Adjunct Professor Jason Phillips was interviewed for The New Humanitarian newsletter where he discusses his recent work around humanitarian assistance with Ukrainian refugees in Poland.
The interview below was copied from the August 3, 2022 New Humanitarian newsletter.
Meet fellow member Jason Phillips, an independent consultant and adjunct research professor at Carleton University in Canada. He has experience with the humanitarian sector and was recently deployed as Emergency Country Director in Warsaw to oversee the start-up of the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) response to the Ukraine crisis.
Tell us what you’re working on at the moment.
I recently returned from a three-month deployment to Warsaw where I was working as the International Rescue Committee’s Emergency Country Director. I was leading IRC’s work setting up its new office and programmes supporting the millions of people that have been displaced from Ukraine into Poland over the last several months. I am taking some time off to recharge and spend time with my family. I teach a graduate course on Complex Humanitarian Emergencies at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) at Carleton University here in my hometown of Ottawa. The fall term starts in September, so I am revising my syllabus to ensure it reflects the most up to date analysis of the humanitarian implications of the conflict in Ukraine. Wearing my consultant hat, I am working with a client to update their e-learning course material on humanitarian action, and I am in discussions with another about the possibility of conducting an evaluation of their emergency response inside Ukraine.
How did you get started in your field/areas of expertise? What motivates you to keep working on it?
I first became interested in the field of humanitarian action when I was a graduate student. I was studying international relations and African history, and found myself increasingly interested in the role of the United Nations and the history of imperialism. I wrote my PhD dissertation on US foreign policy toward African famines, a topic which led me to focus on the ways that NGOs can and cannot influence state humanitarian policy. After completing my degree I moved to Uganda and began work, as a volunteer, with the American Refugee Committee in their humanitarian program in South Sudan. What I originally thought might be a short stint in the NGO sector became a career that has taken me from Africa to the USA to Europe and now to Canada. I remain motivated to continue to work in the sector because of the passion for helping others I see every day in my students and colleagues, the explosion of humanitarian need, the slow pace of reform of the humanitarian system, and the continued shrinkage of asylum space at a global level… the recent outpouring of support for those from Ukraine notwithstanding.
What’s something you are passionate about in your work that you think everyone should know more about?
While we as a sector talk about it all the time and some important strides have been made, accountability to the people we serve remains an unfulfilled promise. I joined the General Assembly of the Humanitarian Quality Assurance Initiative (HQAI) a few years ago to try and make a more tangible contribution to enhanced humanitarian accountability. It is encouraging to see more and more agencies embrace the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) in their work, and a small but growing number recognise the value of independent, third-party quality assurance against it, but many of the sector’s basic operating models, resource allocation mechanisms, and incentives continue to undermine our collective commitment to better accountability to people affected by crisis.
What are the biggest challenges that you usually face in your field?
That’s a tough question as I am not sure what my “field” really is these days. As a humanitarian practitioner, independent consultant, and educator, each field has its own challenges. One of the biggest challenges to being an independent consultant and researcher is gaining access to academic literature and news stories that are behind paywalls. One of the most important benefits of being an Adjunct Research Professor affiliated with a university is the digital library and subscription access that it affords. One of the things that makes The New Humanitarian such a valuable contribution to the humanitarian ecosystem is its content is available to anyone.
What is one quirk of the humanitarian sector you’d like to do away with?
The way we write job descriptions! They are way too long, list every possible minute task the position could ever do, and aren’t really inspiring. In my 25+ years in the sector I have witnessed continuing skills, experience, and credential “inflation” that makes even the most basic entry level positions out of reach for most potentially well-suited applicants. I doubt I would be able to get a job today if I were just starting out. Our JDs, as currently constructed, are a barrier to advancing on our collective commitments to diversity and equity and are keeping some amazing, bright, talented people out of our sector because they are scared off, or written off, because they don’t meet these inflated standards.
What would you like to see covered more in the news?
We need to approach the topic of media coverage of humanitarian crises and the forcibly displaced from both the quality as well as the quantity perspective. More robust and sustained coverage of the myriad crises other than the tragedy in Ukraine is of course required in the mainstream media: it’s harder and harder to find a story about Syria, Afghanistan, or Yemen, let alone Democratic Republic of Congo or Burkina Faso. The New Humanitarian’s coverage of forgotten crises is more important than ever and a big reason behind my support as a member. But the Ukraine crisis has also surfaced, yet again, the deeply ingrained harmful stereotypes that the international media use to report on humanitarian crises: more training on ethical standards in the representation of crisis-affected people for journalists covering war and forced displacement would be a good starting point.