Bandwagon

As is the case with many humanitarian INGOs, it is safe to say that MSF has boarded the climate crisis bandwagon.  At AGM after AGM and across the strategic plan drafts for 2020 onwards, MSF has embraced the operational imperative of understanding and responding to the effects of changing climates on people, water, food, conflict and the bugs that make us ill (not to mention the seemingly straightforward connection between humanitarian values and extinction).  MSF is also pledging to examine its own behavior, such as its penchant for using the airplane as a communication device or its love affair with their iconic Land Cruisers. 

Two thumbs up.  But it wouldn’t be a blog if there weren’t at least a minor “but”.  Or two.

“But” #1. 

We know or should be willing to admit that bandwagons in the humanitarian sector have had a tendency to produce greater output than outcomes; useful focus and attention, to be sure, but also heaps of conferences, guidelines and humanitarian churn.  The list is long:  gender mainstreaming, innovation, resilience, protection mainstreaming, accountability, etc.  All delivered improvements, and yet the hellfire of climate fury will be our reward (outcome) if we transpose our bandwagon model from these other areas to this ever-more-visible crisis. One can only hope that the distinguishing characteristic of the climate crisis will improve the effectiveness of our output.  What’s that?  Our own self-interest.  The sector has skin in this game.

“But” #2

In April 1999 somebody in my PPD (a two-week MSF onboarding party) asked about MSF’s environmental policy. The question was swept aside by the wise old session facilitator.  In subsequent years I recall similar arguments and similar sweeps.  Ditto at the cycles of annual or strategic (multi-year) planning sessions.  Climate or environment would inevitably make the brainstorm flip chart but never make the cut.  As I assumed more responsibility, I echoed the accepted wisdom that emergency response meant ignoring environmental destruction and that climate change impact on populations in crisis was, well, intellectually quaint but hardly humanitarian.

The question:  Why is it only now that this topic has emerged as a major concern, if not as a core priority?  I mean, my mother is on the climate bandwagon! Even somebody like Jeremy Hunt can make the connection, ensuring that climate crisis will work for the political interests of his country and the Conservative Party. Why was the choir so late to the church?

This “But” bears closer examination within the sector. As Alternatives Humanitaires points out, way back in 2009, on the eve of the UN’s Copenhagen Summit on the environment, Christophe Buffet asked whether the humanitarian community was ready to tackle the issue of climate change. Were we too busy saving the world? Too dependent on donors?  Or did we just see it differently?  Here’s Jean-Hervé Bradol condemning the COP15 summit as a move to “dominate the Universe to the point of regulating global temperature variations”, a move harking back to “Man’s ancient plan to dominate Nature”. 

“And” #1

Why does a financially independent institution full of progressive do-gooders, of people interested in change and talented enough to deliver on it, consistently and rather easily dismiss responding to climate crisis, either by reducing its own footprint or by paying attention to the harm playing out almost everywhere it worked?  That (quasi-rambling) question is less rhetorical and more instructive than meets the eye.

There are three chunks of humanity.  Chunk 1 = Those on the bandwagon; Chunk 2 = those who will never get on the bandwagon; Chunk 3 = those in the middle, the potential bandwagoners.  In addition to addressing climate crisis programmatically, organizations like MSF should conduct and publish an internal analysis of how and why they missed the boat.  Because they didn’t simply miss the boat.

This was not a case of being unaware, but of how the structures, culture, leadership (je m’accuse!) and belief systems of an organization give rise to disregard, dismissal and dithering.  That lesson needs to be documented and shared, to begin unpacking the barriers to engagement and to move beyond overly simplistic strategies of raising awareness.  It is simply wrong to assume that facts or, worse still, moral grandstanding, will prove sufficient to move corporations, communities or people from Chunk 3 to Chunk 1.