ABCD and Humanitarian Response/AID: Mixing oil and water?

ABCD AND HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE/AID:

MIXING OIL AND WATER? ABCD Kitchen Table Talks February 3 2022

ENGAGE! Women's Empowerment & Active Citizenship

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ABCD and Humanitarian Response/AID: Mixing oil and water?

ABCD Kitchen Table Talks, February 3, 2022 Hosts: Abebe Kefale (Organization for Women in Self Employment, Ethiopia) Robin Neustaeter (Coady Institute)

Introduction The Coady Institute partners with five organizations to implement the ENGAGE program in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Tanzania. A key component of the Engage program is the priority placed on creating a co-learning environment whereby the partner organizations have ongoing opportunities to share their expertise, learn from each other, and collectively explore new ideas, techniques and tools.

If you have come to Nova Scotia, you will notice that we often do a lot of our talking and decision-making informally at our kitchen tables. The Antigonish Movement was organized around them and Moses Coady and Jimmy Tomkins, our founders, were known for them. We wanted to revive these discussions around the burning issues that are keeping us up at night about ABCD approaches. These talks are provocative, candid, and critical discussion circles on how to deepen our practice and thinking on ABCD. This Kitchen Table Talk was framed around how humanitarian response, direct supports to communities and individuals, and ABCD approaches exist, co-exist, and can be in tension. After two years of the pandemic, and many direct supports from government to communities, civil society organizations have had to reflect on realities, challenges and strategies for mixing the two. WISE has blended these approaches, especially since the Coronavirus pandemic began. In this talk, they presented their approach to mixing the two before Robin Neustadter moderated a discussion on the interplay between humanitarian response and asset-based approaches.

The WISE Approach Through WISE’s development of savings and credit cooperative organizations (SACCOs), women learn about financial literacy, develop business skills, and manage the SACCOs themselves. WISE uses an asset-based approach in its work with women and local communities. Abebe explained the ABCD approach using a glass that is half full which represents the ABCD principle that everyone has something to offer – strengths, assets and capacities. Focus Women are trained on assets as wellto asfurther needs develop assets, such as skills and knowledge, to support their needs, and to become successful in their own businesses. The glass becomes full when the women are successful.

It is both. To fully understand our village, we have to look at both the assets and the needs

Is the glass half full or half empty?

By focusing first on our strengths, assets and capacities, we realize that we can bring about change

WISE highlighted examples of successful implementation of the ABCD approach, the establishment of SACCOs being the most notable. As part of the SACCO model, WISE trains low income and unemployed women and assists them with developing small businesses. The women are encouraged to use SACCOs to save small amounts of money on a regular basis.

The SACCOs form a larger union to further strengthen membership and provide a layer of protection for individual SACCOs. In another example, SACCO members in a local community used the ABCD approach to recognize their assets and knowledge to develop a potable water spring. This venture provides potable water to an entire community. Other successful examples of the ABCD approach include establishment of community policing and garbage collection in local communities, all of which are operated by women.

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WISE provides awards to those who use the ABCD approach effectively. Awards recognize the skills of a business or community, high savers, or role model families who have completed training in gender equality. Women, men and children participate in this training and to motivate the family unit, awards are also given to supportive husbands.

For WISE, it is possible to blend humanitarian and ABCD approaches. In extreme circumstances, women may become dependent on others for basic needs. Abebe explained the difference between their approach and traditional humanitarian aid. WISE’s organizational policy doesn’t support monetary aid or handout supports since they have found it is detrimental to long lasting development of women and target groups. However, when challenges occur that affect human capabilities or capacity, WISE may offer forms of humanitarian support that are short-term and soon replaced by ABCD approaches.

In one example, WISE offered training to a local woman beggar. When asked to identify her potential, she provided her vast knowledge of the local area and its citizens. Using this asset, WISE helped her develop her own business plan to sell traditional candles. They also gave her a crutch to help with her mobility needs while selling. Her business has since done very well and she has expensed to selling other items in addition to candles. WISE sees this woman’s success as an example of using both approaches.

While ABCD and humanitarian approaches are beneficial, there are challenges too. ABCD is better suited to a long-term goal while humanitarian support addresses urgent needs in a short period of time. A woman who lacks basic needs will not understand the ABCD approach therefore humanitarian aid is the best option at first, before transitioning to ABCD approaches.

This is because WISE recognizes that long term humanitarian aid creates dependency. During the pandemic, WISE provided this support to women in need on behalf of government agencies. While necessary, WISE has noticed that some recipients of aid still expect this support and it has led to a loss of ability and confidence. They concluded by noting that humanitarian aid should be offered only for a short period of time, followed by integrating a more ABCD approach to mobilize and build agency for sustainable development.

Kitchen Table Discussions The participants then broke out into several rooms (“Kitchen Tables”) to have small group discussions before reporting back to the larger room. Participants discussed how to balance ABCD with humanitarian aid when there is an urgent need of assistance. Challenges exist when the two approaches are used at the same time. It is a delicate balance between introducing aid and assets to the community while recognizing the resources present in that community. Are these two approaches designed in consideration of each other, and when does one approach stop and another begin? The group “We need to have the question in every discussion provided insight and further examples of the element of project planning: how is interplay between humanitarian response and assetthis affecting individual and collective based approaches. agency? What is this doing for assets? Is it They noted that humanitarian aid often starts with telling strengthening or weakening these?” people what they need and isn’t participatory. Without - Gord Cunningham

people’s own input, organizations cannot start with the opportunities and assets that are already there. While the discourse has changed over the 10 or 20 years, this still tends to be a challenge, since organizations are not aware of who the local organizations and leaders are or what the asset base is. They consequently sidestep those local organization and create parallel systems that weaken those that already exist.

Two examples from Coady partners were raised and both organizations have experience responding to more traditional aid-based responses to disasters.

• CLE was born out of Haiti’s reaction to the international aid community’s response following the 2010 earthquake. The international community failed to recognize Haiti’s citizen-led efforts to support itself following the disaster. CLE recognized communityfocused leadership and continues to provide training and support through the ABCD approach. Young people have very little access to their own funding. CLE grants small seed funding to help them accomplish their goals, but the reality is that they have come “to the table” with a lot of development and mobilization in preparing the initiative. These are all assets they have invested already. There is humanitarian aid in a short-term basis, and then there’s catalytic funds to help scale initiatives and investment in the work they are doing.

• After the Gujarat earthquake, SEWA used an ABCD approach with the self-help groups of women that were their members to help them transition from relief support to a more selfreliant future. Even in obvious relief situations the way that relief is carried out can involve local people and draw upon their assets. For example, are there local associations that can be mobilized? Are there individuals whose skills can be utilized? Are refugee camps merely places to warehouse people, or are there ways to involve people in building new (albeit temporary) communities by drawing on the assets and agency they possess?

A clear thread through the conversations was the importance of investing in relationships so that when a crisis hits, trust there is and can be built upon. The participants noted that trust is an asset that can be built as deliberately as money, a building, or knowledge. Similarly, ABCD encourages community members to strengthen relationship by interacting with one another.

These horizontal ties and assets create enduring mutual relationships, which can be used to build agency to negotiate upwards with external agencies or governments, to claim rights, and build resilience to disasters.

The Kitchen Table Talk finished as participants noted that the frequency of disasters – storms, drought, and human-caused – is increasing, not decreasing so the need for humanitarian assistance will continue. The Covid experience shows us that women have been affected the most, but they have also been at the forefront of the response. Because of their roles in family, women play a central role in all disasters by securing relief from assistance providers, meeting the immediate survival needs of their family, and managing temporary relocation. However, their assets are not frequently recognized, and inequalities persist in the use of relief, recovery work, access to shelter and goods, and involvement in planning. ABCD, especially with a gender lens, can help strengthen such local responses, accelerate recovery, and build resilience to future shocks.