The 1 million T-shirts saga goes on.

I really, really would wish that we could all just say that the T-shirt guys learned from what happened and we could move on to more rewarding issues. In fact, I thought exactly that had happened, and hadn’t spent even the shortest tweet on it for several weeks – and then they posted this blog post. Go and read. And cry.

Yes, that is right. They want to support what is probably the most badly conceived anti-child-trafficking initiative ever. I am not going to tire you here with why it is such a bad idea (others have done an admirable job on that, e.g. this post by Amanda Kloer, which was written well before the T-shirts ever came up). What I do want to draw attention to is that, evidently, Jason still has not learnt that it might be a good idea to stop and think before jumping off -  and preferably only do so while being informed by best practice and evidence.

Obviously, he was taken aback a bit by the criticisms and quickly took the post down, tweeting that he did so for ‘due diligence’. Perhaps it should be pointed out here that ‘due diligence’ is normally understood as something done before the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan. If you do this afterwards, it is more properly known as ‘negligent laziness’.

And then Jason and Stephen write a follow-up post in which they try to explain why they posted their first one. And fail miserably. What they do bring across is that they feel that it’s all about them. Take this sentence, for instance: “It’s frustrating and disheartening when individuals with a great deal of experience in various efforts seem to get pleasure in crushing the energy and desire of people who want things to be better in the world.” Seriously? You think that people get a kick out of kicking you? Is that why so many people who can use their time in ways that are much more gratifying to themselves insist in trying to explain to you again and again (and again, and again) that it would be a good idea to ask questions before you go off on your next hare-brainwave? I mean, of course I have nothing better to do than spend an hour on writing this blog.

“The story we shared was simply that… a story. … We simply shared a story that we heard and wanted to pass it on.” Again, really guys? So I guess that’s why you decided to donate those t-shirts to ‘Bob’, because it was simply… a story. That you wanted to pass on. Without any suggestion that you thought it was a good idea. Tell me, what exactly is the level of stupidity you expect from your readers? And while you’re at it, if you only wanted to share a story that should not have any impact, could you please explain why you did not keep it for your next session with your drinking buddies?

This post is a serious break from what I have written before on gifts in kind in general and on the t-shirt saga in particular; both in content and in tone. First, I don’t only write about the issues any more, but also about the people behind it; simply because I think the people have now become the issue. A mistake can happen, and the people who make it usually go through it growing a bit wiser and more knowledgeable – and get my full kudos for learning from their mistake. You can even make multiple mistakes and still get my support – if you learn from it and don’t make the same mistake over and over again. However, you lose it if you don’t learn from your mistakes and not only insist on making us all go through the same sorry arguments over and over again, but in addition make clear that you haven’t even tried to understand the central issue: that it is not about you, but about the people that you say you want to help, and that consequently you have a duty to do your due diligence – and yes, that implies thinking and asking questions before you do something stupid.

Secondly, up to now I have tried to write in a fairly dispassionate voice. I have left that behind me too, because I have started to realise that Jason et al. are apparently more reactive (if not receptive) to snark than to reasonable discourse. Yes, they go through the motions of being nice, reasonable people who listen to what is being said, but this latest little jaunt shows that it is a front. They don’t listen, not even to the people they asked themselves to advise them, unless the message is hammered home with a sledgehammer. So I guess that is what we need to do. Sad.

[Image: Dollar Origami 4 by Piotr Bizior - www.bizior.com]

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The day after I published my post on gifts in kind, a minor eruption rocked the aid blog-and-twitterverse: a new charity tried to get 1 million t-shirts to ‘Africa’. See the gifts-in-kind post at the bottom for more information.

Katrin Verclas from MobileActive has graciously organised a round table teleconference in which one of the initiators as well as a number of experienced aid wonks will participate. In Katrin’s words:

Here are the details:

Friday, April 30 at noon Eastern Time/US.  Log in online at http://readytalk.com and use code 3979111. The call-in number is  866 740 1260 / 3979111.  Alternative number is 303-248-0285.  Local numbers can be found at http://www.readytalk.com/support/international-numbers.php (though, unfortunately, Liberia is not on the list, but skype call-in works)

We will be talking with you all (I hope!), Jason Sadler of One Million Shirts, @talesfromthhood, @tmsruge, Christopher Fabian (@unickf) and Erica Kochi (@uniemk) of UNICEF, @penelopeinparis, Laura Seay (@texasinafrica), and anyone else who would like to join in about this project, sustainable and responsible aid work, and the questions that the #1millionshirt project has raised about aid and development.  We expect this to be a lively but respectful conversation in the spirit of a fruitful conversation. Please join us.

Suggested agenda for the 1-hour call:

• Introductions of roundtable participants
• Overview of 1 Million Shirts (Jason)/Goals and plan
• Comments from the aid community and response/local manufacturers/others
• Discussion and questions/comments from the audience (submitted through Ready Talk online to keep it manageable)
• Closing remarks

This promises to be a very interesting meeting, for which I will gladly give up a night’s sleep (it will start 2 AM local time where I live). Join the discussion and see how we can turn this into a project that will really help some people.

[Image: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.]

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• Regular readers know about my preoccupation with duct tape. I am happy to say that I am not alone.
• Dilbert’s view of pandemic contingency planning. I wish.
• I recently have become a member of the International Association of Public Health Logisticians (IAPHL). Highly recommended for the very interesting discussions going on in their (closed) forums.
• Emerald will start publishing the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management next year. The blurb looks highly promising. The editors have issued a call for papers.
• Analytics Magazine published a short article with ten recommendations to improve humanitarian logistics. Sadly, they are so thin on how to implement their recommendations that they could just as well have given only one: ‘improve humanitarian logistics’.
• A guide to NGOs for the military. I wonder how many NGOs for the military need a guide. (H/T Chris Albon.)
• An interesting application of standard logistics risk management on very large systems – like whole societies. (H/T Chris Watkins a.k.a. @chriswaterguy – there seems to be a Chris-thing going on here).
• FAILfare: learning from failure. A great idea – anybody in to organise something similar for health/aid logistics? (H/T Suzanne Rainey)
• Stop Stockouts seemed a great idea, but is now totally abandoned. Too bad.
• WHO finally published a procurement guideline for antimalarials. Let’s hope they will do something similar for other health commodities.
• After my earlier negativity on gifts in kind, now a story about an organisation that seems to do it right. Any reader who has first-hand experience with this outfit?
• I have been on Twitter for some time now (you can follow @Michael_Keizer for regular updates), but more recently I started a Facebook page. It’s a great place for discussions with like-minded people and allows for a bit more two-way communication than the blog.
• I have also been working on a bibliography on logistics for global health and aid, using a Zotero group. The bibliography is open for everyone, but Zotero users can import and use it directly into their own libraries. I would appreciate any additions: it is a living document and suggestions for additions and improvements are more than welcome.

[Image: Liquid Links by Desirae; some rights reserved.]

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Over the last couple of months, a lot has been written about old shoes, a.k.a. gifts in kind (GiK). Most commenters seem to agree that they are only appropriate in a fairly limited number of narrowly defined situations. Over at Tales From the Hood, J. has come up with two preconditions for GiK to be acceptable: they should fit programme design (instead of vice versa) and they should directly address the needs in the field. Of course, J. is correct as ever, but I do think that in this case he is not exhaustive. I will use the five rights of logistics to add to the list.

The right goods

Both J.’s preconditions are linked to this one. Of course, they should fit the needs of the people we are trying to serve, and that implies that the programme should fit these needs and that the goods delivered in turn should fit the programme. Another issue to keep in mind here is that they should also fit the way your organisation works: if nobody knows how to work that donated doodad, it could fit your programme like a glove but it would still be utterly useless.

The right quantity

GiK hardly ever come in the quantities needed: either too much or too little. In the former case, the challenges of dealing with the surplus could more than negate the advantages of receiving the gifts. In any case, it would be a good idea not to accept more GiK than are needed for the programme^[1]. If the GiK are not sufficient to cover the full need of the programme, the extra cost having to buy and handle smaller amounts of goods from multiple sources need to be taken into account as well.

The right location

Often, there are local or regional sources of the same goods that are donated. Obviously, these goods will be available at the programme location much faster and much more cheaply than the donated goods ever can be.

The right time

For most programmes, timing is crucial. An item can be really needed at some stage, arrive in just the right quantity and be available at the right spot, but if it arrives too late it will be as useless as a recipe for lumbard mustard for McDonald’s. If it arrives too early, it will needlessly clog up storage space (which is an important consideration in many of our programmes). It is hardly ever possible to time GiK correctly.

The right price

GiK are, as the name implies, free.

Well, no, actually they aren’t. There are serious costs connected to GiK: costs when organising collection and reception, cost when handling and shipping, costs when using. Good examples are the costs for the organisation of collection points, for bundling and preparation for shipping, for cleaning and repair, and for maintenance in the field. Similar costs are, of course, connected to goods bought from donated money; but almost always these costs are much lower than for GiK – sometimes so much cheaper that, all in all, it can be cheaper to buy them new than to pay for the costs to process the GiK.

Most people understand that this is the case when comparing local goods with GiK: obviously, it is quite possible that the cost of shipping items from Freetown, Kentucky to Freetown, Liberia could be more than the full price of the same item bought on the local market. However, this could also be true for items bought in (in this case) the US. This comes as a surprise for many people: how can it be cheaper to buy e.g. medicines locally and ship them over, than to have those drugs donated at the exact same spot for free? Yet this is true quite often, caused by e.g.:

• having to combine items from various locations instead of shipping it directly from one location (the supplier’s);
• use of standardised items designed for cheap and simple transport, e.g. because they are lighter, can be nested or because a multiple fits exactly in a standard shipping container;
• being able to easily consolidate shipments, leading to lower shipping costs;
• having to deal with reverse logistics after early expiry of goods (i.e. earlier than newly bought goods).

Gifts in kind are not always kind

Time to out one of my darker secrets: back in my younger days, I have been involved in a drive to collect gifts in kind for Romanian orphanages (after the revolution of 1989). I was highly disappointed and slightly upset when none of the large aid organisations wanted to accept our goods. Now, half a lifetime later, I understand why they did so. Gifts in kind can be the right thing – but often they aren’t. Both donors (when giving or organising drives) and aid organisations (when accepting the gifts) should keep this in mind – and logisticians have a special responsibility for explaining the issues.

Update (April 28): I hardly turned my back (had a long day of lectures and didn’t read my Twitter stream) or a new GiK initiative crops up. This time, somebody want to get 1,000,000 shirts to ‘Africa’. A good analysis of the goods and bads can be found on Amanda Makulec’s blog (and it is of course always nice to called a “development logistics guru”); Aid Thoughts has a rather snarkier take on things; Tales From the Hood comments on the rather aggressive media strategy of the founder (which basically seems to come down to, “let’s get this discussion off from the internet ASAP”); Texas In Africa lists better alternatives.

Update 2 (April 30): There are now more than 30 blog posts written about the whole 1 million shirts kerfuffle. A selection of the most interesting ones:

• Tales From The Hood writes about the value of critique.
• Unlike Tales From the Hood, Siena Anstis is ready to play nice, writes an open letter to the people behind it, and, surprisingly, actually gets a civil response.
• On the other side of the snark divide, Alanna Shaikh takes down the initiators’ a couple of notches by analysing their video response.
• Christopher Fabian analyses how the shirts broohaha might impact on future programmes.
• Wanderlust writes a long but worthwhile analysis (or synthesis) of the whole business up to now.
• T.M.S. Ruge at Project Diaspora is scathing, but also suggests some alternatives.
• Owen Barder shines his typically insightful light on the crowd-sourcing of aid appraisals that seems to have taken place.
• And a slightly cheekier take on things from the inestimable Dr. Kurtz at HRI.
• Aid Thoughts steals my pun to write a great post on the economics of the initiative.

[Image: The Park House Club in Cardiff, wrapped as a gift by Howard Dickins. Some rights reserved.]

Footnote

Back to post [1] Of course, this is true for gifts in money, too, but I leave that fish for others to fry.

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