Oenone Chadburn

Oenone Chadburn – OU PIPS Week-20260320_140213-Meeting Recording

March 20, 2026, 2:02PM

58m 37s

Jack.Flaherty started transcription

Beverley.Smit   0:03
And only welcome, everyone.
We’re so pleased that Anone is here this afternoon. She’s an international aid system leader and her clients include Food for the Hungry, Welcome and the EU, where she’s working through TPI on the development of climate and health funders platform and Caritas, which is working with humanitarian outcomes. And I believe you just
have a new role and only with caring for the elderly. So help, yeah. So we’re looking forward to hearing you speak. So thanks very much for coming.

Oenone Chadburn   0:35
Oops, help page.
No problem, no problem at all.
Great, so…

Beverley.Smit   0:51
Cool.

Oenone Chadburn   0:53
Do you want me to start or shall I just wait? No problem, no problem at all. And Claire, what I’m going to do is I’ll just say click on if that’s okay with you. So then we can we can work with that. So just stay with me for this opening slide. Thanks, Claire. But thank you for giving me the opportunity to come and chat to you today.

Beverley.Smit   0:54
Yes, fine. Thank you. Yes, fine.
Hey.

Oenone Chadburn   1:13
Just so I can get a little bit more about you, I wonder whether you could just put in chat, you know, what it is you’re studying and why you like it. And, you know, I just want to know a little bit more about my audience and understand a little bit more of the emphasis. So I’m going to give you just one or two.
Minutes and.
It’s good to be here today. I hope it’s a good way to spend Friday afternoon for you, but I’m looking forward to what you’re going to put into chat. So just to reiterate, just what is it you’re studying and then what is it, why is it you want to do it?

Graham Smetham   1:39
Yeah.
Thanks.
One session.

Oenone Chadburn   1:56
Great. Jack studying history, but he was very interested, obviously, in international relations development studies. Thanks, Jack.
Great, first year. So only covering social sciences, politics.
Yeah, the politics behind the law, politics generally, great. We’re going to have an emphasis on a little bit about civil society, psychology. Thanks, Charlotte.
Great, there’s a personal interest in human rights and international humanitarian law. I’m not going to touch on that so much today. It’s a very, very big quagmire of that at the moment.
Great, Graham’s looking at moving into politics and economics.
Yeah.
Mustin agrees with my perspective on it since humanitarian laws. Very good. Anyone else?

Beverley.Smit   2:49
No.

Oenone Chadburn   2:58
Great. History and politics and query. Great. Yeah, so I’m going to, I’m going to tell, this is kind of like going to be a presentation in three parts, really. I’m first of all going to tell you a little bit more about my new role and what it is I’m doing. And then I’m going to
slightly change tack and talk a little bit about international conventions and what makes the world go round when it comes to the way that we operate globally on critical and social issues especially. And then I’m going to collect land into collect mechanisms that can make these
international framework stronger and better. So in theory, you should see it in three parts. In practice, one of the reasons I’m a little, well, actually, no, I’m asking whether you can give me some grace this afternoon because I had an alignment issue with my presentation, which meant that
it wasn’t just misaligned, it’s like whole bits of text weren’t making it onto the page. So I had to then regroup. So I haven’t checked the PowerPoint presentation since I actually sent it over. So I’m hoping there’s no glaring errors in it. In addition to that,

Beverley.Smit   4:11
Ohh.

Oenone Chadburn   4:17
I did ask AI to help me a little bit in a few of the visuals and some of them are slightly like, oh, really? Is that the one you chose? So again, I apologize. There are some that I would have changed a little bit more and actually put the logos of the organisations that we’re making reference to. So yeah, hands up. I do use AI. I know that’s a topic of debate.
but also in the way that universities operate as well. But certainly in my line of work, it has been helpful for the most part, but I treat it with an arm’s length and try and contain it as well. So anyway, I’m now working for Helpage, Helpage International. My full name is Enoni.
in only Chadburn. And my new role is actually, I’m A co-lead. So I am actually sharing a job as head of network development, which in itself is another topic of conversation, how you can actually get a different kind of leadership when you actually share a leadership.
for a single position, and I’m certainly enjoying working with my counterpart, Rachel Houghton. So if you ever did venture into understanding more about Help Age, you might find out more about, you know, head of network development’s got two names against it. That’ll be myself and Rachel. And I’m going to touch into a little bit about ageing power and global development and why older people matter.
But I’m also going to be kind of like touching a little bit more on the history of HelpAge. And at the end, the Q&A at the end, there is an element of please don’t test me too much about HelpAge. I do have a reasonable knowledge, but I wouldn’t say at this stage, after three months of being in the job, I have a full grasp on the subject matter.
So I wondered whether, again, just in chat, you just want to put down, what’s your thoughts on older people and global development? How do you understand the demographics more to the point? Do you have any stats that you have to hand about the importance of understanding the situation of older people?
and international development. So just drop in in the chat if you’ve got any good stats. I don’t mind if you jump on Google now and just throw in a stat or two for other people to learn. But yeah, I think there is a big issue looming ahead and it’d be interesting to know how much people understand.
Okay, thanks for your honesty, Jimmy. That’s very, very good. Something I’ve never thought of before, to be honest. What else have we got?
We are all ageing much more than the system can have. Sebastian, that’s a very, yes, that’s very truthful and insightful. I think we’ll push into some of those issues as we go through.
Yeah, well, we’re all going to be ageing very soon, so yeah, yeah.
I’m going to touch on a few statistics for you. Clare, can you move on and do the first next slide, please?
Right, so older people, why do they matter? Ageing populations also need to reshape global politics from my perspective. And the reason being, we’ll come on to some stats in the next slide, but the demographics are not in our favour globally. We are getting a rapidly ageing population and that has huge impacts for the way
the global economy works, the way that social care works, the way that power and distribution work. And, you know, as Natalie says there, an ageing population brings stress on public services and working populations to support them. Maybe we can flip that agenda as well. Maybe there are some other ways that we can view
the income generating potential of older people and actually view them as an asset to society. I think some of these some of these perspectives are what are some of the things we need to undo. But particularly older people are often invisible in humanitarian action. When was the last time you actually saw issues around older people?
in the way that they’re presented in the media, in the way that they’re communicated. Very often we focus on children and welfare. You know, I think actually to be truly equitable in intergenerational perspectives, we have to have a real broad perspective of how people are being impacted. Development policy, you know, everything is
focused a lot on economics, the generation of greater GDP, but they don’t actually take into account some of the socioeconomic dynamics, international law. And for Hellpage, we want to challenge this invisibility. Next one, Clare.
So some of these are some statistics you might want to be looking at. And obviously the acronyms here are LMICs, lower and middle income countries. 65% of all people, 60 plus, will live in LMICs.
That is a huge proportion when countries that are perceived not to be able to support this situation and only one in four older adults receive a pension. So we’ve got a real poverty agenda grappling that you’ve got to work and focus on with older people. And 80% have no regular form of income.
Often by heritage, we’re looking at people who are smallholder farmers or small traders or people who haven’t had any opportunity to generate a secure livelihood in any way. And two-thirds of all dementia cases are in LMICs. And that is just for 2026.
You can imagine how you project that going forward. These are major, major global issues that often are pushed to one side. Next slide, please.
So…
Alpage was created to solve a problem in many ways. In the 1980s and the humanitarian crises in the Horn of Africa, there were severe crises that most people will know about, but again, they weren’t there to hone in on the rights and welfare of older people.
There was a lack of space globally for advocacy on the issues and the rights and the well-being of older people, especially in crisis. And there was a recognition that older refugees were often excluded from aid and left out from humanitarian assistance.
and aid programmes. And this discrimination drove a very, very strong agenda from a grouping of organisations. Next one, Clare.
So in 1983, Help Age International was formed, but it was formed as a network, a network of equals and not a single INGO. And I think that’s really important to hold on to that and just come back to and remember that. But it was a collective of organisations who came from the UK, India,
Kenya, Canada, Colombia, representing obviously several different continents and a real different set of situations when it comes to looking at the income demographics of the income perspectives of the countries that are involved, real cross-section.
at the time in 1983, India would have been had substantial more poverty at that point of time. So it was really quite an enlightened approach to actually look at an equitable approach to and how you could make this a collaborative effort to address what was a truly global issue.
Next one, Clare, please.
So the idea was that there was a global network model to, in terms of growth as well, different national organisations were to be able to connect to form a cohesive alliance. And that was going to be kind of like coordinating advocacy and cross borders particularly.
And the idea was that in actual fact we were going to get a real blended, blended not to make it diluted, but a real representation that was fair rather than the stronger voices of those who had the opportunity to campaign on critical issues that affected people. And
The idea was that there was going to be an opportunity for greater social and economic impact. Next one, Clare, please.
But absolutely, ageing was just not on the global agenda. The UN frameworks ignored older people of the Global South and Help Age was there to fill this gap. Next one, Clare.
So I think there was a real sense of wanting to move away from how is it we can just address older people issues. And this really begins to push into a systems led agenda. Even back in the 1980s, moving into the 1990s, there is a very heavy emphasis
on provision, whether that be provision about community support, around health, around wellbeing, but a recognition that if you did not get the architecture right in the way that healthcare provision was done, if it wasn’t built into the Ministry of Health’s perspective on understanding where the projection is going to be on
the needs of the and access to drugs. How are people going to be able to walk to the local clinic and appropriately get access to clinic if they were if they were housebound? What is it that we can do to actually support communities to do better social care? And a lot of these rests in
national level policy agendas, regional level policy agendas, and global level commitments to actually change people’s perspective and outlook. Next one, Clare.
So I think one of the issues that Help Age was wanting to address was looking at the research needs and the specific issues around how do you get a more resilient older population during crises and emergencies. And they wanted to really make sure that that voice was there very much so from the populations that
they were representing. And obviously, we wanted their voice to be able to shape the interventions and actually give their lived experience into the decision making around how policy was going to be shaped and moved on. And we had kind of like the Madrid Plan on Ageing,
and to set out some international standards and recommendations on improving ageing policies worldwide. But then there was also an added emphasis on advocacy and evidencing. And one of the things I’ve become acutely aware of since coming into my role with Help Age was very much so how much there is a lack of disaggregated data
when you collect information on the wellbeing and situation of people across a country. So many organisations would stop at 50 or 60, and yet the dynamic of what happens 50 to 60, 60 to 70, 70 to 80, is a, you know, is not a homogeneous
like cross section of situation for these age groups and to collectively put them en masse is like comparing UNICEF that a baby is the same as a child is just about to turn 18. The situation and the needs of each of those groupings
very, very diverse. And so the data is just, and wasn’t just there. So a lot of it is pushing into how do we actually get organizations, get, no matter whether it’s public sector, whether it’s governments, or whether it’s even civil society, to begin to gather the data and begin to gather the evidence together.
that actually would give a snapshot of the situation and the circumstances of older people. Next one, please.
So Help Age itself went on quite a big journey. And I think there was a real situation where the driving agenda of what was the, what was we now know as the, as a season of positive opportunity where
international aid and development, whereas it could have been perceived and still is perceived as potentially colonial and soft power in its agenda. Nonetheless, the flows of funding were very significant in the 90s and early noughties and the way that they were distributed actually had
a significant shift on the opportunity and the situation of many people in poverty. And I think what was beginning to evolve in that stage was like, we can really begin to deliver services and more robust kind of like opportunities of research and how we
look at kind of like and work alongside different government agendas or ministries in different countries. And as a result, really by default rather than by intentional design, different help age country offices began to be developed
And they were taking the lead as the sub, you know, from Help Age International was a Help Age International national office in a country like Kenya, in a country like Colombia, in a country, other countries scattered all across the world. And then there began to be a tension as to, well, where is the civil society mobilisation
and the real true voice of the national level agenda on this. Is it in Help Age International with the relationships that they hold with the bilateral donors that fund them and the way that they lean into then saying, well, we need to deliver this aid in this way and this aid has this criteria with this response?
responsibilities and this levels of risk, therefore you need to fulfil compliance to XYZ standards. And it became very much so A subcontractual situation where a lot of these national organisations were just being contracted in and there wasn’t a sense of that.
equality we spoke about earlier, that equity, that sense of collaborative networks. And HelpAge International, partly motivated by the external environment of the changing practises with the humanitarian sector, where there was a big call and a big voice to say,
Why have we got these big international organisations coming in and delivering emergency response in our countries? We actually need to be able to deliver our own emergency response and we need to be having direct access to this funding instead of so much of the layers of people taking off middle management.
like overheads and administrative costs when in actual fact it doesn’t reach to those who are in need. And so there was a big long conversation and a decision to close the country offices, to transfer them into national ownership and make sure that they became independent local organizations.
And this is what has been happening over the last three to five years, mainly the last three years, slightly curtailed, obviously, by funding situations, dynamics, major international crises such as Ukraine and COVID. But this has been a real trajectory for the organization.
Next, likely.
And so the narrative that Help Age International is now saying is that we want to go back to our roots. We want to go back to our roots of being a network where we can empower national actors, positioning Help Age International as a convener, as an influencer, and as a connector.
So in other words, we are brokering those relationships between that national and civil society capacity, those regional level coordination entities, those institutions, whether they be, you know, regional banks, right the way through to other UN agencies, right the way through to self-convened movements on the rights and well-being of older people.
Help Age International wants to shift its position into this into this particular role. Next slide, please, Clare.
So where we’re at today is that we are that network and this is where I’ve been brought into. And this is what the new role is. There’s been a restructure and the team that I’m managing is a brand new team bringing together different components of the organisation. And that’s why my title is called Head of Network Development.
And what was happening was that we were having relationships with certain network members and partners, who we called, and they were having that transactional relationship with us where funding was transferred and there was a very heavy relationship. But in actual fact, there were well over
at least another 3/4 of that membership who are not really engaged with on a regular basis, not really brought forward for the power of their collective voice, not really analysed for what it is they can bring together, even as peer to peers together. You might have an organisation in
in Ukraine that actually has so much to offer to some of the situation of the rights of older people in Iran from a journey that they’ve actually been on. And so there is a real wealth of knowledge out there, but very little opportunity to bring that together for collective movement, for collective learning.
for collective evidencing and to really push into some of these critical common issues. And we dissected those common issues down to social protection, humanitarian action, climate and aging, and the rights and inclusion.
of older people in different frameworks. Next slide, please.
So when it comes to understanding ageing as a political issue, there’s some real critical things that we can we can we can immediately say. The first thing is quite the access to resources for older people and understanding how we can really make sure that there is no discrimination, there’s no accidental
exclusion of the needs of older people because they haven’t been taken into account. For example, we may all know and understand that the impact of heat waves on older people population, but in actual fact, if you’re putting up your hydration stations,
in places that the elderly will not be able to get to, how on earth are we actually going to make sure that those who are the most vulnerable, which it is the elderly and the youngest, are most prone to dehydration in times of heat waves? How do we make sure that the resources are appropriately situated for them?
We’ve just completed a huge piece of research on social protection and pensions. And again, I was slightly flabbergasted. In my mind, it wasn’t possible for low to middle income countries to actually be able to develop pension systems. But some of our recent research has shown that there are some great role model countries out there
who are really quite low GDP kind of like output are able to sustain a reasonable baseline of pensions for the entire population. And in actual fact, it hasn’t proved to be a significant burden on
on a nation’s well-being or a nation’s economic development, in fact, it’s been the opposite. It’s meant that there has been disposable income that can be used more wisely by different older people for themselves. And it’s really important to understand that
We need to break these perceptions. We need to break these perceptions at all levels. It’s not just with our own understanding, but it’s with those who are decision makers, policy makers. So relationships with academic institutions, relationships with private sector who are working on issues for older people, such as
you know, pharmaceutical organisations are working on drugs that might actually be viable for older people if they slightly change the agenda a little bit. All of these entities are really important to take into consideration when we’re looking at the rights and well-being of older people.
Inclusion of adults and emergencies, I’ve touched on that. Oh, if you want to, sorry, just go back one. Thanks, Clare.
Yeah. Oh.
And ensuring the representing representation of voice for older people and senior populations. Yeah, you’re right. OK, I covered that, Clare. Thanks. Move on.
So what is next? What is next for ageing and the future of global governance? Well, we are delighted that there is the drafting now that there was an agreement in the UN of a new convention, a convention on the rights of older people, which is being drafted under the mandate of the Human Rights Council.
And it’s going to really involve on looking at those gaps in humanitarian rights law concerning older persons. And it’s really important now we begin to bring up that evidence base to really show how, you know, pensions can actually should be part of a, I just use that as an example, but also
considering how you take into account older people in climate resilience assessments and vulnerability and capacity assessments and their rights and their wellbeing within that, and how you involve the civil society movements and older people as well going forward. Thanks, Clare.
So I’m going to change tack a little bit now and I’m going to talk to you a little bit about conventions. And one of the reasons I’ve been brought in for my job is because I have a past history in working on two other big conventions from the civil society perspective. And it’s been a real
journey and a real, I’ve spent the last 20 years working on the Hiogo Framework for Action, which was then replaced by the Sendai Framework. For those of you who may not know, the Hiogo Framework for Action was 2005 to 2015, a 10-year plan.
which actually committed all governments under a UN framework to actually be the duty bearers for reducing the exposure to disaster risk within their populations. And so to be able to provide capacity, to provide protection, and to provide
a real sense of emergency response for different organisations. The high ego framework was replaced by the Sendai framework, but let’s touch on those a little bit more. Clare, the next slide, please.
The next slide. Thank you.
So…
How do you develop a framework? So in 2004 and 2005, there was a sense of momentum around wanting to align disaster risk reduction with emerging risks. And there was various thematic consultations and regional consultations
where there was a recognition that this, how you wanted to address client disasters and make sure you were addressing root causes needed to be inextricably linked into development practises and approaches, but also needed to be governed a little bit in a global way.
and actually in a way that was accessible and understandable by lots of populations. So that resulted in five actionable priorities, which I worked on over a 10 year time frame within my INGO and civil society role.
But it laid the groundworks for resilience and resilience-based planning and the Sendai framework. Next slide, please, Clare.
So I thought it was actually also important to talk about how you do monitoring of these tools, because it’s all very well having these global level frameworks. But what we needed to do was actually demonstrate that those countries who self-reported against their own progress on their own of these global frameworks, how was it that they actually were measuring
what their performances were against these five actions. What is it that could be done to be able to use data skills, statistical kind of like tools, different kind of like, I’m no data analyst or specialist, by the way, but it, you know, it was really important to actually see
how we could actually develop measurable framework with indicators leading to an accountability that actually meant that those who were actually being affected by disasters were actually represented in the framework of how the implementation of a hieroga framework for action.
Next slide, please, Clare.
And then at the end of the HIGO framework, a lot of the lessons learned actually then were moved into what we call the third UN World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction. And I was fortunate enough to be actually at the Sammi and the Sendai framework. And my goodness, that was a real life experience for me.
understanding how international relations do and do not work at a time of crisis. The Sendai framework was actually the same year that you had major conventions, including the Paris Agreement. And it was setting the scene in many ways. We tried to get in
looking at the root causes of disaster risk to be conflict based and climate based. But at the time, the voice of climate change was not going to be accepted by all nations, especially oil producing nations. Those who did not want the voice of civil society to really be at the front and holding people to account.
meant that they didn’t like the idea of conflict being, you know, reviewed as part of the Sendai framework. And, you know, then how do you grapple with indicators that and targets are acceptable, accessible, and the build up to it in terms of the two years of what they call preparatory committees, the agendas that needed to be shaped, those sub
The politics that happens in those sub-workings and those sub-groupings was really fascinating stuff. Next slide, please.
I’ll skip this. I’m just going to be aware to the next slide, please.
The next slide, please, Clare. Thanks.
Next slide. Great. Thank you. So what are the strengths and weaknesses of a multi-stakeholder process? You know, you do get broad political commitment and, oh sorry, the one before. Thank you, Clare. You do get broad political commitment and it
It is quite interesting to see how, sorry, wait till you’ve landed on the right one. Thank you.
So the next one, thanks. So there is inclusion of people or there is exclusion of people. So we found that actually going to the preparations for the Sendai framework, there were organisations who were excluded because they did not have enough
They didn’t have access to the visas to be able to get into Geneva or access to the flights to be able to get there. It was really important that other campaigning organisations identified where the voices were and were able to come in and broker their voice there. You didn’t automatically get a right at the table.
So you, while you have an understanding of what the pros and cons were of how we built up the Hayogo framework for action, there were still some critical issues that were still difficult in the build up to the Sendai framework that hadn’t really been learned and the lessons hadn’t been fully learned.
Next slide, please.
Yeah, the next slide again.
Are you? It’s going a bit fast for you, Clare. Just the one before.
On before, thanks.
Just the one with the wording on, thanks, the more wording. I should have removed these joiners for you, Clare. Apologies.
Are you able to go back to the previous slide?
Great, thank you. So we had self-assessments, but they had very limited comparability. And the data gathering of small to medium organizers, small to medium nations in terms of LMICs,
was pretty poor. And one of the issues that we had to grapple with was actually also shining a light on the different variabilities the government liked to present itself. But again, civil society didn’t always have the voice. You’re always invited in.
as an observer, you are not invited in as a front end kind of like, I mean, as a genuine voice. You get to have an opportunity to influence things by attending side events and you do a lot of networking in the lobbying. And in actual fact, if you bring
certain people from certain countries, then you’re able to equip, collect the individuals and say, right, you go back to your minister because they’re your minister and say, you know, we are very disappointed with this behaviour of the collective mass or we are very disappointed that this is the wording that is coming out in the framing of the processes going forward.
Next slide, Clare.
OK, I’ll take it slowly. Next slide, so that it doesn’t jump too much. Thank you.
I’m just aware of time and I want to give people an opportunity to have some Q&A.
And the next slide.
I think we can skip this one as well.
So one of the key issues that we needed to grapple with was around baselines. How do you know that there’s actually been a shift in agenda? And how do you actually gather a global level baseline that really actually generates the change and the level of change that you want to work with?
How do you align that local level reporting with that national level reporting? And how do you also demonstrate that there is some of the aspects around linking back to the sustainable development goals and the finances that are required and budgets that are required and actually link them back
to demonstrating that the investments that you’ve made in the development, aid and development opportunities to implement the Hayoga and Sendai frameworks. How do you know that they’ve actually achieved the critical shift and transformation that you want? Next slide.
So if you’ve noticed, I’ve been talking a little bit about WE and some of the things that I was doing with, you can stay on this slide, thanks Clare, was with Global Network for Disaster Reduction. And I was Chair of Trustees for Global Network for Disaster Reduction, hence my attendance on, I was first of all implementing a big
DFID funded programme for the Hyogo framework, but that actually led me into being the Chair of Trustees for Global Network for Disaster Reduction, which led into my attendance to be able to shape the future of the next following framework, which is the Sendai framework, which we’re currently in at the moment. But Global Network for Disaster Reduction is what we’re trying to learn from for Help Age International.
to be able to shape, well, what is it we need to learn for the global convention going forward? What is it we can take away from the lessons that we’ve learned from other civil society movements, how we can actually take that forward? And so we might only have 200 plus Kite network members. The origins and the mandate
of kind of like the Global Network for Disaster Reduction was based on literally an e-mail list of civil society organisations who wrote to the UN at the time and said, well, you know, we’re interested in participating in these things. And the UNDRR, as it’s known,
which is the agency that focuses on disaster risk reduction. They said, well, you know, they convened a lead group of organisations and said, can you come together? And so the origins of the mandate of the Global Network for Disaster Reduction was born against the Hiogo Framework for Action.
Next, next slide.
And the idea was that we were going to take that community evidence into policy. We were going to counter those reporting gaps. We were going to make sure that there was that inclusive representation. And we were going to make sure that we were driving accountability so that those senior level decision makers did not make decisions that were based on
Flawed data biassed perspectives, or…

Jack.Flaherty   42:00
Sorry, I’m just taking it over, so give me one moment. I’ll put it to the right side.

Oenone Chadburn   42:00
Ah.
Yeah, no worries.
Right, so next, thanks, Jack.

Jack.Flaherty   42:22
There we go.

Oenone Chadburn   42:27
And one of the biggest things that we did was actually take a look at these perceptions of how people saw it. So the governments were presenting like, we’re doing all this and we’re doing all that and isn’t this great? And over the course of about four or five years,

Jack.Flaherty   42:34
Yeah.

Oenone Chadburn   42:47
we took a really big gamble on saying, well, actually, we have to, what is the view from the frontline? What are the lived experiences of what people are saying? And so we developed something called an initiative called Views on the Frontline. And it was a huge undertaking of where
Different civil society organisations were brought together globally. There was a lead agency in over 50 countries for one of the perception surveys. They would then use kind of like the same collective set of questions and they would go out and do a set of data analysis.
They would put that onto a global platform, a digital platform, and literally created probably one of the largest data sets on how risk was perceived and disaster risk was actually being received at the front line in the way that people’s lived experiences were.
rather than the perceptions of the government. And this formed the basis for better monitoring. This formed the basis for perceptions on how you could shift the agenda on advocacy issues. And it helped shape kind of like the Sendai indicators in the way that we wanted to do the Sendai indicators as well. Next one, Jack.
And ultimately, this did actually shape and frame a localization agenda and real leaning into risk informed development, locally led DRR for making sure that there was equity and impact, that, you know, it wasn’t just kind of like the big manufacturers that were actually getting protection from the floods.
that actually those who were in the slums and in those marginalised lands were also protected from floods. Making decisions that were not about kind of like profiteering from making choices and planning, but actually making sure that they were wise for the way that we had climate change on the horizon.
And actually, you know, we realise the power and the voice of local leadership and making sure that actually those local voices continue to push into that agenda. Next one, Jack.
So just these are just a few a few kind of like case studies. We did community based disaster risk management impact study and we looked at 264 community projects and developed and identified 11 success factors. So important to get those common success factors because that
gives such weight to decision making on how real big funding decisions are made either by regional banks or how other major donors will be influenced. And again, it’s strengthened policy uptake and sustainability. Next one, Jack.
This was a little bit more about our frontline programme, but focusing this one on just 14 countries. And it showed how much that Cameroon actually was able to lobby the government to promote resilient rd building practices. And it just showed to us that the power and the strength of the local leadership
using local risk data to shift that agenda. Next one, Jack.
And just looking at the power of actually strengthening that national civil society capacity, so that in actual fact they had a chance to use their evidence-based approaches to actually shape what would then be how the outcomes of that research and evidence into actual policy, policy design.
and being able to shift and shape that agenda, saying, well, this is what we’re learning in our countries. This is therefore how we’re going to collaborate and work alongside government and government ministries in designing what could be critical shifts. Next one, Jack. We’re almost there. So I just wanted to say,
This is where we’re at right now. And this is for the Help Age International. We are landing right at the end of the, right at the beginning of the opportunity to be able to shape that convention. What are the choices that we’re going to make in terms of mobilising that civil society base
that we can take the lived examples of how the High Ego framework for action and the Sendai framework have been managed and how we as a civil society, similar to Global Network for Disaster Reduction, can begin to gather data, can begin to set those evident frameworks. But it takes time, it takes commitment, and it takes a real sense of
mobilising and bringing together networks is a real time agenda. And I think it’s just to end, I think it’s the same as that age-old adage. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go further, you’ve got to go together.
Thank you, Jack.

Jack.Flaherty   47:55
Perfect. Well, thank you so much. It was such an interesting conversation and something I did not really think about, you know, much, you know, the, you know, especially and I think as somebody who studied development studies back in the day, there was almost no focus on older people. So this was really
Quite engaging and quite good. Sorry about the small technical bombs with the PowerPoint. But we have a few questions in the chat. So if you do want to talk in person, raise your hand, but then we’ll start. We only have about 10 minutes left. So Clare asked, are there any stock differences in policies per country that

Oenone Chadburn   48:19
No, no, no.
Yeah.

Jack.Flaherty   48:37
help aid servers. I’m interested in how a specific culture treats the older generation, how this influence policies.

Oenone Chadburn   48:44
Mm.
That, you know what, that is a really great question, Clare. I think that I would say it is specific cultures do shift the agenda and they do have an impact.
Do we have enough knowledge and insight on that? I would say that as an organisation, we probably need to work more a little bit with anthropologists and find other key social scientists to help us analyse the indigenous practises and the way that they can shape and shift policy.
And in terms of analysing where the strengths are in a country, in a country’s culture, how do you mobilise them and actually build on that? How do you reinforce that? So often, some of the ways that we want to approach this, so let’s just take medicine as a common example. There is going to be some
natural alternative medicines that will be part of the heritage of a nation. And yet big pharma companies might come on in and might bulldoze what is actually appropriate ways of, you know, there are ways that the community would have done things with traditional medicines that actually
have, you know, evidence of really quite good effectiveness, but instead the government actually puts money into securing, you know, a lot more, you know, scientifically proven medicines coming in. How do you can you hold those two intention where, you know, big pharma companies don’t undermine
you know, national level approaches to health and aging.

Jack.Flaherty   50:33
And kind of on that, Clare also mentions, you know, we had the talk earlier with Ferguson, and you know, talked about localization and how much charities are moving to more of a localized.

Oenone Chadburn   50:34
I.

Jack.Flaherty   50:52
programme and policies and such. So it’s kind of, it has to be done, you know, with the cultures and such. So let’s see.
Um…
So another question is, how do international organisations achieve localization with the lower amount of resources and wider sectoral challenges?

Oenone Chadburn   51:17
And.
Be honest, and I’m probably a bit of an outlier on this, I…
I think the lower amount of resources is distorted as an issue. So it is a fact, there is significant reduced amount of resources, right? But I think there is a lot more efficiencies
than people are given to understand and know about the power and the mobilisation of national level capacity. I mean, there is a constant conversation on the evidence gap on this.
I think it has been proved in some ways, but I think there are organisations who don’t really willingly want to see this, because actually if you take it to its nth degree, this is an existential threat for some INGOs as to what their existence is and what is the future of international NGOs.
who have been traditionally going in with boots on the ground in the way that they’ve supported communities and actually do, how do they reinvent and recreate themselves to do what we call this, I call it the softer side of work, but it’s equally as text,
taxing in terms of bringing people together, peer-to-peer learning, that convener, that influencer, how do you bring thought leadership and how do you mobilise thought leadership together? So it’s actually a real learned agenda from those organisations who are at the front line. But that’s such a shift in what you are and who you are.
I think that’s why a lot of people push back. So sometimes this whole conversation about a lower amount of resources comes to the fore. It’s a lower amount of resources if you’re a, probably you’ve got some quite high overheads and you’re quite a scale game, you’d be surprised at how
much civil society mobilisation can actually work on a different scale of funding.

Jack.Flaherty   53:38
And she also, Clare asks, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has been around for some time as well embedded within the humanitarian and development sectors. Do you think it will be difficult to embed this new convention or does the experience of success of others offer support, information and understanding?

Oenone Chadburn   53:57
Well, I like to think, I think the quick answer is it’s going to be hard. And the reason why I think it’s going to be hard is because I think an international rules-based order is chronically under threat at the moment. And the existence of human rights that we, that the world signs up to
is chronically under threat. So it’s bad timing in some respects to set up a brand new convention. That said, I think it’s going to be good that we can learn so much from other conventions and agendas and, you know, not necessarily replay the mistakes
that those other conventions and agendas have done. And for example, I mean, it took us years in Hyogo to get that front end of that baseline data that was able then to expose and get that critical mass of information. And that was a civil society movement. You know, I would like to think that Help Age could be at the front end of mobilising that
same collection of organisations to gather that baseline data right at the beginning. And that we can use that as a checkpoint, that’s a comparable data set that actually gives us a real sense of understanding of what the common issues are and are able to communicate the issues in a way that’s clear and understandable.
I think sometimes we tend to blind people with science and I think part of the, I think communication is a big part of the way that you actually get changes in behaviours and attitudes.

Jack.Flaherty   55:39
Perfect. I think we have a final for one more question. So this is the question that we’ve been asking all of our speakers this week. And it’s about, you know, what the rise of disinformation and misleading information. Where do you get your news from or your kind of
understanding of what’s happening, you know, or is it books, is it podcasts? So we’re kind of looking for what is your informational flow nowadays.

Oenone Chadburn   55:57
Mm.
It is all of the above and the sad thing is it’s about triangulation. So, you know, I am, I certainly don’t go on for the scrolling agendas. I do obviously base my, I do, I do base my news on traditional
news providers, but I go in with the perspective that this is their political bias or this is their political foundation. I wouldn’t say bias, but this is their political foundation. I need to read the news from that perspective. Podcasts, a little bit about trust, about commentators that I value.
And then.

Jack.Flaherty   56:49
Any specific ones that you…

Oenone Chadburn   56:51
I’ve, I do, in terms of being, I’ve been tracking Amar Rajan’s kind of like radical podcasts. I like to listen to the rest of politics from time to time, but I have to say I have a love-hate relationship with Rory Stewart. He winds me up sometimes.

Jack.Flaherty   57:11
SPS.
He.

Oenone Chadburn   57:13
I have a little bit more time for Alistair Campbell. I’ve been tracking a little bit, again, in terms of alternatives, agendas, and actually thinking differently. You know, Stephen Bartlett’s diary of a CEO and trying to see a little bit more about how, you know, the private sector views things. I think part of our
you know, we can live in our glorious ivy tower of kind of like, you know, voluntary sector or civil society, public sector and like governments and private sector. And I think we have to cross fertilise that and really understand what what are what are the driving agendas.

Jack.Flaherty   57:49
IT.
Perfect. That’s a great wrap up. Well, thank you so much for coming to us to speak to us. We really appreciate it for taking the time and such. And yeah, thank you from the society. And yeah, we hope you in the future you can join us again.

Oenone Chadburn   58:09
Yeah, yeah, and apologies for kind of like the length of the slides. Like I say, I had a formatting issue and I would have stripped it all back a lot more, but yeah, what to do.

Jack.Flaherty   58:15
Yeah.

Oenone Chadburn   58:23
Thanks. Take care.