Institutional Memory in INGOs

One of the key issues INGOs face in the field is institutional memory; the need for the INGO to carry lessons learned forward if possible. Institutional memory is a key condition which needs to be filled for an INGO to be able to engage in effective interventions. The longer an INGO is able to work in a state (some INGOs have been around for more than a century), they are able to gain institutional memory of those states: local culture, contacts, formal and informal institutions, and the like. States have excellent institutional memory: collating and storing demographic information is a basic function of a state, and the ability to engage with local communities and sub-state actors is another basic function. INGOs, on the other hand, do not have the same abilities to collate institutional memory as states do. Even worse, INGOs sometimes lack the ability to hold onto institutional memory at all due to volunteer staff turnover, working in a new state, and so on. Institutional memory is vital to an INGO, though, because without it, each time an INGO goes into a disaster scenario, the INGO can only start with the institutional memory of other external actors which have worked in the state in question.

Without institutional memory, the INGO must reinvent the wheel with every new disaster. One of the major challenges that a number of INGOs are dependent upon volunteers, who take their institutional memory with them (Devereux 2008). Yet another reason why

institutional memory is difficult for INGOs to keep is that those who engage in short-term interventions rely heavily on volunteers to keep costs and overhead down, and once these volunteers leave, they take lessons they learned with them. Good field workers and institutional memory, therefore, are critical for understanding field mistakes and better management practices (Heyns 1996). INGO field workers are the keys to institutional memory, and every effort should be used to retain these individuals for their lessons learned, if at all possible (Raymond-McKay and Maclachlan 2000). The literature discusses institutional building of INGOs or in most cases the lack thereof are major roadblocks to effective work in deployments and implementations (Twigg and Steiner 2002). The importance of this institutional and organizational learning cannot be overstated (Bloch and Borges 2002).

How would an INGO retain institutional memory in the field? It would be advisable for INGOs to engage in research before the intervention begins. Research is required not only before the intervention but also during and after the intervention. Research can begin building the bonds of trust required for community buy-in and can help determine criteria for each of Egan’s

measurements for intervention success. Research can also determine what the most appropriate interaction with the state needs to be. The field work of this research has shown that the research and assessment of many INGOs is woefully inadequate and attempts to look for what the INGO already knows, reinforcing their own prejudices and concepts. Research, properly executed, can produce long-term results for the INGO that would produce best practices for the INGO both during the intervention and for the next interventions that the INGO engages in.

Another excellent way for an INGO to retain institutional memory would be to build and strengthen bonds with the state itself. As discussed earlier, the state contains excellent

2.5 Conclusion

To understand why best practices during disaster scenarios fall short, this chapter first discussed the current system of international humanitarian interventions. Then the unintended consequences of these interventions were discussed to detail how interventions can fail even with the best of intentions. The chapter continued with an analysis of why INGOs are set up to fail: external pressures on INGOs and institutional memory of INGOs means that before the INGO even begins the intervention, all of these factors are present, and then the INGO is required to take on functions that states usually take on in the back end. This is a monumental set of

variables and objectives which must be crossed off or contained before the intervention can even begin. The reason best practices fall short during disaster scenarios is that a capable state is needed to maximize how humanitarian aid is delivered. INGOs which have a capable state to work with can overcome some of the external and internal factors which were discussed in this chapter: if there is no capable or viable state, state functions must be replicated, or another external actor must create some state-like functions to increase optimization and efficiency. The two solutions proposed in the next two chapters attempt to address this issue: local community buy-in and a half way house scenario are both solutions which can replicate or supplant the weakened state post-disaster. The next chapter will discuss the necessity of local buy-in, which can also be facilitated by a capable state.

3 SOLUTION 1: LOCAL COMMUNITIES IN LIEU OF A STRONG STATE 3.1 Introduction

As discussed in the introduction and the previous chapter, INGO interventions after disasters fail because the lack of state capacity isn’t taken into account, leading to increased chances of failure. The previous chapter discussed the issues INGOs face with respect to adapting to local conditions, and why it is exceedingly difficult for INGOs to fulfill their mandates in post-disaster scenarios. In this chapter and the following chapter, I argue that there are two solutions INGOs can implement that takes into account such problems and concerns.

This chapter will cover the first of these solutions: local community buy-in. As discussed in the first chapter, local community buy-in is one of the keys to a successful intervention, as local communities will only consider themselves stakeholders when they feel the INGO has empirical legitimacy (Krasner and Risse 2014). The lack of state capacity can be partially supplanted by local community buy-in and empowerment if implemented appropriately. If the local community feels that they are stakeholders in the intervention, they will both actively work with the INGO and this grants the INGO legitimacy in the community’s eyes, creating a positive, self-reinforcing cycle that benefits all actors. This gives the INGO access to local knowledge and institutions, a key state capacity function which gives the intervention a higher chance of success if executed appropriately.

Without a viable state or a state with internal or external legitimacy, INGOs can also ignore or bypass local communities during their work. This is because local communities have no feedback mechanism for accountability regarding INGOs, and INGOs have no real need to consider the needs of the local community. A capable state or an external actor supplanting the state could impose accountability and transparency measures on INGOs, could act as a

coordination mechanism for humanitarian relief, and could also keep successful INGOs from having to replicate state functions. Even if the state or external actor could not fully impose these measures, they could increase the transaction and operation costs for INGOs which choose to flout the state or external actor.

This chapter provides an extensive case analysis of Haiti and demonstrates the evolution of the current kleptocratic state. This analysis demonstrates that local community empowerment can supplant the weak or nonexistent state, replicating some state functions to allow for INGO intervention success. By giving local communities the tools and resources needed for their local problems and giving these communities a stake in the intervention itself, positive results can be achieved. This is also an effective method for an INGO to gain legitimacy with the local

community, which is vital for long-term success. This research also shows that when INGOs chose not to replicate state functions and ignored local communities they were doomed to fail. The case analyses clearly demonstrate that without an effective state, local community

empowerment is a viable alternative to a lack of state capacity. This ties into the overall argument of this dissertation: local community empowerment is a viable solution to weakened state capacity in post-disaster scenarios, and those INGOs which engage in local community empowerment see a higher success rate than those that don’t.

Both the Haiti and East Timor case analyses demonstrated that local community buy-in is an effective means of supplanting weakened state capacity. Both the case analyses also

demonstrate the serious obstacles INGOs have in engaging in community buy-in. An excellent example of why local community buy-in is difficult is a problem that plagues many

interventions: the wealth gap between the INGOs and the country being intervened in. Western aid workers enter a disaster zone where their monetary currency goes far further than it would in

their home countries. This allows aid workers to live in conditions that are far superior to those of the people they are in the country to purportedly help and leads to the perception that they should fear the locals. This fear of the locals places a massive hamper on the ability of INGOs to attempt to gain community buy-in. In both East Timor and Haiti, with large amounts of Western money pouring into the country, the large amounts of hard currency produced inflation in basic products such as food and water. To the locals, this flaunting of Western wealth also produced harsh complaints from locals who consistently saw white Land Cruisers in Dili and Port-au- Prince, a city which didn’t have that many privately owned cars, exacerbating the resource gap with a showy display of wealth (Steele 2002). This display of wealth mirrors some of the unintended negative consequences discussed in Chapter 2. Although the INGO does not want this to take place, this is a clear unintended consequence of a seemingly benign action. The research observed similar issues in Haiti: white Toyota Land Rovers (donated by Japan) peppered the city of Port-au-Prince and the outlying rural areas. The locals were none too pleased with the flagrant display of wealth, just as the East Timorese experienced an analogous situation. This point is further driven home by the fact that the vast majority of contracting work for infrastructure, of which there was sufficient local capacity to contract out to the local

population, at least labor wise, went to INGOs and not to local NGOs, civil society or local communities (Bhatia 2005).

This chapter will begin by laying down the theoretical framework of why local community buy-in is imperative if there is not a viable state to work with. It will continue with a detailed case analysis of Haitian state history, showing that the lack of viable state capacity is embedded deep within Haitian history, and why most INGOs chose to bypass the weak Haitian state. Then this chapter will discuss the Haiti case results from both an academic literature analysis along

with original field research and will also examine examples from East Timor gleaned from that case analysis, followed by a conclusion for the entire chapter.