When you feel frustrated because you’ve just been “going around in circles” trying to solve a problem, the first thing to do is step back and clearly understand the circles you’ve been going in. The cycles indicate that the ways in which you’ve been trying to solve a chronic, complex problem aren’t working. Whether you have been “going in circles”, “spinning your wheels”, or “running nowhere on a treadmill”, what works is to see how these cycles operate in the first place. To create the circles you want, begin by carefully describing the circles you are in.
The power of this approach was brought home again by our recent work with a group of researchers and policy advocates from the Arava Institute of Environmental Studies (AIES). AIES is a pioneering research and educational institute based in Israel that promotes environmental sustainability, cross-border cooperation, and peace-building among Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, and international students. The groups we worked with comprised Israelis and Palestinians who are committed to supporting the recovery of Gaza by providing green solutions to the more than one million refugees currently living in the strip’s temporary shelters.
Through a Palestinian Israeli initiative called Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza (JHG), the Palestinian partner, Damour for Community Development, and AIES have established “Green Shelters” to house thousands of displaced Gazans and provide them with the means to build sustainable communities with off-grid decentralized technologies. These sustainable solutions provide highly flexible, off-grid sources of water production, energy generation, and waste management. Such solutions are not only vital to helping Gazans in the process of rebuilding their lives, but also in supporting the lives of environmental refugees in politically unstable regions around the world.
The group noticed a frustrating cycle where its contributions in Gaza fluctuated between providing financial and humanitarian aid. When the Israeli government allowed humanitarian aid into Gaza, AIES and many other organizations stepped in to provide it. When the government shut down this aid, financial aid was funneled into the area instead. However, neither of these types of aid led to delivering long-term solutions like the equipment, materials, and training which are the bases for sustainable community life in the shelters. According to Dr. David Lehrer, the director of AIES’s Center for Applied Environmental Diplomacy (CAED) that oversees this project, the group’s previous attempts to generate sufficient direct aid for green solutions in Gaza always devolved into providing financial or humanitarian aid instead.
By visualizing the problem through the lens of the Shifting the Burden systems archetype, the group was able to draw the unproductive feedback loops they were in. Providing financial and humanitarian aid were quick fixes that only temporarily improved Gazans’ quality of life. Furthermore, alternating between these two types of aid perpetuated both. At the same time, the effort to secure both types of aid diverted important resources away from achieving the initiative’s fundamental mission: enabling displaced Gazans to become self-reliant and meet their immediate needs for water, energy, and waste management through off-grid sustainable solutions. The group further came to appreciate how its mental models perpetuated the problem. Its assumptions included, “providing some kind of aid is always better than providing none at all”, and “off-grid sustainable technologies cannot be delivered unless the Israeli government changes its policies.”
Now, instead of resorting to providing financial and humanitarian aid as quick fixes, they are looking with fresh eyes into the best ways they can support the implementation of off-grid sustainable solutions in Gaza. By recognizing that the goal is not to enter technology across the border, but to ensure that the “Green Shelters” are self-managed and as self-sufficient as possible, Damour and the AIES are looking into supplying off-grid technologies through purchases on the local market in Gaza as well as investing in Do It Yourself (DIY) training and knowledge transfer. By building local capacity to solve problems on their own, JHG and the Green Shelter model offer dignity, agency, community, and self-sufficiency on which to build a more sustainable and peaceful future for the people of Gaza.
In closing, we offer you this blessing:
May you help people see
The circles they are in
So they can create
The circles they want