Interview with Sam Worthington
FrontLines - June 2009
Sam Worthington is
president and chief executive
officer of InterAction (the
American Council for Voluntary
International Action), an alliance
of 179 private voluntary
organizations. Millions of
Americans contribute to these
NGOs, which carry out extensive
anti-poverty and relief
activities in the United States
and overseas, much through
USAID. On May 7, Worthington
sat down with FrontLines
Editorial Director Ben Barber
for an interview.
Q: What do NGOs do and why
does USAID work with them?
WORTHINGTON :
The U.S. public is interested in
engaging with the world’s poor
and trying to make a difference
in their lives. Tens of millions
of Americans give resources
to U.S. NGOs to engage in
work overseas.
For decades, we’ve had a
partnership with USAID to
leverage our mutual work and
to provide services through
civil society in a way that could
not be happening if USAID
was working directly with
populations.
Q: Is USAID funding for the
NGOs increasing?
WORTHINGTON :
Over the past 10 years, it has
remained relatively flat. And
interestingly, during the same
period we’ve seen a tripling
of private resources coming
to our community. For every
dollar that we receive from
the U.S. government, there are
three dollars coming from the
broad public. This is a good
thing—it certainly gives more
independence of action by our
community.
Q: How do NGOs reach the
general public?
WORTHINGTON : We made
an effort to create a movement
similar to what the environmental
community has done.
So we set out consciously,
over 10 years ago, to bring to
universities, thought leaders in
our country, and celebrities, a
conversation about the world’s
poor. That effort has proved to
be far more successful than we’d
anticipated.
Our community does spend
in the hundreds of millions of
dollars to talk to the American
people, both to fundraise
through television or direct
mail, but also tens of millions
of dollars on development
education efforts focused on
helping American youth and the
population understand why they
should engage in international
development.
Q: Have donations to NGOs
been hit by the financial crisis?
WORTHINGTON : In 2009,
there is a significant financial
hit because of the current
recession—an estimated billion
dollars less out of the $6 billion
that is coming to our community.
And we are beginning to
see organizations dismantling
their capacity.
Q: Does the $6 billion coming
into your community include
USAID?
WORTHINGTON : No.
The $6 billion is from private
donors, including 13.6 million
Americans. In addition, the
U.S. NGO community has a
roughly $2.8
billion relationship
with the
U.S. government,
and probably
80 to 90
percent of that
is from USAID.
Q: Increasingly
in recent years,
USAID and
other aid agencies
operate
in dangerous
environments—
post-conflict
countries,
still-conflict
countries. How
do NGOs protect
their staff or
prepare them for
risk?
WORTHINGTON : This issue
of protecting our staff is a very
real one. Sadly, on an annual
basis, between 30 and 50 staff
of our member organizations are
killed while serving the world’s
poor and most vulnerable and
supporting their organizations’
missions overseas.
The ability of the U.S. NGO
community to remain safe in
hostile environments depends on
their relationship and the trust
relationship between them and
local communities.
At present time, there are
staff—including American staff
of U.S. NGOs—operating in
areas where the Taliban are
active in Afghanistan, staff in
very difficult environments throughout Africa, whether it
be Darfur or other areas. And
the ability to function is to make
ourselves part of a humanitarian
effort in that humanitarian
space. The trust accorded by
different actors, including belligerents,
enables us to continue
to function. |
Sam Worthington
|
Q: USAID has worked in
recent years fairly closely
with the U.S. military—the
PRTs [Provincial Reconstruction
Teams] in Afghanistan and
Iraq, and in other areas. Has
that been an issue with the
NGOs?
WORTHINGTON : What
this has led to is a tremendous conversation between our community,
USAID, and the U.S.
military. This has led to a set of
operational guidelines, particularly
for use in non-permissive
environments.
The broader challenge is that
if we get too close to, or are
associated with, the U.S. military,
the ability of our community
to operate as neutral actors
in humanitarian space closes and
puts our staff at risk.
Q: USAID is doubling its
Foreign Service Officers by
2012. Foreign aid is also set to
double. How will this affect
the NGOs?
WORTHINGTON : We’ve
strongly advocated for an
increase in USAID OE [operating
expenses] budgets. Because
of the lack of staff, USAID
has needed to bundle projects
into larger and larger amounts.
There’s just not enough staff
in USAID missions to manage
these many relationships. So
they pool the resources into one
large group, have a contractor
or an NGO manage it, and have
no connection with the broader
U.S. civil society engaged in
that country.
Q: Will there ever be a time
when foreign aid will no longer
be needed?
WORTHINGTON : Foreign
aid aims to improve human
well-being around the world,
and over time we have seen
that well-being increase. But
I do think that we are in a multigenerational exercise
that will continue for a long
time.
The other impetus behind
foreign aid is a desire to be a
good neighbor. It provides the
American people with an opportunity
to reach out to the people
of the world, and I think that will
only increase over time.
Foreign assistance is also
a central part of our foreign
policy. And that I don’t see
changing even in the lives of our
grandchildren.
Q: What is the size of the NGO
community? How many people
work in NGOs in the United
States and the globe?
WORTHINGTON : The
InterAction community is about
160,000 staff, of which the vast
majority are local nationals
operating in 180-plus countries.
Worldwide, the number of
people working for NGOs gets
into the millions.
Q: Are you planning a 25th
anniversary event?
WORTHINGTON : Our
annual forum takes place
this July 6th to 9th here in
Washington, D.C. We will
bring in about 800 development
leaders from around the world
to discuss the role of private
development assistance, civilmilitary
issues, overall effectiveness
of our community and,
unfortunately, the impact of the
current global economic crisis
on the world’s poor.
★
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