Fred Spielberg says he isn’t a humanitarian cowboy, though he has been called one.
“I started out as a U.N. volunteer, but I rapidly got on the circuit of being sent to every major emergency in Africa,” he tells Devex, rattling off countries: Angola, Somalia, Mozambique, Sudan — and that’s not even including his many short-term duty postings. “This was in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and that was the prime breeding grounds for humanitarian cowboys.”
Anyone who’s spent time in the sector knows this particular brand of aid worker: White, male, armed with a threadbare passport and an unwavering confidence in his ability to fix a situation, often without asking a whole lot of questions. One report describes the culture as one of “heroism and risk-taking”; another speaks of “charismatic figures” with a “track record of getting things done.’’