Filters & Circuit Breakers
This chapter examines the power concentrated in coordination positions at project and country office level. Acting as channels, blockers, or circuit-breakers for information, opportunities, and access to safety and protection. It argues that, as intermediaries between headquarters and the majority of (locally recruited) staff, these posts filter information, make it possible and set policies into practice. This form of power is strictly hierarchical but also highly individualised, with direct consequences for career progression, opportunities for participation and the handling of the safety, security and health of different staff.
Key Findings
Coordinator positions act as a go-between with headquarters, which means that they hold the power to filter opportunities, security and participation of ‘local’ employees.
International staff in management positions can shape the career prospects of their teams by blocking, elevating, or acting as communication channels in a vast and dispersed organisational structure.
There is a lack of clarity about how decisions are made in OCA, leading some locally recruited staff to question the accounts given by coordinators.
Chapter overview
“From the desk level, they will influence you but if you are a strong Head of Mission, and if you have the trust from headquarters, you are pretty much free to organise it the way you want to organise it.”
Internationally mobile staff in management positions hold much of the power – particularly coordinator positions. Many locally recruited staff see these as ‘filters’ for their opportunities, security and participation at project sites. They’re also viewed as ‘feeder’ positions for operational decision-making positions in HQ.
These senior leadership positions are mostly reserved for internationally mobile staff on short-term assignments. The frequent turnover in these roles is perceived as contributing to an inability or unwillingness to address problems faced by locally recruited colleagues.
Should operational decisions be made at headquarters, by coordination teams, or by those implementing care and programmes? This question is the subject of long-running tension in MSF. In medical emergencies, people need to be able to make decisions quickly, rather than relying on lengthy bureaucratic processes that may not suit the kinds of situation they encounter.
Coordinators act as filters between headquarters and ‘the field’. For example, not all locally recruited staff have MSF email addresses, so their managers mediate the projects and their relationship with HQ. Language, particularly the need to speak English, also plays a key role here.
Locally recruited staff described four main ways in which coordinators (and international staff in management positions) acted as filters and circuit breakers:
1
Mediating opportunities and career progression – coordinators can filter which opportunities are forwarded to whom, and who is recommended internationally for new positions as mobile staff, temporary detachments or training abroad. International staff in all positions can therefore shape the career prospects of their teams.
3
Translating policies on safety and security – locally recruited staff are often excluded from decision-making around security protocols and procedures that directly impact their own safety. These policies are also different for the two categories of staff members.
2
Limiting or enabling opportunities for participation and communication – coordinators can become the key communication channel between HQ and staff in project sites, leaving locally recruited staff with limited chances to take part in operational discussions. There’s a feeling that final decisions don’t seem to reflect the analysis, opinions and ideas country teams had shared with coordination.
4
Managing decisions about health – locally recruited and internationally mobile staff have different healthcare referral processes for their own health, and this is central to how inequality plays out in MSF.
The way these forms of power interact creates tensions and dilemmas.
For example, is it a conflict of interest when your employer is also your health provider, or when your manager is also involved in decisions about your access to healthcare, including emergency treatment? What requirements should exist for transparency and accountability when filtering decisions are taken? This heightens the already distinct power imbalances within MSF teams.
Delve deeper
Image Credit:
12. Alexis Huguet
13. Pierre Fromentin/MSF
14. Florence Miettaux