5 years ago the World Humanitarian Summit happened. Here’s a report on progress made. It’s not a report card you’d want your child to bring home. The subtitle opening line says it all:

Five years after the World Humanitarian Summit, humanitarians have failed to deliver on the most basic of humanitarian endeavours: to put people ‘at the centre’ of what they do.

Report

It is sad to read, but unsurprising. Putting people at the centre of what we do is hard because it means we need to displace ourselves. This is true of our projects and true of our digital transformation efforts. Most digital transformation efforts are focused on the organisation itself. There are no conversations with the communities themselves asking how we need to transform to help them better. In fact, there are almost no conversations even about how we can use digital tools and approaches to change our interactions with communities to achieve greater impact. No, most of the discussing are navel gazing.

Perhaps it’s time to change. Or communicate that the ‘people at the centre’ are ourselves.

The choice is up to us.

Photo by Kind and Curious