Italy and France threaten to drag down the entire G8’s
efforts. Despite an increase in global ODA in 2008, France’s
ODA to Africa fell from 2007 to 2008, making it far offtrack to
meet its 2010 commitment. Italy has utterly failed to act on
its aid promises, delivering just 3 percent of its increases to
date. As host of July’s G8 Summit, Italy must quickly reverse
its course if it hopes to maintain credibility with African
countries and its G8 partners.
ONE also undertook a review of 2009 G8 budgets and
likely disbursements. Looking ahead, ONE estimates that by
the end of 2009, the G8 will have delivered only a half of their
commitment to Africa; and 80 percent of the 2009 shortfall
will be due to France and Italy. That means that in 2010, the
G8 must deliver the entire other half to reach their target.
Regarding issues of aid effectiveness, the 2008 Accra Aid
Forum revived efforts to improve and monitor the quality of
ODA, and while significant advances have been made—in
large part by recipient country governments—much more
must be done in order to reach the 2010 target. Critical to
the overall agenda is the need for increased transparency
and reporting, aid predictability, use of national systems and
untied aid. In terms of how the G8 countries rank in terms
of ODA effectiveness, the U.K. ranks first and Italy last. Of
particular note this year is Canada’s announcement that it
will untie all of its aid (including food aid) by the 2012/2013
budget year.
Debt
The G8 has largely delivered on its Gleneagles promises
on debt cancellation. By the end of 2008, Africa had been
relieved of over $92 billion in obligations. Freeing up these
funds has allowed African countries to invest in underfunded
sectors, such as education, agriculture and health.
But the global financial crisis threatens to unravel much
of the progress made in recent years. Eleven of the 20 Afri-
can countries that have had their debts cancelled and have
reached “completion point” now risk falling back into debt.
And a new report by the IMF warns that 31 low-income coun-
tries are at high risk of debt distress. Moving forward, to help
African countries avoid reaccumulating unsustainable debt,
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 27
 DATA report
* Since Japan’s commitment to SSA was only bilateral ODA, this was all ONE considered when monitoring the percentage increase to the region. To generate a 2010 target, ONE
assumed a flatlined, multilateral 2009-2010 ODA.
** Because multilateral contributions are often disbursed in lumps, ONE combined 2004 and 2005 to establish a baseline for progress.
the G8 must issue more grants instead
of loans, cancel debt for more poor
countries, and move more countries
from decision point to completion point
in the debt-cancellation process.
Trade
On trade, the G8 is falling far short
of their promises. In 2005, the group
pledged to “make trade work for Africa,”
and there have been small steps in the
right direction. African exports more
than doubled between 2003 and 2007
and for the first time in 45 years, the
continent’s growth exceeded 5 percent
for five straight years.
But the bad news persists. Africa’s
share of global trade (3.5 percent)
remains the smallest of any region in
the world and the global economic cri-
sis has meant a decline in remittances,
a decline in global demand for exports
and a major blow to foreign direct
investment (FDI). While FDI inflows to
Africa grew 78 percent from 2005 to
2007, global investments were down
15 percent in 2008 and are expected to
drop further in 2009.
In order to make trade work for
Africa, conditions must improve in
five key areas. Africa must be given
enhanced access to developed country
markets, increased aid for trade to help
countries produce and deliver goods, a
reduction in agricultural subsidies by
the G8 countries, stronger regional
28 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
integration and, finally, greater flex-
ibility to allow African governments the
space to implement and evaluate trade
policies.
In 2005, the G8 also made specific
commitments tied to the completion of
the World Trade Organization (WTO)
Doha Round. These talks, begun in
2001, were meant to help integrate
poor countries into the global trading
system. But eight years later, the talks
are largely stalled. As long as they fal-
ter, African countries will have trouble
breaking into the world global mar-
ket and earning sustainable income
through exports.
Investing in People: Health,
Education, Agriculture and Water
At the 2005 Gleneagles Summit, the
G8 not only promised to double ODA to
Africa by 2010, but also committed to
use this aid to help African countries
achieve specific development outcomes
in health, education, water and agri-
culture. Unfortunately, the G8 are seri-
ously off track in delivering support to
reach for some of these goals. Progress
in particular sectors has been frustrat-
ingly slow; the number of people with
access to clean water and sanitation
has only improved by 9 percent over
16 years; and though the number of
hungry are expected to rise due to the
food and financial crisis, the amount
of aid offered for agriculture in Africa
remains extremely small.
Slow progress does not mean that
lives aren’t being saved. In areas
where targeted smart aid was deliv-
ered, remarkable results have been
achieved. An estimated 3 million Afri-
cans were receiving AIDS treatment at
the end of 2008, up from just 50,000 in
2002. Thirty-nine percent of the people
at risk of malaria in Africa were cov-
ered by insecticide-treated bed nets in
2007, up from just 3 percent in 2001.
Thirty-four million more children were
enrolled in primary school between
1999 and 2006; and deaths among
children less than five years old have
decreased from 12.7 million in 1990 to
9.2 million in 2007. In order to build
upon these successes, the G8 must
honor all of their commitments, in
each and every sector.
Looking Ahead
By the time this article is published,
the G8 will have met in L’Aquila, Italy.
We hope that the group will have
strongly reconfirmed their 2010 com-
mitments to Africa and will have begun
to set the stage for a bold, new partner-
ship post-2010. With the global food,
climate and financial crises, it is hard
to imagine a more important time for
the G8 to keep their critical promises
to Africa, and for the trust between
North and South, East and West, and
rich and poor to be strengthened. MD

Fifteen and
Counting
Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have
much to do to meet the 2015 targets of the ICPD
Programme of Action.
By Laura Zaks, Public Affairs Coordinator, International Planned
Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region
F
ive years remain for gov-
ernments to fully implement
the Programme of Action agreed
upon at the International Con-
ference on Population and Develop-
ment held in Cairo in 1994. Known as
the ICPD, this United Nations confer-
ence was the first population confer-
ence to move away from setting demo-
graphic targets toward emphasizing
people’s needs for, and right to, sexual
and reproductive health. At this his-
toric meeting, 179 governments came
together to affirm the inalienable rights
of women and men to make free and
informed choices regarding reproduc-
tive health. The ICPD Programme of
Action was the first document in which
the international community explic-
itly recognized reproductive rights as
human rights. In addition to its empha-
sis on rights, the ICPD also notably
stressed the importance of women’s
empowerment as a key component of
development. For these reasons, the
ICDP created a significant paradigm
shift and became a milestone in the
protection of human rights.
The ICPD Programme of Action set
2015 as the deadline to achieve the tar-
gets established in 1994. These targets
include universal access to primary
education, reduction of infant and
child mortality, reduction of maternal
mortality and access to sexual and
reproductive health services including
Photo: kreefax - Fotolia.com
family planning. Reviewed in five-year
intervals, 2009 marks the 15th anni-
versary of the ICPD. Although progress
has been achieved, the experiences
and outcomes of the last 15 years indi-
cate that both much more attention
and greater resources are needed to
accomplish the intended goals.
Latin America and the Caribbean,
a region plagued by inequality, still
has far to go to achieve the ICPD Pro-
gramme of Action targets, particu-
larly with regard to maternal mortal-
ity, HIV/AIDS and the accessibility of
reproductive health services. The ICPD
Programme of Action set out to reduce
the maternal mortality levels of the
1990s by half before the year 2000,
and to reduce those levels by another
half before 2015. According to data
from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA),
there was only a 3 percent improve-
ment in maternal mortality levels on
average for the region. According to
UNFPA, while more than half of the
countries for which data is available
saw an improvement in maternal mor-
tality levels, nearly all of the countries
that were categorized as having high
maternal mortality rates in 1994 saw
further deterioration by 2008.
While often overlooked within the
global perspective, the Latin American
and Caribbean region is at a crucial
tipping point where prevention efforts
and access to treatment for HIV/AIDS
and other sexually transmitted dis-
eases could determine the future of the
epidemic in the region. The increase
in the number of women living with
HIV in Latin America and the Carib-
bean is particularly alarming. In 21
out of 23 countries in the region for
which UNFPA reports data, the num-
ber of women 15 and older who are
living with HIV has risen, and in some
instances this rate has nearly doubled.
Throughout the region, where abor-
tion is still legally restricted in most
instances, harmful, clandestine prac-
ICPD update
tices have damaging health effects and
claim the lives of thousands of women,
particularly poor women, each year.
Although some progress has been
made, in many countries abortion
is still criminalized in most circum-
stances. This hardly paints the picture
envisioned under the ICPD Programme
of Action 15 years ago where, by 2015,
all people would have access to crucial
sexual and reproductive health ser-
vices.
The data on teenage pregnancy
rates and contraceptive use in 1995
and 2008 does indicate progress in
the region. However, aggregate coun-
try data often mask issues of poverty
and inequality within a given coun-
try. While a country may report prog-
ress on average, further analysis often
reveals stark contrasts between the
richest and poorest quintiles of the
population.
Undeniably, poverty is a cross-
cutting issue, relevant to each of the
ICPD targets. Access to sexual and
reproductive health services is inex-
tricably linked to poverty reduction
and sustainable development because,
without access to such services, other
targets such as universal access to
primary education, reduction of infant
and child mortality and the reduction
of maternal mortality are difficult to
attain. According to the United King-
dom’s Department for International
Development, an estimated 32 percent
of maternal deaths could be averted
through family planning—one of the
most cost-effective interventions in
public health.
To this end, it is urgent that all gov-
ernments implement the following rec-
ommendations:
• Institute comprehensive programs
and policies to reduce maternal
morbidity and mortality;
• Recognize the sexual and repro-
ductive rights of adolescents and
young people;
• Ensure youth-friendly sexual and
reproductive health services;
• Incorporate comprehensive sexual-
ity education at every educational
level and ensure that it includes a
gender perspective and is rights-
based;
• Diversify and update the supply of
contraceptives to ensure that the
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 29
 ICPD update
full range of methods are available
to every segment of the population;
• Decriminalize abortion and provide
access to safe and legal abortion
services;
• Integrate policies that eradicate
violence against women, including
sexual violence;
• Guarantee universal access to pre-
vention, treatment, care and sup-
port for HIV/AIDS;
• Strengthen political will and finan-
cial commitments to reach the
most vulnerable sectors of the
population;
• Create and strengthen mecha-
nisms of permanent dialogue
between governments and civil
society in decision-making and
accountability; and
• Collect accurate and disaggregated
statistics and data related to sex-
ual and reproductive health.
The significant progress made to
date in Latin America and the Carib-
bean proves that governments can
make an impact when they prioritize
30 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009
health and sexual and reproductive
rights on the public agenda. Unfortu-
nately, however, the progress made is
insufficient and varies between coun-
tries. To improve its accomplishments,
governments in the region must make
it a priority to enact and implement
laws, policies and programs that pro-
tect sexual and reproductive rights in
the next five years. MD
For more information on the
ICPD+15, visit www.ippfwhr.org and
www.15andcounting.com
PES
continued from page 24
of PES mechanisms surfacing today.
As payment mechanisms for carbon
sequestration develop, all three of these
PES mechanisms could fully incorpo-
rate carbon sequestration. While pio-
neer initiatives such as Carbonfund.
org, TIST (The International Small
Group & Tree Planting Program) and
Sustainable Travel International are
leading the way on a small scale, a
global, functional mechanism for car-
bon offset credit trading is still under
development. The proposed American
Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,
now under review in the U.S. Congress,
could serve as a major boost to unleash
the potential of carbon offset trading
over the short to medium term.
Payment for environmental services
provides an opportunity for partner-
ship among those who have formerly
thought not to have much in com-
mon: greenhouse gas-emitting compa-
nies from the Global North with rural
families in the Global South, conscious
consumers with organic farmers, eco-
travelers with burgeoning rural entre-
preneurs. It represents an opportunity
for communities in watersheds to do
business with beverage and hydroelec-
tric companies, water-spring owners
with water companies, and yes, inter-
national development agencies with
environmental organizations to work
toward the common objectives of rais-
ing incomes of the poor and protecting
and restoring the environment. What
could be more important and timely?
MD
 MONDAY
DEVELOPMENTS
M A G A Z I N E

M O N D A YS MON
Check

Y
Out Ou

A
JObsr

OND ELO DAY

sectio
n !

EVELOPMEN T
Page 30

DEV
M
DEVE
LOP ME N TDS PM and Hu
manita
The Lates
rian Assis
t Issues and
tance
Trends in Internation
al Development and Huma
nitarian Assistance
The La
test Is
sues an
d Tren
ds in In
ternat
ENTS
C
O hec
JOubt Ourk
Emerging
pment Usin ional D

ds in In
tern ational
Develo g
for D Sport
evelop
ment an
d Hum
anitar
sec
Pag tion
s
and Tren e !
and P velopme
ian As e 42
st Issues

Trends
sistance
The Late
eace nt

tion’s in Development
USAI
InterAFcorum
D
Anti- /MTV
t
Cam rafficking
2008 hts paign

Highlig The Five Stages

of Foreign Aid
The Militarization
of Aid Glob
Reform Grief a
Emp l Youth
loym
ent:

Yout
Addressing C
Oppo risis or
Linking the Global rtunit
y?
Human Rights Food Crisis

Meet h
nt
and Developme Crea
ting
CH
Security Guard on C ANGE
ampu
Climate Change Management Dow
s
and Conflict
P The oten
nsizin

tial ir
Deve g for
Prevention lopm
ent

July 2008
2008 Vol. 26, No. 7
June 6
, No. InterAction
Vol. 26 tion
InterAc

Augu
st
Vol. 26 2008
,
InterA No. 8
ction

Subscribe online today!

Monday Developments Magazine provides in-depth news and commentary on global trends
that affect relief, refugee and development work. It features the latest information on the
work of InterAction members around the world and keeps readers up-to-date on legislative
action in Congress that could impact U.S. foreign assistance to poor countries. Monday
Developments Magazine also describes new resources for relief and development workers,
professional growth opportunities, upcoming events and employment listings.
Visit
www.InterAction.org/monday
to subscribe
 MONDAY Developments
EmploymentOpportunities
Program Director for Financial Education
Washington, DC
Microfinance Opportunities, a microenterprise resource center with a
focus on the consumers of financial services, is seeking a Program Direc-
tor for Financial Education. Key responsibilities include: expanding the
Global Financial Education Program by reaching new markets, explor-
ing new avenues of dissemination, supervising and managing multiple
large-scale grant and fee-for-service programs, leading a team of 5 – 10
professional staff and consultants, and developing and implementing
a comprehensive marketing and communications plan. Requirements:
experience managing large multi-year projects/grants, budgets, and de-
liverables, proven track record in successful proposal development, 5+
years experience working internationally in microfinance, finance, and/
or non-formal adult education preferred, fluency in at least one foreign
language, and an advanced degree. Please send CV and cover letter to
katies@mfopps.org. US Citizenship or work authorization required.
Manager Public Sector Business Development
Baltimore, MD
International Youth Foundation (IYF) is a global nonprofit organization
that prepares young people to be healthy, productive and engaged citi-
zens. This position is responsible for securing resources from public sector
sources, both bilateral and multilateral, for development of new programs
that support IYF’s strategic priorities. REQUIREMENTS: 3-5 years experi-
ence in fundraising, program development and/or program management
in the international development sector; strong network of relationships
with USAID and other bilateral and multilateral development agencies;
strong proposal writing, editing, & budget development skills for USAID
& other bilateral & multilateral donor agencies; advanced degree in a rele-
vant field; second language fluency preferred. To apply go to: http://www.
iyfnet.org/ and click on the Jobs link.
Networking
continued from page 19
through South-South exchanges, gaining skills related to best
practices and knowledge management.
Political capital
Leaders from the most marginalized communities, particu-
larly women, gain advocacy skills and recognize and leverage
the assets of their networks to secure rights and resources.
The focus is on constructive engagement with the govern-
ment and corporate sectors and strategies for collaboration
that meet community needs and assist the ministries to
achieve their mandates. Government services are very lim-
ited in remote, rural, semi-arid areas such as West Pokot. By
organizing a network, many communities are able to work
with government representatives to find practical ways to
access health, education, environment and other services.
Often the nonprofit organizations serve as the service deliv-
ery mechanism when traveling to these areas.
Investing in an upward spiral
When we combine implementation of community-managed
safe water systems—a first-generation asset-accumulation
strategy—with network development it reinforces the contin-
ued creation of both tangible and intangible resources. Net-
works serve as “working” capital, fueling actions that con-
tribute to meeting the basic needs of communities in poverty
32 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org
Executive Director
Berkley, CA
Seva Foundation is seeking a leader who is eager to join a team in guiding
the organization in the work it does internationally and domestically. This
person should have proven operational management skills, and a proven
nonprofit fundraising record. Experience with medical/public health/de-
velopment programs in low income and/or international populations and
a desire to work in a partnership/network mode to support the long term
development of self-sustaining programs is desired. If interested, please
contact: Steve Okano, Okano Associates, Executive Search Consultants,
1209 Solano Avenue, Suite B, Albany, CA 94706. (510) 647-8770. steve@
okanoassociates.com. www.okanoassociates.com.
US Gov’t Grants Manager
Seattle, WA
World Concern is looking for someone with experience with USAID and
institutional fundraising plus direct proposal creation, submission, com-
pliance & reporting. This person will be responsible for building organi-
zational commitment to programs excellence by establishing and com-
municating standards and procedures for monitoring and evaluation. To
apply, go to www.worldconcern.org/employment/index.htm and fill out
our online application.
Development Director
Beirut, Lebanon
Middle East and North Africa Division, Human Rights Watch. To be based
in Beirut. Fundraising, advocacy and outreach efforts in the region. Imme-
diate vacancy. Please see full description and application guidelines on our
website: www.hrw.org/jobs.
as they accumulate financial and other assets.
However, network development requires separate fund-
ing, apart from the community development projects that
typically receive grants and donations. As Katina noted, “The
main challenge is the sustainability of the water systems.
The networks contribute in many ways to overcoming that
challenge: NGOs learn more effective approaches to working
with communities, communities are empowered to be self-
reliant and we can speak with one voice on water issues.”
As this work in the field continues to develop, international
NGOs and others in the aid community need to collaborate
with Southern NGOs in three key areas:
• Documenting how networks function as assets in poverty
reduction, from the point of view of both the participants
and development theory and strategies;
• Identifying best practices in network formation and func-
tioning and in peer learning among Southern NGOs; and
• Developing an outcome measurement process for net-
work development, capacity-building and advocacy work.
Networks can create assets in the form of knowledge, skills,
financial resources, political leverage, connections and access
to other resources. These assets fuel a dynamic process of com-
munity development and organizational growth that can have
long-term impacts. The network development process ensures
that communities not only manage their own resources, but
also are able to increase their asset base, yielding long-term
returns in the form of empowerment and poverty reduction. MD
 Preservation
Director, Cultural
Heritage Program
Baghdad, Iraq

Director,
Finance and
Administration
Mosul and
Baquba, Iraq

Deputy Director,
Infrastructure
Arlington,VA

Monitoring and
Evaluation Team
Leader
Kabul,
Afghanistan

Job Openings
1621 North Kent Street For more
Fourth Floor information,
Arlington,VA 22209 contact Christine
P: 703.248.0161 Dalpino at
F: 703.248.0194 703.248.0161 or
www.ird.org visit www.ird.
org and click on
“careers.”
34 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org
 Senior Marketing Associate
Washington, DC
The Senior Marketing Associate reports to the Senior Publications
Manager and is responsible for sales and marketing of InterAction
publications, communication outreach, promoting the Monday
Developments Magazine brand and other multi-media marketing
materials. This person will also assist the Senior Director of Public
Relations and New Media Manager in creating ways to use media and
marketing to help InterAction achieve its strategic objectives.

Basic Functions:
• Manage all aspects of publication and online advertising, including
sales, order processing, ad design and pursuit of new advertising
leads.
• Manage InterAction’s online job board.
• Cultivate relationships with current advertisers and identify new
ones.
• Develop strategies for increasing revenue.
• Coordinate circulation/distribution for Monday Developments
Magazine and other publications.
• Develop a standardized system for tracking sales calls and
monitoring their effectiveness.
• Respond to inquiries for general information, publication sales, and
advertising.
• Build and maintain communications databases, contact lists and
publications inventory.
• Work with communications team on enhancing the InterAction
brand.
• Plan and coordinate InterAction’s participation in relevant
conferences and fairs to promote the organization, its goals and its
collateral.
• Perform outreach to students and others entering the
development/humanitarian sector by organizing/attending job
fairs and other career-related events.
• Write/compile regular columns in Monday Developments
Magazine, including career development pieces, book reviews, etc.
• Provide editorial assistance, as needed, including research, copy
editing and writing.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:
• BA/BS in marketing, communications, or related field.
• 3-5 years experience in a fast-paced marketing environment.
• Ability to work under pressure and manage multiple deadlines.
• Excellent relationship-building skills are required.
• Strong organizational skills.
• Demonstrated commitment to team work.
• Superior written and oral communication skills.
• Excellent knowledge of word processing, database and
spreadsheet programs
• Knowledge of InDesign, Photoshop and multi-media software
preferred, but not required.
• Experience or interest in international development and
humanitarian issues.

Salary & Benefits

InterAction provides competitive salaries and excellent benefits.

To Apply: Please email a cover letter, resume and salary requirements

(required) to publications@interaction.org by July 31, 2009.
All applicants must be able to provide documentation that they are
legally eligible to work in the United States for an extended period of
time. The position will remain open until filled. No phone calls please.

To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS August 2009 35
1400 16th Street, NW, Suite 210
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 667-8227
Fax: (202) 667-8236
publications@interaction.org
www.interaction.org

InterAction is the largest alliance of U.S.-based international

development and humanitarian nongovernmental
organizations. With more than 170 members operating in every
developing country, we work to overcome poverty, exclusion
and suffering by advancing social justice and basic dignity for all.