Comments

Anthony - Thanks for sharing the Orima Research Survey of Returned Volunteers – October 2012. You've mentioned that Austraining is strongly committed to supporting volunteers so would you mind sharing the full results of the Orimo Research Survey of Returned Volunteers? I'd be really interested in seeing how volunteers have responded to some of the other questions contained in the survey. Also, would you be able to share with us some figures on how many volunteers end their assignment early or change organisations whilst on assignment?

The third is that mining companies, particularly domestic ones, need to invest in research and education around mining. Countries like Peru or Zambia should not need to send their young to study about mining to the UK or Australia. They should instead strive to become centres of knowledge excellence on their natural resources. http://onthinktanks.org/2013/03/27/from-non-renewable-resources-to-unlimited-knowledge/

Hi Jeff, Thank you so much for sharing your story on here in the comments. It certainly sounds as though you made significant impact through your assignment and have become a bit an ambassador for Dominica in Australia, as I dare say it is a place not many Australians would know about! As I said in the piece, I have seen many volunteers such as yourself doing really great work. Reflection and debate on how we can improve the program overall will hopefully bring about even more success stories. Thanks again for sharing, Ashlee

Thank you for your great comment Belinda -- I completely agree with you. The ICM role is a critical one in assignment success and they should be highly valued (and provided with incentives to stay on in the role to reduce the rapid staff churn that happened in TL last year, for instance). It is a difficult and demanding job and they have to wear many hats -- and as I mentioned in the piece, in some countries they have too many volunteers to handle adequately along with their other duties.

In case you are wondering what happened to some of our recent comments, I removed one at the request of its author, and then a couple of responses to that comment (since the responses make no sense without the original comment). Discussion is still welcome on this post. Stephen Howes Co-Editor, Development Policy Blog

Interesting article by Callan on mining -- The issue is a big one, and the messages are good, including the clear need for mining companies to do a much better job telling their story. Just a hunch, but given the titles and sponsors, I suspect that each of the conferences attended was brimming with donor and civil society types, and not quite so many miners. Close to five years ago, my wife launched a PR and public affairs company when we were based in Mongolia. She's since worked or is working with many of the majors and juniors in that market, including Vale, Rio and SGS. After leaving UB for Belgrade, she kept the Mongolia company and launched a Serbian sister -- also focused on mining. As a result I've gotten to see a very different side of the industry, a side which 20 years ago I couldn't have fathomed. Mining practices have improved a lot in the past 20 years. To be sure, mining has put some big holes in the ground. But with all of the pressure from varied quarters, the companies have shaped up a lot. I've been impressed by substantial investment in community outreach (which my wife has been very involved with), deep-seeded commitment to safety, and pretty consequential efforts to mitigate environmental damage. Mines are increasingly going underground which will further contain the visible impacts. How much have the companies done for development? Mongolia's pretty darn transformed. The fact that income inequality has increased isn't to be blamed on the mining companies, its much more a function of flawed policy. Many of the Mongolian tycoons were made during the waves of privatization that followed the opening in 1990 -- years before the mining boom really began in 2009. The GOM somewhat botched its effort to establish a sovereign wealth fund which could have distributed some of the mining receipts, which by the way actually have yet to start rolling in. Rio's Oyu Tolgoi copper/gold mine only began production this year. Basically, the government spent funds that hadn't yet accrued, and thereby undermined what could have been a powerful tool to share the wealth. And finally other schemes, including the distribution of shares in the putative IPO of Tavan Tolgoi sound good, but are reminiscent of the mass voucher schemes exercised liberally across central and eastern Europe in the 1990s, and which were not glowing models of wealth distribution. The issue that Serbia is grappling with, where modern mining has yet to come, is associated with value addition: Who and where will it be captured? The GOS wants to reap as much value added in-country from mining as possible. And everybody agrees they should, mining companies included. The western majors and a handful of juniors are still exploring, but could start mining in 3 - 5 years if all goes well. I've been a vocal proponent of mining in Serbia for a couple reasons, not least the minerals that will be mined could drive processing and finishing in downstream industries if Serbia commits to a long-term strategy and vision that will keep the value-added in-country. And this is possible. Rio Tinto is exploring a lithium borate deposit. Lithium, of course, is a big factor input to modern batteries and fuel cells. If Serbia plays its cards right, lithium that will be processed in-country could be converted into the power source for future electric cars that Fiat could produce in its south Serbia plant. Borates are used in fertilizer, but also in specialty ceramics and glass. Borates could also find their way into finished products, like wind turbine blades or glass for cell phones and computers. Downstream processing is where additional jobs and revenue will be generated, and where development impacts will be multiplied. Serbia is better-placed than Mongolia to build up downstream processing, but government has got to have the vision to court and attract industry and manufacturing that consumes raw and processed ores and converts them into modern, high-tech products. Serbia has the engineers and smart people to make this happen. If government can chart the course, preserve stability and create the economic climate that welcomes investment, then 15 or 20 years down the road, Serbia will be a source of knowledge-based and modern engineered products that will be on the cutting edge of alternative energy and the next wave of IT innovation.

Hi Ashlee, I would like to agree with most comments that your account is an important step in opening up discussions around improving the way we manage international aid. Furthermore you have made sound recommendations towards improving the system. Also on the face of it I would agree with the well-made point by Stephen Howes regarding benefits of a regional program because we could manage that more effectively. However on reflection shouldn’t we be capable of engaging in the increasing connectedness around the globe, including within international aid, without retreating to our backyard because we are not doing it well. Better perhaps to improve rather than retreat. As many have said in country support is critical and problematic. In my case I would have to say looking back, I wanted someone who understood the Australian culture, who I would feel safe in confiding to and going to for support. However I can see the challenge the support team has in locating and retaining such people in country and as Stephen Howes suggested in his reflection piece this is “a challenge to effectiveness for all parts of the aid sector”. I was certainly dissatisfied with my support in this regard on many occasions due to the lack of experience, cultural literacy, and time on the job, of the in country support person. As we were the first volunteers to the region there were teething problems, however issues were generally addressed as we raised them and we made the most of what we had. I believe just as the bad stories need to be told and offer an opportunity to learn, we need to be reminded of the good as they sometimes get less press. I have recently returned from a “capacity building” role with the Dominica Red Cross Society and was asked to present a speech at the Australian and New Zealand Disaster and Emergency Management Conference by Austraining, the arm of AUSAID which supported the deployment. The theme of the session was lessons learnt in humanitarian assistance and I was happy to support the program in which I had a completely different experience to Ashlee. After a career in engineering and building maintenance, I returned to study as my children matured, completing a master in Community development/Disaster Management. The studies and my background lead me to believe I had something to offer, but precisely what? I applied for this role to determine exactly what I could offer and to ensure a thorough understanding of grassroots community based disaster management. After completing my assignment I feel empowered and confident of my capabilities. Dominica is a small island developing state, around 750 square kilometres of volcanic, mountainous and rugged terrain. The island has one of the highest drainage densities in the world. The island is prone to many hazards, including hurricanes, volcanoes, landslides, flooding, earthquakes and of course climate change. Organisation such as SES are non-existent in Dominica, with Fire and Police services playing a much reduced role in disaster management. This leaves the Red Cross with a broad task. I focused on increasing staff and community knowledge of natural hazards and potential mitigation strategies, building community disaster response training capacity, the disaster response capacity of the organisation, and forming links to Government and other bodies. My counterpart concept also did not last long as funding for his position came to an end. I moved on to work alongside the Director General (and anyone else who’d have me), while I bought up to date knowledge of resilience and mitigation strategies to the role the DG offered many years of hands on experience. This knowledge greatly assisted my role and development, providing evidence of a two way flow of learning. I gained experience in a broad range of areas including; climate change adaptation, community vulnerability mapping and consultation, school safety frameworks, disaster plans, and disaster response team training. The context of this placement also advanced my ability to lead, mentor, and motivate culturally diverse staff, and, manifest the limitations to this. Together we developed food security and livelihood assessments, media releases, mass casualty exercises, and carried out community assessments’ of homes, shelters and water supply options. The type of experience not readily available in a larger more developed country. We incorporated gender issues, and children in disasters, into community trainings and I co facilitated shelter management, and safer houses training in order to build staff training abilities. I developed community preparedness training modules for many hazards to be used both nationally and regionally by French Red Cross and researched and secured funding for future projects. I also spoke at many events to encourage community participation and worked as project engineer on numerous community disaster mitigation micro projects. I researched and organised GIS Training, using Mapaction volunteers from the UK, to take community vulnerability and capacity mapping to the next level. The move to digital mapping by the Dominica Red Cross will allow a large volume of critical information to be accessed by all Government departments and NGOs when making decisions, not only during and after a disaster, but in planning and other community development activities. It appeared that in Dominica, areas of Government operate with no knowledge of what another department or NGO has been working on. Therefore many examples of wasted effort were identified. With this in mind the World Bank is introducing Geonode into Dominica and some other Caribbean countries with the Red Cross and myself on the steering committee. This platform creates a central location to store data which can be accessed quickly. This will reduce the wasted effort by identifying which communities have had specific programs or funding along with vulnerabilities and capacities during an event. This is a major step forward in sharing of critical information. When placed together with GIS mapping expertise this represents a step which will facilitate a broad range of enhancements to the community mapping process going forward and ultimately save lives, assets and dollars during a response. One of the truly beneficial outcomes of my placement was these links formed between the Dominica Red cross and important partners. The World Bank now sees the Red Cross as a critical partner in the country. The connection to Map action will, I am sure be reactivated as the Red Cross wishes to develop their GIS skills yet again. Funding via GEF which is a UNDP grant has led to a partnership there. While out of left field a PHD student contacted me from UK who heard of our GIS training via a web blog, after some tooing and froing we have her heading to Dominica next month to examine the effects and best way forward of this move into GIS technology. The program also supported my partner and 16 year old son who added enormously to the cultural exchange. While there were frustrations and challenges, and I know not all placements are as beneficial to both parties as my own, I would recommend Volunteering for International Development to anyone. I would like to add Ashlee that your suggestions for improvements are sound and your candour is an inspiration. I was pleasantly surprised at the conference last week with the number of people willing to say there are problems with how we are doing things, and to have open discussions around solutions such as this one. This has not been my experience in other countries and perhaps for this reason we can be confident of fixing it.

Ashlee, I think what you've written is very fair. Sometimes things just don't work out and I know your case certainly isn't an isolated one. Based on what I observed during my time as an AYAD and my own experiences, I would argue having a great in-Country Manager (ICM) is the key factor in whether assignments work or not. Without great practical support centered around an ICM with a particular (and rare) skill set - part diplomat, part linguist, part real estate agent, part HR expert, part emergency evacuator and part local expert - things have a nasty tendency to fall apart. And having an expat Australian with in that role really helps because they can straddle both worlds. At the start of my AYAD assignment, my experience could have gone either way. I was at a relatively small organisation and once I arrived, people were a bit uncertain about the best way to use my skills and what was ok under the agreement held with AYAD. My ICM went above and beyond to help make the assignment a success. Where I couldn't forge a path forward (in part because the assignment rules conflicted with my host organisation's needs) the ICM negotiated a way forward that worked for everyone. Overall, I had a wonderful experience as an AYAD; things weren't always smooth or perfect and I think it's fair to say there was compromise on all sides during the assignment to get a workable outcome with realistic expectations. But by the end of the assignment my overwhelming sense was that I had really made a difference to my host organisation and their partners and that, on a personal level, I had grown from the experience too. Indeed over the years since my assignment I've continued to work remotely for my host organisation on an as-needs basis because my experience on the ground with them and my knowledge of the programs means I can deliver what they need quickly. So the volunteer program can and does work, just not for everyone and not all of the time. Maybe all the organisations involved need to go back and really look at the value they place on their ICMs and work out how to gain and retain the best people for the role. Because finding someone who can fulfill all of those responsibilities is tough. The top ICMs should be recognized and rewarded for their commitment not only to the volunteer program but also to the development landscape in the countries where they work.

Dear Tess and Ryan, Thanks for your thoughtful comments. Tess, while I accept that companies may not have had a business motivation for documenting their development impacts in the past, and did not have the expertise to do this either, I don’t think this is the case any longer. Almost all major businesses investing in developing countries have made public commitments to sustainability and responsibility in their operations, covering their economic, environmental and social impacts. So I would argue that they are obliged to report on these commitments and to do so accurately and comprehensively (rather than selectively and narrowly, as many do). But I don’t sheet home the responsibility for addressing all of the impacts of resource projects to the companies only. Governments, landowners and local communities are parties to resource project agreements and they usually warmly welcome the expected benefits (increased revenues, cash incomes, opportunities for local enterpreneurs). But they tend to pay much less attention to the negative aspects of the structural and societal change resource projects bring, such as inwards migration, increased crime, gambling, prostitution, family violence, and sexually communicable diseases including HIV/AIDS. It is not only the companies which need to pay more attention to these negative impacts, but importantly, national and local authorities. Glenn Banks and colleagues at Massey University have done some interesting work in this area, see <a href="http://cdj.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/05/11/cdj.bst025.abstract" rel="nofollow">here</a>. Ryan, I skim-read the very interesting research you alerted me to. I wonder whether the findings would have been different if you had disaggregated the components of your primary commodities to separate agricultural raw materials, food and beverages from fuels, metals and ores. The reason I suggest this is that ANU researcher, Dr Mike Bourke, has some interesting analysis of Papua New Guinea which shows that poverty (his proxy is under 5 child mortality) is lowest in urban and rural areas with good agricultural environments, and highest in rural areas with poor agriculture environments and locations where the extractive industry is the only significant source of cash income. Dr Bourke’s presentation at the PNG Institute of National Affairs, “The role of agriculture in a national economy dominated by gas, petroleum and mineral exports” can be found <a href="http://www.inapng.com/pdf_files/Bourke%20-%20role%20of%20agric%20in%20gas,%20mineral%20econ%2021%20Nov%202012.pdf" rel="nofollow">here</a> [pdf].

Austraining is strongly committed to supporting volunteers and Host Organisations as one of the Core partners through AusAID’s AVID program, to ensure great outcomes are achieved. Where things don't go to plan, we do our best to learn what we can and apply these lessons to improve things in future. This blog has highlighted a key challenge in the development and volunteer field; that we seek to work with Host Organisations that can support a safe, secure and effective volunteer assignment while at the same time ensuring that we don't preclude organisations that will benefit most from capacity building inputs that Australian Volunteers can provide. There is an inherent level of risk that an individual volunteer assignment will not work out as planned, and this can be for a variety of reasons that may be within or outside of the individual volunteer or Host Organisation’s control. We believe that the Australian Volunteer program plays an important role in supporting developing countries and strengthening Australia’s relationship with them. Of course, we are concerned when any of our volunteers encounter problems or frustrations and we welcome their views and feedback; we all seek a common goal. It is only through such feedback that we can continually test and improve what we do. However the vast majority are satisfied with their volunteer experience and 92% of returned volunteers would recommend the Australian Volunteer program to their friends and family. Furthermore, 83% believed that they made a positive impact on their host organisation and the community.* Volunteers make a real difference in developing countries. Together with our partners, Austraining works to a comprehensive set of standards, which include safety and security, ongoing in-country support, allowances for volunteers and accompanying dependants, and pre mobilisation requirements such as tailored training, including language training. During Ashlee Betteridge’s time in Timor Leste, there were changes in management and Austraining mobilised an experienced staff member from the Indonesia team, as well as the Regional Director and the International Operations Manager, to Timor Leste. To increase in-country support in Timor Leste, Austraining has since increased the number of personnel in the Timor Leste team to three and is currently recruiting a fourth staff member. Austraining is committed to ensuring that volunteers receive support in line with AVID program Shared Standards. Anthony Rologas - Program Director- Volunteering - Austraining International *Orima Research Survey of Returned Volunteers - October 2012

This is a useful contribution to the volunteering discussion. I was a volunteer over a deacade ago and my experinece was very similar. Volunteering in developing countries is a privelage for the volunteers. One thing I remember very clearly in my pre-departure training with AVI was to keep my expectations very low. This was very good advice. Key skills you need to be a volunteer is humily and an ability to deal with ambiguity. How you test this with eager early career professionals in volunteer program is a challenge, particularly when numbers of volunteers is used as a metric of program success. How any organisation (developing context or not) deals with eager early career professionals needs to be carefully thought through and planned. If eager early career professionals are note actively engaged it can quickly become a management issue. Humility and ability to deal with ambiguity are important skills for any work you do in development. A volunteer placement will soon let you know if you have them. I have spent the last deacade working in Development, for this I have my volunteer experience to thank for.

Please let me add the link to this paper to my previous comment, for those interested: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800910003447 This must be one of the most under-cited papers: while it has the usual possible limitations of a cross-country regression study, the intuition and theory is very sound, in my opinion, and quite possible the tip of the iceberg. Un-gated discussion paper version here: http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/mrg/2709.pdf Cheers Ryan