Hero Stories | François Grünewald: “Humanitarian needs will become bigger and more unpredictable”

ByOlga Sajin

Hero Stories | François Grünewald: “Humanitarian needs will become bigger and more unpredictable”

We came across Grünewald during his visit to Chad. The agricultural engineer, specializing in rural economics, was in this Afriсan country for what he called “a sustaining peace mission”. When asked to explain more about the concept, he defined the term, Triple Nexus, and the growing interest into this. Today’s DevelopmentAid Hero explains how crisis management works, the peace paradigm, and unexpected excessive humanitarian needs that the international development community is not ready for.

DevelopmentAid: François, could you reveal more details about the peace mission in Chad. How does the Triple Nexus fit into Chad’s context?

François Grünewald: My stay in Chad is related to a mission aimed at supporting the dialogue between donor agencies, international institutions, the UN, and NGOs regarding this new concept that surfaced after the Istanbul World Summit (May 2016). The ‘humanitarian development nexus’ appears to have become an obsolete term. Now we operate with the Triple Nexus, a concept that links humanitarian, development, and peace actors to work together for a more effective response to people’s needs, to mitigate risks and vulnerabilities, and to move towards sustainable peace. Peace can be analysed through many different angles. The peace paradigm can be observed during the negotiations between stakeholders in agriculture for example, small peace managing conflicts, land conflicts, etc. Then you have peace during the war. Here, in Chad, you have a bit of everything. It makes things very complicated, very interesting, and very challenging at the same time.

DevelopmentAid: Working on the ground, being connected to people’s realities is a challenging mission. What kind of insights have your field experiences brought about and how has this information stimulated progress in terms of sustainable development and resilience?

François Grünewald: I am basically an agronomist and global pastoralist. If I am far from the field, I die. All the energy comes from discussing with people, observing the reality. I am a field person. That’s where I find my strength and where I find my ideas – talking to people, observing the reality, moving with pastor people, discussing. Most of the time, people understand the context better than we do. If we don’t talk to people, we might be very far from understanding their realities. Moreover, identifying solutions and testing them requires discussions. Most of the solutions might come from them. So, being in the field it is about solidarity, displaying solidarity with people. Solidarity is not only about sending money, it requires being with people.

DevelopmentAid: And what do you think about the solidarity mechanisms available?

François Grünewald: For example, during the COVID period, most people have not been weakened by the health crisis, but by the measures aimed at controlling it. The issue of the total blockage of trade, market closures, and people’s inability to work have all been very harsh on people, especially in countries where people survive the day by using what they earned the day before. If you cut one day of people’s earning capacity, the next day they are in great difficulty. In many countries, blocking this capacity was much more devastating than the health crisis itself. COVID was perceived as a health crisis, but it was much more than a health crisis. It was a systemic crisis, beginning with the health sector.

DevelopmentAid: It sounds like a holistic approach is needed. What should one designed for a systemic crisis look like?

François Grünewald: During a systemic crisis like the most recent one, the COVID pandemic, which affected the whole world, several pillars should be considered. One pillar is what we call crisis management, a system that monitors and evaluates the crisis management strategy. Then, of course, we have the health component, where you talk about the vaccines, medicines, treatments, epidemiological surveillance. Then, you will have other component – communication. Having the right communication and the proper messages, keeping the discussions lively, being honest with people, and understanding how they perceive is important. The fourth pillar is logistics, to move patients, to isolate people, then you have to put in place big logistics and enable their set up. If you cut people off from work, you have to organize the logistics to feed them. And this wasn’t done. Twelve years ago we published a large report about the upcoming risks for the future. We had a long chapter on the risks of a new pandemic, and we described how this pandemic would escalate, we underlined the necessity of being better prepared, having stocks, having training, all of that was 12 years ago. Maybe we were not listened too properly.

DevelopmentAid: The organization you lead, Groupe URD, has been working for several years on the impact of climate change. One of its initiatives aims to assist vulnerable communities to adapt to the changing climate. How will this help people to improve their ability to respond to climate change-related disasters?

François Grünewald: We have to move from just looking at the consequences of climate change to trying to do something that improves work on it. We have been noting not only the consequences of climate change, but how the system should adapt itself to be better responsive and how, with a holistic approach, stakeholders could develop by using national policies on climate change, but also by linking policies on climate change to policies on disaster management. This is the work we are doing via the ADAPT initiative.

DevelopmentAid: How can a more resilient system be built to face the risks mentioned during our interview?

François Grünewald: I think the systems should demonstrate their capacities. The systems should demonstrate their abilities to contribute to the COP21 objectives of limiting carbon footprint. So, Groupe URD has been working for many years on how to help NGOs, agencies, etc. to limit carbon footprint. We have to look much deeper into the forms that climate change will take, impacting on agriculture cycles in terms of impacting the dynamics of cyclones, water supply to cities. We have to understand all of that much better. This has become a key part of our agenda. The third element that we have been focusing on for many years are the key players in both climate change and in managing the consequences of the climate change – the population, the zero responders. I am talking about the neighbours, the mayor, the local solidarity groups, the student networks based on Facebook or Twitter. We have to support that sector, to offer them a seat at the table of discussions. The current system is self-centred, it is looking at what it is doing, but a lot of things are happening, all these people are playing an incredible part, responding to the consequences of climate change, and they are not seen in the system. We want to give them visibility.

DevelopmentAid: How does your organization view the development of response capacity?

François Grünewald: By working with civil protection systems, working with the crisis management at the municipal level. We are doing a lot of work in that direction. We are always available for evaluation. When there is a crisis, we evaluate the quality of the response to improve this for the next time. This links to my work in Chad, because Chad is a country where you have all types of crises and some of those crises are climate-related. How to anticipate, how to prepare, how to respond is part of the work I am doing now. People know that climate change is coming, the consequences are already there, and they have to make their own choices.

DevelopmentAid: What is the link between climate change and humanitarian aid?

François Grünewald: We have done quite a lot of research into that. Climate change will increase humanitarian needs. The needs will be bigger and the systems will be less resourceful. The needs will become more unpredictable. For example, the dynamics of cyclones are changing, are taking new routes, are developing in new periods. People are not ready. Then we have new types of disasters that the emergency assistance system has never seen, heatwaves, cold waves, massive forest fires, all kind of things including possibly new pandemics, all these things are in the coming years.

DevelopmentAid: We are not ready for future disasters or challenges but we can start by thinking of a different action paradigm. How can humanity be better prepared?

François Grünewald: By being able to discuss outside of the system, including working with those who are not part of the system, but are reacting; putting a lot of emphasis on preparedness. There is one concept that is emerging – a risk informed development program. You look at the development of an area or a group of people and at the logic of the existing risks. You take into account all kind of risks, analyse how to design a development program. It gives you a totally different perspective if you think about development in a quiet time or if you think about development at a time of risk.

See also: Hero Stories | Meesha Brown: “Communication is a tool driving people towards the decision to live better lives.”