Devex Newswire: Keeping the faith as a Muslim charity

The outgoing head of Islamic Relief USA reflects on a long career of keeping the faith.

Also in today’s edition: U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan reveals what’s in his boss’ development inbox.

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Coming in from the cold

Running a Muslim faith-based nonprofit is sure to have its ups and downs, to say the least — and Anwar Khan had a front-row seat to all of them as head of Islamic Relief USA, which he co-founded back in 1993.

Now, over 30 years later, he’s stepping down as president of IRUSA after a tenure that saw him help raise more than $1.3 billion and recruit 34,000 volunteers as the organization provided everything from disaster relief to long-term development interventions such as job training.

In between, there was the post-9/11 surge of Islamophobia and Donald Trump’s “difficult” presidency, when Muslim humanitarian organizations — and their donors — were often targeted. And now, with the conflict in Gaza, “many Muslim organizations are feeling it’s getting very cold again,” Khan tells my colleague Lauren Evans.

“We're feeling civil society space is restricting again,” he says, citing the arrests of protesters that took place at universities across the country.

The space could get even more claustrophobic under a second Trump presidency, something Khan is all too aware of.

“One of the reasons I was a little bit shy of leaving after 30 years was I thought this was going to be an incredibly important year,” he admits.

So why head for the exit now? “The options were I can stay here until I'm not wanted, or I can leave when I am wanted, which is now,” he says. “I didn't want to be that guy that stayed on too long.”

Read: 'It's getting very cold again' for Muslim charities, says IRUSA's Khan

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White House fires

Humanitarian war zones such as Gaza and Sudan, the inexorable march of artificial intelligence, crippling debt, and infrastructure “corridors.”

Those were some of the problems and priorities that U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan rattled off in a wide-ranging talk at a forum hosted by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition in Washington, D.C., yesterday.

He also spoke about “one of the core tensions at the heart of American foreign policy: putting out the immediate fires while also trying to build more resilience so there are fewer fires in the future.”

One of those immediate fires — which chokes off long-term development — is debt, my colleague Elissa Miolene writes.

“The single thing that is most holding back developing countries right now from being able to address the challenges, and ensure that the next humanitarian crisis isn’t right around the corner, is getting out from crushing debt,” Sullivan said. “The president has made clear that we need an all-hands-on-deck strategy to deal with that.”

Another part of U.S. President Joe Biden’s development strategy is investing in infrastructure, agriculture, energy, and digital technology — investments today that, Sullivan said, “will pay off one-hundred fold tomorrow.”

Read: US national security adviser details White House's development goals

Related: Global south now repays more in debt than it gets in grants and loans (Pro)

‘Permanent pariah state’

Afghanistan is now notoriously associated with the Taliban, which has stripped women and girls of their basic rights and presided over a humanitarian catastrophe in which 1 in 3 Afghans don’t know where their next meal will come from.

Now add climate change to the long-running tally of crises.

“Afghanistan is one of the sixth most climate-vulnerable countries in the world,” writes M. Ashraf Haidari in an opinion piece for Devex. “The recent weeks have seen recurrent climate disasters across the country, decimating impoverished villages filled with fragile mud homes.”

Haidari, Afghanistan's former ambassador to Sri Lanka and now an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, says the country is “facing one of the most complex humanitarian crises of its recent history.”

“It is a convergence of the past 45 years of imposed conflicts of geopolitics, endemic poverty, climate change, the global economic recession due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and chronic foreign aid dependency,” he writes, warning that: “Without inclusive governance and robust international intervention, the country risks becoming a permanent pariah state — which is why the global community cannot afford to ignore the climate crises and humanitarian emergencies that are unfolding.”

Opinion: Afghanistan’s climate and conflict crises have a dire global cost

It’s never too late

Switching jobs in the development sector is often seen as something you do in the youth of your career. But it’s also for the young at heart.

For seasoned professionals, the fear of work opportunities drying up in their 50s and beyond is very real — and at times justified — but there are ways to overcome common barriers that late-career professionals may encounter.

“I think career transition is a lot like an Escher painting. It's not like you convert from a fish into a bird. … It doesn't happen overnight. It's something that happens gradually,” Jeannette Tramhel, a veteran development consultant, said during a recent Devex digital event where she shared lessons from her own journey, which led to landing a “dream job” after what she thought was her retirement.

Among the tips: Make the most of where you are now. Even if you’re unhappy with certain aspects of your current job, Tramhel advised against “burning bridges” or taking a “quiet-quitting approach.” Rather, “use the opportunities that you have to develop your skills and knowledge,” she said.

And learn the lingo, said career coach Caroline Korda Poole: “The terminology is always changing, so stay sharp with that. Go to conferences, read a lot, [and] really make sure that you're keeping your skills current so that you've got a depth of experience, but you're still on the cutting edge.”

Read: 3 ways to future-proof your global development career (Career)

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Opinion corner

• Trying to tackle the climate crisis physically burned out Dhanush Dinesh of Clim-Eat. “As I spoke to others working in global development, I realized I was not alone. Working on topics such as climate change is not easy — even when you put in your best, change seems too slow, too late. Many were juggling complicated work-life balances, extensive international travel, and workloads that sometimes seemed insurmountable,” he writes, advocating for the power of self-care. “Just because we’re working for a better world, it doesn’t mean our own personal worlds are healthy or sustainable.”

• There is likely no such thing as a “perfect” just transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, writes Haley St. Dennis. The complicated tradeoffs “don’t make for easy headlines — and too often the cautionary tales and conflicts between companies and communities dominate headlines.” But that doesn’t mean we should slow the push for decarbonization. “Instead, the focus needs to be on sharing net-zero transition stories that are working, not working, and how to move forward for people and the planet.”

• “With the specter of infectious disease outbreaks looming large across the globe, early detection and rapid response are crucial for mitigating their impact,” write Dr. Barry Finette and Ollin D. Langle-Chimal. He makes a case for why schools can serve as surveillance hubs for infectious disease outbreaks as well as trends in chronic conditions.

In other news

Countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change are putting 15.5% of their government revenues — double the amount since the pandemic — into debt repayments, money that could instead be used to tackle the climate crisis. [The Guardian]

Biden is set to announce today an executive order limiting asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border once the number of new requests reaches a daily average of 2,500 over a week. [Politico]

At least 50 people have died in India in the last three days due to extreme heat levels. [BBC]

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