Insights from humanitarian experts: Visa speaks with Melker Mabeck, IFRC

At the United Nations Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks event in Geneva, Visa presented the findings of a report, Reimagining Aid in a Digital Age, published alongside Devex , the humanitarian news agency.?

During the event, we sat down with fellow attendees, panellists, and influential figures in the sector, to discuss their careers, challenges, goals, and aspirations for the sector.

This series of interviews is based on those conversations. Questions and answers have been paraphrased for brevity. The views expressed herein are those of the interviewee.

Tell us about your background. How did you get into your current role?

I’m Swedish, so I started off as a volunteer in the Swedish Red Cross in the late 1990s. I trained in international law, but at the time, I was working as a – somewhat frustrated – corporate lawyer in Stockholm. I knew I wanted to work on human rights and humanitarian law, but it’s a narrow field and not easy to get into.

Over time my role became more permanent, and I gradually moved away from the legal side and into more general operational management in the field, that led me to my current role, here at the IFRC’s headquarters in Geneva, where I manage the department that deals with government donors, the private sector, and other partners.

The time I spent in the field was invaluable, though. Without it, I couldn’t do my current job to the same standard. Spending time working with and listening to communities is so important. Fortunately, the sector is increasingly coming to appreciate that fact.

What’s driving that shift towards a greater emphasis on more listening and dialogue with communities?

I don’t think there’s been any one factor driving it; it’s something the humanitarian and development sectors have learnt over time. There’s a recognition that to be effective, we need to be good at listening, and indeed we can still make improvements.

There’s also been a recognition that we don’t necessarily know what’s best for people or what they need in a crisis, even those of us who have been in this sector for a long time. It’s about recognising the importance of choice, of agency, and dignity for the people we serve.

It may sound shocking now, but 25 years ago, concepts like agency, choice, and dignity simply weren’t the main concepts under consideration. That’s not to denigrate the hard work that many people put in, just a recognition of a change in approach. Once you start discussing these concepts and putting them front and centre, the dynamic changes for the better.

Take cash assistance. At one point, the idea of just giving people cash was a controversial idea. Now it’s widely accepted to empower people and respect their preferences, and digital solutions have enabled us to build on that even further – enabling things like anticipatory aid, where you deliver cash before a crisis even hits, and reduce the ultimate humanitarian impact.

What’s your view on the role of the private sector in the humanitarian and development space?

This is a complicated and multifaceted issue. On the one hand, I think companies are partly driven by a genuine willingness to contribute to the betterment of the world we live in. But businesses also operate in a different environment to humanitarian organisations. For companies, the financial bottom line is a very important determinant, often the most important.

That has implications. There are areas where the private sector can contribute and others less so. Take technology. Most of Africa skipped landline infrastructure for telephones and went straight to mobile networks and the smartphone. That’s enabled things like digital banking, payment apps, and the like. And that’s happened because even in a very unstable environment, such as Somalia, you can still build a viable, sustainable, long-term business model providing internet data, or selling handsets, or providing internet banking services. The humanitarian and development benefits from that are enormous.

But, there will always be problems that can’t be solved by the private sector. There are always going to be situations where the conditions are so fragile and the uncertainty so high that it becomes impossible for the private sector to invest. And that will always be where organisations like the IFRC will need to continue accessing the most vulnerable communities. The private sector can still help, of course, through grants, through sharing skills and capacity, and other forms of more altruistic giving.

At the Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks conference, we heard a lot about the humanitarian ‘funding gap’ – a more than $40 billion gap between humanitarian needs and what’s currently available. What are some of the challenges you face when it comes to making the case for humanitarian aid?

So, to be clear, the funding gap hasn’t come from people taking away funding. It’s not that people have become less generous, bar a few governments reducing their aid budgets in real terms. Unfortunately, it’s happening because the needs are so great and continue to get worse, and aid budgets simply haven’t been able to keep up.

Partly, that’s a political trend. And you can get into a whole conversation around current political trends and its effects on the sector. But it’s also, sadly, a financial reality. It’s crunch time for many governments. And so, it’s not surprising when constituents ask why their tax dollars are being spent on people on the other side of the world when their own public services are struggling, and there are sick or homeless people in their own country.

Whether you agree with the sentiment of that point or not, it’s a question that we, as a sector, need to have good answers for. And importantly, we need to be able to show our results. If people can see the impact their money is having, and they’re confident their money isn’t being wasted, then they’ll better understand the value of humanitarian aid.

And I think that’s where digital finance offers so much promise, right? It’s a lot more trackable, it’s safer and more secure. It strengthens our own internal accountability mechanisms, and those of our donors, and in turn, those of political decision-makers and, ultimately voters. Digital aid gives us that chain of accountability that, done correctly, can build trust and start a virtuous cycle of giving, seeing the impact, and wanting to give more.

Stay tuned for the next interview in our Digital aid dialogues by following Visa Government Solutions.