Ebola, Afghanistan and management consulting!

Ebola, Afghanistan and management consulting!

Nearly 9000 West Africans have lost their lives to Ebola, and over 22000 have been infected. But in the midst of the carnage there is good news – new cases are down to less than a 100 a week, and mortality rates for those infected have plummeted. The world can now dream of eradicating Ebola. A far cry from late 2014 when the CDC insisted that over 1.4Mn would be infected by Ebola by January 2015, and the disease could at best be contained, not eradicted.

So how did we defeat Ebola - was it the mobilization of international healthcare organizations (e.g. WHO, MSF etc)? Was it the hundreds of Ebola Treatment units funded by the international community? While all these interventions, were inarguably crucial, the difference makers were the local, community based initiatives. These neighborhood action groups took on the task of educating the community, maintaining lists of the ill, transporting them to hospitals, caring for the families of the deceased and much much more. They swung into action while the NGOs and international aid groups were still analyzing the problem.

In Afghanistan, the US has spent billions of dollars to rebuild a legal system and judicial institutions. $7.6Bn was spent just to control the opium production by strengthening the legal system to counter it. A recent USIP (United States Institute of Peace) study across all 18 provinces, however estimates that as much as 80 percent of disputes are still resolved outside the formal justice system, typically by shuras, jirgas, mullahs, and other community-based actors.

Why has the establishment of the Rule of Law in Afghanistan proven to be so difficult? The emphasis on building a legal system independent from social or religious influence and the assumption that Afghanistan provided a “clean slate” (Afghanistan’s constitution of 627 A.D. is considered the first written constitution in the world) to write on, was ultimately its downfall.

Contrary to common Western beliefs, it is actually possible to have Rule of Law without a completely formalistic system – it may be far from ideal, but it beats imposing a cookie cutter solution with billions of dollars, and little to show for it!

So what does all this have to do with management consulting? Too often consultants are guilty of recommending dogmatic solutions under the guise of “best practices”. While learning from others is invaluable, just because something worked in one place doesn’t guarantee it being effective elsewhere (e.g. Afghan legal system). Enabling the “local communities”, within a firm can often be a more effective way of driving change (Liberia’s success in controlling Ebola).