Should development organizations ditch the headquarters?

Recently, a Devex reader raised an interesting issue about a growing move in the development sector: More and more organizations are saying they no longer have a headquarters. Oxfam’s inclusive language guide, published in March, recommends avoiding the term. It said the word headquarters “implies a power dynamic that prioritizes one office over another. In the context in which we work the implication is very colonial, reinforcing hierarchical power issues and a top-down approach.” Several development leaders told Devex that they are following this practice. But what are organizations actually doing? Are they selling the building? Or changing how they are organized so that their leadership is not collected in one place? Or is it the word they are abandoning, rather than the concept? Is it more of a philosophical change to reflect how the organization thinks about itself? And also, crucially, why are they doing it? The end of the HQ For most of the history of the development organization, it’s been pretty uncontroversial to have a headquarters: a big central office where the C-suite and other senior leaders work, and where the organization is registered for tax and accounting purposes. But now, for two principal reasons, this way of working is beginning to change. The first is universal: The revolution in remote working that happened during the pandemic. Now that people can work from anywhere, there is simply less need for a central office. The second is more particular to development. It is about localization and the widespread belief in the sector that it is time to shift who holds the power. Campaigners are asking whether development organizations should really have a hub containing all the most powerful people, located in the global north. Shouldn’t the organization be centered near where the work is done, not where the money is raised? How have organizations responded? Several different responses have emerged. In some cases, organizations such as Oxfam International have moved the center of operations to the global south, driven by a desire to have fewer development organizations based in big donor countries. Others have kept the same offices and done all the usual things — downsized and allowed more staff to work remotely — but accompanied this with conscious changes in staff hiring to recruit more people working abroad. Humentum, which works with NGO leaders on back-office issues, has told us that recruiting staff abroad and trying to do so fairly is a major issue for their CEO members. In some cases, these decisions might be largely practical or economic. NGOs are realizing they can get excellent staff if they expand their hiring pool geographically. For others, it might be more about power. For similar reasons to Oxfam, these organizations have ensured that the people they recruit this way include C-suite staff and board members. In other cases, it is primarily the word “headquarters” that has been ditched to make a point about representation as part of the sector’s push for inclusive language. Organizations have carried on working the same way but renamed the office to avoid giving the impression that some parts of the organization are viewed as superior. What issues has this raised? The shift away from having a headquarters has raised some practical questions. To what extent should you reorganize in this way? What are the pros and cons? If you do have people in many countries doing head office work, how do you handle differing salary expectations? And how do you ensure an inclusive culture that treats everyone correctly and does not favor some nationalities over others? It’s also raised ethical issues. In some cases, leaders in the global south seem less than overjoyed at INGOs trying to become more locally based. Local leaders have expressed a feeling that this isn’t about being more inclusive; it’s about INGOs muscling in on local NGOs’ turf. This speaks to a wider debate about localization. Should it be about INGOs transforming themselves to become more local? Representatives of local NGOs have suggested that is not the answer. It should be about the development sector as a whole transforming itself to give more primacy to organizations that are already locally based. A big element of this discussion is about money. As the U.S. Agency for International Development and other major donors have made it clearer that they want to give more money to locally based organizations — albeit with limited success — leaders of existing global south NGOs may cynically wonder if the rush to abandon the headquarters is an attempt by INGOs to position themselves as more southern, local, and acceptable to receive funds. Finally, it raises questions around language. Where INGOs are abandoning the word headquarters, but doing everything else the same, is this helpful? Or is it just tokenism? Not actually making a change, but looking like you are to seem more aligned with the localization movement. It’s similar to the phenomenon known as the euphemism treadmill, where organizations identify that there are negative connotations to a particular term — such as “developing world” or “beneficiary” — they might decide to adopt a new term — “global south” or “service user,” for example. But in most cases, these renaming exercises have limited long-term success because the core issue remains. Eventually, the old negative connotations become attached to the new terminology, which in turn needs to be replaced. Perhaps sooner or later, whatever word we use instead of headquarters will come to be viewed as similarly problematic. It comes down to why Reading this analysis, you could be forgiven for thinking that INGOs are damned if they do stick with the headquarters — and damned if they don’t. Whatever they do is going to be viewed as treading on the toes of local organizations. There are likely some in the development sector for whom this is true — whatever INGOs do will not be good enough. But for most people, it likely comes down to why it is being done. The decision to ditch the headquarters — both the office and the word — is one that is ostensibly being made in the service of strengthening local entities, offices, or staff. Whether or not it serves that end likely comes down to the intent of those delivering the change, and their ability to deliver on it. Do you have thoughts on this issue that you’d like to share? Email us at devexpro@devex.com.