Priming The Role Of Volunteers

BT Costantinos, PhDProfessor of Public Policy, School of Graduate

Studiecosty@costantinos.net, www.costantinos.net

https://sites.google.com/site/doncosty/

Presented to the VSO Ethiopia – In country training for new intakes,

Addis Ababa, Feb 8, 2011

Leadership Solutions to Stem the Crises in Human

Development

Flash points and areas of cooperation for Peace & Development in the Greater Horn

Ethiopia

Sudan

Democratic Republic of Congo

Uganda

Somalia

Somaliland

Kenya

Tanzania

Sudan

Our vulnerabilities

• 33% of all displaced peoples in the world are in the Horn

•More than 20 million people need international food assistance – 8 million in Ethiopia

•There are more people living under the poverty line than any other part of the world

•This in spite of the highest potential in agriculture, water resources and mining

•THE ISSUES – GOVERNNACE, CONFLICT, PEACE

Challenges to Leadership

and the African State of the Nation

1. Authoritarian traditions …2. Poverty, famine and under

development …3. HIV AIDS, TB, Malaria, and

ORID …4. Natural Resources

Management 1.9 billon tonnes of soil is eroded …

5. Water tower of North Africa6. Agriculture –out of a

staggering 70 million hectares only 14% is cultivated …

7. Resettlement …8. Emasculated Youth – 9. IDP, refugees, 10.Combatants

MDGsEradicate extreme poverty and hunger

1. Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day

2. Halve, between 1990 and 2015, proportion of people who suffer from hunger

Achieve universal primary education

3. Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling

Promote gender equality

4. Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and to all levels of education no later than 2015

Reduce child Mortality

5. Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate

Maternal health 6. Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and ORID

7. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS

8. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse malaria and ORID

MDGs (cont)Ensure

environmental

sustainability

9. Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources

10. Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to water and sanitation

11. By 2020, significant improvement in the lives of 100 million slum dwellers

Develop a Global Partnership for Development

12. Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system [Includes a commitment to good governance, development, and poverty reduction – both nationally and internationally]

13. Address the Special Needs of the Least Developed Countries 14. Address the Special Needs of landlocked and Small Island

States 15. Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing

countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable

16. In co-operation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent and productive work for youth

17. In co-operation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable, essential drugs in developing countries

18. In co-operation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications

Ethiopia – Domestic resources for development

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100

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500

600

ADMINISTRATIVE AND GENERAL SERVICE ECONOMIC SERVICE

SOCIAL SERVICE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT GENERAL DEVELOPMENT

C. SUBSIDY TO REGIONS

Ethiopia: aid commitment

Ethiopia: aid disbursement

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200

400

600

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1000

1200

In US Dollars

1

Aid Disbursement

Multilateral IFIs Loan Grants EU Grants UN Grants

Total Multilateral Loans Grants Bilateral US & Canada Grants Asia & M.East

North & East Europe West Europe Grants Total Bilateral Total Aid Loan Grants

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

Total Aid Domestic Resources

Total resources for development

Gender Equality Markers

020406080

100Agriculture

Roads

Energy

HealthEducation

Water

Microfinance

Principal Substantive

Cultural barriers to Human Development

and Leadership tenets to stem the tide Poverty

Moving on….

Cultural and behavioural Challenges to volunteerism

1. Personalization of issues (leba tat)2. Parochialism (weganawinet) 3. Paranoia, chronic suspicion and mistrust (tiretare):

we view everyone as a threat 4. Lack of empathy and empathetic understanding:

ability to identify with or understand others’ situation, feelings, and actions

5. Lack of suspending judgement fundamental to effective communication or giving others the benefit of the doubt

6. Character assassination (sem matfat and alubalta) 7. Lack of openness (Hamet)8. Holding grudges (qim and mequeyem) 9. Envy (mequegnenet) 10.Stubbornness and lack of compromise (getterenet)

The 10 Commandments of Ethiopian politics

Ref. Dessalegn Asfaw

What is “VOLUNTEERISM”?

Voluntarism is a non-remunerated service that adds value and results in substantial gains to organisational endeavours, community goodwill and other intrinsic benefits; providing real cost savings. Volunteers enrich citizenship and serve as an effective conduit for civic education; interjecting public participation in decision-making that promotes social harmony and public trustVolunteers add values, quality and capacity and provide enthusiasm, extra resources and very much needed skills

Human security and human development are both fundamentally concerned with the lives of

human beings -- longevity, education, and opportunities for participation.

1. Human development "is about people, about expanding their choices to lead lives they value".

2. Human security complements human development by deliberately focusing on "downside risks.” It recognises the conditions that menace survival, the continuation of daily life and the dignity of human beings.

Volunteer leadership for Human Security and Human Development

Volunteers’ contribution to human security and development

Education,

Health (RH and HIV/AIDS, Malaria, ORID etc)

Food security, Conservation of natural resources Economic diversification, Urban and rural physical infrastructures Organisational and human resource development Political contestation and participationOrganisational and institutional development, Emergency assistance.

“Volunteerism and LEADERSHIP”

“To become a centre of influence holding people together is a grave

matter and fraught with great responsibility. It requires

greatness of spirit, consistency and strength. Therefore let them

who wishes to gather others about him ask himself whether they are

equal to the undertaking” I Ching, or Chinese Book of Changes, ...

Consciousness precedes being Vaclav Havel

Vaclav Havel, the Czechoslovakian philosopher and statesman, asserts that "Matter... is not the fundamental factor in human history...

Consciousness is. Human awareness is...

Those are the deep sources of freedom and power with which people have been able to move boulders and create change by treating institutional and economic realities as absolute constraints, but rather recognises that we "co-create the world" Thus, while we are indeed acted upon, we are also free to act; leadership lies in the complex interaction between the two.

VDOs’ contribution in EthiopiaThemes addressed

Food security, conservation of natural resources and afforestation, economic diversification, health and domestic water supplies that includes: health facilities, health care/services, development of ‘safe’ water sources, reproductive health and family planning and HIV/AIDS, education facilities, human resource development, organisational and institutional development, urban and rural physical infrastructures and emergency assistance.

Beneficiaries reached: 16,816,912 people Funds mobilised: Birr 3.53 billion.Employment: 9803 permanent employees (as of 2002)

Leadership outcomes, tools…Capital formation and accumulation: Human,

spiritual, natural, physical/material social capital:

political, psychosocial, organisational, cultural

Tools: Multi-track communications, participatory

assessment and planning, policy, institution and strategic analysis and programme review

Leadership For Sustainable Livelihoods

Process and strategic elements • Preconditions and preparedness,• Participatory and wise decision making, • Production and availability of resources, • Access / control of livelihood resources, • Stability and sustainability

Benchmarks Resilience, economic

efficiency, social equitability, ecological

sustainability

TH

E R

IGH

TS

BA

SE

D A

PP

RO

AC

H

LEADERSHIP: Citizen – State relations –

1.Humility and Optimism 2.Democracy and Pluralism, rule of law,

accountability 3.Macroeconomic Prudence and

transparency4.Scope for Mutual Support between

Government and Voluntary Organisations Relations

5.The right to development 6.Voluntary Action as a Human Right: Indeed,

voluntary action is one of the highest forms of citizenship as it represents action in the service of the community without expectation or pursuit of personal economic or political gain.

Development Governance in Ethiopia: The Defining Role Of Volunteers

1.Building social capital for effective citizen and state institutions

2.Promotion of dialogue, public enlightenment, cultural renaissance, tradition, and renewal

3.Local Governance and Development Management and education for democratic citizenship

4.The human factor and civic education for strengthening civil society and rights culture

5.Gender, human rights, population, AIDS, environment, democracy mainstreaming

Paradigms of LEADERSHIP1. leadership is above all about responsibility;

requiring acceptance of the importance of one's self, coupled with an appreciation of the greater importance of others over oneself. It entails liability for those who are led. Leadership is a discipline in its own right.

2. There is no set of techniques, rules or series of commandments with which the leader can arm themselves and be assured of success; nonetheless, they must always interrelate, familiarize, change & transform themselves.

3. leaders are expected to develop the capacity, through their statements and actions, including symbolic actions, to shape debate and dialogue

Paradigms of LEADERSHIP4. An inspiring ‘job description’ of leaders

must be not only the power over discourse but also their ability to shape morality, to determine what is socially acceptable, culturally sound and politically uplifting. Indeed, leadership is more than a job; it is a calling.

5. Political leadership requires intimate knowledge of public policy analysis, formulation and management analysis, formulation and management of policy,

strategy, process and organisation; obtaining policy consensus and ensuring that the public service and ancillary

organisations can actually carry out the stated policy, and not see it subverted, neglected or undermined; and

consistency and commitment: ensuring that the policy is implemented with sufficient energy to actually work. This implies mechanisms for monitoring and accountability.

Nuances of LEADERSHIP1. Leaders are responsible for breaking the boundaries of

inward bound wisdom, of "common sense", of patterns which have built themselves into routines which pacify people to dormancy.

2. Leaders maintain continuity whilst simultaneously promoting change; such is the nature of leadership ambiguity and contradiction that comes as part of the same deal.

3. The allusion of the foregoing is that the leader is responsible for change management, and change in a transition implies some degree of anarchy. The nexus between the old and the new, between letting go of the old and adopting the new order, is most often a place where rules are bent, and habit and routine are replaced with periods of chaos - which are indeed pieces of good fortune and opportunities for change.

4. Leaders must have the zeal, commitment, diligence, greatness of spirit, consistency to transform transitional chaos into development opportunities that history will remember them for.

We know there exist enormous obstinacies to Ethiopia’s development within the life of this

generation, nevertheless a skilled and committed citizenry, think tanks and leadership can mitigate such state of affairs and project the nation to the

21st century with the attendant benefits that would accrue to the citizens from its rich resources and

vibrant cultures.

Conclusion

Here is where volunteer’s LEADERSHIP – the shared values, vision and resources of community,

the demanding common tasks that build a community and the momentum they generate for

radical citizen’s participation that creates the realism of what it means to be human: the means, shared values, vision and resources for humanity.

ENDENDcosty@costantinos.net, www.costantinos.net

https://sites.google.com/site/doncosty/