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Keynote: President & CEO Sam Worthington

Closing Luncheon Plenary: Focusing on Poverty

InterAction’s 2008 Forum, New Visions to End Poverty, wrapped up Friday, May 9, with a closing luncheon, “Focusing on Poverty.” The event began with the presentation of the Leet Award given to InterAction members Opportunity International, Pathfinder International and Winrock International. Speakers, including Henrietta Fore, Administrator of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance, Juan Jose Daboub, Managing Director of the World Bank, and Kemal Dervis, Administrator of the UN Development Programme, presented their own “visions to end poverty.”

Stressing the importance of collaboration and partnerships, each also discussed common subjects such as the rise in food prices and the need for a strong U.S. government-led humanitarian policy. Henrietta Fore also offered reflections on poverty and discussed U.S. funding for current projects.

On Friday morning, InterAction member CEOs met with the Gates Foundation's Mark Suzman, Director of Policy & Advocacy, Global Development, and Michael Madnick, Deputy Director of External Relations, Global Health. Suzman and Madnick informed attendees about the full scope of the Foundation’s international work and the evolution of its programs. The following presentation accompanied their talk.

In February 2008, The Lancet, a leading medical journal, published a study comparing two World Vision programs and found that preventing infants and young children from becoming undernourished is much more effective than treating children who are already moderately malnourished. Based on the research findings, World Vision and other NGOs now target their food assistance and maternal and child health and nutrition programs to all children under two years of age in Haiti, as well as in some other country programs.

Colette Powers, Director of GAM Global Food Resources for World
Vision moderated a discussion on these findings. Panelists and presenters included Dr. Marie Ruel, Director, Food Consumption and Nutrition Division for the International Food Policy Research Institute (presentation); Dr. Gilles Bergeron, Food Aid Nutrition Technical Assistance, Academy for Educational Development; Judy Canahuati withUSAID (presentation); and Wesley Charles, National Director and Dr. Lesly Michaud, MCHN and HIV/AIDS Coordinator, both with World Vision - Haiti (presentation).

InterAction staff, members, and guests gathered for the 2008 InterAction Forum’s “Honoring Champions Gala Banquet” on Thursday, May 8, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott. Andrea Koppel, Director of Communications for M&R Strategic Services and a former CNN correspondent, emceed the event. After honoring international journalist, Femi Oke with a Media Award for her superior coverage of events in Africa for CNN, the mood in the hall turned somber as a new InterAction memorial was displayed and the names of 45 humanitarian aid workers who lost their lives in the field in 2007-2008, were read aloud to the audience.

Silence was then replaced with joy, as guests later enjoyed African dancers from the Coyaba Dance Theater and an act by Tony Award winning playwright/performer, Sarah Jones. Bono, rock star and spokesperson for the ONE Campaign, greeted guests via video, thanking InterAction members for their work on behalf of those in need.

The event also honored Bob McPherson, Director of the CARE Security Unit, with a Security Advisory Distinguished Achievement Award, Suad Saleh, an advocate for women’s reproductive health and rights, with a Humanitarian Award, and Nancy Aossey, President/CEO of International Medical Corps who was named the first recipient of the Julia Vadala Taft Leadership Award, in honor of InterAction’s former president/CEO.

The Evaluation & Program Effectiveness Working Group's workshop on Making a Difference?!: Confidence and Uncertainty in Demonstrating Impact featured presentations by Mercy Corps and Oxfam America.

Mercy Corps' presentation on their Sustainability Field Study (pdf) educated attendees on what promotes lasting change at the community level. Oxfam America’s presentation (flash) offered an evaluation of the impact which rights-based programs offer in international development efforts. A professor at Columbia University presented the Bolton Box theory, which looks at expected and unexpected positive and negative outcomes of humanitarian assistance programs.

Tamar Abrams, vice president of communications at Population Action International, and David Snyder, a photojournalist, talked about how to develop more effective messaging for organizations, improving the performance of spokespeople, and taking better photographs while traveling out in the field.

Abrams pointed out in her presentation that most people fear public speaking. She outlined a few basic tips to help those in attendance either become more effective spokespeople or to better prepare their organization’s leadership:

• Connect with the audience moving from behind the podium.
• Speak in short, declarative sentences of 15 to 20 words.
• Have no more than three main messages.
• Practice - on camera; and
• Listen to the constructive feedback from peers and keep practicing.

Snyder gave useful tips on how field staff can greatly improve their photography skills – even when using an average digital camera. Get closer to your subject and limit useless space. Consider moving subjects to the left or right in a picture to add context and depth. Also consider taking more unconventional shots—including vertical pictures, using the flash in sunlight, and slightly tilting your camera.

Michael Litz, CEO of OneWorld U.S. along with Tony Fleming from InterAction and, from his office in Denver, Colorado, Jeffrey Allen of OneWorld U.S. demonstrated the potential of Second Life, a virtual world application that allows people and organizations from around the world to interact that increased numbers of international development organizations are using.

Litz noted how Second Life offers "a technical tsunami" of interactivity that allows organizations to engage and recruit users – or "residents" as they are called in the system - to promote an organization and its causes. Second Life also facilitates meetings, which can be done virtually from any spot on the globe with broadband or high speed internet access.

Like web conferencing, Second Life virtual meetings allow the exchange of data, including videos, document downloading, but with the added bonus of being able to communicate among conferees, not just with the person giving the presentation along with the experiencial environment of a traditional physical meeting. Fleming pointed out the extra-applicability of Second Life meetings by "teleporting" participants to a simulation of Guantanamo Bay, demonstrating the capability of holding meetings in environments otherwise inaccessible (or unimaginable) to participants.

After an energetic greeting by Feisal Hussain of Think Ahead Consulting Ltd., Evan Bloom of Pact opened the session by talking about new practices that "disrupt the status quo", explaining how electronic methods of communication such as blogging, Flicker, and Facebook have generated greater ability for people to work collaboratively, provide instant feedback to companies and projects, as well as have customized approaches to how they send and receive information.

Ramanan Rajaratnam of ActionAid Sri Lanka then added how ActionAid was focusing on buy in from the stake holders, or Rights holders as ActionAid refers to them, where they serve in the capacity to help carry out and guide programs that are developed and thought of by the local population that they are meant to benefit. 

Megan Steinke-Chase of Save the Children explained how a group the size of Save the Children has been focusing internally on how partnerships within their own company have been structured.  Save is going through a restructuring phase that started with creating a common understanding of their work across groups internally as well as in the field, which is meant to make the company stronger by establishing better cohesion within its own diverse staff.

On Thursday, Forum attendees participated in a luncheon plenary on the Future of Foreign Aid with panelists Steve Radelet, Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development; Gayle Smith, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress; and Joe Lockhart, Founding Partner of the Glover Park Group. 

Attendees were treated to opening remarks by Minnesota congresswoman Betty McCollum (D), whom InterAction has recognized as a champion for those suffering poverty around the world.  The Congresswoman spoke of the need to modernize, strengthen, and restructure development aid both as a moral imperative and as essential to the United States’ global role.

The panel built on Congresswoman McCollum’s remarks by pointing out several opportunities for foreign assistance to change, including the fact that America’s current policies were signed in 1961 and have been greatly amended, but never rewritten.  They also discussed the current fragmentation of how foreign assistance is administered from 20 different government departments and agencies, and the desire to create a cabinet-level position for development assistance.

After their presentation, the panel opened the floor for discussion, and attendees asked questions on various items, including lessons we can learn from the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the positions and potential actions of the
three 2008 presidential candidates, and the logistics of how foreign assistance and development assistance could be usefully restructured. 

At the end of the luncheon Todd Shelton, InterAction’s Director of Public Policy, invited participants to continue the conversation at a workshop following the luncheon with additional speakers.

Thursday's panel on integrating health initiatives within and between sectors featured Michael Zeilinger, Chief of USAID's Bureau for Global Health Nutrition Division as moderator; Meriwether Beatty, the RHR Project Director for the JSI Research and Training Institute; Janet Fleishman, Senior Consultant with CARE; and Kathryn Mahoney, Project Officer for the Hunger Project's Africa Department.

They shared insights on the benefits of and challenges associated with an integrated approach to health based on their respective experiences with implementing MISP (Minimum Initial Service Package), the EpiCenter strategy for rural community development and CARE’s Report on PEPFAR’s programming.   The session was a fruitful and timely start towards progressing discussions on this long-enduring, complex issues.  

Key issues raised included:

• Improved HIV/AIDS outcomes will only occur when funded programs also include activities which target and address broader socio-economic ‘drivers’ of HIV/AIDS vulnerability, such as gender inequality within households and communities; involving multi-sectoral players to go beyond the health sector’s traditional prevention and treatment interventions;
  
• The challenges that are posed by institutional, vertical funding with its traditional requirement to prove that distinctive activities can be credited for specific impacts, when the reality is often that positive impacts are the result of a combination of interventions across multiple sectors;
  
• The need for practitioners to prove and document the effectiveness of successful integrated approaches.  Participants spoke about the challenges posed to date in identifying suitable indicators and suggested working
  towards an alternative mindset of advocating more suitable ways to evaluate effectiveness; and
  
• Early and extensive emphasis on community driven design and implementation, which should be considered fundamental in ensuring long-term sustainability.  This was exemplified by partnerships made between communities and local structures (e.g. Ministries of Health providing nursing staff as an essential part of supply procurement and service delivery).
  

New Visions to End Poverty kicked off on Tuesday with an opening banquet celebrating the 60^th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The evening opened with the presentation of InterAction’s Effective Assistance Photography Award to freelance photographer Christopher Klinge for his photo “Mother and Child” taken during a trip for the Seva Foundation.

Following, there was a panel-led discussion with two members of The Elders, Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, and Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association; along with Ellen Dorsey, Executive Director of Wallace Global Fund and Board Chair of Amnesty International; and Len Rubenstein, President of Physicians for Human Rights. 

The discussion centered on human rights, its shifting definition, and how it relates to social rights, economic rights, and civil and political rights.  After the panelists made their remarks, they opened the discussion up to the floor, and several of the attendees raised questions regarding the meaning of “human rights” and how it relates to modern-day NGOs, and the panelists replied with their various interpretations on the issues raised.  The banquet was an exciting and intriguing opening to a very promising Forum.