Aid workers are like acrobats balancing on a tightrope, Bill Easterly and Laura Freschi say in a blog entry where they pay tribute the international aid worker.
“Aid work, whether in the field or at HQ, requires balancing along a thin and possibly nonexistent line reconciling the irreconcilable demands of your bosses, your evaluators, your funders, your critics, your local government counterparts, your clients, your family, and your own ideals,” the two experts write.
Working in the international aid industry entails a lot of travel and it provides the gratification of doing something for the good of other people, Easterly and Freschi note. But the travel is not always luxurious and aid work does include monotonous work such as crunching data and writing reports, they add.
“Aid workers by profession take risks that range from just inconvenient to lethal: jet lag, homesickness, food poisoning, petty crime, disease, terrorism, war,” the experts say, adding that most of the workers are educated professionals who could have “easily found jobs that pay more and require less dedication and hardship.”
