Interview with Fernando Almansa (NOHA CEO)

Your position as CEO in charge of the NOHA network is new. Could you remind us why it was created and what exactly your role is?

This position was approved by the NOHA Board in 2009 to reinforce the management and governance of the NOHA association, but it came into place only a year ago. As the CEO, I have a relatively small secretariat at my disposal and as such, while I am at a direction level, I also have to follow some things at detail level.

Above all, my role is to ensure the board of directors is fully equipped to make the right decisions: I suggest ideas for the future of NOHA, I ensure that we do not have only dreams but also turn vision into reality and translate concepts into practice. This means for example ensuring we have policies in place and clear budgets.

In the first year, we developed a full governance management framework with the NOHA body, the Board, the secretariat and the CEO. We have created foundations for the existing in order to ground it. For example, we put in place a finance policy and an enlargement policy; we made clear plans for what we want to achieve, including deadlines and budgets. We started clarifying the role of the Master within the NOHA association. Indeed, until now, NOHA has been 99% activity related and centered around the Master but it is now clear that NOHA is expanding beyond this.

You might think that having a CEO implies less work for Master Directors. In fact, it is quite the opposite. We hope that more projects will go forward and this means more work for the Directors.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to this position ?

I am a civil Engineer, with a PhD on the design of rural hospitals in West Africa but I also have studied business and political sciences. I have worked with NGOs since 1984, first with the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, assigned to a project in Ghana, then in connection with development and humanitarian action. Prior to taking this position, I have been for more than7 years the Humanitarian Director of Oxfam International, after having worked with Intermon Oxfam. I initially got in touch with NOHA 12 years ago when I started teaching ethics in Deusto at NOHA’s Master, because I firmly believe that management, ethical skills and commitment are essential to humanitarian work. I actually continue to lecture and this is why my position as CEO is only a 75% job.

Working as CEO of NOHA is obviously different from Oxfam and due to the nature of the network, things move more slowly than with NGOs. Nevertheless, it is an interesting and meaningful role and in the end, serving the same mission : If students of humanitarian action, who are the managers of tomorrow get better education and training, we will see a positive impact on humanitarian work in the field.

You have now been in this position for a year. What do you see as NOHA’s greatest challenge and its greatest potential ?

Right now, the challenge is about organizational development and our objective is to make NOHA better and bigger. To get there, we need to ensure we have solid foundations. It is important we get the balance between ambitions and capacities right and are aware of what can be done with our resources. It is important to have dreams, but only in so far as you are able to realize at least some of them.

Beyond that, we also need to adapt what we offer to new realities and the prevalent demands of the sector, seeing that academic regulations, which are more complex here than for american universities, do not restrain us from doing this.

One of our challenges is the ambition we have to be more present in Asia and Africa and address the diversity of our faculty staff which is still very largely European. If we want to continue to be relevant in the future, we will for example have to be closer to Africa, India and China. For all of this, we also want to have more interaction between the Board of Directorys and the alumnis.

What’s your vision for NOHA: what do you want the network to look like in 5 years ?

Our vision is to realize our strategic plan: a network of universities more adapted to reality, flexible, involved in frontline innovation, open and accessible for people from countries who will be the key actors and not just recipients of Humanitarian Assistance. We want to be more connected with other stakeholders such as INGOs, research centers, other universities and the United Nations; a network starting to look more outside and less inside. In summary a Network that is more needs based. The argument for that is simple: it will allow us to be better in Humanitarian Assistance and help deliver better in the field. The world is moving quickly and we need to adapt to remain relevant and shake the way we currently operate, integrating new concepts in the curriculum.

There are over 2'000 graduates of the programme out there and only a few keeping a link with academia. Do you have a message for them ?

Of course, when you complete your NOHA master, and go to the field, you’re unlikely to keep in touch with the program even though this is a pity because it also means we are losing on an opportunity to better use field and experience based knowledge to bridge the gap between practice and Academia. Alumnis have a high level of education, which combined with their experience allows them to understand the concepts and systems of Humanitarian Action. We would really love to have more NOHA graduates amongst our lecturers to help connect practice and Academia by transferring responsibility of certain modules to graduates. Whether they are young doesn’t really matter. In the end, it is about bringing a different perspective, and real experience. For instance we encouraged NOHA graduates to participate at the 2nd World Conference on Humanitarian Studies in Boston, and it was a successful experience. We want more of this.