Written by Amy Gildea, Managing Director Tetra Tech International Development and Nelson Salangsang, Associate Director Transformational Education Tetra Tech International Development
25 September 2023
Thought Leadership
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Tetra Tech International Development: Relationships Beyond the Binary
Gold Sponsor at Conference 2023
Seismic shifts occurring around the globe, within the Pacific region and within the development sector are calling us all to step away from the binary. Globally we’re shifting from rules to power; in the Pacific region we’re seeing power shifts between states; in development we’re shifting toward a sovereign-led approach; new donors and aid financiers are engaging with non-traditional partnerships and ways of working; development leaders are innovating, harnessing technology in exciting ways, using data to drive decision-making, and empowering partners on the front lines. All of these factors bring about a need for us to recognise that we live in a multipolar world, and as a result need to reassess old ways of doing business and reshape aid modalities. Critically, this raises questions about development partnerships.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong has also observed ‘many commentators and strategists prefer to look at what is happening in the [Indo-Pacific] region simply in terms of great powers competing for primacy. They love a binary’. Her argument is that this lens is inaccurate and overly simplistic. We agree; we exist in a multipolar world and denying that doesn’t make it untrue, it simply means we miss opportunities to create lasting partnerships that can affect real, generational change.
Te Tiriti principles of partnership, mutual respect and redress provide the foundation for how Aotearoa New Zealand’s foreign policy is conducted. The Ministry’s work is guided by the values that are derived from Aotearoa New Zealand’s bicultural heritage – manākitanga, whanaungatanga, kotahitanga, and kaitiakitanga1.
In this article we argue that excluding potential stakeholders and/or shying away from including “non-traditional” partners from participating in dialogue has the potential to slow or negatively impact our work (and our mana). Ignoring generations of relationships that could be leveraged to increase the reach, impact and longevity of development gains and priorities is no longer a tenable approach to development. Many people and organisations in this sector are already living those values and increasingly disrupting the way our sector operates, for the better. But to make further advancements toward the Ti Tiriti principles means we need to drive deeper, ensure locally led approaches and include parties who have legitimate interest and significant influence in communities across the Indo Pacific.
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A Message from OSACO
Gold Sponsor at Conference 2023
As you know, next week the CID Aotearoa is holding its annual conference in Wellington. The theme is “Deeper Partnerships to Navigate Uncertain Futures”.
Our New Zealand-based leadership team members will be joining delegates to address what this theme means to the development sector of which we are a part, both as citizens of a donor nation, and as a service provider to businesses and organisations working in the private, development and humanitarian sectors.
Unlike many professional services businesses operating in international development, we bring an indigenous ownership perspective to the table. OSACO Group is a Māori-owned business. Our key values of kotahitanga, manaakitanga, rangatiratanga, and tohungatanga are at the heart of everything we do.
Our team takes those values out into the wider world where we work to make a difference by combating corruption, fraud, sexual abuse and harassment, and a range of other activities relating to human fallibility.
We have a team of more than 40 consultants around the world who have provided consultancy, investigation, advisory, governance and training services to organisations and businesses in more than 40 countries over the past 12 months.
One of the most striking consequences of leading with our values drawn from Te Ao Māori informing everything we do, is that there is often a sense of instant recognition of us when we encounter people from indigenous and colonised cultures during our work. We are not ‘other’. From our own experience we acknowledge the right to self-determination.
I have personally experienced this when working and living in countries where there is extensive intervention by international actors and more recently when I travelled to Cote d’Ivoire to open our Africa region office late last year.
In our work, transparency and deep and enduring relationships matter. So that sense of recognition and mutual acknowledgement of a shared colonial experience, creates an important connection and opens a door to working collaboratively and effectively.
Bearing in mind that in our work we often see people at their times of greatest stress, dealing with complex and difficult situations with far-reaching and serious consequences in their lives or in the lives of those we serve. When people are under such pressure, a sense of common ground helps. Our ears are already open to the experiences being relayed to us because we recognise those experiences as part of our own cultural narrative.
As we all know without trust there can be no meaningful relationship between people. One of the most powerful ways to build trust is through shared experience.
As we come together at the CID conference we hope to meet with many of you kanohi-ki-te-kanohi.
More importantly, we hope to make connections that can develop into the kind of relationships that will help us all to navigate through the uncertain future ahead.
Jaydene Buckley (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wai)
Managing Director
OSACO Group
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Direct Impact: Partnering for Impact in Uncertain Times
Supporter Sponsor at Conference 2023
Last week's CID conference focuses on deeper partnerships to navigate an uncertain future. This is perhaps the most prescient topic for international development actors to be exploring at this time, with more challenges being forced on all stakeholders in development than at any time in recent memory. Of course, these challenges affect those with the least capacity to respond to them the most.
The recent MFAT strategic assessment, ‘Navigating a Shifting World’, identified these challenges in stark reality and outlined their effect on foreign policy and how Aotearoa New Zealand engages in the world.
If we, as a country and a broad sector, are to be effective in our response, we will need to change how we go about development. We will no longer be able to work in siloed sectors, where the cross-over between government, business, and NGO actors is limited and disconnected.
Addressing the social, economic and climate-related reality we are staring down the barrel of will need the significant resources each sector brings to be applied in an equitable, coordinated and aligned way. It requires a clear strategic approach to building resilience, prosperity and change that draws on the strengths of each sector to deliver the solutions the end recipients want.
For too long, we have seen solutions from all three sectors imposed on recipients. The ‘we know what you need’ narrative has been well-intentioned, even well-evidenced, but also unwelcome.
As we researched a 2019 presentation for INGO leaders on China’s influence on development in the Pacific, we heard from numerous Pacific leaders that China was much easier to work with as they didn’t put as many restrictions on funds and were willing to listen. They were not the patriarchal funders that traditional partners had proven to be.
Likewise, in a meeting with INGO leaders in Nairobi a year earlier, the ivy-league educated CEO of a technology incubator, when asked what INGOs could do to help, emphatically and unequivocally replied, “Get out of our way! You have come here for decades, teaching our people to live on charity; we want to enable them to create their own futures. Get on board or get out of the way!”
Finally, at a global development conference in Mexico City, the CEO of a significant INGO raised the issue of not being able to get volunteers to support their work in the city. In his view, the locals didn’t want to help deliver the solutions the people “needed”. The response from a local NGO, which had a staff of 20 working with a volunteer base that reached 90,000 at-risk young people, was that the reason was that INGOs turned up with solutions developed at head office and imposed them on communities. In contrast, his local NGO asked people in communities what they thought would work and supported them in implementing these. The response from the INGO CEO and supported by other CEOs from all the major INGOs, was they couldn't ask locals as their funders wouldn’t fund that!
The message from local voices outlined in these conversations is the most important for all of us seeking a more resilient, prosperous, and stable Pacific (or world). They want to partner with us on their terms and implement the changes they want to see. They want us to provide the capacity and support to achieve their ambitions and enable them to create their future.
This shouldn’t be a strange concept for New Zealand development actors, whether INGOs, businesses or government agencies. How we have approached addressing issues of exclusion and poor outcomes for Māori, building our understanding of Te Aō Māori in the process, has seen significant gains in well-being, resilience and prosperity. The principle of partnership in all aspects of society has seen government, business, and civil society play essential roles in enabling increasing tino rangatiratanga and delivering better outcomes for us all. By no means is this process complete, but we have enough evidence to know the model works. We also have enough experience to be able to lead the change in approach needed.
As we head into this conference, recognising the world we work in has changed significantly in recent times; let us all explore how we engage in deeper relationships by first recognising our role as Aotearoa New Zealand development actors lies in supporting others to achieve their ambitions.
As we then look to provide this support, let us explore partnerships based on seeking to understand where shared ambitions exist with potential partners from other sectors rather than blinding ourselves with historical, ideological understandings of other development actors.
Our history as a small player that punches well above its weight has been built on leveraging partnerships. Our ability to maintain the influence that comes with this will depend on how we all engage in an increasingly uncertain world.
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Tonkin + Taylor: The Pacific's Path to Resilience - Anticipatory Action for Disasters in the Pacific
Supporter Sponsor at Conference 2023
https://www.tonkintaylor.co.nz/
It's no secret that the Asia-Pacific region has been at the forefront of anticipatory action (AA) agenda. This region is vulnerable to sudden onset hazards such as floods and typhoons. In the 2022 Nadi Declaration, 17 Pacific countries and territories committed to “strengthening anticipatory action and disaster preparedness measures including through regional and subregional pre-positioning of approved goods and pooling of resources”.
AA sits between preparedness and response, in a window of opportunity between an early warning/trigger for action and the onset of disaster. Improvements in our ability to forecast disasters are increasing the time available for AA and increased the accuracy of the locality of need.
Initially, AA actions were based around pre-positioning stock in anticipation of a forecast disaster. Tonkin +Taylor have been privileged to support two such programmes:
- The STOCK of Humanitarian Organisations Logistics Mapping Stockholm-platform which provides a visual representation of pre-positioned humanitarian contingency stock in the Pacific and worldwide and
- Safe n Redi a website showing church owned buildings in Fiji and Vanuatu that may be used for evacuation centres and storing aid.
Since then, alternative AA solutions have been explored. I will be delving into these exciting new developments and celebrating work in this space. I have seen the devastation caused by disasters in the Pacific, so I am passionate about creating better anticipatory actions to ensure communities are the best prepared to tackle climate issues in the future.
Asia-Pacific Technical Working Group on Anticipatory Action and Asia-Pacific Regional Cash Working Group’s depiction of AA. Relief Web AA Cash Transfers
Innovative AA programmes
These innovative AA Programs have emulated the parametric insurance products to provide aid directly to individuals or communities forecast to be impacted by an impending event. This aid may be in the form of credits at local stores or direct cash transfers. This type of AA requires excellent knowledge of local risk to set appropriate trigger values.
The case for cash.
According to the Asia-Pacific Technical Working Group on AA (APAC TWG AA), the benefits of cash transfers over goods are that they can be quicker and simpler to implement if the necessary payment mechanisms are in place. The working group concluded that cash assistance often had the highest impact in helping beneficiaries recover from events.
If the cash is available before a disaster, it can be used to purchase items needed when impacted by the disaster. This may also provide relief for disrupted supply chains and dampen inflationary impacts on materials required for recovery and rebuilding. The report concluded that ultimately, the households are the ones who understand their individual situations and are best placed to decide what to do in anticipation of a hazard event.
Nothing About Us Without US.
Empowering communities is a central theme the technical report of the APAC TWG AA. The report states that community engagement should be prioritised in the design of localised triggers. Community-level local knowledge can help to ensure that possible impacts are understood and fed into the design of appropriate triggers. The group also listed the following lessons learned from AA actions in APAC.
- Communities must be involved in the design of AA.
- Designing technically sound AA projects will require links with a wide range of experts, from the design phase onwards.
- Simple, quantifiable triggers that can be easily explained and regularly monitored are best.
- The data source for trigger must be open, public, and regularly updated – with a clear schedule on when new data will be uploaded.
- Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) should factor in both the design process and the anticipatory activities themselves.
- Services are often disrupted during disasters – this should be factored into the design of AA.
- There is value in positioning AA within existing disaster risk reduction (DRR) and disaster risk management (DRM) initiatives and systems.
- Continuous routine activities are also needed to support AA. Examples include training local staff, conducting simulations and monitoring triggers.
- Government leadership and inter-agency collaboration are essential to ensure a coherent narrative.
- Ensure Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is integrated into the AA.
Measuring the effectiveness of AA, particularly those targeted at local groups or individuals, is crucial to build support from governments and humanitarian agencies. A 2022 report (Monitoring AA EO a game changer) suggests that Satellite earth observations can help by strengthening the evidence base via rapid, low-cost assessments. They argue that EO can answer questions such as: “Did the model trigger early action at the right time in the right region?” Or “Did the pre-agreed early action lead to the desired socioeconomic benefit?” as well as helping with initial risk assessment. NASA have been active in this space with the launch of its Disasters Program. The programme will enable us to observe flood risk and anticipate the likelihood of floods in ways never before possible. The Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) will be working closely with NASA to ensure Pacific Island Nations can leverage this technology.
Looking into the future of AA
In the future AA should cover concurrent and cascading hazards. In the case of rapid-onset disasters like typhoons, secondary shocks (such as landslides, flooding, and disease outbreaks) would also benefit from AA. This will present a challenge for trigger development. In their Power of Humanity report the Red Cross encourages governments and agencies to expand “anticipatory action approaches to more country contexts and hazards; improving existing approaches by ensuring that anticipatory action reaches more people, including those living in conflict-affected areas, and by addressing compounding risks”. They suggest “integrating anticipatory action into operational and legal frameworks and processes; increasing the availability of and access to financing so that it reaches those who need it when they need it; and strengthening knowledge exchange, learning, guidance and advocacy around anticipatory action, including enhanced community capacity, to ensure that people’s needs and priorities are better addressed”.
My thoughts on common themes
The reports discussed above all found that the most successful DRR is locally owned. The Pacific has led the way with both local and regional organisations such as SPREP and the Pacific Data Hub. I believe if we engage with local communities and local perspectives, their priorities can be better incorporated into DRR strategies. Such an approach fosters trust and collaboration between communities and external experts, ultimately leading to more effective and sustainable disaster risk reduction initiatives.
By Jill Bolland 
Principal Natural Hazard and Climate Risk Consultant
Tonkin + Taylor