Seth Godin has a great post today entitled "Music vs the Music Industry." His opening paragraph is as follows:
The music industry is really focused on the ‘industry’ part and not so much on the ‘music’ part. This is the greatest moment in the history of music if your dream is to distribute as much music as possible to as many people as possible, or if your goal is to make it as easy as possible to become heard as a musician. There’s never been a time like this before. So if your focus is on music, it’s great. If your focus is on the industry part and the limos, the advances, the lawyers, polycarbonate and vinyl, it’s horrible. The shift that is happening right now is that the people who insist on keeping the world as it was are going to get more and more frustrated until they lose their jobs. People who want to invent a whole new set of rules, a new paradigm, can’t believe their good fortune and how lucky they are that the people in the industry aren’t noticing an opportunity...
Those of us in international development face a similar paradox. This is a great time to be implementing projects overseas. National staff are far better educated and far more capable than they were twenty years ago. The world is a flatter place with more opportunities for everyone. Finally, it is much easier to connect to fellow practitioners, families, and friends (when I started working overseas twenty years ago, mail took two weeks in either direction and international phone calls were as high as $13/minute!). The combination of better people, more opportunities, and better communication makes our work much easier.
Unfortunately for us expatriates, these trends also make us less important. When I started working overseas, most projects had several expats. Now, many international NGOs have only one fully paid expat and the national staffs run the projects. Additionally, national NGOs have become significant competitors for funding. Nationalizing the development business is a great trend, unless you are part of the international development industry and are looking to win contracts.
The international NGOs that are growing tend to fall into one of two categories:
1. Hot Spot Heroes: Organizations like CHF International have grown dramatically by moving into hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan. Others have grown by focusing on the natural disasters that seem to have hit with increasing frequency (earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis). In all of these cases, the international organizations are moving into areas where the local capacity does not yet exist or has been overwhelmed by the problems.
2. US Retail: Some NGOs have carved niches for themselves by creating a product that sells in the US or European market. Traditional versions of this are the adopt-a-kid campaigns of Plan International, World Vision, and Save the Children. Newer versions are the internet campaigns of Globalgiving.com or Kiva. Either way, the International NGO's role is more and more just collecting funds from overseas and transferring it to a local partner.
The organizations that focus on obtaining grants from major donors are struggling. The latest downturn in the economy has meant that not only is competition stiffer, but there is less funding available.
As a frontline worker in development, I feel the pinch. Why should an organization hire an expatriate like myself and incur the cost of my housing, my kids' school fees, and my salary when they could hire a local far cheaper? I am fortunate that I already have my 10,000 hours of practice in and therefore will always be needed. However, I work with a lot of interns and volunteers. They frequently ask me how to get into international development work. I tell than that I don't know anymore. The game has changed. It is a great time for international development, but a tough time for the international development industry.
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