5 takeaways from the Asia Pacific Humanitarian Leadership Conference

The inaugural Asia Pacific Humanitarian Leadership Conference, held in Melbourne from April 26 to 28, was an opportunity to discuss and debate the future and direction of humanitarian response. Participants heard from speakers passionate about their work, but open about the challenges and shortfalls faced by the sector.

Devex was in attendance to hear and speak to presenters about their views. Below are five key takeaways for those who could not be in attendance.

1. Traditional humanitarian leadership styles are unsustainable in the current global environment.

Throughout the conference, a clear message was that the humanitarian sector needed to evolve.

“We now have a greater number of displaced people — the greatest number since the Second World War — and yet we have a political system and political climate around the world that is actually heading more into the area of protection and nationalism and is more reminiscent of pre-World War 2,” Phil Connors, director of the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership, told the audience. “There is an appetite around the world to look inward rather than outward. Within that culture, what we do and leadership in that space is going to be more challenging.”

And this, he said, is despite the growing need for humanitarian assistance.

More involvement of the private sector, blurring the division between humanitarian and development, smarter use of resources and better engagement with local communities were important factors good leaders need to develop smarter humanitarian responses, said several speakers.

Leadership styles should change to reflect changing needs. Victor Perton, director of the Australian Leadership Project, said that research showed the best leaders were followers — people who could do the hard work they asked of others.

Chris Roche, senior research partner with the Developmental Leadership Program, argued that humanitarian leaders need to be politically savvy and consistent with change to create sectoral-wide change.

And Connors told the audience that leadership should not just be considered from the top. “Leadership is not located in an individual,” he said. “It can come from anywhere within an organization.”

2. Localization and the humanitarian ‘power play’

Localization was a major theme throughout the three days of the conference, with many arguing it will be a key aspect of humanitarian reform — providing greater resources by building capability for local leadership in response. Successful strategies involving localization could involve respect for national decision making, and up to 75 percent of humanitarian funds channelled through local and national organizations within 10 years.

“The best outcome for affected populations is to recognize that responders come in 72 hours later,” Connors said. “It is sensible that local players have more control.”

But it would be a dramatic shift away from the current operational structure and leadership within many humanitarian organizations today, and changing structures would require a shift in “humanitarian power,” according to Connors.

Comparing Somalia and Somaliland, Roche said that international assistance could impact the development of local support networks. “Somaliland has been relatively peaceful for maybe 15 years,” he said. “It was free to develop its own locally negotiated legitimate institutions in part because it was ineligible for official aid.” Local processes were strengthened in Somaliland while in Somalia, international assistance led to corruption and control by warlords.

But changes to the current system, Roche argued, were hampered by the idea that humanitarian organizations could lose out. “In whose interest is it to change?” Roche asked, speaking with Devex. “Who would lose if there were changes to be made? There is a power in politics and interests here.”

3. Converting lessons learned into change.

Traditional approaches to the development of staff is focused on individuals — classroom training, conferences and webinars, for example. “They’re all very valuable but the challenge is we rely on individuals to not only access that information but convert it into a change of practice in the work,” Kathryn Harries, a WASH and knowledge management consultant, explained to Devex.

Kathryn Harries, WASH and knowledge management consultant, speaks with Devex at the Asian Pacific Humanitarian Leadership Conference.

Traditional information sharing, she said, was an individual-led knowledge management approach. A management-led knowledge management approach was instead recommended.

It is an approach, Harries said, that would facilitate sharing of ideas and knowledge within a team or organization. Through facilitated discussion, the approach could identify a gap that needs to be overcome as part of a response or system. And interventions could be developed, deployed and tested.

As an iterative approach, new knowledge and lessons could continue to be incorporated into approach, evolving and improving humanitarian responses over time. And it doesn’t have to be a big intervention to make a difference.

“You can start small,” Harries said. “You can choose that one topic, and then try to figure out what your continual improvement slope will be.”

But it was important to begin a process of knowledge sharing and improvement within the organization.

Elsewhere, speakers shared research they had undertaken to inform substantive changes within their organizations. Carol Angir, senior program manager for women's rights in emergencies with ActionAid Australia, talked about commissioning research specifically looking at the challenges facing women responders and leaders on the ground. The group is now working to help respondents create their own “women-led protection plans and preparedness plans.”

It’s about “not supporting protection work only as a second phase of emergency, but integrating protection and ensuring it’s addressed at the onset of an emergency.”

4.  Reintegration is the ‘sweet spot’ between humanitarian and development.

Discussions of blurring the lines between the humanitarian and development sectors noted what Isabel Calvert, country program coordinator for World Vision Australia, called a “sweet spot” between the two sector — reintegration of refugees back into their country of origin.

Reintegration is a process by which returnees are able to maintain sustainable livelihoods, access safe services and reintegrate into communities within their country of origin. Calvert explained it involved the “poorest of the poor” and amongst the most vulnerable refugees returning to their country or origin — both voluntarily and not.

“In this context is a space between humanitarian response and development programming.” Calvert said. “And that is where reintegration exists.”

Calvert explained that reintegration was not a humanitarian approach on its own but was combined with development to target long-term social objectives, including education, employment and access to services, to target poverty and improve livelihoods in developing countries.

Focusing on Sri Lanka, where World Vision are working to reintegrate returnees who have come home following 30 years of conflict that ended in 2009, has shown the range of issues faced by reintegration — lack of legal documentation, land and housing, employment and mental and physical health are amongst the issues returned refugees face.

Urmila Selvanayagam, manager of humanitarian emergency affairs with World Vision Sri Lanka, explained to Devex that even education is a major issue that can have long-term impacts on the employment prospects of refugee children.

“Outside of Sri Lanka, children have been educated in a system spoken in English,” she said. “At home they will speak the local language, but to return to a Sri Lankan school they need extra classes. Families have to pay for extra to have a teacher come and tutor their children. These are things that parents who have just returned cannot afford.”

Through the smoother integration of humanitarian and development responses, Selvanayagam believes reintegration can be better targeted, effective and sustainable.

5. Despite the changing environments, ethics and principles need to be at the core of humanitarian response.

Leonard Blazeby, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross Mission in Australia, shared his experience from 20 years of working in humanitarian response with the audience and Devex. A humanitarian leader, he believes, needs to be a known entity in an actual position and an actual person. And that person needs to uphold humanitarian values, principles and ethics.

“It is important that the leader conveys a sense of equality across his or her whole organization, and has a focus on community of purpose rather than on hierarchy,” Blazeby said. “Good and responsible humanitarian leadership is an ethical obligation.”

It was a sentiment echoed by Paul White, from the Norwegian Refugee Council, who told the audience that despite transformations to the sector in terms of challenges and tools, humanitarian operations need to continue to be guided by ethics and principles, or they could forget the importance of those they are there to support.

In a time of rapid change, Blazeby said it is important to ensure humanitarian leaders maintain a “profound affinity with humanitarian values” — if not they need to step down from their positions.

Devex is the media partner for the inaugural Asia Pacific Humanitarian Leadership Conference. Follow discussion from the conference on Twitter using #bethechange