The Good Problem

This week alone, in the midst of a devastating global pandemic, we have seen a massive earthquake hit Haiti, and horrific images and stories streaming out of Afghanistan documenting the fall of government and takeover by the Taliban. It’s difficult to process these events when we are already suffering collectively, and difficult to know what to do next, if anything.

These events, and others like them continually raise the question of the role aid and development work play in these crises, and the effectiveness of humanitarian responses. Aid and development effectiveness should be continually interrogated. Maintaining the status quo and doing things how they’ve always been done will never result in the outcomes those in the global north profess to want for those in the global south. And herein lies the problem – the power imbalance inherent in aid as a construct.

My guest today is someone infinitely more qualified than me to talk on these topics. Themrise Khan has spent that last 25 years working in the international development sector in Pakistan, South Asia and globally. Her work focuses on social policy, aid effectiveness, gender, and global migration and she actively speaks, writers and advises the global community on notions of decolonisation, North-South power imbalances in development, race relations, immigrant citizenship and integration.

You can find Themrise on Twitter here.

Opening season 5 with this episode seems fitting, with the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) damning report that found escaping human caused climate change is no longer possible. Even if earth’s climate was stablised in the near future, some of the climate change induced damage could not be reversed in centuries, or even millenia. We should expect worse fires, longer droughts, and more severe floods.

My guest today is Scott Ludlam, former deputy leader of the Australia Greens and Senator from 2008 – 2017. Scott is a lifelong climate activist and for his first book, Full Circle is a deep exploration of the failures of the financial and political systems that have led us to this place in time, where political, human and natural systems are on the verge of collapse. While the book is sobering, Scott also asks “How can we can make our systems more humane, regenerative, and more in tune with nature?”

Join Scott and I for a wonderfully explorative dive into the book!

The concept of shared value has gained popularity in recent years, with recognition that solving social and environmental problems requires the input, participation and action of all stakeholders. Leveraging the resources and innovation capacity of the private sector is key to solving the world’s most pressing problems, and as the logic goes – if businesses can benefit at the same time, it’s a win win.

But is shared value a panacea for solving all of our problems? Or is there still a role for philanthropy and charity, and activism?

My guest today is Phil Preston, author of Connecting Profit With Purpose, a practical roadmap for (re)building trust and creating high-performing, sustainable businesses.

Phil is reading Stakeholder Capitalism, by Klaus Schwab

Connect with Phil on Twitter.

Working in the international development sector is complex. From the outside, it can seem like an exciting, adventurous life – living in places that are perceived to be dangerous, or hard. But for humanitarian workers, it’s not always easy – especially for those working in conflict zones, or emergencies. Burnout and PTSD are common, and often left untreated.

It’s also common for humanitarian workers to ask themselves whether what they are doing is really helping. It can be easy to get caught up in the delivery of projects, and ignore the bigger questions about effectiveness, impact and ethics.

My guest today chose not to ignore those questions, and not to accept the status quo. Taking a sabbatical from her long career in the sector, Cornelia Walther decided to explore these questions in detail and has recently published the book: Development, humanitarian action and social welfare: Social change from the inside out.

Check out Cornelia's work here.

Cornelia is reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Accessibility is often taken for granted by people who are not disabled. Everyday situations like shopping, catching transport, accessing public bathrooms, using the internet can be extremely challenging for those who have a disability. Disability is so individual, and so misunderstood, and our world does not do well at accepting, accommodating and including individuals who are disabled. We need to do better.

My guest today is the amazing Carly Findlay, an award winning writer, speaker and appearance activist. Carly is the editor of Growing Up Disabled in Australia, an anthology of stories written by disabled Australians and published this week by Black Inc Books. Carly is also the author of Say Hello, published in 2019. She writes regularly for CNN, ABC, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and SBS and appears regularly on television and radio. Carly identifies as a proud disabled woman.

Carly is reading People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd

Carly is listening to the Conversations series by ABC

Vist Carly's blog.

Follow Carly on Facebook and Twitter.

Today’s guest has quite the life story. Born in a remote village in the far west of Nepal, At the age of 7, Sushil went for a walk beyond the hills that surrounded his village and a few months later found himself homeless, living on the streets of Kathmandu.

Sushil’s story of street living, his time in an orphanage and his perspective on volunteers that want to help children like him is invaluable. It’s Sushil’s and my hope that by sharing his story, we can amplify the voices of other children and adults who have been on the receiving end of people’s good intentions to support children in orphanages and through that, change the way we care for vulnerable children.

Sushil is listening to the suite of VICE podcasts.

Follow Sushil on Twitter and on Facebook.

Everything is connected, and every action we take impacts somebody, something, or someplace. As I get older, and learn more about the world, the connections become clearer. Things that seem straightforward on the surface are incredibly complex, and intersect with things that seem completely unrelated. I love this about the world – how we can seem to be on opposing sides of an issue, yet have a shared goal that will benefit us all.

Ghost Gear is one of those things – A staggering 640,000 tonnes of abandoned, lost and discarded fishing nets, lines and traps are left in our oceans every year, trapping, injuring, mutilating and killing hundreds of thousands of whales, seals, turtles and birds annually. But this doesn’t only affect wildlife – it affects livelihoods, biodiversity, climate and human rights.

To unpack this, I invited Ingrid Giskes on to the podcast. Ingrid is the Director of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative (GGGI) at Ocean Conservancy. The Ghost Gear Initiative brings together a multi-stakeholder approach to solving the problem of ghost gear, with over 100 partners involved, including governments around the world.

Ingrid is reading Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama.

Ingrid is listening to the Yoga Girl Daily podcast.

I’m fascinated by the different ways humans express what it means to do good: why they do good, how they do good, and what their consequences of their actions are. One of most widely used mechanisms for doing good is through religion. As with everything humans do, this is interpreted in vastly different ways: all driven by a personal interpretation of what it means to be a believer in one’s chosen religion.

Evangelism and missionary work are expressions of this and each year, millions of Americans travel overseas for missions trips. Some of them head off for a short term mission, while others dedicate years of their lives to mission, fully supported by their home churches to set up home in far-off places and embed themselves and their beliefs in communities they deem in need of saving.

Race and power dynamics play a huge role in how missionary work is conducted and to help me unpack this, I invited Dr. Andreana Prichard on to the podcast. Andreana is an Associate Professor of African History at the University of Oklahoma whose work deals with the history of gender, Christianity and development in Africa and explores the history of evangelical child sponsorship initiatives in East Africa and the American Bible belt.

Andreana is listening to Serial by NPR, the Undisclosed Podcast, Missing and Murdered by the CBC,

Andreana is reading The Searcher by Tana French, and Cribsheet by Emily Oster

I often lament that doing good is not done well enough, and talk about the need to pay more attention to the why, the how, and the impact of doing good. I’m a strong proponent of not engaging in the act of doing good unless you have a deep knowledge and understanding of the cause you are wanting to support, and the charity you want to support it through.

But behind all this doing good is a deeper problem, one that challenges our willingness to do good in a meaningful, connected way. It’s the question of civic engagement. My guest today is Andrew Leigh MP, co-author of the book Reconnected, and Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury and Charities within the Australian Labour Party.

In Reconnected, Andrew tells us of the overall decline in civic engagement across all domains including involvement in community associations, membership of political parties, union membership and participation in organised religion. We have less close friends, we give less, we volunteer less, and we vote less. Reconnected calls for more engagement in helping, giving and volunteering as ways to increase social cohesion and resilience to improve outcomes for all Australians.

As I was reading Andrew’s book, it occurred to me that while both Andrew and I are calling for more involvement in doing good, we are doing so with a slightly different lens. When Andrew speaks of the need for more engagement in doing good, I speak of the need for caution, and for ensuring that you don’t cause further harm. When Andrew speaks of the need for systems to be in place to transform spontaneous altruism into a lasting volunteering ethos, I talk about the need to examine spontaneous altruism itself.

Andrew is reading Truman, by David McCullough

Andrew is listening to the Freakonomics Podcast, the Radiolab podcasts, and The Jolly Swagman Podcast by Joseph Noel Walker.

We need to talk about power.

In the doing good sector, the people who are in the positions of power are those who make decisions about money. Who gets it, how much, when, how and why. In many cases, these decision makers are not representative of the communities who are meant to benefit from these decisions. They don’t have lived experience, they don’t share cultural backgrounds, and their understanding of the issue itself is limited.

In a time when diversity and inclusion is high on the agenda for many organisations, there is a serious need to examine power structures and how they impact the allocation of resources. To unpack this further, I invited Weh Yeoh on to the podcast. Weh lived in Cambodia for 5 years, where he founded OIC Cambodia. Now back in Australia, he’s the co-founder of Umbo - an initiative to improve access to services for children in rural and remote communities.