Compete or Cooperate?

Anyone who has played Monopoly, knows it can be a very long game. I rarely have patience for it, but my kids love it. I recently found my youngest son playing Monopoly by himself. He had set three players and was taking turns as each. He was happy on his own while I was relieved for not having to play … but I did feel some lazy-parent guilt. In this game where one tries to accumulate properties and eliminate competition, who was he rooting for? 

The words “tech monopoly” may evoke a negative, maybe even visceral, connotation. But are there contexts where a tech platform without real competition is not only acceptable but ideal? When a tech platform is made freely available for humanitarian purposes and does not face competition, is it a model of standardization and efficiency or is it a recipe for complacency? How unique is this in international humanitarian sectors? 

In humanitarian mine action, there is a single information management system used by the vast majority of national programs. How can we pursue excellence, retain a sense of urgency and innovate without being driven by competition? I am convinced that in this context we can. And we must. I hope you will stick with me through this read and join the discussion that follows – I will keep it shorter than a game of monopoly.

Context Matters

Let’s begin with a primer about humanitarian mine action. After all, it is a very niche sector that receives little public attention. Landmines continue to injure and kill people every day. They are indiscriminate, making no difference between military and civilian targets (80% of victims are civilians) or between adults and children (children account for half of civilian casualties).   The impact of these explosive hazards is both humanitarian and developmental. Lives and livelihoods are impacted. Mines and other unexploded ordnance inhibit freedom of movement and limit access to resources, which are essential for recovery and reconstruction after a conflict. Refugees may not be able to return home safely after conflict has ended. Farmers may not be able to farm their own land anymore. Children may not be able to get to school safely. Access to critical infrastructures like water sources and healthcare may be impeded.

Antipersonnel landmine contamination is present today in about 60 countries and territories. Unfortunately, this is not just a matter of addressing a problem from the past. In recent conflicts, there has been new use of mines, improvised explosive devices, and cluster munitions by government forces and non-state armed groups in several countries.

The global response to these issues is the humanitarian mine action sector. It is structured around five pillars:

1. Clearance is removing hazards.
2. Risk Education helps people understand the hazards they face, helps them identify dangerous objects, and learn how to stay out of harm's way.
3. Victim Assistance is offered through medical and rehabilitation services.
4. Advocacy is promoting a world free from the threat of landmines and encouraging countries to participate in international treaties.
5. Stockpile Destruction is helping countries destroy their mines.

Each of these pillars relies on accurate, timely information. Information management was one of the reasons the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) was established and remains a core part of its mission to support partners such as national and local authorities, the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) , and non-governmental organizations.

Tech to Amplify Impact

Humanitarian mine action is an information problem. It is first about knowing what is where, then resourcing, prioritizing and tracking efforts to clear it. We need accurate and timely information on hazards and where hazards have already been removed. There is a need for information management systems, processes and well-developed local know-how to analyse critical data.

First developed in 1999, the Information Management System for Mine Action or IMSMA has represented a cornerstone of the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) 's support ever since.  This software was designed to fill a gap in available technical solutions for the specific needs of the sector. It enables humanitarian demining programs to effectively use information in evidence-based operational and strategic decision-making. This is accomplished by ensuring that the community has at its disposal an up-to-date and purpose-designed system for compiling, storing and disseminating accurate, timely and relevant information. The latest generation of IMSMA is built by configuring Esri ’s ArcGIS tools to help mine action actors at all levels make critical decisions.

Information management for mine action exists solely for the impact it will have, enabling more efficient and effective operations. It is not an end in itself but an enabler. Information management is a means to accelerate and improve efficacy. 

Business Model

Mine action is roughly 2% of the overall humanitarian space (global investment averages 650 million dollars annually out of 31 billion humanitarian dollars in 2021). Of course, only a small fraction is available to invest in information systems. Digitalization of the sector is so under-resourced that is quite common to see staff of national mine action authorities use personal email accounts because their agency does not offer an official email system.

The financial support to develop, deploy and maintain IMSMA primarily comes from governments of high-income countries. Thus, funding is consolidated towards a common information management platform that can be offered freely to national authorities. In addition to systems and software, our information management programs offer expert advice, training, assessment frameworks, and implementation support to help states and other partners use quality information to support their programming and operational management.

The target market for IMSMA is national mine action authorities and United Nations programs. Today, IMSMA is used by about 80% of these organizations. Others tend to have either bespoke systems or do not have a digital information system. The largest international operators (those organizations that carry out mine clearance and other activities) generally have systems using the same technology stack as IMSMA.

We could debate whether the customer here is the donor who funds the work or the entity who uses IMSMA. I would argue in this context, and throughout social impact programs generally, that, while we must be accountable to donors, our customers are the people and organizations reached through our programs.

Listening, Purpose & Urgency

A competitive market can breed innovation. Without competition, how do we avoid complacency? How do we keep a sense of urgency? It is not urgency driven by competitive pressure, but urgency due to critical humanitarian needs. We are constantly learning and seeking to improve, but have found some approaches that are particularly important:

1. Listen. Most of our work is at a distance, both physically and experientially, from our customers. We must genuinely listen to our customers, hear what is and is not working for them and understand their priorities. We must walk in their shoes whenever possible.
2. Stay current. The tech landscape moves quickly. It is too easy to fall several generations behind current versions of software. To use emerging innovations, tap into tech expertise, and ensure the security of systems, we must make the continued investment necessary to keep our systems up to date.
3. Buy instead of build. Building and maintaining high quality, secure, custom software is expensive. We can more efficiently use our resources buying and configuring off-the-shelf platforms. This is particularly applicable in service of a transient problem like mine action. In our case, we have formed a strategic partnership with Esri to use their commercial software for mapping and spatial analysis. It is available to non-profits at substantially reduced prices. 
4. Create space for collegial exchange. The best ideas and the most usable innovations come from the field. Forums for practitioners to share their experiences and ideas serve to help replicate and accelerate the adoption of emerging capabilities.
5. Promote standards. While we rely heavily on commercial software, we only use tools that adhere to open standards and are interoperable. Among other benefits, this makes it possible to exchange data between organizations and across sectors.
6. Push boundaries. This is often less about technology than it is about optimizing processes. Too often, digital tools are introduced onto established procedures without taking time to question how they might be improved. Don’t pave the goat path! In our sector, this often is about coordination and data flows between different organizations, where defining the agreements and protocols is far more difficult than the technology.
7. Simplify. As technologists, we tend to over-engineer solutions. We like to automate everything. We are tempted to use emerging tools. All of this introduces complexity that is hard to keep secure, expensive to maintain over time, less likely to scale, and difficult to transition support to local partners.
8. Secure obsessively. There is a paradox that we do not know when we have invested too much in security, only when we have invested too little. The ethical and legal obligations to secure information are profound. 

Doing our best to follow these methods, and drawing on input from the user community over many years, we constantly adapt IMSMA to the latest technology improvements to better gather, analyze, and visualize data. With these tools, we help partners assess the nature and extent of hazards and how they impact people. It helps determine the priorities of mine clearance to benefit the greatest number of people.

I recently read (and highly recommend) Ken Banks ’ The Pursuit of Purpose. He shares this observation, which is so relevant in many contexts:

It was a real surprise to find so many people with seriously competitive streaks during my years of humanitarian and conservation work. I somewhat naively believed that because we were all in the business of helping make the world a better place, we’d all play nicely together. Nope. Sure, some people do, but it’s rarely a given. My advice is to try to be one of the good ones. Be respectful, be open, be responsive, and help people when and where you can. There’s really no need to compete with anyone. As I used to remind people during my mentoring days, there’s plenty of poverty to go around.

All of us working in the humanitarian sector, or for any social impact purpose, have an obligation to bring our best capabilities to support our mission. We need to be at our best and bring our best game, every single day. Generous donors expect, and communities impacted by our work deserve, nothing less.

Back to my son playing Monopoly by himself: Who was he rooting for? It turns out he was helping each of his three players, negotiating outcomes and cooperating. Cooperation rather than competition: a wonderful exemplar for applying technology to humanitarian challenges.