Module_6=250 words
I have added a sample essay please do not just rephrase this and give me the essay. I added that to have an understanding.
Please check the attached file. I have added PDF files from where you have to give a read and make the assignment. I am doing my placement with “Food Bank”. They located in Darwin, Australia.
So please use your words carefully while writing and my experience with the food bank in my placement.
That’s my organization’s website to have a better understanding.
APA 6th edition referencing.
Professionalism refers to the specialization in the unique field in the career. This refers to how an individual conduct him or herself as far as the career is concerned. Professionalism can also be defined as qualities that characterize a profession portrayed by an individual. Professionalism entails a strong personal commitment towards the profession of choice, and this enhances success. Professionals are known for unique knowledge in their field of specialization with relevant certifications as evidence of their qualifications and foundation of their knowledge (Ife,2013).
In the field of international aid and development, individuals are expected to portray a high degree of professionalism. They must appreciate diversity because they deal with many people with various needs in society. International aid focuses on the regions where people have been affected by various disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and hunger, among others. Individuals working with international aid and development organizations should portray a high degree of competency. They should understand how to handle the victims well without prejudice with a high level of reliability. Professionals working with international aid agencies should always focus on seeking solutions to various challenges faced by individuals in society.
Professionalism demands honesty and integrity from individuals without compromising their values (Roth, 2012). Once they are assigned the responsibility for delivering essential items to a given region where individuals have been affected by the disaster, they should ensure they deliver all the items without corruption or laxity. Once they establish that the victims require more than they have, they must mobilize the leadership to provide enough aid for the well-being of the victims. Professionalism demands accountability; hence individuals working with international aid agencies should be accountable for their actions mainly when the products meant for humanitarian aid have defected to the individuals. They should be ready to admit the mistake and promise a way forward to mitigate the risks that might be faced upon the consumption of harmful products by the target population.
In international aid and development, there are challenges where the resources might be limited to enhance the satisfaction of all the individuals affected by a disaster. However, professionalism demands equality where all the individuals must be helped as far as their efforts are concerned.
References
Ife, J. (2013). Practice issues. In J. Ife, Community Development in an Uncertain World (pp. 365-394). Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press
Roth, S. (2012). professionalisation Trends and Inequality: experiences and practices in aid relationships. Third World Quarterly, 33(8), 1459-1474
Based on the set and recommended learning resources, what is ‘professionalism’? Provide definitions and examples of professionalism and professional behaviour in your chosen field of practice which is “FOOD BANK, NT, Australia”.
Would you argue that there are downsides of ‘professionalizing’ a field of practice (e.g. community development or international aid and development)?
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Third World Quarterly
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Professionalisation Trends and Inequality:
experiences and practices in aid relationships
Silke Roth
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experiences and practices in aid relationships, Third World Quarterly, 33:8, 1459-
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Professionalisation Trends and
Inequality: experiences and practices
in aid relationships
SILKE ROTH
ABSTRACT This article explores the role that skills and knowledge play in the
relationships between national and international volunteers and staff. Based on
biographical interviews with people working for a wide range of aid organisations,
the experiences and strategies of individuals and organisations dealing with in-
equality and diversity are explored. In particular, the paper addresses the question
of whether professionalisation processes that can currently be observed in the field
of humanitarian aid might contribute to minimising or perpetuating the gap
between national and international aid personnel.
Professionalisation processes
can have positive effects not only for aid recipients, who obtain better services, and
for the careers of aid personnel, but also for donors and hiring aid organisations,
which benefit from a skilled workforce. However, we need to critically reflect on
what kind of knowledge is validated, where it can be obtained and whether
credentials guarantee hiring and promotion of qualified staff from all regions.
Overseas aid—whether development cooperation or humanitarian relief—
reflects and responds to global inequalities and vast differences in economic
and political power between the global North and global South. Fassin
characterises the ‘complex ontology of inequality’ as ‘both constitutive of the
humanitarian project and effectively insurmountable within the value systems
of Western societies’.
1
Despite its centrality in aid relations and academic
debates,
2
the issue of power has for a long time been absent from the official
agenda of bilateral and multilateral aid agencies.
3
However, aid relationships,
power relations and the construction of knowledge are debated within
development studies and also, more recently, within humanitarian studies.
4
In
addition, professionalisation has become a central theme within humanitarian
studies and some of the key questions are how professionalisation is
constructed, what kind of knowledge is valued, who is engaged in the debates
around professionalisation and where they take place. Will profes-
sionalisation increase and perpetuate existing inequalities or will it improve
Silke Roth is in the Division of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
Email: silke.roth@soton.ac.uk.
Third World Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 8, 2012, pp 1459–1474
ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online/12/081459–16
� 2012 Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.com
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09700161.2012.698129 1459
the access of ‘local’ staff to training opportunities,
5
and thus result in
promotion and increased representation in leadership positions of those from
the ‘global South’? After providing a brief overview over professionalisation
processes in the past 20 years, I provide a presentation of how international
and national staff perceive inequality and power imbalances and how they
employ and respond to professionalisation practices.
6
I discuss the views and
experiences of three groups of aid workers: national staff from and working in
the global South, international staff who started out as national staff in the
global South, and international staff from the global North. Of these groups
former national staff were most satisfied with the mentoring and support they
received from their organisations, while national staff from the South and
international staff from the North were far more critical with respect to the
lack of capacity building and recognition of the skills of national staff.
Professionalisation processes
The growth of the humanitarian sector in the past two decades has been
accompanied by professionalisation processes which include the development
of standards, the establishment of university degrees and other training
programmes, as well as the emergence of networks and organisations which
serve as platforms for debating and critically reflecting the aims, conditions
and obstacles of carrying out humanitarian aid. Although the professiona-
lisation of humanitarian aid was already being discussed in the late 1980s,
7
a
number of developments in the 1990s contributed to the discussion of
improving the quality of humanitarian assistance. With the increase in
humanitarian crises since the early 1990s, the budget for humanitarian
assistance, the number of humanitarian agencies and the size of their
operations grew.
8
These developments raised concerns regarding the exper-
tise of individuals delivering aid, and about competition between aid
organisations with respect to ‘funding, media exposure and even benefici-
aries’.
9
The Rwanda Crisis of 1994, which had revealed massive shortcomings
in aid delivery, resulted in a critical evaluation of emergency assistance which
had wide reaching consequences for the aid world in terms of developing and
disseminating standards for the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
10
A
debate about standards had already begun in the early 1990s and led to the
development of a code of conduct,
11
which included respect for local cultu-
res, inclusion of local capacities and beneficiaries as well as accountability to-
wards ‘beneficiaries’ and the dignified representation of aid recipients.
12
The
code of conduct was quickly adopted. In 2011 the majority of the signatories
(over 300 out of 492) were European.
13
Hilhorst points out that the code of
conduct is written from the perspective of (Western) International Non-
Governmental Organisations (INGOs) and recommends that ‘the wording of
the entire code must be adjusted to eradicate its bias towards INGOs and
make it equally relevant to local NGOs’.
14
Similarly, the contribution of the
Sphere Project to improving the quality of assistance and the accountability
of aid agencies has been acknowledged, but concerns have been raised about
the extent to which universal standards can be adapted to local conditions
SILKE ROTH
1460
and whether the approach of Sphere primarily reflects the priorities of
technical professionals of Northern agencies.
15
Some argue that principles
such as Sphere need to be related to the practices of field workers.
16
Furthermore, since the 1990s, a range of master’s degree programmes has
been established. The majority of these programmes are offered in North
America and Europe, while only very few MA programmes are offered in
Africa, Australia and Asia.
17
However, MA programmes outside Europe
might be underrepresented in these surveys and postgraduate degrees offered
at Asian or African universities might not be as respected as those offered at
universities in Europe and North America. A lack of entry- and mid-level
qualifications has also been noted and far fewer university courses are offered
for undergraduate students. However, short-term courses varying in length
between one day and nine months are held at a much broader range of
locations, as organisations based in Europe offer courses in Africa or Asia in
a wide range of fields (including law, evaluation/assessment, migration,
health and logistics).
18
In addition, international humanitarian organisations
have embraced distance learning, which might play an even more significant
role in the future.
19
The current debate about professionalisation processes also addresses the
absence of consistent occupational standards, the adoption of core humani-
tarian competences, the coherence of core content within humanitarian
master’s degree programmes and the creation of professional pathways.
20
Given the complexity and demands of the aid world, Slim identifies a range
of key skills required by contemporary aid workers: ‘informed political
analysis, negotiation skills, conflict analysis management and resolution,
propaganda monitoring and humanitarian broad-casting, broader under-
standing of vulnerability to include notions of political, ethnic, gender and
class based vulnerability; human rights monitoring and reporting, military
liaison; and personal security and staff welfare’, as well as moral skills.
21
A qualified workforce in the aid industry is of interest not only for the job
satisfaction and career building of individual aid workers, but also for
employers of aid workers, for donors and clients or beneficiaries.
22
Training
represents a non-financial incentive that might contribute to employee
motivation and lower staff turnover.
23
However, increased training oppor-
tunities might not necessarily translate into better practice, as Harrell-Bond
warns: ‘there is yet no evidence that education per se has a direct impact on
behaviour in the field’.
24
Furthermore, while professionalisation certainly has many advantages, it
can be exclusionary.
25
Depending on how (and by whom) the skills are de-
fined and how and where they can be acquired, some might be privileged and
other disadvantaged in accessing them. The vast majority of the staff of aid
organisations are locally recruited, but nationals of the countries in which
such organisations are active tend to be underrepresented in leadership
positions and have fewer opportunities to access resources which would allow
them to further their careers.
26
It has been noted that aid organisations have
become more diversified with respect to gender, ethnicity and class.
27
For
example, Minear mentions the increased ‘internationalisation’ of the staff of
PROFESSIONALISATION TRENDS AND INEQUALITY
1461
the Red Cross (ICRC).
28
Representative data concerning those involved in aid
is not easily available and we have ‘no idea what size this population is’.
29
Available data on aid workers tend to be either outdated, to rely on
estimates,
30
or to be based on small-scale qualitative projects or self-selected
samples.
31
Although international aid workers—whether volunteers or paid
staff, based overseas or highly mobile consultants—represent a minority of
the aid worker population; they are the ‘experts’ dispensing knowledge and
assuring the implementation of procedures accepted by donors. As I will
discuss, this expert status reflects the inequalities within the aid system and a
discourse privileging Western forms of knowledge. The debate about power
and knowledge is interlinked.
32
While the knowhow of local staff and
beneficiaries is typically considered particular and traditional, the presum-
ably universal knowledge, in particular managerialist ‘state of the art’
approaches, taught at universities in the global North is ‘local’ as well,
representing Western thinking (even though this discourse is being challenged
from postmodern, postcolonial, feminist and subaltern perspectives).
Data and methods
This article is based on 46 biographical interviews with staff and volunteers of
aid organisations working in development cooperation and emergency relief
conducted between 2004 and 2011. Two-thirds of the respondents (31) came
from North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand and had
always worked as international staff members or were based in head offices
and made field trips. One-third of the respondents (eight) were national staff
members at the time of the interview or had been national staff members
(seven) before they became expatriates,
33
working in other countries in their
region of origin or in other regions of the world. I refer to the respondents
from Western Europe, North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand as
being from the ‘global North’ and to the respondents from Eastern Europe,
Asia, Africa and Latin America as being from the ‘global South’, thus
juxtaposing donor countries with (former) aid receiving countries. However,
the relationship is of course much more complex and countries such as India
are by now aid donors as well as recipients, whereas countries in Eastern
Europe were donors before the end of the of the Cold War and are now donor
countries again.
34
Furthermore, the class position of the respondents needs to
be considered. Like respondents from the ‘global North’, the respondents
from the ‘global South’ came from a middle-class background and were highly
educated’, they had often studied overseas, frequently being sponsored by the
organisations for which they were working, as I will address below.
Respondents worked for small and large NGOs, the International Red
Cross/Red Crescent as well as UN agencies and were engaged in a range of
different programmes. They experienced differences concerning salaries and
benefits, training and career opportunities. Aid organisations differ not only
in size—and, relatedly, promotion and career opportunities—but also with
respect to resources.
35
In this study, which is based on biographical
interviews, I draw on respondents’ experiences of career opportunities and
SILKE ROTH
1462
support, rather than providing an overview of the promotion and
recruitment policies of different organisations.
The participants were born between 1937 and 1980 and included 25 women
and 21 men from Western Europe, North America, Central and Eastern
Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. They included
volunteers, consultants, staff on fixed-term contracts (varying from a few
months to several years) and in permanent positions. Respondents were
engaged in a variety of work areas (for example, education, medical support,
logistics, refugees, human rights). Some had only worked for either NGOs or
UN agencies, while others had worked in different types of organisations.
They also varied with respect to how long they had been involved in aid
work, ranging from a few years to over 10 years. Although not
representative, my sample reflects the diversity of the aid worker population,
which comprises a few people with permanent contracts with UN agencies or
big international NGOs, many short-term consultants based in home
countries and a ‘social core’ of longer-term contract workers who move
from one organisation to the other.
36
The interviews were conducted in and around London, during two one
month-long humanitarian studies courses which took place at a North
American University,
37
as well as via skype. Respondents had been on
assignments in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Latin
America, as well as positions in the head offices of NGOs or UN agencies in
Europe and North America. In order to assure anonymity and confidenti-
ality, I have removed identifying information, such as nationality, organisa-
tions worked for and country of assignment. Instead, I provide information
about the region of origin (eg Western Europe), type of organisation (NGO or
UN agency; development cooperation, human rights, etc, faith-based) and
region of assignment (eg Middle East, Africa).
The interviews were semi-structured and lasted between 30 minutes and
three hours. At the beginning of the interview, I asked respondents how their
lives were developing before they became involved in aid work. I followed up
on areas that had not been touched or had remained unclear, for example
previous work history, political or social activism or education and training.
The second part of the interview addressed respondents’ experiences working
in various aid organisations, including what support they received from their
organisations and how they experienced the interaction between national and
international staff.
Results
A highly educated workforce
The majority of respondents built upon training and job experiences that
they had acquired before becoming involved in the aid sector, for example as
managers, logisticians, lawyers, journalists or accountants. They thus
transferred skills obtained in public and private sector employment or
experiences gained through social and political activism to development,
PROFESSIONALISATION TRENDS AND INEQUALITY
1463
humanitarian aid and human rights work. At the same time they reported
that most of the skills they needed were obtained on the job. Thus, in general
respondents indicated that they learned as they went along, basically gaining
job experience while they were on assignments. The current concern with
professionalisation and professionalism within the sector is reflected in the
interviews. Respondents were aware of training opportunities and made use
of them. They participated in online courses, short-time courses or enrolled
in master’s degrees between assignments. Some organisations paid for the
participation of their staff in short-term or regular university courses.
However, such support was not offered in all organisations or to all staff
members. Some respondents paid for such courses themselves, considering
this training not only as a chance to increase their skills, knowledge and
networking opportunities, but also as a chance to reflect on aid work.
All respondents were university graduates, many held master’s degrees and
a few were working on PhDs or were considering pursuing a doctorate.
38
They did not necessarily complete their university degrees before they became
involved in aid work. Instead, many reported that they returned to university
after a number of years working in aid because they felt that they needed
additional training. Master’s degrees are a prerequisite for jobs above a
certain level at the UN as well as for some NGOs.
Perspectives of present and former national staff
The interview narratives indicate that national staff were critical of
international experts who overlooked their competence and expertise and
did not take them seriously. Furthermore, national staff criticised interna-
tional aid workers and organisations that did not consult the local
population and beneficiaries about their needs and interests, ignored local
culture, dressed inappropriately or distributed food and other items that were
unwelcome. It was felt that international aid workers and organisations did
not necessarily comprehend the long-term impact of aid on (so-called)
beneficiaries. A respondent from Eastern Europe, who had fled her country
as a teenager, strongly criticised the way she and other refugees were treated.
They are convinced that this is the right way of doing things [laughs]. And
maybe they are not evil, as I was thinking, you know, as a child or whatever,
but maybe they just don’t know better. They need to be re-educated [laughs],
they need to be, sorry, shown what effects their own assessment of situation and
their own judgment of what is the problem and humanitarian assistance, you
know, geopolitically, culturally, in every sense, that it really has long-term
impact on people who are exposed to this.
Several respondents stated that they perceived the international influence as
too extensive and that they rejected the paternalism of international
consultants and organisations.
39
Nevertheless, national staff acknowledged
that they benefitted from the job opportunities the aid organisations offered.
40
National staff perceived international staff not only as arrogant and
ignorant, but also as unqualified and superfluous. Unsurprisingly, they were
SILKE ROTH
1464
critical if inexperienced and—in their view—ignorant young international aid
workers were assigned to do jobs that national staff felt quite capable of
doing themselves. A female respondent who worked for various NGOs in Asia
as national staff for many years observed.
And many of the times, I don’t know how do they get the job? They don’t know
the job they have to do. And they come like as an expat or as a consultant. And
that thing, I don’t like, that part I don’t like. We could do things easily by
ourselves, we don’t need expats. But sometimes it’s like the organisation
mandate or something or the donor and aid from this and that organisation,
like we have to have that consultant or expats from their country.
Thus national staff realised that expatriate staff and consultants provided
access to funding from international organisations, even if they did not
necessarily provide relevant expertise. They felt that international donors
were reluctant to allocate funding because they perceived the local leadership
as corrupt.
The interviews demonstrate that national staff appreciated it when they felt
that their skills and practices were acknowledged and when they were able to
learn from international staff. However, this was not always the case and
national staff resented it when, on the one hand, international staff ignored
their competences and, on the other hand, did not engage in capacity
building but kept insights to themselves and took the newly gained
experiences to the next assignment. This means that national staff were
interested in learning from their international colleagues, but felt that they
also had something to offer which was not always recognised by international
staff. Overall, they were critical of their international colleagues and their
organisations for providing limited acknowledgement of existing skills and a
lack of efforts to promote local capacities.
In contrast, many former national staff members praised their organisa-
tions and international colleagues for their mentoring and promotion
practices. In their experience organisations invested in staff development
and enabled staff members to pursue training opportunities, for example
postgraduate degrees at European or North American universities. Some of
these respondents held leadership positions at the regional level, for example
in West Africa or Southeast Asia. Former national staff felt that it was easier
for them to gain the trust of the local population and relate to national staff
than for expatriates from Western Europe or North America.
A respondent from the Middle East, who initially worked as national staff
before shifting his engagement from development to emergency response and
becoming an international staff member, gave a positive account of the
collaboration between international and national staff, reconciling ‘local
knowledge’ with the newest approaches to disaster management typical for
‘operational humanitarian leadership’.
41
He stated:
Maybe the villagers, when you sit with them and talk with them, be it in disaster
management, be it in rural development, they know a lot of deal of it. Because
they know it, they are living here for centuries. So a person like me, who is
PROFESSIONALISATION TRENDS AND INEQUALITY
1465
[in this country], I don’t know about the culture, I don’t know about a thing.
What we do is we try to learn from those people and help them to put into a
sequential order the how to do things in a way that the indigenous knowledge is
always, always included into the activities of the organisation. Because that is
the only way you can work, because those people know better.
As this respondent emphasised, national staff and their perspectives need to be
included in the activities of the organisations, in order to support beneficiaries
and national staff to develop a sustainable response.
42
Moreover, rather than
being mutually exclusive, ‘international’ and ‘local’ knowledge are here pres-
ented as complementary and jointly enhancing. Former national staff who
had experienced the support of their organisations and international colle-
agues were not only able to develop and apply skills and experiences, but also
to assume leadership positions. These respondents benefitted from gaining
access to internationally recognised universities and training programmes and
from relating to national staff either thanks to a shared cultural background
or a shared experiences of having started out as national staff.
Perspectives from internationals from the global North
Respondents from the global North did not question their entitlement to
provide aid, but they critically reflected on their privileged and powerful
positions. They emphasised that is was crucial to draw on the knowledge of
national staff familiar with the area and its meteorological, geological, social
and cultural conditions. Reflecting notions of shared life-worlds,
43
all
respondents raised the issue of how important it is to take the perspectives of
the ‘locals’ into account. I do not consider these statements to be mere lip service
or an automatically repeated discourse, but as genuine concern for listening to
partners. At the same time respondents realised that accountability to donors
limits a handover of responsibilities to local partners.
44
This applied to staff
based in head offices who were making field trips to assess how the programmes
were implemented, as well as to field-based staff developing programmes
together with the local population. Several respondents emphasised that they
did not want to impose ‘Western’ knowledge but instead were interested in
learning from local people and grassroots organisations. One respondent from
North America, who decided to pursue an MA at a university in South Asia
because she considered Northern universities ‘biased’, explained:
I wasn’t very convinced that it made sense to go and study development studies
in the developed world . . . So that was really significant when I look back, in
terms of feeling, I guess, a sense of solidarity, a sense of understanding with
people that development aid here purports to help. Because really I relied on
and was friends with a lot of the people living in thatched huts or what we were
studying was really making a difference on their lives as well, it wasn’t them just
being generous.
She noted that, while she learned a lot from the activists who taught on the
programme, the programme ‘wasn’t incredibly academic’ and she ‘did not
SILKE ROTH
1466
learn how to write academic papers’. At the time of the interview she was
completing a postgraduate degree at a Western European university, thus
obtaining the academic training and credentials that she missed in her earlier
degree and which she needed to further her career. While studying at a
Southern university provided her with valuable insights, the aid system still
privileges skills and degrees obtained at Western universities.
Moreover, taking the view of staff in partner agencies into account does
not necessarily imply sharing power.
45
One respondent from North America,
who initially worked in development cooperation in South America before
moving to humanitarian aid, recalls her reaction when she found only
European or North American directors at a meeting of a relief organisation
she attended in Africa.
So I remember one of the first shocks I had was when I went to Africa for a
meeting of the directors, the regional directors for [NGO] and I went to this
meeting and everybody was white, were all either Europeans or North
Americans. And I just could not believe it. I was in total shock [laughs]. And so
I remember saying, ‘You know, why don’t we hire more local people?’
and . . . the answer was . . . ‘Well, you know, there aren’t a lot of, you know, all
the experienced, educated people are all out of the country. They have all left.
And they are not interested in this kind of work.
This respondent considered that it might be true that Africans who were
educated and had the skills to work in leadership positions in humanitarian
aid might avoid working ‘in a refugee camp with no water and no electricity.
They are trying to get out of that world’. Nevertheless, she believed that it
was rather the fault of the international organisations, in particular in the
area of emergency relief, who were not well connected to the local
communities and were not only unaware of skilled local and national staff,
but also did not make an effort to recruit local leaders. She found that ‘the
people in the humanitarian emergency NGO world live quite isolated from the
local reality’. This account reflects the privileged position of white aid
workers,
46
and a preference to hire expatriates from Western countries rather
than neighbouring African countries.
47
Her description of challenging the
leadership of aid organisations to hire more African staff echoes Hunter’s
discussion of ‘white shame’. Hunter points out that ‘such expressions of
shame can become the markers of legitimate forms of whiteness’.
48
International staff justified their involvement in international aid by
providing access to resources, knowledge and an outsider perspective, which
might be particularly important in contexts affected by corruption or strict
traditions, for example programmes addressing family planning, gender
equality or HIV/AIDS. Consequently they emphasised the fact that the neutral
position of expatriates was needed in order to avoid corruption and to
implement programmes that challenged local practices. This can be
interpreted as employing a ‘justifying myth’, or a ‘paternalistic myth’, in
order to rationalise their role.
49
Of course, the position of international staff
is not neutral, but reflects their own interests or that of their organisation or
donor. At the same time respondents explained that they did not necessarily
PROFESSIONALISATION TRENDS AND INEQUALITY
1467
fire national staff who they felt did not do a satisfactory job or stole from the
office or from individual staff members. They were aware of the personal
circumstances of their national staff colleagues and of the general inequality
between the two groups, which is reflected in the unequal pay that is
characteristic of aid organisations.
50
Furthermore, they also criticised the
corrupt practices, mismanagement and incompetence of international staff in
leadership positions, which resulted in wasted resources and abuse of power.
Respondents from the global North acknowledged their privileged position
when they compared their own living situation with the majority of those living
in less developed countries. They realised that they gained experience which was
crucial for their careers and acknowledged that their salaries and living standard
far exceeded that of national staff or aid recipients. International staff were also
aware of the fact that local counterparts trained inexperienced but much more
highly paid—often young—international staff members. They found this
problematic and dealt with this by mentoring national staff.
Involvement in the aid work was perceived as a privilege by all because it
enabled insights into other cultures and living conditions and put
respondents’ position ‘into perspective’; they felt that they ‘get more than
they receive’ thus displaying ‘mixed motivations’.
51
Aware of the fact that
they are beneficiaries of power imbalances, they tended to be humble with
respect to the contributions they could make and emphasised how much they
had learned and gained through their work overseas. Thus the respondents
presented themselves as ‘beneficiaries’ by noting the privilege of sharing the
living conditions and perspectives of the local population. This is a different
notion of privilege from the access to decision making and resources
discussed above. Rather than seeing this as a discourse to pre-empting
criticism of the status quo, I see it as a genuine expression of appreciation of
being able to experience different life-worlds. This indicates that altruism
does not have to exclude self-interested motivations.
52
Moreover, interna-
tional aid workers realised that, even if they lived under difficult
circumstances (characterised by basic accommodation, remote locations,
curfew because of risk of attacks), they never lived the same life as the local
population. And of course they had the option to leave (or might be forced to
leave during an evacuation). But by sharing some of the living conditions and
through making an effort to get to know national staff and the local
population, they felt a closer connection to the beneficiaries.
Individual and organisational strategies of dealing with inequality
Despite the ongoing professionalisation processes addressed earlier in this
article, both international and national respondents criticised a lack of
capacity building within their organisations. Such concern was voiced by
those working for UN agencies as well as NGOs such as Save the Children or
Médecins sans Frontières, which are known for taking measures to minimise
inequality within their organisations. Respondents from the global North
pointed out that highly talented local and national staff members often
lacked opportunities to apply or further develop their capabilities. Providing
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services and running programmes without simultaneously engaging in
capacity building and thus providing training to the local population was
described in the interviews as ‘neo-colonial’. Respondents commented on
differences between humanitarian relief and development cooperation.
Whereas the latter allows for capacity building and empowerment, this is
less characteristic of the former, which seeks to alleviate suffering and was
characterised by one respondent as a ‘hierarchical structural model, almost
military, and there is very little sort of navel-gazing’. International
respondents were also critical of international organisations which allocated
power to expatriates who would eventually leave the organisation. They
acknowledged that a lack of power sharing combined with (high) turnover of
international staff prevents capacity building among national staff.
With respect to dealing with inequalities in aid organisations, individual
and organisational strategies can be distinguished. At the individual level
these strategies are primarily informal. International aid workers describe
how they mentored national staff members who worked, for example, as
translators regardless of their professional experience and qualification.
Recognising talent, some international staff members asked interpreters to
conduct interviews and report back to them rather than translating between
an international human rights worker and a rape victim. This seemed to be a
better way to gain the trust of rape victims, because the interpreter had a
better understanding of local sensitivities. Some international staff sought to
enable highly qualified national staff members to complete their studies or
help them find more adequate positions in aid organisations. They also
reported that they taught less-skilled national staff to use various computer
programmes or gave them English lessons. These accounts were comple-
mented by former national staff, who reported being mentored by
international staff members. Some drivers and translators who spent a lot
of time with international aid workers in the field then took on national staff
positions in programmes and later on became international staff members.
Another strategy at the individual level was to support national staff and
local friends financially. International aid workers stated that because their
salaries were so much higher than those of their local colleagues or friends,
they supported studies, investments or paid the medical bills of their local
friends and paid for office supplies out of their own pocket. The practice of
‘making kin’ among aid workers has been explored by Fechter.
53
Respondents also described organisational strategies to shift the power
balance between North and South. Such efforts include changes in
organisational structures from national to transnational, for example
international alliances, federations or networks.
54
Some organisations, such
as Action Aid, have started, to ‘internationalise’ by moving their head offices
from Europe to Africa and Asia.
55
Another strategy of organisations is to
employ fewer internationals and to shift decision making about project
planning and implementation from expatriate to national staff. One
respondent described how international experts were still involved in the
organisation, in order to provide advice, but that national staff were taking
the lead role in decision making. Other respondents worked in NGOs which
PROFESSIONALISATION TRENDS AND INEQUALITY
1469
employ expatriates only as volunteers or only if qualified nationals cannot be
found.
56
Thus, some NGOs are characterised by ‘a greater diversification in
terms of nationalities and gender in senior roles’.
57
Respondents who
had been involved in aid for a long time observed an increase in leaders from
Asia, Africa and Latin America and noted that fewer foreigners worked in
Latin America and Asia than in Africa.
58
Some respondents felt that Western
women might find it easier to achieve leadership positions in regions
dominated by Western aid workers, while in Asia and Latin America
expatriate women might compete with local men for leadership positions.
59
In addition to these individual and organisational strategies, I interpret the
emphasis within the sector on training and education not only as being
necessary for promotion, but also as a way of dealing with inequality. At the
individual level and within the sector in general the need for additional
qualification could to some extent be understood as an (unconscious) response
to the unease about unequal relationships between international and national
aid workers, international staff receiving higher wages than the national staff
who had trained and inducted them in the field. The degrees and/or certificates
obtained from institutions of higher education in the global North—much
more affordable on an international than national salary—justify the
leadership and expert position. These higher salaries allow international staff
to participate in training courses or enrol in a postgraduate degree, whereas
this is not the case for national staff. A gap in certified knowledge could thus
be perpetuated, as national staff tend to have fewer resources necessary to
obtain further qualifications, for example for taking time off work or paying
for fees and travel costs. Thus international aid workers bring to local
communities academic qualifications and work experience in a range of
organisational and regional settings to which local staff lack access.
On the other hand, the emphasis within the sector on skills and competence
could contribute to a greater diversification at all levels of aid organisations.
Respondents, in particular former national staff who had worked for the same
organisation for a long time, praised their organisation for training and
promotion opportunities and were satisfied with the support and acknowl-
edgement that they were provided with. This is probably a sample effect, since the
respondents from Asia, Africa and Latin America participated in a month-long
training course which in many cases was financially supported by their organi-
sation. Many of them had started out as national staff and had then moved on to
expatriate positions. Those who were still national aid workers at the time of the
interview, as well as international staff from the North, were more critical of the
support and acknowledgement they received—or rather did not receive—from
their organisations. Only a systematic, representative study of aid organisations
can assess to what extent professionalisation processes actually contribute to
capacity building and more diversity in the leadership of aid organisations.
Conclusions
Knowledge, competences and experiences—which are differently constructed,
presented and valued depending on where they originate—play a key role in
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the relationship between national and international staff and volunteers and
serve to justify the dispatch of international volunteers and staff to
developing countries, disaster and conflict regions. International aid workers
were aware of this criticism and of the discontent of national staff. Those in
privileged positions responded to the structural contradictions of the aid
system with individualised strategies which included, on the one hand,
mentoring and informal capacity building and, on the other, engaging in
further education themselves, and thus furthering their own capacity and
careers. This means that that respondents were at the same time engaged in
closing and broadening the gap between ‘international’ and ‘national’ staff in
a system that so far has tended to privilege Northern knowledge. However,
enrolling in short-term courses or postgraduate degrees not only adds to their
professional qualifications and credentials but also provides a space for
critical reflection.
Overall the data presented here suggest that the contradictions of the aid
industry are seen as inevitable and taken for granted by the respondents and
their reactions can be characterised as ambivalent and contradictory. Given
the centrality of knowledge and experience in aid organisations, to what
extent do professionalisation processes challenge or perpetuate the ‘dom-
inance of the North’ in the aid world? Professionalisation processes and the
introduction of standards and codes of conduct can have positive effects on
clients, who are provided with better services, on organisations, which find it
easier to attract qualified staff, and for the careers of individual aid workers.
However, it remains to be seen whether such processes will result in a greater
diversification of the workforce or whether they constitute another
‘legitimising myth’: the ‘meritocracy myth’,
60
which justifies the leadership
positions and higher salaries of international aid workers. In particular, if
specific qualifications become hiring criteria, those with less access to training
and education will be excluded from the aid world or restricted to un- and
low-skilled positions. A focus on professionalisation thus might inadvertently
deepen unequal relationships between international and national staff within
aid organisations.
In terms of policy implications one could argue that certification processes,
as well as hiring practices and processes emphasising diversity, might offer
national staff better access to promotion and leadership positions. This
would require an emphasis on practical experiences in addition to academic
training in certification processes and that volunteers and community
workers from developing countries have access to qualification processes.
61
Finally, in order to assess how ‘professional’ aid organisations and the people
working for them as ‘volunteers’ or ‘staff’ are, it is crucial not only to know
about the adoption and implementation of codes and standards, but also to
have representative data on the qualifications of the current aid worker
population, which might include education, volunteering and work
experience in the private, public and third sectors, as well as language skills.
Only systematic studies of hiring and promotion, as well as access to training,
will allow us to assess the outcome of professionalisation processes
concerning the diversification of national and international staff. In order
PROFESSIONALISATION TRENDS AND INEQUALITY
1471
to understand whether professionalisation processes contribute to widening
or closing the gap between national and international staff, ie perpetuate or
minimise inequality within aid organisations, it is important to assess which
kind of knowledge and experience is valued, where such knowledge can be
obtained and who has access to the resources containing such knowledge.
Thus it is an open question whether professionalisation processes within the
aid sector contribute to perpetuating or minimising global inequalities.
Notes
I am very grateful for the helpful comments from Anne-Meike Fechter, Clare Saunders and two
anonymous reviewers. Financial support for this project was provided by the Sociology Department of the
University of Pennsylvania and the School of Social Sciences of the University of Southampton.
1 D Fassin, ‘Humanitarianism as a politics of life’, Public Culture, 19(3), 2007, p 519.
2 M MacLachlan, S Carr & E McAuliffe, The Aid Triangle: Recognizing the Human Dynamics of
Dominance, Justice and Identity, London: Zed Books, 2010.
3 R Eyben, ‘Introduction’, in Eyben (ed), Relationships for Aid, London: Earthscan, 2006, p 5.
4 For development studies, see reviews by D Mosse & D Lewis, ‘Theoretical approaches to brokerage and
translation in development’, in D Lewis & D Mosse (eds), Brokers and Translators: The Ethnography of
Aid and Agencies, Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian, 2006, pp 1–26. For humanitarian studies, see M Barnett,
‘Humanitarianism as scholarly vocation’, in M Barnett & TG Weiss (eds), Humanitarianism in Question:
Politics, Power, Ethics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008, pp 235–263.
5 In the context of humanitarian assistance the distinction between ‘internationals’ and ‘locals’, which
reinforces boundaries rather than overcoming them, appears ironic. However, national and
international staff are positioned differently in the aid system. O Shevchenko & RC Fox, ‘‘‘Nationals’’
and ‘‘expatriates’’: challenges of fulfilling ‘‘sans frontières’’ (‘‘without borders’’) ideals in international
humanitarian action’, Health and Human Rights, 10(1), 2008, pp 109–122.
6 I refer to ‘national staff’ and ‘national NGOs’ rather than to ‘local staff’ and ‘local NGOs’ in order to
address the fact that ‘local’ staff and NGOs do not necessarily work in their local village or home town,
but in other parts of their country.
7 L Minear, Helping People in an Age of Conflict: Toward a New Professionalism in US Voluntary
Humanitarian Assistance, New York: Interaction, 1988.
8 Between 2000 and 2010 humanitarian aid from government donors (including OECD as well as non-
OECD DAC governments) increased from US$6.7 billion to $12.4 billion. Global Humanitarian
Assistance Report 2011, at www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/report/gha-report-2011.
9 D Hilhorst, ‘Being good at doing good? Quality and accountability of humanitarian NGOs’, Disasters,
26(3), 2002, p 196.
10 M Buchanan-Smith, How the Sphere Project Came into Being: A Case Study of Policy Making in the
Humanitarian Aid Sector and the Relative Influence of Research, Working Paper 211, London: ODI, 2003.
11 P Walker, ‘Cracking the code: the genesis, use and future of the code of conduct’, Disasters, 29(4),
2005, p 326.
12 D Hilhorst, ‘Dead letter or living document? Ten years of the Code of Conduct for Disaster Relief’,
Disasters, 29(4), 2005, p 354.
13 International Federation of the Red Cross, Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red
Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief, at http://www.ifrc.org/Global/Publications/disasters/
code of conduct_signatories , accessed 15 August 2011.
14 Hilhorst, ‘Dead letter or living document?’, p 367.
15 C Dufour, V de Geoffroy, H Maury & F Gruenwald, ‘Rights, standards and quality in a complex
humanitarian space: is Sphere the right tool?’, Disasters, 28(2), 2004, pp 124–141.
16 D Hilhorst & N Schmiemann, ‘Humanitarian principles and organisational culture: everyday practice
in Médecins Sans Frontières-Holland’, Development in Practice, 12(3–4), 2002, pp 490–500.
17 J-D Rainhorn, A Smailbegovic & S Jiekak, Humanitarian Studies 2010: University Training and
Education in Humanitarian Action, Geneva: University of Geneva Graduate Institute, 2010; and P
Walker & C Russ, Professionalising the Humanitarian Sector, Cardiff: Enhancing Learning and
Research for Humanitarian Assistance (ELRHA), 2010.
18 Some of these short-term courses are offered by universities, others by NGOs, the ICRC or UN agencies.
19 V Bollettino & C Bruderlein, ‘Training humanitarian professionals at a distance: testing the feasibility
of distance learning with humanitarian professionals’, Distance Education, 29(3), 2008, p 282.
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http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/report/gha-report-2011
http://www.ifrc.org/Global/Publications/disasters/code of conduct_signatories
http://www.ifrc.org/Global/Publications/disasters/code of conduct_signatories
20 CERAH-Geneve & ELRHA, Articulating an Agenda for Humanitarian Education and Training:
Humanitarian Education and Training Conference Report, Humanitarian Education and Training
Conference, Geneva, 26–28 October 2011.
21 H Slim, ‘The continuing metamorphosis of the humanitarian practitioner: some new colours for an
endangered chameleon’, Disasters, 19(2), 1995, p 110.
22 F Richardson, ‘Meeting the demand for skilled and experienced humanitarian workers’, Development
in Practice, 16(3), 2006, pp 334–341.
23 D Loquercio, M Hammersley & B Emmens, Understanding and Addressing Staff Turnover in
Humanitarian Agencies, Network Paper 55, Humanitarian Practice Network, London: ODI, 2006; and
FRONTERA, Motivating Staff and Volunteers Working in NGOs in the South, London: People in Aid,
2007.
24 B Harrell-Bond, ‘Can humanitarian work with refugees be humane?’, Human Rights Quarterly, 24(1),
2002, p 71.
25 P Walker, ‘What does it mean to be a professional humanitarian?’, Journal of Humanitarian Assistance,
2004, at http://jha.ac/2004/01/01/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-professional-humanitarian.
26 M Buchanan-Smith with K Scriven, ALNAP Study—Leadership in Action: Leading Effectively in
Humanitarian Operations, London: ODI, 2011, p 7.
27 U Kothari, ‘From colonialism to development: reflections of former colonial officers’, Commonwealth
and Comparative Politics, 44(1), 2006, pp 118–136.
28 L Minear, The Humanitarian Enterprise: Dilemmas and Discoveries, Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press,
2002, p 126.
29 Walker & Russ, Professionalising the Humanitarian Sector, p 11.
30 A Stoddard, A Harmer & K Haver, Providing Aid in Insecure Environments: Trends in Policy and
Operations, HPG Report, New York: Center on International Cooperation, New York University,
2006, at http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/hpgreport23 .
31 Walker & Russ, Professionalising the Humanitarian Sector.
32 Mosse & Lewis, ‘Theoretical approaches to brokerage and translation in development’.
33 I use the term ‘expatriate’ interchangeably with ‘internationals’ and to refer to all respondents who do
not work in their home country regardless of skin colour, nationality or region of origin. Usually this
term is reserved for highly skilled, white and otherwise privileged individuals from Europe, North
America and Australia. P Leonard, Expatriate Identities in Postcolonial Organizations: Working
Whiteness, Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.
34 S Grimm & A Harmer, Diversity in Donorship: The Changing Landscape of Official Humanitarian Aid—
Aid Donorship in Central Europe, London: ODI, 2005; and P Kragelund, ‘The return of non-DAC
donors to Africa: new prospects for African development?’, Development Policy Review, 26(5), 2008, pp
555–584.
35 The Humanitarian system includes UN agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red
Crescent and INGOs. UN agencies are characterised by a higher expatriate to national staff ratio than
INGOs. P Harvey, A Stoddard, A Harmer & G Taylor with V DiDomenico & L Brander, The State of
the Humanitarian System: Assessing Performance and Progress—A Pilot Study, London: ALNAP/ODI,
2010, p 21.
36 D Rajak & J Stirrat, ‘Parochial cosmopolitanism and the power of nostalgia’, in D Mosse (ed),
Adventures in Aidland: The Anthropology of Professionals in International Development, New York:
Berghahn Books, 2011, p 164.
37 The courses included respondents from a broad range of countries and organisations (large and small
NGOs, Red Cross/Red Crescent, UN organisations). Half the respondents came from the global North
whereas the other half came from the global South. In the other course two-thirds came from the
global North and one-third from the global South. Some participants paid for the course themselves,
others obtained stipends from foundations or funding from their organisations.
38 The high level of educational attainment of my respondents might be a sampling effect as the majority
of interviews were conducted during a university-based course.
39 MacLachlan et al, The Aid Triangle; and M Barnett, Empire of Humanity: A History of
Humanitarianism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011.
40 D Mosse, Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice, London: Pluto, 2005.
41 Buchanan-Smith with Scriven, ALNAP Study, p 4.
42 Harvey et al, The State of the Humanitarian System, p 39.
43 B Rossi, ‘Aid policies and recipient strategies in Niger: why donors and recipients should not be
compartmentalized into separate ‘‘worlds of knowledge’’’, in Lewis & Mosse, Brokers and Translators,
pp 27–49.
44 J Gross Stein, ‘Humanitarian organizations: accountable—why, to whom, for what and how?’, in
Barnett & Weiss, Humanitarianism in Question, pp 140–141.
45 E Crewe & E Harrison, Whose Development? An Ethnography of Aid, London: Zed, 1998, p 189.
PROFESSIONALISATION TRENDS AND INEQUALITY
1473
http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/hpgreport23
46 S White, ‘Thinking race, thinking development’, Third World Quarterly, 23, 2002, pp 407–419.
47 SC Carr, RO Rugimbara, E Walkom & FH Bolitho, ‘Selecting expatriates in developing areas:
‘‘country-of-origin’’ effects in Tanzania?’, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 25(4), 2001,
pp 441–457.
48 S Hunter, ‘What a white shame: race, gender, and white shame in the relational economy of primary
health care organizations in England’, Social Politics, 17(4), 2010, p 470.
49 MacLachlan et al, The Aid Triangle, p 28.
50 The salaries and living conditions of international staff vary by the type of organisation, assignment
and position in the organisation. For example, volunteers in NGOs can expect to receive a small
monthly sum and experience very basic living conditions. Overall the salaries of international staff tend
to be significantly higher than that of national staff.
51 A-M Fechter, ‘Anybody at home? The inhabitants of Aidland’, in A-M Fechter & H Hindman (eds),
Inside the Everyday Lives of Development Workers: The Challenges and Futures of Aidland, Bloomfield,
CT: Kumarian, 2011, pp 131–149.
52 Sara de Jong, ‘False binaries: altruism and egoism in NGO work’, in Fechter & Hindman (eds), Inside
the Everyday Lives of Development Workers, pp 21–40.
53 A-M Fechter, ‘‘‘Making kin’’ while ‘‘caring for strangers’’? Kinning as a form of relating among aid
workers’, paper presented at the ‘World Conference on Humanitarian Studies: Changing Realities of
Conflict and Crisis’, Tufts University, 2011.
54 P Walker & D Maxwell, Shaping the Humanitarian World, New York: Routledge, 2008, p 119.
55 R David, A Mancini & I Guijit, ‘Bringing systems into line with values: the practice of accountability,
learning and planning system (ALPS)’, in Eyben, Relationships for Aid, pp 133–153.
56 JR Owen, ‘‘‘Listening to the rice grow’’: the local–expat interface in Lao-based international NGOs’,
Development in Practice, 20(1), 2010, pp 99–112.
57 Harvey et al, The State of the Humanitarian System, p 36.
58 Cf. Crewe & Harrison, Whose Development?.
59 As long as representative data about aid workers are not available, the interaction between gender and
nationality in the aid context can only be analysed on the basis of qualitative studies such as this one.
60 MacLachlan et al, The Aid Triangle.
61 Walker & Russ, Professionalising the Humanitarian Sector.
Notes on contributor
Silke Roth is Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the Division of Sociology
and Social Policy at the University of Southampton. She is co-editor (with
Florian Kreutzer) of Transnationale Karrieren: Biografien, Lebensführung und
Mobilität (Transnational Careers. Biographies, Life Conduct and Mobility)
(2006) and (with Ansgar Klein) of NGOs im Spannungsfeld zwischen
Krisenprävention und Sicherheitspolitik (NGOs in the Area of Conflict
between Crisis Prevention and Security Politics) (2007). She is the author of
‘Dealing with danger: risk and security in the everyday lives of aid workers’,
in A-M Fechter & H Hindman (eds), Inside the Everyday Lives of
Development Workers: The Challenges and Futures of Aid Land (2011) and
is working on a monograph on biographies and careers of aid workers.
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