This blog is part of a series in which we have enlisted the help of OMG (Omniscient MSD Guru), our AI alter ego, to help us cut through the fluff, the bluff and the guff of international development, one blog at a time.
The British are often said to laugh in the face of adversity – to use gallows humour while everything goes to hell in a handcart, lips stiff, spirits Dunkirk. So here goes…
Many development professionals have been hit hard by the slashing of aid budgets, some after decades of devotion, hardship allowances and tax-free benefits taxing working conditions.
True, not as badly off as the populations that were the intended recipients of aid but traumatised, nonetheless.
To look on the bright side of life, development was always supposed to be about working ourselves out of a job. We just got there faster than we might have imagined.
Alas, philosophy doesn’t pay the bills.
OMG, do you have any practical advice for us aid types wanting to apply our hard-won skills and “lived experience” in other walks of life?
OMG: Keep repeating to yourself that you’re not unemployed, you’re a social innopreneur, surfing the waves of creative disruption. Harness the heartbreak without the hassle of attending weeks of entrepreneurship training.
Some options that might suit you:
- Impact Yoga Instructor: Having failed to change the world, change postures instead. Guide clients through poses for internal system alignment. Specialise in “adaptive poses”, including the “Downward Donor”, the “Participatory Twist” and the “Stretch of Sustainability”. Take payment in local currencies or workshop leftovers.
- Buzzword Consultant: Corporate teams are crying out for meaningless synergy. Help
them sprinkle “transformative”, “inclusive”, and “catalytic” into PowerPoint decks. Offer premium packages to insert “transformational”, “holistic”, and “multi-stakeholder” into annual reports with no measurable change. - Complexity Life Coach: Teach civilians how to navigate complex relationships using advanced partnering techniques. Help people struggling with personal boundaries or household budgeting by bringing collective action planning into people’s love lives and results chains into their families. Prescribe anxiety coping strategies, ideally involving quinoa and organic chocolate.
- Sustainable Candle Maker: Hand-poured and scented wax that tells a story, inspired by an authentic development experience: “Patchouli and Poverty”, “Damask and Disappointment”, “Cinnamon and Corruption”, “Neroli and Naivety”. Each candle is labelled “locally sourced and participatory” and comes with a one-page “learnings” brief.
- Post-Development Influencer: Continue your career in observational research by camping out in overpriced cafés and blogging about the behavioural economics of single-origin coffee consumption in gentrifying neighbourhoods. Ethnographically study the intersectionality of remote workers, flat whites, MacBooks and Crocs (with socks). Monetise your poverty eradication pics on the metaverse by issuing your own NFTs. Say: “It’s not a pyramid scheme. It’s a decentralised opportunity.”.
- Professional Panellist and Raconteur: You’ve spent years talking in circles – now get paid for it. Bring your expertise to key questions like “Can everyone hear me?”, “Please keep it brief”, “That’s such a rich point” and “We’ll take that offline” while no one listens. Polish your origin story: “I was lost in a tuk-tuk in Phnom Penh when I realised, systems don’t change people. People change systems”. Speak at chamber of commerce breakfasts and at rotary clubs. Always wear linen and interesting shoes.
- Coffee Table Book Author: Publish a glossy tome of black-and-white photos of poor people looking hopeful. Call it “Voices of Change: A Journey Through Resilience”. Launch at Davos with canapés and no locals.
- Resilience Sommelier: Shift from “empowering livelihoods” to pairing natural disasters and political instability with appropriate wines: “Ah yes, this Pinot Noir balances fragility with resilience” or “this Gewürztraminer can cope with the conflict of spicy food and has a strong finish of hope”. Talk passionately about “cordite-forward narratives” at farmers’ markets while wearing a corduroy waistcoat and feigned humility.
- Property Developer in a Country You Once Helped: Buy up land in a fragile state you once “supported”, slap on words like “sustainable” and “heritage”, then rent villas to diplomats. Declare it inclusive because your gardener is local. Use your Swahili Level 2 to explain the deep symbolism of the wood carvings you bought at Nairobi airport.
- Destination Wedding Planner (for people who hate their guests): You’ve already run logistically nightmarish workshops in post-conflict zones with no electricity, four languages and a vegetarian deputy minister. Now pivot that chaos into organising three-day weddings in dodgy destinations with “authentic local charm”. Apply your trauma-forged skills to over-budget, over-scheduled celebrations featuring barefoot fire dancers, ethically-foraged confetti and warring in-laws. Specialise in couples that describe themselves as “nomadic souls” but demand Wi-Fi, imported champagne and at least two drone operators.
It turns out that lifelong learning really isn’t just for unemployed urban youth – welcome to the club! If development has really been all about building resilience and coping strategies, you’ve got this.
Thanks, OMG. I suppose we should be reassured but aren’t funding cuts just the beginning?
What about AI? How will that affect the work we (used to) do?
OMG: “Life’s a piece of s***, when you look at it…”
