Seven Generalized “Lessons”

The catastrophic convergence,  reading by Christian Parenti, is one useful concept to understand the global context in which humanitarian workers work. The catastrophic convergence refers to ”the collision of political, economic, and environmental disasters” (Parenti, 2011, p.7). These compounding and amplifying disasters are climate change that exacerbates pre-existing crises of poverty and violence: legacy of war -inherited from Cold War period and reflected in armed groups, ethnic rivalry, illicit economy, and corrupted governments: and neo-liberalization of  economies in the Third World. Catastrophic convergence concept allows humanitarian workers to understand the complexity of social problems of the society in the Third World countries where they work so that they can conduct effective and efficient intervention programs.  

Power can be obtained from and exercised in various ways –as a power over or collaborative power pattern (VeneKlasen & Miller, 2007, p. 45). Power over pattern reveals “a win-lose relationship” in which the power is coveted, and monopolized by a certain group of people with various means of oppression towards others.  Power with, power to, and power within are alternative collaborative patterns that exercise power in positive ways. Power with deals with a collaborative power that is obtained from any parties with different strengths and is exercised to achieve common goals collaboratively. Power to relates to distinguished strengths and potential that each individual can use to make a difference in his life and lives of others. Power within refers to individual’s “capacity to imagine and to hope: it affirms the common search for dignity and fulfillment” (p.45). The insight on these alternatives of power exercise enables humanitarian workers to design and implement a powerful joint-action plan of various actors and their agencies in promoting social change.

Dimensions of political power, proposed by John Gaventa (VeneKlasen  &  Miller, 2007, 47), consist of visible, hidden, and invisible power. Visible power refers to visible elements of political power that are expressed in formal rules, and socio-economic and political institutions governing the lives of groups in a society. Hidden power refers to less visible elements of political power where the elites and their institutions dominate the setting of political agenda and decision making process that defines the lives of others.  Invisible power refers to the mechanism in which the elites perpetuate the cycle of oppression through social norms and values that are socialized through the social institutions. Practitioners need to understand the dynamic of these three dimensions of political power in order to be able to generate effective change strategies and pursue the desired changes in society.

Scaling up, a strategy “to increase the developmental impact of NGOs” (Smillie, 2009, p.105) can take place in the form of “additive” or “multiplicative”.  In additive scaling up, an initiative of an NGO is aimed to reach more people by more funding and implementations of the program in more areas. Multiplicative scaling up means the  impact of an NGO initiative is increased by its inspiring success that  influence actors from various levels, including policy makers, donors, other NGOs and individuals ,  in various ways such as being applied as government policy, replicated by other NGOs in other areas, and practiced, at its practical level,  by individuals.     

The McKinsey 7S model, learned from Tirmizi’s session, consists of seven key factors that are interconnected within an organization. Those factors are strategy, structure, system, shared value, skills, style, and staff. While the first three factors are classified as “hard” elements, the other four factors are identified as “soft” elements.  Those hard elements are as important as soft elements. They determine the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization as a whole. This 7S model is a powerful framework for managerial analysis, project planning, team designing, and program evaluation.    

Unsicker’s advocacy circle (Unsicker, 2012, pp. 17-19) represents five core elements of policy advocacy -advocate, policy, context, politics, and strategy- in interconnected circles.  With an understanding of  policy advocacy as a non-linear, complex and multidimensional process, advocacy circle helps practitioners to holistically map 1) agents who conducts the advocacy, 2) kinds of policy being advocated, 3) socio-economic, politic, and cultural circumstances, 4) any parties who might be allies or opponent, and 5) various concrete ways to achieve the goals.

Lederach’s pyramid model (Lederach, 1997), learned from Theory and Practice of Conflict Transformation,  proposes three types of actors and approaches as a framework in conflict transformation. It classifies the actor based on the leadership level; top, middle, and grassroots. Top-level leadership consists of “key political, military, or religious leaders with high visibility” (p. 40) & highest authority to make decision that affects the entire population.  Middle-range leadership consists of “persons who are highly respected as individuals and/ or occupy formal positions of leadership in sectors such as education, business, religious group, or humanitarian organization” (p.41). Grassroots leadership includes leaders who operate on a day-to-day basis in the community, including “people who are involved in local community, members of indigenous NGOs carrying out relief projects for local populations, health official, and refugee camp leaders” (p.42).

Top-level approach seeks to engage the top level leaders to end conflict through high level negotiation or mediation. Middle-level leadership approach involves capacity building programs of the middle-range leaders in order to enable them to engage the top and grassroots-level leaders in conflict resolution. Grassroots-level approach creates programs that involve the grassroots-level leaders and their community to resolve the conflicts at the local level.