$1,000,000 a year as the leader of a humanitarian organisation. do you think that weakens the case of humanitarians, when they re on that kind of money? it s up to the board of international rescue committee, or any organisation, to set its own. of course it is, but what s your opinion? so my opinion comes back to the lessons of the last few years for organisations like ours, which is that it s really important that we walk the talk that if we re to be taken credibly and seriously, then we also need to strive to be a more inclusive organisation. so, for example in 0xfam, yes, i m lucky enough to be paid a good salary, and importantly, we re committing to reducing inequality within our own organisation, so we publish the pay ratio between my pay and that of the lowest paid, or median members of median pay in our own organisations, and are ambitious about making our own organisation more equitable so that our arguments to make the world fairer and more equitable are taken more seriousl
and, of course, the resources, especially from donor countries, just not being delivered into a system. really? the un, of course, tries to raise emergency monies from the nations of the world forjust these sorts of crises. there s the world food programme, a whole host of other un and multilateral agencie which go in to crisis situations and try to alleviate the worst of the suffering and certainly to avoid famine. is that not working? the system has worked in the past. the last time we were worried about drought conditions in east africa, the international community did come together, did deliver billions of dollars worth of aid. organisations like 0xfam were part of a relief. ..relief operation that saved lives. this time around, only a fraction of the resource that the un and organisations like ours need are being delivered. take the uk, for example, which has cut its aid budget just at a time of rising humanitarian need
we let ourselves down, we let our supporters down, but most importantly, we let the people we were there to serve down. and to people who don t remember, just to remind them, the allegations, which indeed your own internal investigations concluded were well founded, involved staff members of oxfam abusing their position, routinely using prostitutes, some of them using underage girls while on a mission of emergency relief in haiti after the 2010 earthquake. and it took years for 0xfam to publicly acknowledge what had happened. when i started in 2019, 0xfam was already undergoing a deep reflection about these failings, coming to the realisation that doing harm in the name of doing good was not good enough, that we have to focus on preventing and minimising the abuse of power within our organisations if we are to be taken credibly
of haiti and drc, where you also had systemic problems, that is over, is it? because many of your donors don t appear to be so confident. if one looks at the revenues you get, they re still actually significantly below the level they were at before the haiti scandal broke. so, two things, i think. 0ne, no organisation can ever say it s free from misconduct or harassment, but what we can, and i can say, is that we have put in place systems, processes, and a process of culture change that reduces the risk of misconduct and, importantly, where misconduct is identified, that we take action. 0n the other hand, if you look at our supporter base and our accounts at the moment, many of our international institutional donors and many, many of our individual supporters, have continued to support 0xfam, because when i meet supporters or volunteers, they see that we are an organisation that s
we let our supporters down, but most importantly, we let the people we were there to serve down. and to people who don t remember, just to remind them, the allegations, which indeed your own internal investigations concluded were well founded, involved staff members of oxfam abusing their position, routinely using prostitutes, some of them using underage girls while on a mission of emergency relief in haiti after the 2010 earthquake. and it took years for 0xfam to publicly acknowledge what had happened. when i started in 2019, 0xfam was already undergoing a deep reflection about these failings, coming to the realisation that doing harm in the name of doing good was not good enough, that we have to focus on preventing and minimising the abuse of power within our organisations if we are to be taken credibly across the world.