Should aid workers fly less? Yes, but it’s a bit more complicated
Over at From Poverty to Power my dear colleague Thea Hilhorst shared some reflections on why aid workers should fly less and how the industry needs to address air travel in its efforts to lead climate and social change work by example. I generally agree with her sentiment to fly less, have tougher discussions within aid organizations about (air) travel and be the change they want to see from other actors. But as basically everything else in #globaldev, things are a bit more complicated... Getting a sense of the scope of the problem How much of an issue is aid worker air travel? Most of us will probably agree that time-sensitive humanitarian work will always require air travel. There is probably also some ‘essential’ travel to get safely into countries and to avoid long road trips. And then there are trade-offs, for example whether stressed staff should be allowed to fly from their duty station to a relaxing R&R break or how often they should be allowed to fly ‘home’ to their fa