A discussion on the Organizational Development of Oxfam America Brian Lund Dec 2013

The model The fundamental of the model is quite straight forward. It can be usefully applied at any level from community group through to country and from sector to people. In this discussion I am applying it to country Z.

Loosely defined the Y-axis represents the level of development or the level of development capacity, the X-axis is simply time. Curve A represents the projected advance in development or development capacity over time .Curve B represents the corresponding need for Oxfam support. Of course in the real world these curves would never be easily described and they would certainly never be linear but nonetheless the model provides a basis for common understanding. The model is particularly useful when you ask, “where are we located on the continuum? And what are we doing to advance?” Over the years I have used it many times in discussions on development. More recently it’s proven particularly useful in debates on the role of the INGO. There are some features of the model that warrant pointing out. Development is seen as a continuum in which we are aiming for people and their governments to reach the high point of curve A while Oxfam moves to the corresponding low point of curve B. As Oxfam we should always have this in mind. I like to coax responses from time to time with a simple question, “Right now Oxfam has a substantial and valued program in country Z - many resources, many staff, much influence - we may even agree where we sit on the continuum. If we look ahead 30 years and imagine driving up in front of the same offices and Oxfam still has that substantial and valued program with many resources, many staff, much influence etc – would we have succeeded or failed?” Of course a question like this must be heavily qualified but nonetheless it serves to get the point across.

What does this mean to the strategic fit of Oxfam? As Oxfam we should be always thinking about how we help the country advance along that continuum. While the model suggests a shift in the level of investment that Oxfam would make, what is also important to realize is that the nature of that investment should be shifting too. Where there is very low country capacity, operational modalities may be the better option, whereas if the country has improving capacity a combination of programming and N-S advocacy may be ascendant whereas given much higher capacity the weight of the investment may simply be in basket funding. Interestingly, this cuts to the heart of the debate that Oxfam wants to have about the ways of working. My own observation is that we still spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches that each affiliate champions. In fact each approach can be described in terms of appropriateness at particular points along the continuum. This makes for a much more interesting discussion. It really is a juncture at which we should be seeing the diversity within Oxfam shine. Of course we do see this happening to some extent, particularly now the JCASs have begun opening our thinking but I would venture that we are still very challenged by the bias of the affiliate. In my mind’s eye, I had always pictured us one day wanting to be more deliberate about where we are on the continuum and the corresponding weight of Oxfam’s investment. And perhaps this has started to happen; In the JCAS2 the Vietnam team took stock of development in the country and decided that it was time to consider a dialogue on a phase out strategy.

What does this mean for how we resource our work? I find this a very interesting question. And allow me to address it with a question, “ If tomorrow the EU puts out a call for proposals in country Z that is exactly aligned to the work we have been pursuing for years, should we apply for those funds?...... Or should we help local partners prepare a bid - partners we have been capacity building for years?” A hard question to answer in tough financial environments but still that is no excuse for not answering…. do we help or compete?

This comes to another question that we are not addressing. If I was to go ahead and assist a partner to win that €1million EU bid and they went on to do a fantastic job. Today’s Oxfam would hardly even acknowledge that I had helped, in fact I may even be in trouble for not meeting my own performance objectives! This lack of acknowledgement, measurement or any incentive is a huge disincentive for Oxfam to move along the continuum.

What does it mean for governance? Another interesting question that has to address two key facets, 1) Oxfam’s own transparency and accountability and 2) the capacity of civil society organizations On building civil society capacity, it’s important to acknowledge that it’s not easy to get a functioning Board in place but that when it is done well, the benefit to the organization is enormous. With this in mind, it will be important to remain less strident early in the continuum but to be seeking to foster better governance as we advance along the continuum. Again this is an area where the approaches of different affiliates best match different stages. As Oxfam America, we see a lot of partners trying to build better governance and policy allows us to actively support by encouraging Oxfam staff to participate in local Boards - to bring personal skills and experiences to the assistance of these local organizations trying to build good governance. Other affiliates seek out partners where they can already assume good governance and this allows them to focus more on subcontractor and grant relationships. On Oxfam’s accountability, we are currently reliant on informal partner inputs to guide our strategy and implementation. We don’t really have any accountability beyond own affiliates and donors. I believe building in local accountability should be one of the defining features of the new Oxfam. The obvious way to do it is to establish Country-level Advisory Boards. Membership would be competency-based country representatives excluding Oxfamers. There is a longer debate to be had on how to build and support functional Boards but as they progressed the opportunity to graduate to an Executive Board becomes real.

New Affiliates The last point on Oxfam’s own country-level governance moving to the Executive leads me to another feature of the model. You will have noticed that curve B does not go all the way to the baseline and in fact I have highlighted a space there denoted A (A for Affiliate). I’ve done this because I believe one of the options for phase-out is not to phase out at all. Instead we could be considering a new affiliate. The example that I think most illustrates this option is Vietnam. In this instance it would be a small affiliate, mostly engaged in keeping Vietnam CS linked into the global community and some HR watchdogging. Already we’ve seen Oxfam in Vietnam build links with other countries (even as far as Haiti) and the prospect is that this will only grow… particularly if Vietnam continues to champion GROW! The cost to the Confederation might be capped at as little as $1million/pa but the gains for a global organization should outstrip this… especially if we do start measuring influence.

Other facets There is any number of other considerations that are important to the Confederation that could be framed in this model. I’ve aligned a summary of the some of the facets I’ve discussed above plus a few more but knowing that there are many more that have to be taken into account if we are going to come up with a logical framework for our organizational development.

I really think we would stand to gain a lot if we built out a matrix something like this. For the first time Oxfam would really unpacking the diversity that we hold as a confederation and we would be working out how to use it!