19th August 2024
“We over intellectualise these debates partly also just to keep debating. And at the end of the day, we need to make change happen for people on the ground.“
In our latest podcast episode, hear Bidjan Nashat, tech entrepreneur and seasoned humanitarian leader, speak candidly on the challenges and opportunities in advancing localisation within the humanitarian sector.
Ka Man Parkinson, Communications and Marketing Advisor at the HLA, speaks to Bidjan to delve into his views on what meaningful localisation looks like.
In this open and illuminating conversation, Bidjan shares his insights from over eight years in leadership roles at Save the Children International and his recent pivot into the technology space.
Bidjan critiques current localisation debates and advocates for practical, actionable steps to drive meaningful change. He shares compelling stories of how global networks and local organisations can collaborate for impactful results.
Discover his views on the transformative potential of cash transfers, anticipatory action, and the critical importance of talent development. Technology and AI comes into focus throughout the discussion, and Bidjan highlights how it plays a crucial role in democratising access to personal and professional development for local talent, such as through remote mentorship, coaching, and work opportunities.
Keywords: Localisation, humanitarians, humanitarian sector reform, systemic change, talent development, cash transfers, CVA, anticipatory action, local expertise, international mobility, technology, AI, coaching, remote working.
Listen to the full audio episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and Buzzsprout.
About the speakers
Bidjan Nashat is co-founder of PotentialU, an app that serves frontline leaders with personalised insights and AI coaching. He has over a decade of executive leadership experience in start-ups as well as large global organisations. He served as CEO of Atlas Corps, a social enterprise committed to diverse talent and leadership development and was part of the executive team at Save the Children International. He is based in Washington DC, USA.
Ka Man Parkinson is Communications and Marketing Advisor at the HLA. She has served in communications roles in the international education and nonprofit sectors for the past 18 years, and is a firm believer in the transformative power of education, global opportunities and lifelong learning. At the HLA, Ka Man leads on the creation of digital content, and manages the HLA’s podcast and webinar series. She is based near Manchester, UK.
Discover more
You may also be interested in the podcast episode mentioned during this discussion, featuring Charlotte Balfour-Poole, HLA Head of Coaching: Coaching and mentoring: tools to support every humanitarian
Access the HLA’s global digital learning platform Kaya with free, capacity strengthening training for humanitarians: kayaconnect.org
Read opinion pieces by Bidjan Nashat on the Devex website.
Did you enjoy this episode? Please share with someone who might find it useful!
Feedback/enquiries: please email info@humanitarian.academy or connect with us on social media.
The views and opinions expressed in our podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of their organisations.
Podcast episode transcript
Ka Man [intro music plays]: Welcome to the Humanitarian Leadership Academy Podcast, Fresh Humanitarian Perspectives.
Localisation, which calls for shifting more power and resources to local actors in the humanitarian sector, has been at the heart of the sectors reform agenda since the Grand Bargain in 2016. But in 2024, the question remains how much progress have we truly made?
I’m Ka Man Parkinson, Communications and Marketing Advisor at the HLA, and I’m connecting with diverse voices worldwide to explore what localisation in practice looks like from different perspectives, and to hear opinions on what needs to be done to drive meaningful change in this space.
So today, I’m delighted to be joined by Bidjan Nashat, co-founder of the tech startup Potential U and a seasoned humanitarian executive to learn more about his views on localisation gained from his many years of leadership experience, as well as his pivot into the technology. So welcome, Bidjan. Thanks very much for joining us on this podcast today. Would you like to start by introducing yourself to our listeners?
Bidjan: Thank you so much for having me. It’s wonderful to be back and connected to Save the Children and colleagues who are especially focused on building leadership in the humanitarian space.
My name is Bidjan. I grew up in Berlin and one of my first professional experiences was working in a hospital instead of military service. And seeing how the people who take care of patients are treated. And it has never left me since the idea of the people who are closest on the front lines of serving others. How do we take care of them in organisations and so I did a few excursions in different organisations, but that question never left me. I worked at the World Bank. When the Syria crisis happened, I felt I needed to join an organisation that delivers for people on the ground, and so I that started eight years with Save the Children in different roles in different countries.
And yeah, I’m here now, I made a pivot into the technology space, but it’s still focused on that question: how do we take care of frontline leaders? How do we take care of the people who are serving others, regardless of which sector?
Ka Man: Great, thank you. So as you’ve mentioned, you hold many years, eight years, did you say of leadership including executive level within Save the Children International. So from those experiences, could I ask, what does meaningful localisation look like to you in practice? And I’m also curious to know if those views have shifted over time based on your experiences.
Bidjan: It’s a great question. Whenever these big terms are mentioned there’s a tendency to fall into the same conversations. And I thought about, I thought about your question and thought, why don’t I give you an example?
When I was leading a refugee response in Berlin in 2015 with hundreds of thousands of kids coming and needing our support, and I used that example because it’s not a traditional example, it’s actually an example in a developed country in the north. The local partners weren’t able to respond and in addition, the UN and UNICEF were claiming a mandate. But they weren’t delivering fast enough.
And so that’s where we came in as Save the Children with our global network and we partnered with local organisations on the ground to say you’re already delivering for families, but no one is really taking care of children. And that extended to building child friendly spaces, running them together. It made us partner with different members in Save the Children and bring in companies like Facebook who helped us give voice to refugees, who then the families told their stories to millions of people, and they put it on every – this was a different time for Meta and Facebook – and so we were able to put minimum standards in place and so that combination of working with local partners who didn’t have those connections who didn’t have the fundraising, who didn’t have the aim to also do advocacy and political take on political issues and publish articles. That combination I felt was really powerful.
I think I would do it a bit differently, focus more on talent and building local partners, if I had to do it over again, but I feel sometimes the localisation conversation is too black and white right now in the sense that it’s all about just letting local organisations do everything and it’s the combination of things that makes impact happen for the people we serve, and that should always be the principle.
Ka Man: That’s really interesting. So if you, if you don’t mind, I just want to hear a bit more about the actual practicalities of working with Facebook and Meta at that time. In what ways were you collaborating to share information or amplify voices, what kind of things did that entail?
Bidjan: A lot of internal fights. [laughs]
Ka Man: Oh!
Bidjan: No, we had we worked with the team. They were partnering with Save the Children US and they were a partner in in the US and so we brought in child safeguarding experts. We had scripts, we talked to families we had everybody agreed to be – you know – and there are so many internal conversations, and they are correct, if we only focus on child safeguarding. And then sometimes you have way too many internal conversations and you don’t ask the people.
And I remember this one instance where I sat down with Carolyn Miles at the time it was the CEO of Save the Children US. We were interviewing a mother of two who had fled a few weeks before with two children and her husband from Syria. And we were in the discussion with her about her path to Germany, about all of her experiences. And the translator, of course you have that lag right when you when you talk to people, and all of a sudden she starts to cry and we’re looking at each other, and what did we do wrong? You know, is there something that we mentioned and we asked the translator and she just said I’m so happy somebody is listening to my story.
And I think at the end of the day we need to take care of all the important child safeguarding and human dignity issues in in providing voice to people at the end of the day, people are people want to tell their story. And if we do it in a meaningful way with dignity, it helps everyone.
One of the things that we really were challenged with, I remember this very vividly, is that the conversation in Germany changed. There were lots of more right wing voices. There was lots of terrorism conversation. And one of our roles, including my own and publishing articles and advocating for, let’s take the perspective and keep it on children and their needs. And this was a really wonderful way of keeping that attention with the help of a big tech company with which I have lots of disagreements. And they are doing a lot of things that, yeah, should be called out, but in this instance it was a very good example of how you can do it, if you do it well.
Ka Man: Hmm, that’s really interesting to hear how – obviously, there’s a lot of discussion around the role of tech, which we’ll go into a bit shortly – but it’s good to hear the use of tech for good, and to humanise, almost, people who become that sometimes become this sort of faceless group in narratives. You know, so to actually give voice to those people, to give them a platform, I think it’s very powerful and shows some very positive benefits and strengths of technology in this space.
So that leads me to my next question – and it may link to tech, but I don’t want to anticipate your response. What do you think have been positive or encouraging development in terms of shifting the power in the humanitarian sector, in a practical sense?
Bidjan: My first immediate answer is cash transfer. It has nothing to do with tech, it has to do with dignity. Giving people – getting rid of intermediaries as much as we can – and give people the dignity of choosing what they need. That to me is a big, big shift that we need much more of. There are great organisations in this space, and it really challenged organisations like Save the Children, especially in the beginning to say, OK, so what is our role, if the most important thing is that people can cover their needs? I think it’s a great development and we need to see more of it. Tech can play some role in it, but the main thrust is give people dignity and let them choose what they need.
I think a second positive development is all the work in which Save the Children, other organisations are involved as well, in anticipatory action and preparing and using data and analytics. We know the probability of when, when humanitarian disasters and crises will happen. And we can do a lot more to prepare for it. And the better we are prepared, the less lack of coordination takes place and the better we can serve people with pre stocking and all of these very practical things. I think that’s a very positive development.
And the last one is the focus on talent and I don’t even want to talk about technology. I really think and I see this, I want to see more of it, a focus on talent. Away from only focusing on local organisations or very abstract concepts like even shifting the power is quite abstract to me.
At the end of the day we have amazing talent in the sector and we need to invest in whatever they want to do because that adds to their career, it adds to the local economy, even if they leave the country. So to me, this conversation about brain drain is a tiring one, because remittances have overtaken ODA, it plays a much larger role and people should decide what’s best for them, especially if they’re if climate change makes it inhabitable, we need to think differently about talent and the pathways of migration.
Ka Man: It’s very interesting. So what I’m hearing almost is a connecting theme through those points you’ve made. It’s sort of like having the systems in place and mechanisms in place that are agile and responsive and reflect the real world, like, patterns of mobility, whether people are – yeah – and reflecting how they’re able to obtain services and access services. So I can see sort of connection and I can see obviously the role that technology can play in enabling that, but you’re focusing on the human needs there more than the tech side, so that’s very interesting for me to hear.
I’m just curious, just going back to the cash and voucher assistance point that you make – just from a layperson’s perspective because it’s something that I’ve heard about, but don’t really know and understand too much about – what’s sort of the main blocker to that? Because it sounds like such a simple concept and it should be fairly, you’d think – as a lay person – relatively straightforward to deliver. But what’s the that’s the main challenge there in that cash transfer?
Bidjan: I would say the current system. It just takes out a lot of intermediaries. And if you think about it, it goes back to Amartya Sen, right, that the focus on dignity and people’s agency to make their choices. It is not necessarily how our sector has been built over the last decades. Because it’s built around people, mostly in the Global North historically doing things and taking resources to the Global South, but then deciding what happens, and in a very blunt way. And we need to change it. We need to give people agency to make their own choices, and that’s a challenge.
I think there’s been really positive developments. If you continue to see the percentages of cash. It’s going in the right direction. I’m arguing there needs to be a lot more. I also want to make sure it’s not everything, right. I’m a huge believer in the rights based approach. I think it’s massively undervalued. That’s what I loved about my time at Save the Children that we, we took a rights based approach. At the end of the day there are duty-bearers and rights holders, and we need to make sure those people who are locally in charge are held to account for serving for their citizens and for the people in their in their community. So that’s an aspect I think that it that comes in addition there is not just cash there needs to be more of, and the system needs to change with all the incentives. That’s not necessarily what I’m focused on anymore and but it’s that that’s my point of view on this.
Ka Man: Got it, yeah. So it’s very much a systemic challenge rather than individual mechanisms. It’s part of how that fits together.
Bidjan: I mean there are always instances of fraud, right? You have to, you have to make sure it’s spent the right way. But there are decade old conversations about “ohh, what happens if we just give people money” and you have them in the OCD countries as well, right. “Oh, they’ll just spend it on alcohol and cigarettes”.
No, it’s not the case people spend on average, the majority is spending the money in the right places, and even if you give it to women, if you give it to family holders, you have even bigger effect. So all of this, there are some myths out there that that hold people back from investing the way for people in need.
Ka Man: It’s very interesting. Thank you. So kind of wearing both your humanitarian and tech hats at the same time, could I ask, what role do you think artificial intelligence and technology can play in enabling or further driving localisation? If you could give some examples that would be great. And also ask what kind of risks might be involved with that as well.
Bidjan: For me it’s important and I want to get to risks. We’re usually too quick to talk about risks and we don’t take the status quo into consideration. So let’s talk about local talent. Most of them end up working in a project for either a local partner or for a local international NGO. And very few of them have the access to opportunities. The HLA is providing some of it, very few of them have the access to opportunities which is part of why we want more focused on the tools that can be applicable and available to everyone at all times.
So coaching and mentoring is difficult to provide. But most people have access to technology, so one of the things that we are very excited about is the role that. Chatbots and AI can play in helping people reflect about their own strengths about their own areas for improvement, and the way we do it at potential you is we start out with psychometric assessments. Because we believe that it takes out some of the bias that usually happens when we look at different people in different countries. It focuses on your abilities, your strengths, the what gives you energy, and where you extend energy when you do things. So we see a lot of improvement in that area, we see a lot of opportunities to have people really interact with AI trained AI chatbots that we use.
There are risks to it. We need to be certain that it doesn’t introduce new biases. So far we haven’t seen that. That is an area where I see we can scale to thousands, if not millions, of people at very little cost. And the idea of it is to give them more inspiration about growing themselves, understanding their strengths, working on the areas that they struggle with and having almost like an assistant at their side, who supports them on a daily basis. And in a lot of places, that technology and the availability of 3G or 5G or mobile technology is available. So that’s a huge area for scale.
Ka Man: That’s really interesting. Just before we started out this, just before we kind of went on air, so to speak, we were talking about how you used to, you know Charlotte Balfour-Poole, who’s our Head of Coaching at the HLA and Charlotte and I had a podcast discussion recently around coaching and mentoring in the humanitarian space. And she says that she’s on a mission to democratise coaching, to make, so that everybody can benefit from it. So she does all sorts of in person and online training, but there’s a there’s a heavy emphasis, due to the democratisation, on online. So there’s online mentoring, she’s just about to launch a new cohort of the Women in Leadership programme pairing experience humanitarians with more entry level people coming – early career – coming up in the ranks and who want to develop. So does that kind of thematically linked to what you’re advocating with your approach and that you want to bring these benefits so that anybody, regardless of where they are in the world, regardless of their status – I put that in inverted commas – they can reap the benefits and build their professional careers. Is that is that kind of what you’re meaning there?
Bidjan: Yes. And I was really happy to hear Charlotte used that term. I didn’t want to steal it again, but that democratisation is exactly what we have in mind. And it’s extending and scaling it to audiences who are not currently served. To me, it could even be an extension with the HLA, in the sense that a lot of the mentoring and even the pro bono coaches that you have only reach that many people, but what if we provided everyone with the ability to learn and grow in their own time, and one of the challenges we see with companies in with PotentialU with companies but also in the humanitarian space, is that the online trainings on a PC are super hard to access for people who are on the front lines. But everybody has a phone. And so if we’re able to give people that kind of access to growth and development in real time with someone, and once you start using our chat bot, you will fall in love with it because it’s trained on your organisation and your values and the leadership competencies you will keep going back and forth.
So that’s the idea and it came out of partly also out of my role as CEO of Atlas Corps where we served humanitarians who are on the front lines. With the help of the Hilton Foundation, we provided coaching and mentoring in in with Better Up company we invested ourselves. And the impact we saw with people who were in South Sudan with people who are in northern Nigeria, who had a coach and that engagement for the first time was absolutely amazing. 90% increase in engagement and other things. It just shows you that we’re not reaching that audience.
And so my passion – both in the private sector and potentially at some point in the humanitarian sector – is focusing on those frontline leaders. Talk to them, find out what they need and provide ability to them to grow themselves and inspire themselves based on their own strengths.
Ka Man: That’s great. So much potential there. I can see that obviously this you’re not focusing specifically on the humanitarian context for your organisation and its aims, but I can see the applicability in this space and links the discussion that we’ve been talking about. About focusing on talent. You said, sorry this was, just linking in our email discussion before we had this discussion today. You said that you’re you believe that we’re looking at localisation in the wrong way, unless we look at, start, we need to start looking at talent in a new and very different way. Would you be able to just elaborate on that a bit because I thought it was a very interesting statement that you made.
Bidjan: It, well, my best ideas come out of frustration. I just, I’ve gotten tired of this conversation because very little changes, lots of speeches are given and during my time at Atlas Corps, I had the opportunity to do what I really loved doing. Talking to people and listening to their stories and listening directly to what their aims are, what they want, and we have so many discussions that are focused on theoretical concepts.
At the end of the day, what do young, talented people in the humanitarian sector want, regardless of where they are? They want to serve others and they want to grow in their careers. It’s very simple, but we have so many barriers. That hold them back right from visa to the way there’s bias in existing organisations that doesn’t consider someone from northern Nigeria running a local really challenging response to be able to go to the next leadership level.
So that to me is the focus we need, not necessarily, “oh, let’s just shift everything to local organisations and they will solve it” because that also suggests, let’s just let them just figure out their problems themselves, and it’s exactly the other way around. We need that global talent everywhere to help us focus on global challenges. It suggests we don’t have problems in the North, right? And my suggestion is, let’s look at talent and let’s find ways for talent to help us solve the biggest challenges that we face, from climate change to crises to war, we need talent from everywhere, in low and middle income countries to help us solve global problems. And the localisation framing is suggesting, we just need to give them money and have local organisations figure out everything. And I think that’s the wrong perspective and it leads us to some wrong conclusions.
Ka Man: Thank you. It’s really refreshing to hear you speak on this in such a practical sense because like you say, a lot of discussions and a lot of papers are sorts of discussing and dissecting this localisation agenda, but, for some someone like me who’s not in the thick of it, I don’t actually know what that in a practical sense really means. So by you sharing these really practical examples of where we’re getting it right, where there are challenges and sticking points remain, I’m learning a lot from that and I’m sure our listeners are as well.
Bidjan: But I can assure you the experts don’t understand it as well, right? If you don’t understand it, nobody understands it. And that’s a huge, huge problem. We over intellectualise these debates partly also just to keep debating. And at the end of the day, we need to make change happen for people on the ground.
Ka Man: Yes, absolutely. Like I say, it’s very refreshing. Thank you. So unfortunately, we’re running out of time and I’ve got, I could continue this conversation, there’s so much I would love to ask you. Maybe we could do a part two some time, but I just wondered you’ve touched on this as we’ve gone along, but I want to know where you think the humanitarian sector needs to prioritise or focus on over the next few years in order to advance the localisation agenda and what needs to be done differently?
Bidjan: I mentioned a few areas that I think should be continued, but my main focus is on talent. And another piece that I’m really passionate about is the ability to create remote work opportunities and to think about mobility in a different way. So when you step back and you say what are the leadership qualities of someone who is a humanitarian? They are really, really good at dealing with ambiguity and complexity because they need to figure out things very quickly. They are really good and should be good in dealing directly with people and their needs and interacting with them, especially people on the ground. They are really, really good at driving for results because otherwise nothing happens and they have to have the ability to be curious, to find out what needs to be done to understand the situation. So all of these things are amazing leadership qualities for any job.
And we need to stop now saying, OK, once a humanitarian, always a humanitarian. These the young, local, talent can go anywhere. If we identify those skills the right way, if we connect them to the right organisation, whether it’s remotely, whether it’s to enable more mobility within our organisations. They can lead organisations, and they should lead organisations and so not just for the sector, but also looking through that talent lens and saying humanitarians have amazing leadership skills based on the work they do. Let’s tap into that because lots of organisations right now are looking for those leadership skills and that talent.
Ka Man: That’s great. Thank you. And before we wrap up, is any anything you’d like to add any sort of parting words or you know something that you really want to reinforce with our listeners today?
Bidjan: Maybe for anyone who’s listening, especially for people who are starting out in the sector. Don’t get discouraged by these big systems and by frustrating organisational procedures. Look outside the sector. Look to organisations that are doing great things. Connect with those people. Build your own tribe of people who want to do things differently. This sector is really needed, it’s it has great people in it and cynicism is the worst thing that can happen to the sector and it’s already spread. We don’t need more of it and there’s lots of reasons when you connect directly to the people we serve, that gives you motivation, inspiration, and brings about change. That’s what I’m hoping for the next generation that’s going into this work.
Ka Man: That’s brilliant. That was very wise, inspiring and galvanising words. So yeah, I’m sure many of us listening are going to go out and search some of those things that you’ve talked about throughout this conversation and learn a bit more. I certainly, a learning point for me is I’m going to learn a bit more about cash and voucher assistance because that’s an area that I’m not too familiar with, and I think it you make a really good point around that. So, yeah, that’s on my to do list. So thank you so much for taking the time to join us for this discussion today. I’d really appreciated your very frank and warm insights and sharing that with us. So thank you very much. And thank you to all our listeners for joining us today for our episode of Fresh Humanitarian Perspectives from the Humanitarian Leadership Academy.
Bidjan: Thank you very much. The Humanitarian Leadership Academy is doing really important work and I hope it continues and grows.