How to build a more equitable development workforce

Women who are Black, Indigenous, or people of color make up 20% of the U.S. population. However, this background only represents 4% of organizational leaders in the international development and humanitarian assistance sector. This is according to Social Impact’s 2021 Benchmarking Race, Inclusion, and Diversity in Global Engagement survey, which looked at diversity in U.S.-based headquarters of international development and humanitarian assistance organizations. To learn more about how our sector can develop more racial and ethnic equity, Devex’s Business Editor David Ainsworth sat down with Indira Ahluwalia, the president and CEO of CREED, the Coalition for Racial & Ethnic Equity in Development. CREED is a membership group of aid organizations that launched last April and includes both for-profit and nonprofit bodies that have made a commitment to racial equity within their own work. During an interview held at Devex World 2022 Ahluwalia spoke of CREED's mission and its pledge to increase diversity and inclusion in the sector. Ahluwalia explained that, while well-intentioned, simply declaring a commitment to diversity and equity does not guarantee results. "For us to make the shift, we have to change how we incorporate diversity in our thinking,” she said. Ahluwalia stressed that achieving racial and ethnic equity is not simply an HR function; it is a strategic paradigm that must be integrated into every element of an organization's policy and practice. By signing the pledge, organizations are making a public commitment to take concrete steps toward achieving this goal. The pledge encompasses the following five components that have been designed to help build racial and ethnic equity, or REE, in global development: Policy and systems. “Everybody's willing to say yes, but we don't seem to make any progress,” Ahluwalia said. To achieve effective change, there must be an overarching organizational commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. For this, CREED suggests that organizations need to create policies and systems for racial and ethnic equity that are followed up by annually signed commitments. People, leadership, and organizational structure. To enhance diversity at senior levels, it’s important that the criteria are inclusive and favorable to diverse candidates. CREED suggests investing time into examining criteria such as education, international living, and work experience. “Very often, we talk about recruitment and we talk about retention, sometimes we really don't talk about succession plans,” Ahluwalia said. This is why CREED calls to develop a career progression plan for diverse talent that includes sponsoring and mentoring them to succeed in leadership roles. Organizational culture. “It's not enough to have it on paper, it's not enough to sign the pledge, you have to believe it and you have to act so that people in your organization are psychologically safe to be their full self and bring their best value,” Ahluwalia said. CREED emphasizes that the groundwork for REE to be a lived core value for all staff needs to be laid. To do so involves creating safe spaces for employees to openly converse, in which they understand the impacts of discrimination and embrace a learning mindset. Accountability. “We're looking to act, we're looking to measure, and we want to report,” Ahluwalia said. CREED suggests that progress needs to be measured in concrete ways and reported as a standard organizational performance — featuring key performance indicators for REE and appraisal systems for all staff. Communications and transparency. Communicating openly is key to achieving an inclusive status quo. This involves committing to transparency both in the internal dialogue of organizations as well as the wider global development environment. When organizations talk between themselves, there is the opportunity for synergetic effects to arise, with the potential to reach greater impact, faster, Ahluwalia said.