Education for aid officials
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) always reminds all of help for victims. But with more than 12,000 people working across 80 countries for a common cause, the ICRC shares many of the same challenges in management and talent development t
Running any large-scale organisation requires skill and to better refine their leadership efforts, the ICRC has partnered with IMD business school’s Corporate Learning Network (CLN).
“From management to budget, our organisation has many similarities with business,” said Claude Voillat, ICRC economic adviser. “Although we don’t have shareholders, we have donors and we must be accountable to them.”
In order to ensure the organisation is run efficiently, Voillat believes the ICRC partnership with IMD will make it possible to equip key decision-makers with the latest management practices. Further, ICRC leaders will have the opportunity to work with IMD faculty to solve specific challenges, whether they be in implementing a strategy, innovation or human resources.
“In today’s world we see more and more involvement of business actors in the humanitarian world and, with this trend, we think it is important we understand their positions and interact better with them,” Voillat said. “We have a lot of opportunities to meet peers in humanity, NGOs and government, but the CLN is a good bridge to interact with a new crowd of economic actors as most members are corporate, coming from the private sector.”
ICRC’s unconventional move to partner with IMD follows in the footsteps of another pioneer in merging sectors, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). In 2007, WWF became the first NGO to provide talent development at IMD.
“Among peers, it’s clear that there is a belief that organisations like ours should connect more with business. This is a trend that will continue,” Voillat said.
