Tag Archives: Aid business

Our Western Identity, Politics

Nine-Twelve

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The day after.  The images fresh again:  that second plane arcing into the tower, or the South Tower descending into itself, as if steel and cement suddenly atomized into smoke.  We humanitarians have a peculiar relation to the events of 9/11.  We’ve all seen disasters where 2996 lives (I’ve included the 19 perpetrators) make for a shocking chunk of “excess mortality,” but it’s somewhat molecular compared to estimates such as the feared 750,000 potential victims of the famine inside Somalia, or the millions inside Eastern DRC, etc. etc.  False comparisons.  The spectacular imagery and the ease with which we can identify with the people in NYC make it all too clear why 9/11 has such a disproportionate hold on the tragic stuff that happens trophy. 

Humanitarians including me continue to blame 9/11, or perhaps more accurately the reaction of the West, particularly the USA, and then the reaction to the reaction and then the reaction to that reaction (ad nauseum), for the erosion of humanitarian space.   Seems to me the world with the Twin Towers included all of the same elements as the one without, but it’s nonetheless true that 9/11 changed the balance between these elements.  So the West’s longstanding insistence on an “us or them” polarity finally found enough traction to eradicate the idea of neutrality.  And there are unavoidable consequences on Western NGOs when the West becomes both an overt belligerent and a covert killer on large tracts of our turf, or where counter-insurgency strategy plus national security interest have so publicly embraced the delivery of aid as its chosen methodology.   But neither the West as warrior nor COIN tactics are particularly new.

Instead of blaming 9/11 and its aftermath, we should probably look a little more closely at ourselves.  As an industry we lament the GWOT-determined directionality of aid, yet we have shown little by way of independence to resist being swept up in this orphaning of impartiality’s dictates.  As the British government so vociferously defends its foreign aid budget on grounds of national interest, we half-heartedly decry the difficulties caused by the politicization of aid, and then sign the contract.  But the existential questions we blame on the “shrinking space” may in fact veil a more serious existential question:  Considering the way GWOT has managed to supersize aid budgets in the declining days of the euro-dollar-pound empire, does the industry actually owe its existence to 9/11? 

 

Our Western Identity

The New Young Turks

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Having finally trudged through the post-holiday backlog of email, I ignored the pile of freshly printed reading to surf the crisis in the Horn of Africa.  I found an Al Jazeera story which I would call interesting on two counts.  First, for the fact of it.  And second, for the invisibility of that fact (i.e., that even people following the aid biz didn’t seem to notice).

The story is a fairly simple one, and I recommend reading the author’s full analysis. In August, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited a camp for starving IDPs in Mogadishu.  Can you imagine being equally unaware of a Sarkozy or Cameron visit to Somalia?  Or a UN ambassador like Angelina Jolie?  I mean, there’s more coverage of Obama eating a hotdog (actually, a chilidog, which is definitely more macho).   The visit was the move of a true world leader.  Not only the first non-African head of state to see Somalia in over 20 years, Erdogan took his wife and daughter, a clear statement that the war-torn capital of Somalia is not necessarily the Call of Duty shooting gallery we make it out to be.

The fact of this visit, though, is more interesting than the media non-coverage.  Here is the new direction not just of Turkey, but of the next wave of world players.  Countries like India, China, Qatar, Brazil and South Africa.  Countries that are heading to Africa for profit, influence, minerals and for the prestige long accorded to powerful Western nations/leaders doing the philanthropic waddle.  Erdogan’s visit was accompanied (already some weeks ago) by roughly $250M in Turkish donations to the crisis, mostly from the Turkish public.  I think (too late for dinner to research it) that’s more than UK public donations.

That fact alone speaks of a world that is changing faster than we imagine or plan.  I think of non-Western governments increasing their humanitarian spend, but actual public compassion and donation?  That’s supposed to be our Western genome, a unique manifestation of our goodness and superiority.  Apparently, there are even Turkish celebrities who play the humanitarian ambassador role, meaning you can see non-terrorist Omar Sharif looking guys visiting camps as well.  (Please don’t comment, I know Sharif wasn’t Turkish or a terrorist and I don’t really believe that all guys with thick black mustaches look alike).

To me, our Western thinking on aid still hasn’t grasped the sheer acceleration of the entry of other actors – governmental donors, aid organizations, and concerned publics – to the global arena of humanitarian action.   These actors don’t have colonial histories, don’t suffer the white man’s burden, don’t seek to moralize about human rights violations, and don’t necessarily subscribe to a model of aid based on charity.  All good news.  I’m thinking there could even be a job in this after MSF, working for one of the new global humanitarian leaders.

Critique of Aid

Stop blaming aid for the failures of aid

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Lots has been written about aid over the past few weeks, and the public commentary can be vitriolic in response.  Some people seem to be absolute nutters, believing that letting Somalis die is a solution to their underlying problems.  Hmmm, I’m not quite sure about the logic there.  But more common are people who seem furious that more money should be sent to a place like the Horn of Africa when aid has been such a failure.  As you may have noted, I’m skeptical about the capacity of development aid to meet its objectives; to transform societies.  But isn’t the public  wrong to judge the potential success of humanitarian relief by the failures of development?  Assuming that people can get to a proper medical center or feeding program, it’s relatively easy to save that child’s life.  Of course that doesn’t solve issues of corruption, desertification, and decades of brutal conflict.  But that’s not the goal.  In other words, not all aid is created equal.

In my professional alter ego, I’ve tried to take this up on in response to an editorial in today’s Guardian (see here).  But this negative discourse links into wider issues of public perception of aid, and in particular a failure to grasp the unavoidable complexity and need for a certain level of capacity to mount a successful response to poverty or crisis.  J at the Tales from the Hood takes on this issue. I’ve put an opinion there, again differentiating between humanitarian and development. 

I’m curious to hear other opinions.  I don’t believe for a minute that you can look at a given context and say X is a development situation, while XX is an emergency situation.  The world isn’t so tidy.  And what of all that other stuff, like post conflict and transition and pre conflict and early recovery etc etc?  But aren’t there clear or even irreconcilable distinctions in theory, in the ideas behind development and humanitarian action?

Critique of Aid

Another Perfect Storm

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Western aid agencies, especially those here in the UK, have spent the last two weeks fanning the media flames of a fundraising campaign for the Horn of Africa.  Merlin even went so far as to call it a “global food crisis” but seems to have recoiled to the idea of an East Africa Food Crisis.  Let’s start by stating the obvious.  The situation in parts of Somalia, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia seems desperate, and humanitarian aid is needed to save lives right now.  To question whether or not this is the Drought of the Century is not to deny the gravity of the situation and the need for emergency aid. 

But I don’t really want to debate whether or not aid agencies are hyping drought in order to stuff their pockets.  Of course there is hyping.  Of course agencies use weasel words, at the same time painting a picture of saving stick-legged children from starving right now while being clever enough to avoid claiming that it is already a famine or mass starvation.  Nope, those things could happen.  Writing in The Times, John Clayton makes his opinion clear:  “By hyping up a localised “drought” and playing down the real causes of the turmoil in Eastern Africa, the aid agencies are crying wolf. What happens when there’s a real emergency? Will we believe them?”

On one point, it is easy to agree with John.  It’s a sad reflection of public attitudes towards aid, but people like the idea of giving to the innocent victims of El Nino rather than to the not-as-innocent victims of clan violence, war, and greed-fueled bad governance.  It’s amazing how even somebody purporting to set forth a list of factors somehow miss out:  “High food prices, fluctuating rainfall, a rising population and ever dwindling natural resources have created the perfect storm,” said Leigh Daynes, director of communications for Plan, in the UK.   Oops.  Forgot to mention conflict in Somalia.  Oops.  Forgot to mention corruption in Kenya.  About like forgetting to mention Ghaddafy in an analysis of the situation in Libya. 

But let’s not be too hard on these agencies for omitting the ways in which locals themselves could be blamed for their own suffering.  By definition, humanitarian aid is based on need, not worthiness, because being a human being possesses inalienable worth enough.  Besides, the entire point of the media campaign is to raise money to pay for the relief effort and save lives.  So let’s not moralize about painting a picture that is skewed towards being effective rather than depressing to the average punter.

That said, let’s moralize anyway.  Let’s moralize not about the fact that the perfect storm of factors missed conflict, missed corruption (kudos to UK AID for suspending bi-lateral aid to Kenya on account of the lack of integrity), or missed the way in which drought has some very local and human causes (on this point, check out Paul Theroux during his Africa overland odyssey ten years ago, quoting a diplomat on the situation in northern Kenya: “Right, it hasn’t rained in the north for three years.  Whose fault is that?  They cut down the trees for fuel, they sold them to loggers, they destroyed the watershed.  And they’re still doing it.”).  No, let’s moralize about the fact that the aid agencies’ perfect storm of factors forgot one key factor:  aid agencies. 

Inside Somalia is a different story, because aid agencies have little access there.  But the rest of the Horn?  Kenya?  Ethiopia?  Uganda?  For decades, aid agencies (and the Kenyan government!) have been all over these places, practicing what they call development.  They collect a lot of money for this work and they have been pumping out glossy reports describing their glorious success in helping communities become sustainable, in helping to protect the environment, in building the capacity of people to cope. Etc etc.  So where is it?  Where is this development we keep hearing about?   Surely people have been helped.  But as the current disaster in the area would seem to suggest, at the big picture level all this development work didn’t amount to squat. 

What we have, then, is a perfect storm of irony.  Aid agencies are asking us to fund humanitarian relief work (and I admit this is also an assumption, because we don’t really know what sort of program will receive their money).  We should do that.  People need it.  Lift the veil, though, and what they are also asking the public to do is to fund their own failed development policies.

Critique of Aid, Our Western Identity

Let Them Eat Hippo

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“Do the local people eat hippo?  Hippo, lechwes [a kind of antelope] and the other game?” 

I was on safari with my octogenarian parents.  After all those years working in Africa, my first real safari.  We were in the Okavango Delta, which (without the two octogenarians) I would recommend visiting to any humanitarian who wants to see African wildlife other than mangy goats and one-eared dogs.  Of course, I’d also have to recommend robbing a bank first.

One of the safari guides was explaining traditional food to us over the evening meal.  That’s when Ron asked the question.  Ron was clearly an intelligent guy.  New York banker working for a venture capitalist group, articulate and engaged, owner of the newest top Nikon SLR.  In short, somebody who would place in the upper percentiles of just about any set of social indicators.  He probably laughed at Jon Stewart and would be above average (for one of us Americans) on the scale of being politically informed.  I’m sure he considered himself a responsible voter.  Oh, and he was Keanu Reeves handsome to boot, so I disliked him intensely.

Look again at that question.  Let me rephrase it:  Did the people who lived in the middle of this game-rich delta eat game?  Or rephrased again:  Were all the people practitioners of vegetarianism?   If not, does one of these densely forested islands hide the local equivalent of my local Ginger Pig butcher shop selling butterflied leg of lamb and ground pork loin burgers?  Is there a supermarket nearby?  Because if these weren’t the questions he was implying, what is it he thought traditional people ate in a place like the Okavango Delta?

Smart as he was, Ron seemed wholly unacquainted with the basic rules of human existence.  How could traditional ways have included the people here not eating the game that surrounded them? 

Now back to the aid world.  We know that our donor base, even those who keep well-informed, tends to think of people in Africa and aid workers as, respectively, more impassively victimized aid and more heroically productive than reality.  But we also believe, and must to a certain extent require, that the public has some generalized understanding of the way it is.   For our newletters and “protection” reports and situation updates to have any meaning, readers must be able to hang them onto some sort of foundation.  Otherwise, it would be like me attending a graduate school lecture on molecular biology.  The difference, of course, is that I would quickly recognize my confusion, whereas I’m concerned that our public is unwittingly getting it dead wrong.

Well, the Rons of this world are our donors.  They are our constituency.  It’s OK that they don’t get it 100 percent.  But what if it’s more like 10 percent?  Forget about meaningful engagement in the public debate on foreign politics, military incursions into unfriendly countries or the (current in the UK) discussion on aid budgets.  Forget about the idea that the people who give us money actually support – as in agree with – our work.  It all adds up to an Antoinettesque “Let them eat cake” level of comprehension.

Critique of Aid, Our Western Identity

Three Cups of Me

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Greg Mortenson is starting to look like one of those empty school buildings his NGO dropped into the middle of the Af-Pak quagmire.  Lots has been written (see this list at Good Intentions Are Not Enough)  since Jon Krakauer and since 60 Minutes torched this American hero and his Central Asia Institute (CAI). There’s plenty to feed on here.  Publishers converting delusionally inflated heroism into a major bestseller?  American military brass transforming a crock of crap into a blueprint for the use of aid to convert the hearts and minds of hostile Central Asian populations?  The persistence and popularity of aid with neither transparency nor independent audit?  Another nail of cynicism in the coffin of the public’s faith in aid NGO claims of success?  Or maybe just a textbook illustration of how hard it is to do aid well?

Prior to its implosion, Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea was a powerful, inspirational tale of how one determined, charismatic man could change the lives of children in a place that is arguably the world’s most visible crucible of poverty and unrest.  This is not just a story, though, about make-a-differencism gone sour or the popped balloon of Mortenson’s valor and pluck.  It’s also not about the CAI’s suddenly naked ineffectiveness (am I the only one whose suspicions are aroused by the CAI – CIA anagrammatic similarity).  In so many ways this is a story about us, about what we deeply want to believe.  

Mortenson’s story is American (and, to a lesser extent, Western) goodness incarnate.  The plot is simple: a politically well-connected blend of individual effort, pioneer spirit and can-do attitude helps to transform the lives of the downtrodden by constructing school buildings.  School children across the States collect their pennies for peace.  After all, these impoverished children (read: target beneficiaries) are the children of Afghanistan and Pakistan, who’ve grown up in a society wrecked by foreign interventions and interference, in communities on the wrong end of bullets and drones and protracted  violence.  So CAI’s work is about the need for us to see ourselves, as nations not just (ineffectively) battling bad guys but battling the uncivilized garden of ignorance, backwardness, abuse and Islamic bloodthirst. 

In the end, Mortenson and CAI have sold us what we wanted to believe.  What we wanted to believe about aid.  What we wanted to believe about simple solutions to immensely complex problems.  More importantly, what we wanted to believe about the people in that part of the world and what we wanted to believe about ourselves; namely their desperate need to benefit from our virtue.  In that sense, then, Mortenson and CAI are not alone in the NGO world.

Critique of Aid, Our Western Identity

What Sudan and Who-ville Have in Common

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Forget about Linda Polman.  We humanitarians need to listen more to Lt. General Omar el-Bashir.  Of course, we do care about Ms. Polman’s crucifixion of the aid business.  After all, she’s hitting us in the gut and in the wallet.  She’s on the same airwaves as many of our donors, telling everybody that aid doesn’t work.  Ouch.  But Bashir doesn’t mince his words either, and he’s on the same airwaves as the people who control our access.

A little over two years ago I was sitting in Khartoum, helping our teams deal with their non-expulsion after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the general.  Motivated, I am sure, by nothing other than a desire to shed light on the role of INGOs in Sudan, he let loose with a series of accusations.  He called us thieves, adding that we take “99 percent of the budget for humanitarian work themselves, giving the people of Darfur 1 percent”.  He called us spies in the employ of foreign regimes, interfering well beyond the remit of aid work.  And then there’s the charge that humanitarian NGOs essentially worked for the ICC.  Apparently fed up with the likes of us, Bashir spoke of “Sudanizing” voluntary work in Sudan (both humanitarian and development).  He politely suggested a new and improved model for international cooperation:   “If they want to continue providing aid, they can just leave it at the airport and Sudanese NGOs can distribute the relief.”

Neither NGO nor international community blinked.  Instead, we countered with legions of arm flapping, demanding to be unexpelled.  Then we shielded ourselves from even 10 seconds cogitation on his accusations with the unquestioned logic that he was a mad dictator and war criminal and simply poking back at the West for the ICC having ruined his vacation plans in Las Vegas.

It is rare, and somewhat disconcerting, to find myself possessing an ear not entirely unfavorable to the ideas expressed by President Bashir.   Even if we discount a former girlfriend’s accusation that I’m a self-hating critical bastard, it’s not difficult to suppose that if I can find some good sense in Bashir’s rants, he will have the ear of whole nations of people.

 Thieving?  Strong claim.  We’ve pushed the message that humanitarians saved Darfur.  If you consider fundraising initiatives based on a “help save Darfur” motif, communication/exposure, and just plain old reinforcement of the image of humanitarians as rescuer-champions, it’s easy to see how Darfur saved the humanitarians.  And from all that money that came in on the back of Darfur, how much of it made it past our headquarters, past our expat-driven approaches, past our expensive lifestyle in capitals, past our project teams and directly into the hands of Darfurians? 

ICC mole?  We know that NGOs passed mounds of info to the ICC.  The only question is whether humanitarian NGOs cooperated so directly.  Or maybe this is not even an issue at ground level, because how many armed groups in a place like Darfur could distinguish between the human rights crowd and the humanitarian crowd?  Add to that the impact of our well-publicized “protection” activities, our so-called advocacy reports.  Seems to me “violence”, “attacks”, and “rape”, are words more closely associated to the humanitarian voice emanating from Darfur than “nutrition,” “shelter,” and “healthcare.”   Against this accusation we may be teflon in our own minds, but we’re more like flypaper out there where it counts.

Sudanization?  There is a strong element of Sudanese pride in all of this mess.   We radiated our superiority in Darfur – the virtuous provider of aid to the helpless victims of an evil regime.  You can’t spend years treating Sudanese officialdom as perpetrators of violence and obstruction and still expect them to love us.  There’s equally a major dose of sovereignty.  You can’t humiliate a people without sparking a drive to shake off the yolk of the West, to build Sudanese spirit and independence into the sort of state that does not require the largest exercise of humanitarian charity in the world. 

 In that non-Western mind, to whom Bashir spoke, we humanitarians were not simply the enemies of the state, we were a blight upon its pride.  Do we hear this message? Any of these messages?  My advice to NGOs:  Make like Horton and listen to the citizens of Who-ville, even if they aren’t all fluffy and cute.

Critique of Aid

Charity as a new black cocktail dress

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Case 1. Sitting on Aer Lingus flight 247 to Dublin.  Tape plays the usual appeal for money for the airline’s partner Unicef.  As the flight attendant shambles down the aisle, a not negligible number of people fisted money into the collection envelope, including Passenger 18A, seated next to me.  I couldn’t resist.  After introducing myself as a charity exec, I turned to this middle-aged Irish businessman and asked why he donated.    “To tell you the truth, the main reason is I know I have a lot of change in Sterling in my pocket and we’re headed for Ireland.”  (Please note my magnanimity:  I graciously swallowed my tongue when he asked for my opinion of the agency.  So I did not suggest that his sterling coins would contribute to the salary of somebody in Geneva drafting a new clearance procedure for changes to the child-friendly space protocol or maybe another measles vaccination campaign that somehow doesn’t prevent measles from ravaging the community two years later.)

Case 2.   Menswear retailer The Officers Club went into administration earlier this week.  Did anyone notice?  Would any of you even admit it if you did?  The All Saints line of clothes stores are also in trouble.   (My quality guarantee to you the reader: I have never stepped foot in one of these stores).  Blame, of course, is placed squarely on the financial crisis, economic turndown, recession and the no-doubt fatal condition hidden by the jargon of “low footfall”.

Case 2 is the one that got me going.  Is it really fair to blame the economy because people no longer purchase piles of overpriced made-to-fall-apart-but-even-more-quickly-goes-of-style clothing on a weekly basis?  Financial meltdown might explain why people can’t wallow in sartorial narcissism, but the real problem seems to be the expectation that people would continue to buy crapola ad infinitum.  The stuff in those shops had no purpose.  No necessity. As for Passenger 18A, his behaviour wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of Unicef or the idea of giving to a charity. 

Coming more to the point (or, if that’s a bit of an exaggeration, at least orienting this piece in the general vicinity of a point), is it really the economic woes of middle England that we can blame for the fact that people are giving less money to charity?  Case 3, then, is the charity fundraising sector for international aid organizations.  Talk to any fundraiser and you’ll hear all about how the downturn is of course due to things beyond his/her control.

So the question drops:   Are we a meaningless luxury?  Is a donation to a charity somehow no more of a moral endeavour than paying £129.00 for a pair of stiletto heeled cocktail shoes?  Or (less expensively) a strachiatella gelato in the caff next to the shoe store?  Of course the downturn in the economy has made it difficult for some people to support us, and it has made prospective donors more reluctant to sign up, but aid agencies need to do more than blame this on the financial mess.

It comes down this:  What is the nature of commitment we build with donors?  Why do they give?  Do we attach them to the necessity of our work?   Arguably, that is not the case.  Arguably, we use those starving baby images or glowing annual reports to push a different set of buttons.   Namely, the instant gratification of the donor.   We don’t sell the sometimes ugly help being delivered on the far end of the deal.  Instead, we sell feel-good moments.  That’s why people were so angry at being told not to give to Japan (see, e.g., the comments under this Felix Salmon post).  We don’t sell our sweat and blood, we sell the charity business equivalent of retail therapy.  And if I’m really honest, I’m not sure if I haven’t bought into it myself.