Humentum stands with our members, clients, and customers in committing to safeguard all people that the international humanitarian and development community serves as we address this crisis of sexual harassment, abuse, and exploitation. Protecting those we serve around the world should be at the heart of every organization’s mission. As should ensuring that our employees are offered a safe, harassment-free environment within our own workplaces.
The problem of sexual harassment and abuse is widespread in all employment contexts—not only in aid. However, our sector’s work with highly vulnerable people increases the risk of all forms of abuse of power. We recognize the responsibility that we have as a sector to address these issues promptly, transparently, and in line with our values. The people we work with, our supporters, and staff need to have trust that we are working to the highest safeguarding standards.
#AidToo and the growing number of people coming forward to report abuse shows that our sector is not doing enough and that at times we have failed. This is a strong call to action to re-commit to our shared values, implement higher standards, and continue to create more equitable power dynamics within our organizations as well as in the communities where we work. Humentum will be supporting our members and collaborating with other international networks to strengthen practices and to develop and scale up the learning and people development that supports their implementation.
As well as urgently seeking to address the crisis, Humentum will work with our community to reflect on how power dynamics influence international NGO operations—from pay equity issues between expatriates and national staff, to implicit top-down bias or north-south bias in training and organisational development. There are opportunities for more equitable and inclusive approaches to our shared work in line with our values as a global community. Humentum is already engaging on those issues and they are key to our strategy moving forward.
Staff from across our global organization will be at the Bond Conference in London this week, where we will join our peers in committing to develop new policies, practices, and approaches that will hold all of us to a higher standard. We each have a role to play in ensuring the well-being of those in the communities where we work, and we at Humentum are resolved to work collaboratively in our sector to address the underlying causes of these current problems and effect change. We support our colleagues in other organizations who are looking to do the same, and invite you to join us in our efforts.
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Humentum was created in July 2017 from the merger of three well-established organizations: Humentum, the Washington, DC-based member association of international NGOs; LINGOs, a virtual not-for-profit capacity building organization specializing in eLearning; and Mango, a UK-registered charity and social enterprise that specializes in financial management. Humentum delivers nearly 400 learning events a year around the world—both face-to-face and online—on topics including compliance, financial management, and project management, and also offers consulting and recruiting services to the sector.