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Inside humanitarian organizations

  • Page updated onMarch 15, 2025
Humanitarian organizations from the inside
Photo: Bruno Abarca

It is common for a person with a background in medicine, nursing, pharmacy or public health may finish his or her career with a sense of knowing what a hospital or health center is and knowing what steps he or she needs to take to go to work there. However, that same person probably doesn't know what a humanitarian or international cooperation organizationshow they work or are organized, or if there are options to work in them.

Unfortunately for this person, when you start looking for information on this you will discover that no two humanitarian organizations are the same. There are huge differences between UN agencies, NGOs, corporations, bilateral agencies of donor countries, think tanks, etc. But, as if this were not enough, within the same group there are also important variations; for example, within NGOs there are those with 5 professionals at their headquarters or 150, and NGOs that focus their action on humanitarian action and emergency response as well as NGOs (generally smaller) that concentrate more on development cooperation in more or less stable environments. Some small NGOs even operate entirely on a volunteer basis.

Imagine a hypothetical humanitarian organization

To get an idea of how humanitarian humanitarian organizations work, it may be a good idea to invent one, completely hypothetical, that can give an overview of how they can be, and that can serve as a reference to compare and better understand any other real organization: is it also an NGO or is it something else, is it smaller or bigger than our imaginary NGO, how does its internal structure differ, does it cover the same technical areas or does it specialize in other things....

We are going to use as a reference an imaginary NGO, based in Spain, of medium size (let's imagine an annual budget of 50 million euros), constituted as an association for more than 30 years, which in addition to carrying out some local actions (social action, awareness and education for development), carries out cooperation actions in 10 countries in crisis situations. Although it specializes in the health sector, it also works in other complementary sectors. Our NGO belongs to a network of NGOs -also imaginary, of course-, all with almost identical names (but in other languages, of course), with headquarters in other countries (such as Germany, Italy, United States, Australia or Canada), which collaborate with each other. Some of these offer specialized services or help in fundraising from public donors for the rest, but a couple of them (including the Spanish one) are larger and have international cooperation programs abroad.

The central office in Spain (headquarters) works in collaboration with and provides support to the offices in the ten countries where it is legally registered and intervenes. 

Our imaginary head office: the headquarters

The usual departments

The headquarters office occupies a small three-story building in Madrid. This houses several departments that could be similar to those of other organizations and companies, such as:

  • General Management, with a beautiful office to receive important people).
  • Administration and finance, from where they handle everything related to accounting, budgeting, expense and income control, and auditing.
  • Marketing and fundraising, from where the branding and marketing strategy is directed, alliances are established with companies and private donors, and the collaboration of individuals who wish to donate or become members is sought.
  • Communication, to let the general public know what we do and why we do it, either for awareness-raising or fundraising purposes.
  • Personnel, to find, develop and keep the talent the organization needs.
  • General Services, including information, courier, security, maintenance, cleaning, etc.
  • Systems, for everything related to computer equipment, telecommunications, data security and digital tools.
  • Logistics, including responsibilities related to purchasing and procurement, vehicle management, storage, stock, product distribution, and even security management), for example.

Other key departments: Operations, Technical and Programs

The headquarters of our humanitarian organization also houses a Technical Department, an Operations Department and a Programs Department, which work together to directly support the offices in the different countries of intervention:.

These three imaginary departments work together, with their personnel divided into three teams organized according to geographic areas: one supporting country teams in Africa and Asia, one supporting teams in Latin America, and one specializing in rapid response to emergencies. Of course, these departments also depend on and relate to all of the above.

Day-to-day business at headquarters

Although everything seems very structured and there are lots of procedures, not everything works like clockwork, unfortunately. For example, from logistics they are constantly complaining that they have hardly any say in the development of projects and then they come to them with rushes and demands for impossible purchases that cannot be made on time. They are considering integration into the Programs Department, but there is also resistance. After all, there are many people from different departments who understand the values and principles of the organization in different ways.

This is not the only problem. The support team for Africa and Asia is very overloaded, the emergency team does not coordinate very well with the other two, and there are continuous discrepancies between the Board of Directors (volunteers who form the main governing body of the association) and the contracted professional staff (who, although they carry out the day-to-day work, are accountable to the Board of Directors and the General Assembly of Members). In addition, the multiplicity of departments and transversal teams means that there are many periodic "follow-up" meetings that seem to eat up the scarce time available.

Although most people are from Spain, about 20% of the people are foreigners, mostly from other European and Latin American countries. The language most often heard in the corridors is Spanish, but if you look closely, you also hear people speaking English, French and other languages all the time. 65% of the team are women, although - and this is curious - 60% of the most senior positions are held by men. Of all the staff at headquarters, the percentage of people with a biosanitary or public health-related academic background does not exceed 15%.

Our humanitarian organization abroad

Although there is an office in all ten countries of operation, these have big differences among them. There are two (in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo) which, together, have a larger volume (financial and staff) than the other eight country offices combined, as they are places where there are major humanitarian crises and large numbers of people in need of humanitarian assistance, and where the organization has been well established for years.

An example: the (imaginary) office in South Sudan

One of these large offices -imaginary, remember- is that of South Sudan. Its head office is in Juba, the capital city, and although its facilities are older and more dilapidated than those in Madrid, they contrast greatly with the poverty and precarious housing just a few streets away. This office is located in a large house, surrounded by a courtyard and a wall with barbed wire fences, on a street without sidewalks where 3 huge Toyota Land Cruisers (the 1970s model, although much newer) are parked with the organization's logo.

The structure of this office is not exactly the same as in Madrid. The office is headed by a Country Director (Country Director or Head of Mission) supported by a Deputy Director of Support (who supervises and directs the work of finance, personnel, logistics, etc.) and a Deputy Director of Programs (who supervises and directs the people who coordinate the thematic areas of intervention). In addition, there are additional offices in the three provinces where the different projects are developed. Each of these provincial offices is headed by a Head of Base who coordinates the support team and the program managers, who in turn coordinate the project coordinators.

Within each project there are more people, who implement the different project activities (such as kit distributions, provision of health care, support to public health and water services, or community mobilization for the prevention and management of acute malnutrition). 90% of the staff is national, with 10% expatriate.

There are important differences between this office and those in other countries, where the volume of operations is lower. In Ecuador, for example, there is only one small office in a province, with a team of only 8 people; there, one person carries out both administrative and personnel management tasks, and the person who coordinates this office has to travel relatively frequently to the capital, Quito, to participate in institutional meetings.

The (imaginary) South Sudanese team includes expatriate staff

Let's continue imagining and trying to take a closer look at the day-to-day life of the team working in South Sudan. Although the team's 90% is of local origin, let's focus on the - remember, it's all made up - 7 expatriates (two Spanish, one Dutch, one Ugandan, one Nigerian, and one Mexican).

Why focus on expatriates? Because a) I doubt that someone from South Sudan will visit this page to read from a Spaniard how is the daily work in Juba; and b) because many people (who might come to this page) wonder what their work as an expatriate aid worker might be like.

For example Vincent, the Ugandan, is a 47-year-old doctor working as a Technical Health Coordinator who has been in the country for 4 years now, although he had worked with the same organization in two other countries before. After working in several health centers and a Regional Health Directorate in Uganda, he started working as a project coordinator in an international NGO where he went through different positions before deciding to expatriate and work in Sudan, Nigeria, and now South Sudan.

Mara, one of the Spaniards, is 41 years old and is the Country Director. She has been in South Sudan for only 4 months and this is the first time she has worked with this organization, but she has been working for 15 years as project coordinator, program manager, emergency team leader and country coordinator with other organizations in other countries. She studied sociology and did a master's degree in global health years later, when she was already working as an international development worker. She was interested in traveling to Juba because her partner, whom she met on a previous assignment, had already been working there for 7 months, as logistics manager for another organization.

Sonia, the Mexican, is younger. She is only 27 years old, and is a nurse with a master's degree in international cooperation. She has been working for almost a year now at one of the provincial bases as Coordinator of the Reproductive Health Program. She completed her master's degree in Spain, did an internship at headquarters (related to the qualitative analysis on perceptions around family planning that she had completed as research work for her master's degree), and after working 18 months on one of the projects in Ecuador, she took the leap to fill a new position needed in South Sudan. Life in the provincial base is very hard for her, especially because of security restrictions, but she is coping well thanks to the presence of other colleagues who also work in the same city with other organizations. For now he is committed to stay for 3 more months but he would like to change countries and is already looking at job offers to see what he can find.

Aitor, from the headquarters technical department, has also been at the office in the capital for the last ten days and is on a two-week visit to help design a new project to support public health services in two provinces and to collaborate with the team in a training course on nutrition. He is 38 years old, spent more than ten years working in different organizations and countries and for the last two years has been working mainly from headquarters, with frequent short trips to the 3-4 countries he is collaborating with.

Mobility and constantly changing teams

There is significant mobility in many departments and offices of the organization. Often a person who starts working in a provincial base moves a couple of years later to a senior position in the capital. There are also people who move from headquarters to the office in one of the countries of intervention - and vice versa, or who move through several countries of intervention over the course of a decade or so. Some people have also changed departments, moving from a project management position to a technical coordination position in a specialized area in which they had extensive training, for example.

Mobility also takes place with other organizations, typically, over the course of ten or twelve years, a person may have held five or six different positions in two or three different organizations. In this invented organization, generally, people in acute humanitarian crises do not stay more than a year and a bit, with some exceptions that exceed two years. From one such job it is relatively easy to jump to another, if there is a willingness to change countries and even continents.

Changes in teams are also highly dependent on funding. The volume of the organization's income fluctuates, leading to changes in its structure. When there is a major humanitarian crisis and a new area of intervention opens up, a new team has to be created in that country and its bases and the staff supporting it from headquarters has to be increased. Conversely, when sufficient funding is not forthcoming, the organization may be forced to close bases and country offices, laying off staff.

In countries where, because of the type of humanitarian funding that is obtained - in projects of 6 or 12 months maximum duration - it is difficult to make long contracts and staff turnover is even higher.

Any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental

As I have said, everything stated here is completely invented (the organization, its offices and departments, its countries of intervention, or its professionals). However, the invented organization I have described has aspects in common with multiple European international organizations. That is why it can be helpful to understand what working in international cooperation and humanitarian action can be like, what types of professional profiles may be needed in the structures of the organizations and projects, and what aspects of the life of an expatriate aid worker may be more motivating or harder.

Working in humanitarian action

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