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This Week in Global Development
Special edition: Every crisis is political - redefining humanitarian response
00:43:52
The international aid system has long operated on the ideal of "neutrality," but our latest episode of This Week in Global Development, sponsored by the Urgent Action Sister Funds, challenges this deeply embedded notion. Devex Executive Editor and...
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Foreign.
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This podcast is sponsored by the Urgent Action Sister Funds. Hi everyone, I'm Kate Warren, Executive Vice President and Executive Editor at devex. And welcome to this special edition podcast in partnership with the Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism. The title of today's episode is Every Crisis is Political. And I want to start there because that phrase pushes back against something kind of deeply embedded in how the international aid system operates, the idea that humanitarian response can or should be neutral. And the reality is, and as the research that we are discussing today argues, that crises don't happen in a vacuum, right? They're shaped by history, by power, by who gets resources, by who doesn't. And the response doesn't reckon with that. It risks repeating the same patterns that made communities vulnerable in the first place. And increasingly, the evidence points to grassroots feminist movements as actors uniquely equipped to respond differently. I think, frankly, they've never had the option pretending crises weren't political. And so that's exactly what the feminist crisis response model sets out to challenge. This is flagship research just launched by the Urgent Action Fund. And at its core, it makes the case that grassroots feminist movements don't just respond to crises. They really help navigate the entire continuum from prevention through survival to transformation. And that intersectionality isn't just a value add in that work, but really a crucial metric. So today we're going to get into why flexible justice driven models that tackle root causes are just the right thing to do, but actually the more effective thing to do. And I'm joined by three people who are at the heart part of this work. We have Jean Kimatare, who is program Director at the Urgent Action Fund based in uganda, with over 18 years of experience advancing women's rights and gender justice across Africa and globally. We have Jani Tome, who is the grant making Managing officer at the Urgent Action Fund, leading their grant making team with a particular focus on the Middle east and LGBTQI plus plus rights. And we have Dr. Lucy Martin, who is a research associate at the center for Applied Human Rights at the University of York and the lead researcher behind the Feminist Crisis Response Model study that we are discussing today. So welcome to all three of you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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D
Thank you for having us.
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Thank you. So Jane, I'm going to start with you. You are in of just launching this feminist crisis response model, really strategically between the Conference on the Status of Women or CSW and Women Deliver. Can you share some more background about this research? What is it? What gap is it trying to fill?
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Yeah, no matter the crisis, Feminist activists, feminist movements, women's rights organizations. They've reliably shown up to support their communities. They are often the first there to respond before all other international players come in. And sadly, they are the last to leave. When international players and other players have to leave, maybe because it's not safe or they feel that their work is done there, they reach isolated communities. They are grounded in their contexts and in terms of perma crisis like this, they engage in a continuum of crisis. The Urgent Action Sister Funds are among the most experienced experts in the field of crisis response. And we are a sisterhood of funds. As you can see in this call today, we have Johnny from Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism. We have Myself from Urgent Action Fund Africa. We have Agent Action Fund Latin America and the Caribbean. And we have Urgent Action Fund Asia and Pacific. In a new we have partnered in a unique way with academia, with Lucy and colleagues, in order to put forward what we've learned over the last 27 years. Responding to crisis. Because we have done exactly that. The support that we give to movements and to defenders, individual defenders, collectives, movements, is really to respond to crisis, but also to respond to other urgent and strategic issues. So we've partnered with academia, we've partnered with the University of York, we've partnered with Lucy. We are really happy to have partnered with Lucy in order to share what we've learned in in the field, in order to share what we know is an effective crisis response. And there's no time like this one for that. We really look forward to sharing our insights with you all.
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Yeah, as you say, there's no time like now to be looking at this. And so Lucy, you know, when you look at this framework, what does it capture that maybe the traditional mandatory system has been missing or what has been some of the top line takeaways for you?
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I think the first thing is really to say that it feels like this framework is about responding to the world in this moment. So we're finding ourselves in this world in perma Crisis, where we're seemingly lurching from one unprecedented event to another. And I think we're wondering then what's around the next corner. So we're facing conflicts, we're facing genocide, we're facing the impacts of an unfurling climate crisis, widening inequalities and shrinking civic space. And really what the research set out to do was to do two things. So I think first it was looking at how have we arrived at this moment where military and economic power trumps human rights and diplomacy. But I think then secondly, it was really Looking to surface what is working rather than get lost in the bleakness and the hopelessness of this moment so we can reimagine our world. And I feel like I should say from the outset that despite the fact we're talking about all these really difficult and actually this. These really dark things, that actually the research is hugely hopeful because it shows us that the solutions to perma crisis already exists. Feminist movements are already effectively responding. And this is simply about effectively resourcing and scaling this work. So, yeah, so I think I can probably pass over to Jonny. He can talk about some of the differences between more traditional approaches and the feminist crisis response model.
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Yeah, Johnny, I'd love to kind of help give us give a comprehensive example of what a feminist crisis response looks like versus a traditional one.
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Thank you. There are a huge number of differences we explore within the research and in our work, but I'm going to highlight three that are particularly important. One is what crises are. Traditional models treat crises as events. Something that happens, it escalates, we manage it, and then we try to return to a state of normalcy. If we can say a feminist lens sees something very different. It understands crisis as a continuum. What looks like a sudden emergency is often a visible rupture of a much longer histories that are shaped by patriarchy, colonialism, racism, economic injustice, political violence. So instead of asking what just happened? It asks what made this inevitable? Or whom is most impacted by it. Second, who the actors are? In traditional crisis response, the primary actors are often external. They are large institutions and humanitarian agencies that step in to manage the situation. The feminist approach shifts that center of gravity and recognizes that the grassroots movements are the first responders and those who are already embedded and they are part of the movement and accountable to their communities. So they're not just beneficiaries of aid. They are the architects response. And third, what our response should do. Traditional approaches focus on stabilization or managing the immediate moment. While a feminist crisis response does not stop at survival, it is rooted in care, but also injustice. It responds to urgent needs while working to transform the conditions that created that crisis in the first place. So the goal is not to return people to a fragile or unjust normal, but to support pathways toward a more equitable and sustainable future. We see that the most among environmental and climate justice activists, especially feminist activists leading that fight where they've been calling for ages about the impact of our extractivism and the political atmosphere that is really draining the resources. And then we find ourselves instantly dealing with a climate crisis. And those same responders Are the ones who are on the ground trying to reach those who harder to reach because of the issues, to structurally access resources and services for a lot of vulnerable communities. And then they leave the work to recover after that, when, let's say, the circumstances calm down. I wouldn't say the crisis ended because there are still a lot of people struggling and there's still room for recovery and healing after that.
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Yeah, you bring up a really great point that, you know, often I think we think of conflicts or disasters as some acute moment that happens. And you talk about how it really starts with the history. And Gene, I'd love to kind of get your perspective on how you think philanthropic and humanitarian sector and actors should be thinking about this differently when they're thinking about responding to a crisis and looking at it as more on this continuum that Joni laid out.
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Yeah. First there's the question of neutrality, which we shall get to. And as you said in your beginning opening remarks that it's a myth and so do we believe that it's. It's really a myth. That's the first point that we are putting across the politicized response to any crisis in order to actually address the structural roots. Bringing me to my next point of addressing crisis along its continuum. Right from the structural roots that bring that crisis in the first place, the acute phase and what others call recovery. Whether you are a humanitarian actor, you can actually partner with a development actor to address other sectors of that continuum that you may feel is not. Third point is actually recognizing that crisis is a continuum. It is not the acute rupture. For example, if I pick the war In Sudan, the April 2023 armed conflict that escalated. We have been operating in Sudan since 2015, doing a lot of structural work, because Sudan's conflict is really sitting on a lot of differences, systemic differences, colonial legacies that escalated into that conflict. But that was not the only conflict. So doing deep structural work, having early warning signals, which we did have because of the way we work and we are rooted in the context and then addressing the acute conflict, of course, the acute phase with humanitarian needs, and then moving towards transformation and sometimes going back to the beginning. So that's the third point. Recognizing that crisis is not that breakout of DAO in April, for example, in Sudan, April 2023, it is building up and it's a continuum even when it ends. Recognizing that funding should not be one truck, but should be spread across different communities, different categories and etc. For example, funding health funding, maybe working with women's rights organizations that are doing health Response at the same time, those that are doing humanitarian soup kitchen response at the same time, those who are doing prevention work around sexual violence. Other steps of funding different tracts without leaving it to a particular group. But I'll pass it over to Lucy to pick up more from that, from what we've generated from the research, and then over to Joni.
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Yeah, Lucy, I'd love to dive into this neutrality and aidism myth point too. And that statement might make some traditional donors and humanitarian actors uncomfortable. Maybe a bold claim, but what does that actually mean? And why is it so important to. To kind of just lay that out there on the table?
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Yeah, it's such an important and fundamental question. So when we say crisis is inherently political, we're really pointing to two things. So first, we're saying that crises themselves are not neutral. They're very often the result of political decision making. So sometimes that can be very visible and it can be very explicit. And I think the recent US attacks on Iran are a really good example of that. But also then in those crises that we sometimes describe in terms like natural disasters, so if we think of something like floods or we think of wildfires, actually those things are also shaped by political choices. So they're shaped by decisions to invest in fossil fuels, they're shaped by extractive industry, they're shaped by a prioritization of profits over people and planet. The second thing we're saying, when we're saying crises are inherently political, is actually just as important. And that's that crises are used politically in service of anti rights agendas. So in the research we talk about some examples of that. So we talk about how in Myanmar, in Gaza, in Syria, in Sudan, those who have caused the humanitarian crises there have been able to weaponize aid for their own political and tactical advantages, such as through controlling humanitarian access. And so that means within the research we talk about this neutrality trap. So this idea that if humanitarian actors are responding in a way that treat crises like they're neutral or like they're technical events, it leaves them without the tools or without the mandate to be able to address the fact that the root causes of crises are kind of grounded in political choices and decisions, but also that crises are being used in service of these anti rights agendas. So really what we're calling for is this broadening of humanitarianism to absolutely recognize the value of neutral forms of humanitarian response, but also then to value and to recognize forms of communal humanitarian response where actors are putting rights and equity and justice at the fore and explicitly advancing rights in that Respect, because actually if we don't acknowledge that crises are political, we're only responding to the symptoms whilst we're leaving the root causes and those power structures underpin crises completely intact.
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And so, Johnny, I'd like to bring you back in. As you know when you're doing grant making, you're often responding in real time and to activists at risk, movements under pressure. But what does it look like when you can support someone across that full continuum so not just in that acute moment when, you know, maybe it's almost too late, but the before and the after. Can you give us an example of what that can look like when, when it's done?
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Well, yeah, definitely. And you know, as my colleagues mentioned is, you know, what's powerful about grassroots movements is, you know, they don't enter a crisis as outsider. They're already there, they're already trusted and organizing and embedded within the community, which also make them able one to start predicting when some of these crises are about to happen. And the crisis preparedness work that we also fund is very important, as important as a crisis response. And again, we're talking about a continuum and looking things in a comprehensive way. A lot of my colleagues mentioned some of the environmental and climate crises and this is a great example because some of them are much easier to predict and getting ready for that and preparing. But also we saw that for example, recently in Iran for a very long time and even from, you know, Women Life Freedom movement back in 22, throughout the demonstrations at the start of the year and the war that is happening now, we saw activists organizing, building their infrastructure, which is another very important thing of donors supporting infrastructure of communities and these infrastructures of care and safety and building their movements, building their. A lot of activists build their own underground communication ways of being in touch with each other. We talk about activists that have been historic and those activists belong to communities as well that have been historically marginalized. They don't have access to anything that is structurally there by larger humanitarian organization or government systems. So they try to build their own system, they try to build their own safety networks. And that movement is what we hope, and we hope all the donors would resource. But that also means that donors need to be okay with supporting possibly unregistered groups of supporting in places where you don't have a long history of track record of movement as they're trying to build themselves. And then they get ready when the crisis hit and they're able to support each other. They're able to lean a lot on mutual aid, leaning on each other because they're the only ones able to reach each other, but also to know exactly what the need is. And then after the crisis is done, on the surface, they are still fighting the root causes and they are trying to kind of use that as an opportunity to influence some policy change when it's possible. For example, we see that now in Syria, where since the government transition, a lot of activists are trying to use that transitional moment to influence and increase women's rights and access and then also the recovery and healing that follows. Don't forget, we're talking about activists who are not only doing the work, they are being impacted directly. When we talk about LGBTQI activists, when we talk about refugees who lead their own responses in exile, they're facing the impact individually, themselves, their families, and also they are leading the work themselves. So there's a lot there. And we also need to care for the activists after the fact and make sure that there's no burnout and sustaining the movement in that way. So this is how we can keep supporting them across the whole continuum.
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Hi, I'm Kate Warren again, Executive Vice President and Executive Editor at devex. At devex, we don't just cover the biggest moments in global development. We create space to understand who and what are driving the headlines. Alongside gatherings like the World bank and IMF Spring and annual meetings, the World Health assembly, the UN General assembly and beyond, we host Devex Impact House, where our journalism comes off the page and onto the stage. We bring together a curated group of leaders for live interviews, intimate roundtables, hands on workshops, and candid conversations you won't hear in the official meetings. It's where tough questions get asked, the spin gets stripped away, and meaningful connections happen. If you'd like to join us or stay in the loop on all of our events online and in person, please visit devex.com events and I hope to see you on at a future DEVEX Impact House.
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I was just going to say, I think that resourcing across the continuum of crisis as well is such a contrast to how the philanthropic sector is currently operating. So we cite some data within the research from Candid and the center for disaster philanthropy from 2022, and what that found was that 90% of funds are currently being directed to response and relief efforts. We've just got 1% of funds going to preparedness, 2% to reconstruction, and 1% to resilience, risk reduction and risk mitigation. So I think that that data is so stark in terms of what's going wrong with crisis response at the moment, but also actually where just showing up over the long term, resourcing over the crisis continuum would make such a huge difference from where we are at this moment.
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Yeah, that is an excellent point. And Jean, maybe I'll bring you in first to talk about kind of, you know, traditional donors. They're used to project cycles and these reporting frameworks. And to Johnny's point that they have like these vetted groups and risk management. What do you think that they need to do differently to be able to respond more effectively based on your experience and research?
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Yeah, what they need to do differently is really, first of all, to be grounded in that context. And it doesn't mean that they need to have offices there, but they do need to work with organizations, groups, individuals that are grounded in that context. That will help them to understand beyond the norms or what they hear in the norms and go really deep and tackle intersectional issues. For example, a lot of humanitarian or crisis support aid lives out a whole lot of communities. Domestic workers when it came to COVID19 response in Africa, women caregivers when it came to the Ebola pandemic in West Africa, west and East Africa, sex workers when it was COVID 19, children when it was an earthquake in DRC, LGBTQI persons in any crisis or conflict. So that's one of them to actually get rooted and have an intersectional lens to understanding that crisis and the response to it and using tools that are intersectional to in order to be able to assess need and to respond to need in that sense, in addition, is to provide for response or funding that is rapid. That's rapid, that's able to reach because speed is part of justice. And the slower it takes, the more these groups that are marginalized will actually face challenges and will be left out because it can be left to a whole range of issues, including issues that are less with institutional breakdown. In addition, is to again, as we said, work across the continuum resource risk in a different way or have a different perception of what risk is. Most of these large players will not support the small organizations that we talked about that first in, last out, go to the most isolated places. If you look at Sudan again, when USAID money was pulled out, when it became quite unsafe, if I may say so, in that way, most of these large players pulled out. And these organizations, some of whom were women's rights organizations doing advocacy. And it is here to pivot to become humanitarian actors, provide food, you know, make soup kitchens, provide food, feed people. And that pivot was not easy. Had they been working earlier with these large players, they would have been more prepared, they would have had a lot more capacity in that sense or expertise. But also to look at capacity in different ways. Having talked about looking at risk, conceptualizing risk in different ways, and understanding that working with smaller players is not risk, it is necessary, it is life saving. But also looking at what capacity is in different ways. Because if you're then grounded in the context, you recognize that the actors on ground do know have the agency and know what it is that will actually shift issues. Because remember, we are talking about it across a continuum. So, yes, what it is that will support in providing urgent humanitarian needs, but what it is that will support also transformation needed to prevent that crisis from happening in the first place. And I think just to listen, maybe let me just put it like that. To listen, put ear to the ground and actually get interested in listening versus being interested in churning out numbers of what the support has looked like or what life saving has looked like, which is again, still in the lens of the dominant norms and doesn't really cause shifts and transformations. But Joni, maybe you could add
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to
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what I've just said, if it's okay.
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Yeah, Johnny, we'd love to get your perspective on this as well.
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Yeah, you touched on great points, Gina. I think when we started talking about when a crisis hit, one of our questions that we ask is who is impacted by that? And when we say people who are local people also like local to whom? And who specifically ends up getting the largest burden of it. It is very clear that crises fall unevenly and they do amplify pre existing inequalities. You gave great examples. Jean and I have similar examples right now In Lebanon, my home country, and being in touch with communities there, we learned that we have migrant workers that are being domestic workers that are being left by their employers without their papers, without any support system, and they don't have access to existing relief or shelters by the government that are already very diminished to begin with. And again, we are able to resource some of these organizations and the community led efforts by the domestic workers themselves that know exactly where to find each other, how to shelter each other and what type of services there are. Indeed, the same happens with LGBTQI individuals who are also structurally excluded and they lean on each other through networks of mutual aid. And we are able to resource that. And you bring out a great point, Jean, around the risk, because a lot of donors are. The risk assessment that is conducted is kind of the baseline of it is extremely, I would say safe in a way that activists are working under a lot of risk on daily basis. I think the least of it donors can do is inherit just a little bit of that. And as we try to do that as an organization, but also with some of our peer donors and when we talk with each other, we all recognize that there's a lot of risk thing that we believe like we label it risk that has been inherited through colonial practices from ages. And it's really not that risky. And if we really inspect and explore and dig a little bit deeper, we are able to strip that and understand where the true risk lies and what are some just bureaucracy and practices that we just inherited and think they are risky. And this is what we try also further in the research to talk about a little bit. But also in practice, we try to work with a trust forward relationship with our communities and that partnership that we're building. After all, I mean, philanthropy itself, one could argue it is again one of those practices where resources came originally from communities and from countries that now is kind of going back in a way through these humanitarian or philanthropy itself. So really also kind of going into the roots of what our role is, where it came from and what it should be. And yeah, when we talk about risk, where is really the risk? Is the risk that we're not able to collect few numbers or that an activist that we supported might not be able to send us all the receipts of their reallocation through war and conflict. This is really not that risky. The risk is when an activist are not able to survive or if they survive, they're not able to live their life within like, you know, with true physical, mental, emotional health and the risk to the community that is going to not be able to sustain itself in the movement. So these are really the larger questions that we ask ourselves and try to answer them through flexible trust based grant making.
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Yeah, and the risk of not engaging with the people who are right there on the front lines. And you know, you both talk about, you know, the intersectionality and you know, you've mentioned in some of this research of not just seeing intersectionality as being a value, but also really rather a metric. And Lucy, I'd love to get your research perspective on why it is important why you are thinking about intersectionality not just as a value and something that is good to aspire to, but rather being kind of a core metric in how you, you know, operationalize that in your work.
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That's a really great question. I think that we kind of relook at intersectionality in a couple of ways in terms of the feminist crisis response model. I would say the first thing is that actually what Jean and Jonny are talking about points us towards a very different model of crisis response. So it points us towards a model that needs to be relational and needs to be flexible and needs to be agile to really respond to the complexity of human experience and that real diversity of need. So I think on the one hand, we're sort of, we're calling for a way to think about and operationalize crisis response a little bit differently to how it's being done at the moment. And so we can think about this in terms of how we look at scaling, for example, because I think there's an assumption that some of the things that Jonny and Jean are talking about are quite micro level. So how do we, how do we scale these things to address the challenge of perma crisis? And what we look at within the research is that scaling is absolutely possible, but this isn't about a top down process of scaling where we adapt a single response, but this is about scaling through multi solving, so embracing and resourcing a plurality of contextually relevant targeted solutions. So I think that's one kind of example of how we move intersectionality beyond something that's of value into a real model for how, how resourcing is delivered. But I think your question, Kate, also points maybe to data and to how we look at impacts at the moment. And so I think that there's a kind of couple of ways we talk about that in relation to the research. So I think the first thing is we absolutely call for some better disaggregation of data. So what we found is actually it's really, really difficult at the moment to understand where funding is flowing to in crisis response and what that funding is being used for, partly because data is being coded so poorly. So I think a really good example of that is if we look at funding to LGBTQIA communities. So it's really hard to identify that funding to start with, because actually gender markers are often very women specific. But even if then we can identify those funding flows, what we find is that that funding is categorized under this broad umbrella and we don't know specifically which communities it's then to benefit for. But I think the other way this really comes through in the research, and I think actually is one of the most important points, is that we're also calling for us to start to look beyond these very simple quantifiable metrics we're often using in crisis response at the moment. So I think that we often point to things that are easy to measure and that are very short term. But actually all the things that Jean and Jonny have been talking about, those solutions that we need to be able to look beyond this world in perma crisis are about long term structural changes. And really actually we're not looking to capture those things or we're not going to capture those things through simple metrics that look at number of aid parcels delivered or number of people reached. These are more about shifts to values and how we reshape relationships within communities. And I think the other thing we talk about in the research, which I think is easy to overlook, but actually is one of the most important findings is the value of intangible resources. So by that we mean connection and care and relationships and solidarity. And those things often aren't kind of captured within simplistic impact matrix that we use. But actually what we find is that, or what we found through the research was that it's how you show up in those moments of crisis. So it's how you show up as a human being. It's how you show up in a way that prioritizes care and connection. That's one of the most important forms of crisis response that we can offer to communities. So I think at the moment, obviously what we measure is affecting what's valued and what's funded. And we're not capturing those ways that grassroots movements are offering the distinct point of value in crisis response. But we're also not capturing those really critical forms of crisis res.
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B
And I think, you know, the research you've done and the work you do really underscores how interconnected justice based and centered approaches are with the most effective approaches. Right. And you know, as we kind of close up here, I'd love to hear from each of you, you know, our audience of listeners or global development humanitarian professionals, you know, what would you want them to take away from, from this research and the work you're doing, particularly at this moment, where we are having a lot of crises happening across the world as to what are the most effective ways for us to address these while centering justice at the core. And Jean, I'll start with you.
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When we talk about justice, we are actually talking about power inherently and how power is distributed, lies who has it and therefore who thrives and who doesn't. And so one, you know, some key takeaways includes the justice lens. Back to the point of the myth of support. Crisis support is neutral. No, it is not. In fact, you end up supporting the dominant hegemony and making more harm as we have talked about. So that's one key takeaway. And to have a justice centered, effective approach means a lot of things, including ceding your own power, reconceptualizing risk, finding ways to be grounded in community. And that means working with the frontline organizations and actually listening to them. If we go back to that seeding power issue and then funding across this whole, I think Lucy used the word rhizome. The approach that we've learned that works, not just a one track approach. I think I'll leave it there. But I'll say let's all reflect on a justice centered approach. It's not the easiest approach, but it's the most effective approach, and it includes reconceptualizing power and risk. Over to you, Johnny.
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B
Yeah, Joni, I'd love to hear too, how you think organizations think about sometimes getting political is something, again, that can be uncomfortable or they feel like, oh, that is not our place to make political judgments or calls. But I'd love for you to kind of push that notion a bit with our audience on why you think that is important, particularly in this moment.
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D
Thank you, Kate. Yeah, I agree. And you know, it is, I think it's something that needs to be evolving all the time. And the way we do it is we take our cues from the communities that we serve. We do have. Our feminist approach to grantmaking is not like just sitting in the ether on its own. It comes from specific values. It comes from social justice frameworks that we have looked into that we have discussed, that we have studied and we have adopted. And at the heart of all of those, we have communities sitting. It's human centered. And as we understand that the root causes of all of these crises that we talk about is in fact political, it comes from a lot of, you know, it comes from patriarchy, it comes from authoritarianism, it comes from racism, it comes from colonialism. We have a long history. And because we understand that, we are able to take a stand with confidence, and we understand there is a risk with it, but we also understand that that risk is just very simple compared to the risk that activists hold. And I would invite philanthropic partner to be wanting to be part of the ecosystem. We all live in this ecosystem, talking to each other, coordinating with each other, and looking to reach those that are harder to reach. And when you see yourself part of that network, we can also protect ourselves. And the same as communities can build their own networks of safety, we can do that also within philanthropy and we can band together and be together. And maybe I would End by something slightly different to the question. But I would be remiss not to say again, when it comes to justice, access also is a big part of justice. It doesn't matter how many resources we have and how much money we're able to send towards a country or a crisis or a movement, if they cannot access that, if our applications are too hard, if our reporting is very extractive, where we're just mining data of personal life, details of people under crisis so they can get a few thousand dollars, which is, I think those are horrible practices when we put them from that lens. So just making it accessible and trusting communities and not being. Yeah, just not being bullied by political powers to not do the right thing. It's sometimes it sounds a little bit cliche and silly and like movie like, but that's really the reality. I think we're philanthropy organizations and entities do have a role to play in what's happening in today's world. And we need to assume that role with confidence, with boldness, and take the lead from the communities that we support.
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A
And Kate, if I could just add one thing on how power or centering risk, conceptualizing power and risk would be. Let's look at the modalities of funding. How do you fund? What kind of reporting, as Johnny said, do you require? What kind of due diligence do you. Do you require? Who do you trust? In the end, you're trusting people similar to you. Who do you trust to actually handle that? If you just look at one thing, the modalities of funding, and think about how would I turn risk and power question in this, therein lies the response. Of course, I would urge everyone to also read the report and then they'll get much more detail.
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B
Yes. And Lucy, I'd love to hear your final thoughts and then also where our audience can find and read this report.
- [41:24]
C
Yeah, so I think really we're cool. And I think this has come through so strong, really. And what Jonny and Jean are saying is we're calling for two core mindset shifts, really. So the first one is to recognize that crises are political, but that isn't about embracing politics for politics sake. That's because that's where the evidence base sits. But also we need this shift from managing crises towards transforming the systems that are creating them. And actually, if we want to imagine and we want to live in a world beyond crises and perma crisis, that's exactly what we need to do. And I think also which is so strongly captured in the funding modalities that Jean and Jonny are talking about. We want this mindset shift from donor led approaches to movement led approaches. Because so much of crisis response at the moment is shaped by around the donor. So from the way that a donor's interests, agenda, their concerns with risk are shaping what crises are resourced, to the way that we're funding through these kind of these very specific silos that don't recognize the way that crises are messy and that they're interconnected. So instead we're saying that actually to address crisis, we need to totally flip this mindset on its head from donor led to one where resourcing is being shaped by movements and being responsive to movements, needs.
- [42:41]
B
Yeah. So I think that it can maybe sometimes feel like getting into messy politics and responding to crises, but it's really just being honest about the fact that already are. Right. Every funding decision, every response framework, every even definition of who counts as a beneficiary, those are political choices. So this model is really asking us to make those choices consciously with justice at the center. And as we all said, this is in a moment of escalating conflict, shrinking resources, so we just don't have the luxury, if we ever did, of ineffective models. And so a framework that is both more just and more effective is really the combination the sector needs to be striving for right now. On April 26, the urgent action Sister Funds and the center for Applied Human Rights will launch their feminist crisis response model. Find the link in the show not.