Planned exits — an unpopular course on an unpopular topic

CANBERRA — It has been almost three months since the Humanitarian Institute announced its June course on developing and implementing exit strategies in developing countries. Aimed at nongovernmental organizations, corporations, governments, social enterprises, startups and more, the program offers a rare how-to guide at a moment when the development community is increasingly questioning its long-term sustainability and goals of localization. But to date, there has been little interest in the course. “I have not been looking at the numbers of participants coming in — but it has been very quiet,” Weh Yeoh, co-facilitator of the course and co-founder of WhyDev, explained to Devex. “I am disappointed, but I am not surprised — and it proves a point that the impetus to plan an exit isn’t going to come from the people who need to know it.” Developed through experience For Yeoh, the desire to develop a course educating the sector on exit strategies came from personal experience. “The impetus for this came from my experience working in Cambodia, where I saw a country that is really aid dependent and — when I got there in 2012 — had the second largest numbers of NGOs on the world, the second highest number of [United Nations] agencies, and half a billion dollars or aid money coming in each year. But there were a lot of real gaps — including in speech therapy, an area I have been working on.” According to Yeoh, who founded an organization focused on speech therapy, 1 in 25 — or 600,000 — Cambodians require speech therapy services. When he began his work in Cambodia, there were zero speech therapists, no university courses, and no awareness. And yet, an exit strategy was baked into the very core of his NGO, OIC Cambodia. “[Exit] is very difficult, and I have seen that in a number of different cases related to speech therapy, where organizations have tried to do work, hand it over to the government ... that process has been invariably very painful,” Yeoh said. “With OIC Cambodia, we started off with a principle — that we didn’t want to do [all] the work ... we wanted to work with the government, so that they could build capability from the beginning. And that’s why we set up our exit strategy.” With an exit strategy planned for 2030, OIC Cambodia was established in 2014. By 2030, they plan to have 100 therapists integrated into the public sector and to achieve this, they need to develop university courses that don’t yet exist, and get the government to sign on to integrate speech pathologists into the public sector. In addition, raise awareness so demand is stimulated for both the service as well as students to participate in university courses. All within a 16-year period. “It is a relatively long period of work, but also not really,” Yeoh said. “Sixteen years to grow a profession that will, in turn, serve 600,000 people is pretty time efficient.” While the 2030 exit aims for 100 operational speech therapists, this is not enough to serve the needs of the country. Currently, around 6,000 therapists are required. But OIC Cambodia will leave the country once momentum has built, allowing required numbers to grow organically. OIC Cambodia has already implemented measures to increase local capability. Yeoh handed over responsibility for the NGO to local Cambodian woman, Chenda Net at the start of this year. But Yeoh does not see many NGOs actively planning their exit — this inspired the new course. “After coming back to Australia, on the basis of having done that, and handing back leadership. I looked around and realized no other organizations were doing this,” Yeoh explained. “I could count on one hand international organizations that have a clear exit strategy. There just isn’t a lot of thinking in the international development space about organizations making themselves redundant.” What NGOs need to know An exit strategy is something NGOs need to think about for two reasons, Yeoh explained. The first, he said, is ethics. “It’s not up to us to tell people in other countries what to do. They need to own it for themselves.” And the second is thinking pragmatically about providing services in a changing environment of aid funding. “We know that aid budgets for countries such as Cambodia are drying up,” Yeoh said. “We know the aid budget is shrinking anyway. So what we are going to be left doing, is creating something where there is a big, black hole after we do all this work, and there is no money left to keep it going.” Planning an exit In planning an exit, NGOs need to think about three factors — their vision; where they are today; and what they want achieved when they exit, to enable sustainability of the program. To build an exit strategy, organizations need to think long term — but understanding changing political, social or other circumstances, may create barriers. So plans need to be flexible. “The approach will know a lot about the first period of work ... a little bit about the second period, and a vision — with the flexibility to change as the conditions change.” Funding cycles may also create barriers, with cycles shorter than an organization’s potential lifetime. “What organizations should be saying is ‘you don’t need to fund us forever.’ Even if 16 years is a big commitment, at least we know that post-2030 we are not going to be asking you for more money. “I would have thought this type of thing would be music to their ears,” Yeoh said. But exit strategies aren’t just about the exit of the NGO — it should also be about the exit of a program. And focusing on creating an exit strategy for community-based programs can be an important first step for an NGO into this space. “Splash, an NGO based in Canada with a focus on water projects, is one NGO that plans the exit of the program — not the [exit of the] NGO itself,” Yeoh said. “They plan to set up programs that they will hand off to government, or to a private enterprise, or even no one. But the theory doesn’t differ all that much. The only difference is that the organization will continue to do work after.” But there is a risk with larger organizations — especially focusing on program exits only — could change the goalposts or mission creep, by adding new organization objectives. Engaging with donors on the topic Yeoh believes the incentive to implement exit strategy will need to come not from NGOs, but from donors. As part of the Australia-ASEAN Emerging Leaders Program, Yeoh has encouraged the Australian government to be a leader in the space. “I have been able to meet [Foreign Minister] Julie Bishop, the Prime Minister [Malcolm Turnbull] and the Minister for International Development and the Pacific [Concetta Fierravanti-Wells] and discuss how they can help encourage NGOs to plan, and execute, their own exit,” Yeoh said. “Prime Minister Turnbull threw the issue back at me, as part of a roundtable, and asked what I think. And I explained that the impetus has to come from funders.” Turnbull continued throwing the idea to the room, asking participants if this was an issue that needed to be addressed, Yeoh said. There was consensus that self-perpetuation of NGOs in developing countries was a problem. In Yeoh’s vision, a government or donor — such as Australia, should put out a call for program proposals with criteria attached, asking an organization to specify when they will exit, who they will hand off to — if they need to — and then how they will implement this. “I would like to see Australia [be] the world leader in this space,” Yeoh said. “Australia has a great reputation for being a world leader in disability-inclusive development — wouldn’t it be great to be the world leader in this as well.” Progressing the agenda Regardless of the how the course proceeds, encouraging donors and NGOs to focus on sustainability through planned exits is a message Yeoh in particular will be repeating — often. “If, hypothetically, this course has no sign ups, we will just have to rethink the strategy and who we are putting it out to,” he said. “I do, truly believe something has to be done. It is just how to do it.”