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Today we examine the fallout from an Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza last week, and the “non-existent” trust between humanitarians and the Israel Defense Forces.
Also in today’s edition: A bill to increase accountability at the U.S. Development Finance Corporation, and the latest from the Skoll World Forum.
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“It is commonly understood that relief workers enjoy immunity during wars,” Dr. Nour Al-Din Khaled Alamassi, the head of Project Hope’s medical team in Rafah, tells my colleague Elissa Miolene after last week’s airstrike on World Central Kitchen staffers. “This event made us realize that there is no immunity.”
The Israeli strike has highlighted the failure of “deconfliction” — the practice of aid agencies coordinating their movements and sharing their locations with military parties.
The aid team, traveling in armored cars branded with the organization’s logo, had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces and were traveling in a deconflicted zone after unloading more than 100 tons of food aid into Gaza. Yet the team was still targeted and attacked, with the IDF stating that one of its commanders “mistakenly assumed” there were Hamas gunmen inside World Central Kitchen’s vehicles. Two officers were dismissed while three were reprimanded, and in a statement, the IDF committed to learning from the incident.
Meanwhile, World Central Kitchen founder and celebrity chef José Andrés demanded an independent investigation into the killings."
Some 203 aid workers have been killed by the IDF since the Israel-Hamas war began last October, 196 of them Palestinians. The World Central Kitchen strike is just one of the latest in a string of incidents fueling a pattern of distrust between those trying to get aid into Gaza — where 1.1 million people are facing imminent famine — and the IDF.
After a Project Hope nurse was killed by an Israeli airstrike in early March, Arlan Fuller, the organization’s director of emergency response and preparedness, asked his staff if they wanted to start sleeping in a deconflicted zone that would be off-limits to strikes. Every single staff member said no.
“Palestinians did not feel they would be any safer if we would deconflict their homes — in fact, they felt it would put them even more at risk,” Fuller tells Elissa. “This is a level of trust that is non-existent … as they’ve seen one after the next after the next perish in this conflict.”
Read: How 7 deaths changed aid work in Gaza
ICYMI: Aid groups doubt Biden's pier will solve Gaza's problems (Pro)
The U.S. Development Finance Corporation can invest up to $60 billion to finance private sector development around the world — but when it comes to oversight, its watchdog cannot subpoena people and documents to investigate potential fraud, waste, and abuse at the agency.
That could change if a new bipartisan bill, likely to be introduced in the U.S. Congress today, is eventually passed, my colleague Adva Saldinger scoops.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat from Texas, plans to introduce the Enhancing Development Finance Corporation Oversight Act, which would make a simple change in the law governing inspectors general and grant the DFC’s watchdog law enforcement authority.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Pennsylvania who is co-sponsoring the bill, says the legislation “would improve oversight and accountability of U.S. foreign aid programs by granting the DFC OIG further authority to reduce unnecessary misuse of resources.”
DFC can provide loans, guaranties, equity investments, political risk insurance, and technical assistance to support development in emerging markets. A staffer for Castro tells Adva that the goal is to get the bill passed before the broader reauthorization of DFC next year.
Exclusive: New bill aims to give DFC watchdog more power
ICYMI: The future of the US International Development Finance Corporation
Where did the U.K. spend its development money last year?
That’s what Devex analyst Alecsondra Kieren Si sought to find out, digging into the £553.3 million spent on 64 development-related contracts by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in the financial year ending March 31, 2024.
The leading sectors? Climate and governance.
The largest contract winner? Palladium International, with £290 million for three contracts, including £220 million for the U.K. Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transitions project.
And which countries got the largest contracts? Devex Pro members can read on to find out.
Read: FCDO’s top development contractors of 2023-24 (Pro)
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“Coming out as gay isn’t a one-time event,” Maliha Khan, CEO of the advocacy group Women Deliver, writes in a deeply personal opinion piece for Devex this week. “It's a daily decision, a continuous negotiation about whether to reveal parts of yourself that aren't immediately obvious or to keep them hidden and avoid potential harm.”
And Khan — a Muslim, queer, immigrant woman of color — says the global development sector has more to do when it comes to supporting diverse identities and orientations.
In global north-based head offices the picture might look rosier, but in most other contexts, she writes, organizations’ “approach to staff members who identify as queer leans toward ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ at best, with instances of outright discrimination and prejudice in the
worst cases.”
Put simply, Khan says, “We need a more nuanced approach to managing our staff identities in diverse contexts.”
And she lays out the essential steps:
• Implement protective policies.
• Shift workplace culture to clearly signal that all sexual and gender identities are celebrated and championed.
• Proactively prevent LGBTQ+ staff from being bullied, discriminated against, or sidelined.
• Boost LGBTQ+ representation in leadership ranks.
“I am not advocating for a disregard of local sensitivities,” Khan writes, “but for a more thoughtful consideration of when and how it might be safe and appropriate to be open about our sexual orientations.”
Opinion: As a leader who is gay, I urge our development sector to do better
The Skoll World Forum, the annual gathering for international social entrepreneurs, kicked off yesterday in Oxford. Top of the bill among plenary speakers was Jacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand, who spoke about how she had never intended to be the leader of her country and had fallen into the role.
Ardern told the audience — made up largely of CEOs of nonprofits — that kindness in leadership should not be mistaken for weakness, and that a good leader goes into their job planning for the day they will leave it.
My colleague David Ainsworth reports that the event also heard from Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland, who later went on to serve as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights.
Robinson had words of wisdom for the next U.N. secretary-general. "When she takes over," she said — lending her support to a widespread movement demanding that the next holder of the role must be a woman — she will need a lot of help "to be a general and not a secretary."
She adapted a quote from Winston Churchill to describe the U.N., calling it "the worst system apart from all the others," but she was particularly critical of the Security Council, which she called weak, devious, and morally inconsistent.
"We need a Security Council that reflects the world," she said.
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and former Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt are supporting a funding round for an African solar irrigation startup. [Bloomberg]
U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell warned that sidelining climate issues could devastate G20 economies as he called for a new finance deal to aid low- and middle-income countries in tackling global warming. [AFP]
The U.S. special envoy to Sudan announced over $100 million in extra funding to address the conflict, aiming to garner international support at an upcoming crisis donor conference. [Reuters]
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