Budgeting for Justice in a 3,000 CHF City
Yup, that's how expensive Geneva is....
I'm on a collective Zoom call with Indigenous Peoples, my 55-inch TV glowing in the background of my Geneva apartment at 11 PM. We're discussing strategy for upcoming climate negotiations when a private message pops up in the chat: "Nice big TV, business must be good."
My stomach drops. I stare at that message for the rest of the call, barely hearing the conversation about carbon market resistance.
How do I explain this?
Do I say that it was on sale?
That I don't just use it to watch Star Wars?
The truth is, I have big screens because UN work is a lot of reading. Not just reading, but synthesized reading. I display different documents on that screen to see patterns and connections across policy texts.
I'm not Rainman. I need to visualize how Article 6 language connects to climate finance decisions, how rights protections in one agreement affect implementation in another.
But explaining that feels like missing the point entirely.
The Real Problem
This isn't about justifying my equipment. It's about the scrambling that's slowly killing our best leaders.
There are only 24 hours in a day. Every hour I spend explaining why I need multiple screens for document analysis is an hour I'm not spending in negotiations that affect billions of dollars in Indigenous funding.
We've created a movement where financial sustainability gets confused with selling out. Where leders spend precious energy defending their basic needs instead of focusing on the fights that actually matter.
The Geneva Reality
Let me paint you the picture of what advocacy actually costs in the places where this work happens.
I'm standing in my one-bedroom apartment: 2,400 CHF per month. Add internet, healthcare, electricity, and other costs and I'm at 3,000 CHF monthly before food. That's $3,300 USD just for basic survival in one of the world's most expensive cities.
Geneva exists to facilitate international diplomacy. Everything costs diplomat prices, not Indigenous advocate prices.
You’re right, that’s insane. My monthly housing costs alone could probably fund several programs in your community.
That's not because I'm living lavishly. It's because Geneva is one of the world's most expensive cities, and unfortunately this is where Indigenous futures get decided.
To represent Indigenous Peoples effectively in UN spaces, I need reliable internet and communication tools. Multiple screens to analyze complex policy documents. The ability to attend meetings in over 40 UN offices where crucial decisions get made in hallway conversations. Mental space not consumed by worry about basic survival.
These aren't luxuries. They're the entry requirements for credibility in rooms where our futures get decided.
The Talent Hemorrhage
Last year, I watched four brilliant leaders leave Indigenous rights work entirely.
"I can't afford to keep caring professionally," she told me over coffee, her resignation letter already submitted. She went to corporate consulting.
Another took a government job. "At least they pay on time," he told me over Whatsapp.
The third moved back home. "I'll take whatever work I can find locally," she said.
"I'm done working without healthcare," another one said.
All of them had 5-10 years of hard-won expertise in international advocacy. All had relationships and knowledge that took years to build. All left because the organizations couldn't figure out how to support sustainable advocacy. Even worse, the movement has a tendency to despise those that are trying to keep their head above water.
Meanwhile, the systems we're fighting have unlimited resources and professional staff who never question whether they can afford to do their jobs effectively.
The Movement's Blind Spot
I'm watching our movement celebrate visible struggle over actual results. We're more comfortable with leaders who look poor than leaders who look professional. We mistake financial stress for moral purity.
This is backwards, I realize during the Zoom call where someone questioned my TV. We're policing our own people instead of the systems oppressing us.
The thing is. International systems don't care about our internal purity tests. They respond to competence, consistency, and the ability to show up prepared for years at a time.
When our leaders are scrambling to survive, they can't show up with the consistency and preparation that changes outcomes.
The Choice We're Making
Every time someone sends a message like "business must be good," we're making a choice about what kind of movement we want to be.
Do we want leaders who can afford to focus entirely on strategy and relationship building? Or leaders who spend half their time fundraising for their own survival?
The opposition isn't handicapping themselves with purity tests, I think, watching another talented Indigenous leader announce their departure. Why are we?
Before You Go
That private message about my TV revealed more than its sender realized. It showed how our movement polices advocate resources instead of supporting advocate effectiveness.
We need leaders who can thrive in international systems, not just survive them. That requires resources, stability, and the movement's support instead of suspicion.
Until we figure this out, we'll keep losing good people to systems that don't share our values but understand basic sustainability requirements.
See you next time!
'Back in the day' as we were engaging with the UN Geneva to ensure that a human rights standard was drafted, a few of us contemplated the idea of a permanent Indigenous institution to be located in this distant place from our home 'country'.
Geneva was on the other side of the world and for many of us on the other side of the day, of the planet and of history. It would be fair to say that our leadership emerged out of those who could afford to stay, though mostly for very short periods of time, in Geneva.
Kenneth Deer, a strong leader and facilitator, maintained a continuous dialogue with Swiss citizens and leadership to try to establish a permanent Indigenous Peoples 'centre' in Geneva to help our political development at the global level.
Geneva is the right place to do that, though New York continues to keep the power of the institutional 'Assembly' of the world's peoples.
The Indigenous Peoples centre has not yet appeared. The 'indicated' support coming from the Canton of Geneva and Swiss Confederation dissolved over time. We had got to the stage of inspecting proposed Geneva buildings to be 'leased' to Indigenous Peoples amidst the 'nest' of the world's international institutions. It just has not happened YET.
I should acknowledge here that DoCIP has fulfilled a wonderful role as a 'secretariat' for Indigenous Peoples and that must be appreciated. That financial support comes mostly, I believe, from European-based philanthropy and includes EU backing.
Our organisation decided to base a small office in Geneva during the period of drafting of the Declaration. Economically, it made sense as a practical way of participating in the regular sessions of Indigenous Peoples' gatherings. These priority years were between 1996 and 2006.
But the need for political representation in Geneva continues. There is an ever-increasing range of events occurring throughout the international organisations based in Geneva. These institutions are aware of and sensitive to Indigenous Peoples and their international lobbying.
I am retired from the workforce, now nine years, and I survive on a small pension gained from my income earned whilst fighting for human rights of Indigenous Peoples. But I am not retired from life and continue to fight for Indigenous Peoples to enjoy fundamental rights important for their sustainable existence.
The fight for our rights is not yet over. More than ever we need to have permanent presence at Geneva and New York. It is essential because States still refuse to decolonise, to return lands and territories.
States do not even pretend to entertain Indigenous Peoples' rights to resources. The right of peoples to self-determination clearly specifies the right to political, social, cultural and economic development and that all peoples 'may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources'.
Denial of these fundamental rights to Indigenous Peoples continues the threat to Indigenous Peoples that existed before the UN affirmed Indigenous Peoples' rights. Ghazali's post is an example of the critical need to participate amidst UN Member States. The Member States like to believe that States represent ALL PEOPLES.
This is not true.
UN Member States might have capacity to create, influence or alter International Law but States just can not represent Indigenous Peoples' interests without full agreement from those Indigenous Peoples, especially from those with whom they share lands, territories and resources.