Devex Newswire: Localization wars, racial reckoning ensnare leading NGO

Pathfinder International is trying to find its way as it prepares for a future of localized development while trying to reconcile with a still-potent past of white supremacy and colonialism. Also in today’s edition: Deloitte wins the first round of NextGen contracts, British International Investment is accused of a litany of misdeeds, and some rare good news for Yemen. Going forward (and backward) Like many organizations, Pathfinder International is trying to navigate a future template of development where decision-making power and resources are focused on localization. At the same time, the past retains a tight grip on the influential reproductive health organization as it reckons with its historic ties to the racist ideology of eugenics. All of these forces have collided over the last five years into accusations of a toxic workplace, an ugly breakup with the organization’s founding family, and questions as to whether CEO Lois Quam is transforming Pathfinder into a model of localization, or embarking on a self-destructive power grab cloaked in progressive rhetoric. “We're building a Pathfinder that's country-led, where we're shifting power and resources to our country leaders and teams in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East,” Quam tells Devex Senior Reporter Michael Igoe for his in-depth piece detailing the travails of an organization that implements more than $100 million per year in reproductive health and family planning programs, most of which are supported by USAID. But Pathfinder’s transition has not come without pain. Some current and former employees paint a picture not of progress but one of dysfunction, vanity, and layoffs. “If you disagreed with [Lois], you got removed,” a former employee tells Michael. “It was one of the most toxic things I've ever experienced in my life,” says another. “Lois' purpose is Lois,” charges Ben Kahrl, a grandson of Pathfinder’s founder Clarence Gamble — heir to the Procter and Gamble fortune and an early promoter of birth control. Gamble was also part of a campaign to limit population growth among minorities, people with disabilities, and others deemed “unfit” by a group of mostly wealthy, white men. Kahrl’s disputes with Quam and the board over how to recognize and reconcile his grandfather’s legacy caused a deeply personal and public chasm that has yet to be bridged. And as Michael’s story shows, the hard feelings seem to have only hardened as Pathfinder moves forward in its controversial journey. Even a current employee supportive of Pathfinder’s reinvention — Jodi DiProfio, a senior technical adviser working on gender — admits it came with a price, albeit one that was worth it. “I would be lying if I said there was no discomfort,” she says, “But I also felt like discomfort sort of meant we were on the right track.” Read: The localization wars Background reading: 2 Pathfinder board members resign over transparency concerns Control Tower, come in USAID has finally awarded its first contract from the NextGen Global Health Supply Chain, a suite of 10-year, $17 billion contracts that will fund the procurement and distribution of health products around the world. The contracts make up one of the largest collections of awards in the agency's history, my colleague Omar Mohammed tells me. USAID offered what’s called the Control Tower contract to Deloitte Consulting — worth a cool $105.9 million. The contract is intended to create a data hub and centrally coordinate the work of the eight prime contractors that will be chosen for the other NextGen contracts. The awarding of the Control Tower contract has taken close to two years since the agency had asked for proposals for it way back in August 2021. The battle for the remaining eight contracts continues. + Devex Pro members can get the most out of our USAID coverage. Not a Pro member yet? Start your 15-day free trial today. BII-g worries British International Investment, whose inception last year sparked pushback, continues to court controversy over the wisdom of its investment choices. At a parliamentary inquiry last week, the United Kingdom’s development investment arm came under fire for spending on fossil fuel projects and for possible tax haven links stemming from investments in partnership with rich “elite” business leaders, often in middle-income countries or funneled through Mauritius and the Cayman Islands. This led to calls for BII to be put under greater government control, but U.K. Development Minister Andrew Mitchell dismissed those calls, arguing the U.K.’s development finance institution was the “best in the world” and should not be “interfered with.” The Commons International Development Committee is investigating whether there’s a lack of transparency at BII, which replaced the longstanding CDC Group as part of then-Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’s strategy to draw recipient countries away from China and “towards free-market democracies.” Read: Minister rejects calls to rein in UK investment arm over spending + Check out our page for the latest news and analysis of the U.K.’s foreign development and aid sector. A conservative take Dan Runde of the Center for Strategic and International Studies argues that soft power, not necessarily military might, will help the United States counter China and Russia. At the same time, he advocates for what he calls “conservative internationalism,” a necessary construct in an age of inevitable globalization that would see the U.S. use every tool to move low-income nations toward self-reliance — both for their own good and to up their viability as allies and partners. Listen to Runde’s conservative take on development in the latest episode of the Devex Book Club podcast, The case for soft power: Dan Runde on "The American Imperative." Gender stasis The Gender Social Norms Index report, launched yesterday by the U.N. Development Programme, reveals no improvement in biases against women in a decade — biases that cut across region, income, level of development, and culture. Half of people worldwide still believe men make better political leaders than women and more than 40% believe men make better business executives than women, according to a UNDP press release. Meanwhile, 25% of people believe it is justified for a man to beat his wife. Related: To move past 'male unless otherwise indicated' in data, just ask women What’s in a name Now some good news for a country that rarely sees it. UNDP announced it is that much closer to preventing over a million barrels of oil from spilling into the Red Sea off Yemen’s coast. The oil is sitting in a decaying vessel that, barring action, will break apart or explode, threatening more than 17 million people and 200,000 livelihoods. The milestone came to fruition because of … insurance. The U.N.-coordinated mission secured the necessary insurance to enable a ship-to-ship salvage operation and oil transfer. “Without it, the mission could not go forward,” said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner in a release. More than 100 individual underwriters have been involved in the issuance of an exceptionally specialized — and high-risk — set of policies. Constructed in 1976 and converted into a floating storage and offloading facility, or FSO, for oil, FSO Safer is carrying 1.14 million barrels of light crude. However, maintenance of FSO Safer stopped in 2015 when fighting broke out in Yemen — and it’s been a ticking ecological time bomb ever since. Background reading: $20M needed to stop environmental catastrophe in the Red Sea In other news The United States plans to rejoin UNESCO, resolving a decadelong dispute sparked by the inclusion of Palestine as a member, with China’s growing global influence playing a significant role in the decision. [AP News] United Nations chief António Guterres has called for coordinated global action to combat disinformation, hate speech, and the risks associated with artificial intelligence. [The Hill] A camp for internally displaced persons in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was attacked, resulting in the loss of over 45 lives, with the U.N. peacekeeping mission condemning the assault as a grave violation of international humanitarian law. [Al Jazeera] Sign up to Newswire for an inside look at the biggest stories in global development.