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How partnerships are driving inclusion in the WASH sector

Worldwide, 1 in 3 people still lacks access to safe drinking water, and 3 billion lack basic hand-washing facilities. Safe sanitation remains unavailable to more than half of the global population, and over 670 million people practice open defecation. Access to WASH services can also vary significantly between urban and rural settings, and installing new facilities is considered easier than maintaining existing ones in many cases.

Despite being responsible for water collection in about 80% of h
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HBCU alumni were key to the success of Mercy Corps' new intern program

After a successful pilot last year, Mercy Corps is expanding its internship program, which partners with historically Black colleges and universities and offers paid placements to students from various academic backgrounds.

The organization had been looking for ways to strengthen and build out its global internship program, Kristine Wilson, Mercy Corps’ talent and intern program manager, told Devex. There were already some HBCU students among the intern cohort, but there was also an opportunity
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What feminist leadership could mean for development organizations

LONDON — The development sector is led by men, despite efforts to get more women into leadership roles. Recent research suggests that women make up about 70% of the world’s social impact workforce but hold just 30% of top leadership positions.

A feminist leadership approach could be the key to spurring the radical and systemic change needed for a more inclusive and accountable sector, according to leaders at this month’s Women in Dev conference in London.

But what exactly would that look like?
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Many refugees have development experience but employers are failing to realize it

BARCELONA — Arriving in the United States in 2015, Mustafa Ali, a refugee from Iraq, was optimistic about his career prospects. He believed his experience working with U.S. donors and implementing organizations in Iraq would help him continue his development career. Over the next few years, however, he would face “rejection after rejection.”

“A lot of barriers prevented me [from getting] a position or opportunity that related to my work experience working with USAID and a lot of international o
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What USAID's new biodata form means for pay equity

BARCELONA — Implementing partners are still processing the changes made by the U.S. Agency for International Development to its “Contractor Employee Biographical Data Sheet” but the revised form is expected to help tackle gender equity across the sector.

As of Sept. 9, bidding organizations no longer need to provide historic data on salary and consultancy rates for personnel included on their proposals — information that has previously been thought to perpetuate the gender pay gap.
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UN Women launches program for aspiring globaldev leaders

UN Women is hoping to support women's rights advocates from the global south in launching its international development careers through a new professional development program.

The initiative is motivated by ongoing discussions around diversity and representation at UN Women, said Irena Sabados, a human resources specialist at the agency and focal point for the program. The events of the last year also prompted considerations around access to career opportunities at the agency and what barriers
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How, and why, one foundation is hiring ex-prisoners

BARCELONA — A hiring program at the Ford Foundation is helping ex-prisoners reenter the world of work, in an example of how philanthropic organizations could make their workforces more inclusive, according to William Kelley, director of talent acquisition.

Created in partnership with the Bard Prison Initiative, which provides college education to people in prison, the program aims to help formerly incarcerated people develop skills and prepare for the marketplace through work placements.
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Q&A: Employee engagement is key to progress on diversity and inclusion

BARCELONA — Two months into his new role, Devex speaks with Albert E. Smith Junior, Chemonics’ new corporate chief of diversity and inclusion, to find out how global development stacks up against other sectors when it comes to D&I, and what development employers can do to ensure progress on these issues.

Smith discusses the importance of self-reflection, employee engagement, and a holistic approach to diversity and inclusion.
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A holistic approach to closing the gender pay gap

BARCELONA — Figures published earlier this year, in an annual report by the U.K. Department for International Development, highlighted that many global development organizations are still struggling to close the gender pay gap.

In a summary of DFID’s gold supply partners, only three of the 13 organizations that provided this information had a gender pay gap of less than 10%. Palladium ranked top of the list with a gender pay gap of just 2%.
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LGBT staff safety on humanitarian deployments is everyone's responsibility

While deployed in certain countries and cultures, LGBT humanitarian staff can encounter hostility, harassment, and targeted violence. In some places, identifying as LGBT is not just against cultural or religious norms, but punishable by imprisonment or death.

This community is highly vulnerable in some areas of the world, explained Michael Blyth, chief operations officer at Risk and Strategic Management, which provides training and operational support services to global organizations and recent
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Recognizing quiet leadership potential

Certain personality traits and characteristics are associated with leadership potential. The dominant thinking is that extrovert or charismatic people make for strong leaders — and this is not something unique to the development sector, explained Girish Menon, chief executive of ActionAid UK.

Understanding your personality type to be a better leader Leadership coach Joanne Weston explains why understanding your personality type and those of the people you lead is key in bettering your leadershi
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The challenges for women of color in landing leadership roles

Women continue to be underrepresented when it comes to leadership in the international development sector. Research published last year by Quantum Impact highlighted how women still miss out on these roles — 20% of organizations failed to have a single woman serving on their leadership teams.

The same research showed that 80% of these organizations did not have a representative number of people of color on their leadership team and more than half had no leaders of color at all.
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How AI is changing the landscape of human resources

Digitization and artificial intelligence were the buzzwords at the 15th annual Career Development Roundtable in Lisbon, Portugal, in December 2018. Hundreds of human resource leaders gathered to discuss how AI is changing the landscape of human resources and the challenges this might present, among other topics.

The introduction of artificial intelligence in human resources has received a mixed reception. While such tools could drastically improve efficiency when it comes to high-volume tasks s
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How UN Globe is changing attitudes and policies toward LGBTQ employees

BARCELONA — In 1996, United Nations employees came together to highlight the issues and discrimination facing LGBTQ staff. This was the beginning of UN Globe, which today, in addition to serving as a support network for LGBTQ staff, advocates for inclusive workplaces within the U.N. system and for staff serving on peacekeeping operations.

Over the past five years, UN Globe has become increasingly advocacy focused, explained Hyung Hak “Alfonso” Nam, president of UN Globe. The group has been work
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How one program is engaging professionals with disabilities

Global development can be a particularly tough sector to enter for young professionals with disabilities, who may face additional challenges in gaining the international experience they need to land their first job. As building inclusive programming for people living with disabilities gains more attention across the sector, some organizations have begun to look at how they can be more inclusive inside their own walls.

“When you have a disability, you don’t normally consider volunteering interna
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How to avoid gender bias in your job descriptions

Unconscious bias in job descriptions could mean your organization is losing out on top talent and furthering the gender imbalance in certain roles and departments. Even if subconscious, these biases can still have a compound impact that leads to a “snowball effect,” says Farah Mahesri, co-founder of Quantum Impact, an advocacy and education organization promoting gender and diversity equity in the global development sector.

Much like a snowball rolling down a hill and getting bigger as it goes,
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Webinar: How to hire more diverse teams

Research shows that diverse teams are more productive and capable of greater impact. Building such teams isn’t something that happens overnight though — it requires strategies for the messages, mediums, and methods you will use to reach candidates and efforts to tackle subconscious bias throughout the hiring process.

Sarah Grausz and Farah Mahesri, co-founders of Quantum Impact, join Devex to discuss the issues impacting diversity in hiring. Their nonprofit supports globally-focused organizatio
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Lessons from UN Cares in LGBTI inclusion in the workforce

UN Cares is the United Nations system-wide workplace program setup to provide information, learning opportunities and treatment to U.N. personnel and their families impacted by HIV. The program also works to ensure a supportive and respectful work environment as outlined by the 10 Minimum Standards for the U.N. system workplace. In recent years however, UN Cares has expanded its focus to also address the rights of LGBTI people working within the UN system.

Laurie Newell, global coordinator for
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Disability inclusion: How HR leaders can build more inclusive workplaces

Building a diverse and inclusive workforce requires a work culture where all employees feel fully engaged and able to fulfill their potential. Leadership and human resources practices both play critical roles in shaping an organization's work culture, and are therefore key to making employers more inclusive of employees of all diversities and abilities.

Money, of course, is always a factor when it comes to hiring decisions, and employers may have concerns about the costs of additional assistanc