Charlie’s simple questionnaire for international development organisations that say Black Lives Matter
- How senior is your most senior i) non-white ii) Global South colleague?
- What percentage of your 19-20 paybill went to i) non-white ii) Global South colleagues?
- What proportion of your offices in the Global South are currently open and operational?
- What proportion of your internationally relocatable staff are currently deployed in country of operation, and what proportion have been withdrawn “because COVID”?
- On a scale of 1-10, how does your health insurance for your national staff compare with that of your international staff?
- Have you consistently maximised development value for money? Including arbitrage on exchange rates?
- Can you confirm you haven’t got a contracts vehicle registered in Mauritius, or somewhere equally low-tax?
- If for profit, do you or your subsidiaries pay i) income ii) profit taxes in the countries you work in?
- What proportion of your non-exec governance is i) non-white ii) Global South colleagues?
And some reflections in response to Zehra Rizvi’s suggestive question to international development colleagues to name their last supervisor that was a person of colour – if any
My first job was at Episcopal Church of the (then) Sudan, my direct line manager international, but he was in Khartoum and I was in Juba, and we were both serving under excellent South Sudanese clergy and church administrators.
After that, I worked for a series of Under Secretaries, DGs and Ministers in #SouthSudan : and this will be the same for anyone working seriously with country systems.
Now I’m the Managing Director, so, by definition, I don’t have an executive supervisor: but our CFO, 3/5 of our Country Coordinators, half our developer team, and the super-majority of our staff are black. Our people page is not up to date but gives general idea.
We don’t do unpaid internships: we recruit, globally, to a paid fellowship https://charliegoldsmithassociates.co.uk/fellowship-recruitment-2019-entry-level-roles-in-international-development-for-outstanding-generalists-analysts-and-tech-people/, and we specifically look for talent that wouldn’t be able to afford to do this on their own ticket.
There’s lots to be done: I have the privs, & failings, of a Scholarship Boy; our governance isn’t diverse in gender, age or race.
In July, we will report in our Annual Report against the nine questions I set out – then try to improve. Thank you to Zehra Rizvi for posing the question, and doing the heavy lifting.
PS a shout out to some other organisations that seem to us notably more equal than average: the Windle Trust family, Development Pathways, and ODI, for the focus of its Fellowship, and its Budget work, on supporting countrysystems.