IDYP: AGM & "IDYPx" Short Talks

IDYP hosted their first IDYPx short talks and AGM on the 28th December at GridAkl. 

“IDYPx” short talks was a TEDx style event focussed on international development and presented by seven members of IDYP. 

Natalie Harbott
Vice President of the United Nations Association of NZ Northern branch
Natalie started the event speaking about the mental health impact of the Christchurch earthquakes and its connection to SDG 3 - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. In particular, Natalie explained how the aftermath of the earthquakes were just as impactful as the event itself - being on edge, constantly hearing sirens, and living high on adrenaline. However, the disaster has become a part of who she is. Natalie went on to discuss the Maori health and wellbeing philosophy, Hauora, highlighting mental and emotional wellbeing, Taha Hinengaro, is one of the four dimensions of the marae. Most importantly, Natalie shared keeping a sense of identity supports personal mental health and wellbeing.

Peter Marra
Master of International Development
Peter is new to the ID scene and presented on his experience while filming in Timor Leste as part of his Masters studies. Peter’s applied film-based research methods focussing on Timor Leste’s hunger issue. The subject was the implementation of gardening as part of the school curriculum to educate children how to garden and become more self-sustaining. The lessons learned include:

1. Availability of water is critical, with a lack at one school leading to the inability to serve the students while at another with adequate water allowed the school to do so.

2. Participatory video methodology means the impact of change is bottom up and evidence based as opposed to more traditional NGO methods where the greatest impact can be determined subjectively.

Going forward, Peter is working on gaining more funding for Timor Leste to further address the hunger challenge and sharing these stories of change.

Catherine Belfield-Haines
Fragile Contexts Programme Manager for World Vision New Zealand
Catherine talked about her experience working in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is highly impacted by drought, many years of conflict, and high poverty. Catherine challenged the humanitarian community’s “Action Man” mentality with her preferred anthropological perspective, focussing on assessing the community’s needs to determine action. Catherine started with the foundational explanation of what anthropology is, stressing – using empathy as a research tool. She has over eight years of experience working in an Afghan context and across multiple organisations. This has led to her gaining a deep understanding of their cultural context, which is important not to judge. Through listening with empathy, Catherine challenges the status quo, gauging what they need, to design aid programmes centered around climate change and environmental sustainability. Catherine finished by highlighting an anthropological approach best allows engagement with the impacted community leading to solutions that are embraced.

Darren Ward
Co-founder and Managing Partner of the Direct Impact Group
Darren presented on a workshop he ran at the International Civil Society Organisations conference facilitating senior leaders of NGOs through the effect of organisational culture and legitimacy. He challenged the audience with “who determines your legitimacy- is it yourself or other organisations?”. The identification of an organisation is determined through external organisations. Darren used Shell as a case study, who were negatively impacted by Amnesty International and other similar organisations tarnishing their legitimacy. More importantly, international development organisations are being held to a higher level of scrutiny than other commercial organisations. Darren went on to explain the difference between organisational culture being the emotional aspect of how a team does what it does, versus strategy, which is the rational aspect of what an organisation does.

Alex Kuch
Youth development and International Adoptions Ambassador
Alex presented on the intersection of private sector and youth development sector. He discussed the similarities, differences, and opportunities to learn. A key similarity was wanting to make an impact. Traditionally this has been financially focussed, but more recently, further considerations have been reflected in a change of focus to the “triple bottom line”. The next similarity was working with resources. This will always be somewhat limited and therefore optimised for return and impact. Lastly, Alex discussed the youth focus of both the private sector and youth development sector. This highlighted the key question - “who you are serving?”.

Shruthi Vijayakumar
Coach, strategist and educator - founder of Shruthi.co
Shruthi started by describing her frustration experienced during her study of economics and the traditional measures of success. However, she has found enlightenment in doughnut economics. The Doughnut economics diagram is composed of social foundation and ecological ceiling, is an alternative way to measure economic success. Shruthi went on to present comparisons of how different countries measure in the model. She highlighted countries traditionally thought of as developing are performing adequately in the Doughnut, while countries we think of as being developed are struggling in this new model. However, there are also countries struggling in both measures. Most importantly, there are no countries who are succeeding in both. She finished by challenging the audience to think about where we individually sit on the Doughnut, and what do we need to unlearn to create a better future?

Steve O'Donnell
Director of Management Consulting at PwC
Steve started by asking the audience, how can we have the private sector make a greater impact in international development? He then went with a different, interactive approach, by surveying the audience and identified, of the audience:

• 67% are not born in NZ

• Over 90% work in the private sector

• 79% know what a Big 4 is (explaining it is the 4 largest accounting and professional services companies globally - Deloitte, Ernst and Young, KPMG, and PwC)

• Less than 5% have worked in a Big 4

Returning to the challenge, Steve explained the three challenges a Big 4 experiences:

1. Risk and independence - due to being both an external auditor as well as a consulting business, this leads to risk averse Partners (business owners). Risks commonly encountered locally are heightened in a foreign context. This includes real risks and perceived risks.

2. Delivery / value add - local experience isn’t always directly transferable i.e. geographical skills rather than technical skills. National experience may be more of a hindrance than a benefit in an international context.

3. Profitability - the Big Four apply a leveraged resourcing model and is very different to the international development project structure requiring a highly specialised project team. 

Steve then talked about how New Zealand punches above its weight in consulting globally and the other competitive advantages of being New Zealand based for international development projects. He finished by returning to his original challenge to the audience and invited solution ideas from the crowd to approach him for discussion.

Following the IDYPx short talks we conducted the inaugural Annual General Meeting of IDYP, where the following were voted in:

• Danielle Kerchmar - Chair

• Phoebe Heidfeldt - Vice-Chair

• Jade Jackson - Membership Co-Chair

• David Chau - Business Engagement Co-Chair

• Rahini Uniyaal - Events Co-Chair

• Amy Lee - Communications and Awareness Co-Chair

• Elena Pesina - Treasurer

A huge thank you to GridAKL for the venue and all our members for joining us for a big night. 

IDYP will be registering as a charity for 2020 and we could not have done it without our team and all our members.