Talk:International Relief and Development Inc.

I have added a Conflict of Interest tag as I am concerned that another editor is affiliated with the subject on the basis of their changes and user name. Their edits expunge nearly all of the references I have added from impartial sources and replace them with many sources that are published by the organization itself. I hope to develop an article that complies with WP:COI, WP:NPOV Bangabandhu (talk) 22:49, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Edits resulting in fundamental inaccurate and incomplete, misleading profile

I am the Vice President for Communications for IRD and obviously an interested party concerning the profile of this organization. I have attempted to update the profile several times, solely with accurate information. Those additions have been repeatedly deleted.

The profile does not reflect the current status of IRD, including the salient fact that the suspension of IRD and the allegations of cost accounting improprieties have been established by independent auditors to have been largely baseless. This is reflected in the undeniable fact that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered on August 3, 2015 that the suspension of IRD be vacated from its inception and that USAID communicate that all assertions that the suspension was appropriate and lawful were false (statement available on their website at usaid.gov).

The relevant court documents are a matter of public record and have been reported through independent media outlets, including the Washington Post and Devex (a development trade website/journal).

Detailed information on changes to the organizational structure and leadership have also been repeatedly deleted.

The users of Wikipedia are poorly served by reflexive and ill-informed editing of our repeated attempts to provide accurate information to the Wikipedia community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.111.196.26 (talk) 16:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

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Unsourced text

I'm removing the following text from the article as it lacks even rudimentary sourcing. I'd welcome its inclusion once that's provided.

Democracy, governance, and community development

Successful development programs require collaboration among citizens, government, and civil society organizations. By mobilizing Iraqis into community action groups as part of the Community Action Program III (CAPIII), IRD encourages people to identify, prioritize, and address their development needs. Through training programs, IRD helps government officials be more transparent, effective, and responsive. "

Health

Good health strengthens communities. IRD programs help communities meet basic health needs, rebuild infrastructure, train providers, educate citizens, and raise awareness of health issues. In Zimbabwe, USAID supported IRD to install rainwater harvesting systems and other stable and safe water sources for homes and schools.

Infrastructure

New roads and refurbished bridges and schools stand as physical symbols of progress. They also mean new jobs, renewed purpose, and steady incomes. IRD’s Rapid Impact Emergency Program, funded by the UN Development Program in Southern Sudan, enlists local residents to build or improve health clinics, schools, and water and sanitation facilities while creating economic opportunities and improved access to local services.

Relief and humanitarian assistance

IRD provides emergency relief while planning for and addressing long-term humanitarian problems. For example, in 2009, war forced 2 million Pakistanis to flee their homes. Then in 2010, devastating floods struck some of the camps for these internally displaced persons, making an at-risk population even more vulnerable. With funding from USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), IRD responded to the emergency needs of displaced families while promoting collaboration and peace building among various tribes.

Sustainable food and agriculture systems

IRD uses agricultural advancements and technologies to tackle short-term nutritional needs and long-term food production issues. In Cambodia, IRD supported the creation of a comprehensive chain of improvements to food quality and availability. From better crop production, to expanded output at local mills, to the sale of wheat-flour noodles fortified with vitamins and minerals to vulnerable families, the US Department of Agriculture-funded Better Foods for Better Lives program is strengthening low-income communities."

Adding Blumont Info

Hi all. I would like to update this page to reflect more up-to-date information on Blumont/International Relief and Development, but have some concerns as far as adding these updates. International Relief and Development became Blumont in 2016, but one user (Bangabandhu) has consistently changed edits reflecting updated information regarding Blumont while citing sources from nearly 10 years ago regarding information like annual budgets. I'd like to add qualifiers to this information, while also adding current numbers from outside (non-company) sources. I also propose changing the title of this article from International Relief and Development to Blumont, or to "Blumont (formerly International Relief and Development)" to avoid misleading/outdated information. Any thoughts? User78953 (talk) 16:03, 1 June 2018 (UTC)User78953

@User78953: I have also tried to update this page to have a broader view of IRD and Blumont and Bangabandhu has relentlessly reverted the edits. The article is currently solely focused on the sensational articles published in 2014/2015 about exec salaries and some people seem intent on keeping it that way. NVM that all investigations into the company and staff found no irregularities, and NVM that IRD was founded in 1998 and had an excellent performance record until the USAID debacle, and NVM anything Blumont. -knoxinbox

Country info

The following irrelevant info was added, while I haven't been through all the references, not a single one I've checked makes any mention of Blumont. For an organization known for its fraudulent activities and misrepresentations, this is even more unacceptable than in other entries. Blumont's website is not a reliable source. The text is saved here.

Countries & Programs

Afghanistan

Blumont implements programs in Afghanistan with funds from USAID, focusing on victims’ assistance, infrastructure, and agriculture.

Through a partnership with USAID and the Afghan government, IRD’s Afghanistan Vouchers for Increased Productive Agriculture (AVIPA) project distributed seed and fertilizer vouchers to farmers and trains them in modern agriculture methods. IRD had sought to take credit for a bumper harvest of locally grown wheat and a reliable source of food for rural families.

Colombia

Blumont has implemented the Closing Emergency Assistance Gaps to Aid Displaced Populations in Colombia since 2009. It is funded by the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM).

Iraq

Blumont is providing humanitarian aid and providing essential services to internally displaced persons and refugees in Iraq through programs funded by UNHCR, USAID/OFDA, and PRM. Many programs include work inside refugee camps such as camp management and protection activities, as well as work improving water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) conditions in Iraq.

Jordan

In [[Jordan] and with funding from UNHCR, Blumont provides camp management and community mobilization services to refugees in Za'atari Camp, which, in February 2018, housed nearly 79,000 persons of concern.

Lebanon

Blumont programming in Lebanon, funded by UNHCR, has focused on human rights and legal protection for Syrian Refugees, shelter, WASH, and community mobilization.

Pakistan

Blumont programming in Pakistan focuses on infrastructure and education, such as in the USAID-funded Sindh Community Mobilization Program. The five-year program began in August 2013 and aims to sustain community mobilization and school based management in Sindh province.

Syria

Blumont has implemented programs in Syria focused on critical infrastructure, governance, and emergency response.

West Africa

Blumont has implemented programs in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad. Funded by DFID, Blumont’s Wati Yelema Labenw project aims to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable Malians against climate disasters and promote resilience. Blumont also implemented the Peace Through Development II program with funding from USAID, which focused on countering violent extremism in Africa’s Sahel region.

West Bank/Gaza

With funding from USAID, Blumont is implementing several infrastructure/construction contracts to improve essential public works for Palestinians.

Yemen

Blumont has implemented programming in Yemen, funded by UNHCR, to improve protections for refugees and internally displaced persons.

References

Hello, I believe you've misinterpreted a bulk of this information. For many of these sources, IRD is listed. For clarity, I've changed Blumont in the text to reflect that some of these projects are implemented under IRD, by designating it as "Blumont/IRD." I have also removed all sources from Blumont, although they were just supporting documentation and never standalone references.User78953 (talk) 14:55, 20 June 2018 (UTC)User78953

You're misunderstanding sources. They must directly support the text you're adding. To take just the first entry, Afghanistan you claim that IRD/Blumont is somehow responsible for programs "focusing on victims’ assistance, infrastructure, and agriculture". You then offer a link to a PDF about "KANDAHAR FOOD ZONE PROGRAM (KFZ)" which says nothing about IRD or Blumont, just work that USAID alone receives crtedit. You also link to a contract, which is a primary source and Original Research. We don't know anything about that contract, its relevance, or any fraud, waste, and abuse that likely occurred under the contract. If you wanted to cite an evaluation of the contract that might work. You need to find something credible, sourced to a reliable publication about IRD / Blumonts work if you want to include it. The name issue is complicated but secondary to the use of sound and reliable sources. Bangabandhu (talk) 15:19, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

@Bangabandhu: You like strict adherence to citation standards, and value having good reference material. This is very good. But then you make statements like:

For an organization known for its fraudulent activities and misrepresentations

and

We don't know anything about that contract, its relevance, or any fraud, waste, and abuse that likely occurred under the contract

Can you provide some sources for these statements? As far as I know all investigations (of which there were a few) into IRD and staff found no irregularities, but maybe you have some new material that I haven't seen. Otherwise you're showing yourself as being completely and utterly biased against this organization. knoxinbox

Information about living persons

I am adding a Biographies of living persons tag to this article because I feel it violates wikipedia guidelines on People who are relatively unknown. Specifically by mentioning Dr. Keys wife and other family members who are not notable in any way other than publicly available salary details. knoxinbox

Beginning Discussion About COI

It appears that this article has been formed around a 2015 scandal involving IRD and USAID, rather than the organization itself. From the beginning of the article to the end, there is an overwhelming amount of information about allegations and wrongdoing. Seeing as how USAID's accusations were found to be unbased, this seems like an excessive amount of focus on the situation for a company that has been in operation for 20 years. I suggest putting information on the scandal in one section, and elaborating on the organization's work and history in the rest of the article.User78953 (talk) 21:09, 28 August 2018 (UTC)User78953

    I have cleaned up the page and structured it in a more fair way. Is there any consensus as to whether or not the COI notice on the page should/can be removed?User78953 (talk) 18:19, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Do not revert well-sourced content that you and the other sole purpose IP have deleted without reason . Your characterization of the page is totally baseless. Much of the article is properly sourced to several Washington Post articles about IRD, which do not have anything to do with Lambert's decision.Bangabandhu (talk) 19:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC) 19:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Bangabandhu (talk) 19:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Sourcing

More text has been added describing a program which does not appear to have any connection to IRD/Blumont

Palestine

In Palestine, Blumont Engineering Solutions is the contractor for the Yatta Distribution Pipeline, funded by USAID for USD $17.6 million. The project will construct 20 km of new transmission pipelines and connectors and 40 km of new distribution pipelines to supply water to unserved or poorly served areas.

References

Bangabandhu (talk) 19:23, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

This source lists Blumont Engineering Solutions as the contractor, which seems to be the for-profit entity under Blumont, Inc. I've added this section back into the page. Unless you have some reason to believe Blumont Engineering Solutions is not a part of Blumont, I'm not sure why it shouldn't be included.User78953 (talk) 19:51, 20 February 2019 (UTC)User78953

We don't go based on what "seems" to be the case, if you have a citation saying that its the same organization you should include it, not go off your own supposition. Do you have some reason to believe that they are the same entity? DO you have some relationship with Blumont? Bangabandhu (talk) 18:26, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Hello, their website says they operate under 3 entities (Blumont Global Development, Blumont International and Blumont Engineering Solutions). This is corroborated by this article from the Milwaukee Business Journal (https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2016/01/27/international-nonprofit-relocating-and-rebranding.html)User78953 (talk) 19:06, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

General Improvements

I am going to start multiple edits on the article to hopefully improve its general layout. I'm mainly focusing on adding more (better) content, and also moving some things around to better align with reader expectations on layout and structure.

Some specific things I would like to tackle (all help and contributions greatly appreciated):

• Add more content covering the early years. These have been hard to dig up and if anyone has more sources (particularly related to projects in the Balkans), please contribute. I would prefer to list projects/operations chronologically rather than alphabetically, because I feel it gives a better picture of the company's expansion, but if someone feels strongly on keeping it alphabetical we can revise.
• Add more contextual material on the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a complex subject that has been extensively covered by journalists and academics and IRD's profile is not unique. Their problems fit the general pattern of issues encountered by almost all NGOs in the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Move controversies and investigations into a separate section called "Controversies". This better matches the layout of other similar articles, and it also allows for containment of more biased opinions (with a POV tag). Currently the content of the article has been heavily shaped by one person's viewpoint, and I would like to move away from that to something that offers broader coverage and is more relevant to other Wikipedia readers.
• Remove content related to salaries of particular individuals. It clearly violates Wikipedia guidelines on low profile individuals. Salary information is publicly available for non-profits, and as far as I can tell there were no legal or ethical violations related to this. At this point this feels like an attempt to publicly shame these individuals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Who_is_a_low-profile_individual

knoxinbox

Please do not misstate evaluation findings, as you did here. I suggest you review WP:COI, especially the sections on self-promotion. Bangabandhu (talk) 18:50, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

@Bangabandhu: That content is copied directly from the sources mentioned. Here is the literal text from the Time magazine article in case you don't have access:

To help alleviate the crisis, the U.S. shipped some 30,000 metric tons of wheat to the struggling nation in 1999--and continued to do so until 2005. But rather than simply handing over the wheat to produce the low-cost noodles, the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) contracted with a fledgling nongovernmental organization called International Relief & Development (IRD) to create a pioneering food-aid program using a business model that has since become a template for projects in Cambodia, Niger and Sri Lanka.

Criticism

Wikipedia discourages criticism sections, see WP:CRITS Bangabandhu (talk) 12:27, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

@Bangabandhu: I'm going to restore my content and undo your edits. I have other material I'm going to add and I don't feel like squabbling with you on every little word. You have a very narrow and rigid viewpoint on things and it's not worth my time to try to change your thinking.

The wikipedia guidelines you link support my approach better than yours:

An article dedicated to negative criticism of a topic is usually discouraged because it tends to be a point-of-view fork, which is generally prohibited by the neutral point-of-view policy.

This ^^ is what you've been doing.

In some situations the term "criticism" may be appropriate in an article or section title, for example, if there is a large body of critical material, and if independent secondary sources comment, analyze or discuss the critical material.

Sections or article titles should generally not include the word "controversies". Instead, titles should simply name the event, for example, "2009 boycott" or "Hunting incident".

I agree with that. I think a section title along the lines of "Washington Post Investigation" or "USAID Suspension" might better capture the events.

The suspension lasted 6 months and the negative articles came out mostly during 2015. That's 1 year out of 20 the organization has been in business. They deserve their section but they should not dominate the article.

You should familiarize yourself with the WP:3RR before you revert my contributions again. This is not a non-profit organization, among the many other points you've deleted. Bangabandhu (talk) 14:37, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

@Bangabandhu: You are making changes to the content I added without reading the source material. You reworded text twisting its meaning:

Multiple problems were identified. These include an absence of a monitoring and evaluation system, the termination of activities supporting citizen participation too soon and too abruptly, and the absence of sustainability strategies.

That is not at all what the report said. USAID was largely satisfied with the results, it was the NGOs themselves who said that the programs would have been even more effective if USAID had had a better long term plan.

Instead of spamming Wikipedia rules please spend some time reading the actual publications.

The projects in the Balkans are important. The large CSP program in IRAQ was closely modeled after the CRDA program in Serbia. These early years in the Balkans and Indonesia were a testing ground for democracy stabilization projects, and after seeing their effectiveness USAID decided to implement them in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is why IRD, which at the time was a small fledgling organization, was able to win multiple contracts. CSP however was plagued by problems some of which are already mentioned. I have a bunch of material on this that I will publish soon.

The point is there is a continuity and broader picture here that maybe you don't care about, but others interested in international development would find useful. We get better by reflecting on facts not by amplifying sensationalism.

I understand you've got some grievance here and want to make sure you get your point across. There is a place for that. But what you're doing right now is counterproductive and not helpful to other readers. What is your goal exactly? What do you want this page to say? knoxinbox

I have a commitment to a balanced page that accurately represents the sources. You seem intent on mischaracterizations with no regard for WP:NPOV. You continue to advance points like "The program overall was a modest success" which is pure editorializing and only serves to advance your one sided narrative of the organization. Bangabandhu (talk) 20:24, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

New edits to Iraq Section

@Bangabandhu: I removed the $1 million dollars per day sentence because it wasn't adding any new information. The total cost of the program is listed. USAID projects generally ran on 3 year timetables so you can do the math. Why do you feel this spending breakdown is "critical"? Should we start listing the daily burn rate for all projects? Or is $1 million a magical number where if spending is above that we mention it but below it we ignore it?

Moreover the number can be misleading without additional background information. It was US strategy for several years in Iraq to get money out the door as quickly as possible. To get the money in the hands of Iraqis, and hopefully prevent them from joining the insurgency. Buying their loyalty some have said. USAID very much encouraged contractors to spend as much as possible, as quickly as possible on jobs programs. As such, high spending was not at all out of the ordinary. Jobs for Iraqis was the singular objective for many of these projects (similar projects also in Afghanistan). Unfortunately financial accounting many times came in second, and oversight quickly became a mess. I can dig up some references and add this information to the article but at a certain point it is too much detail for Wikipedia.WP:NOTEVERYTHING

I don't feel too strongly about the statement staying or going, but I would really appreciate your viewpoint on why you think it is "critical" to the article. Your edits/reverts often have no explanation and I'm hoping going forward we can have a bit more discussion on changes.

Also, you rearranged the content inside the Iraqi section, and moved your contributions first. Now it is no longer in chronological order and reads very choppy and disjointed. Knoxinbox (talk) 15:05, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Edit with "Beltway Bandit" comment.

The newly added sentence with the label "Beltway Bandit" is subjective opinion and not supported by the sources listed.

The wired article is based on a former employee's (disgruntled?) blog post with no attempt at cross-verification. It does not meet any of the Wikipedia guidelines on reliable sources and verifiability. The source needs to be removed from the article entirely.

The 2nd source is also a long opinion piece. The author appears to be a think-tank consultant so this is certainly part of their job. However unlike a journalist, they don't have to follow a code of impartiality. Looking at it closely, it appears that their primary source is the same Washington Post investigation already cited.

Besides the really poor reference material, it's hard not to look at this as a cheap swipe against the company. This is a biased statement any way you look at it.

I want to give Bangabandhu a chance to respond, but I strongly believe this material should be removed. Knoxinbox (talk) 18:12, 3 September 2019 (UTC)