The British do-gooders at Oxfam are having a PR problem (e.g., “Oxfam abuse scandal is built on the aid industry’s white saviour mentality”). It seems that they spent 80 percent of donated funds on prostitutes, booze, party music, Burning Man-style outfits, and drugs, and then just wasted the rest.
I want to step back, however, and ask “Why was anyone from Oxfam ever outside of Britain?” Surely there are capable people and companies in every country. Instead of flying people out from Britain, why not just pay whatever it costs to hire the best locals? Send them cash and supplies and let them do whatever the do-gooders want done. In terms of supporting the local economy and “building capacity” as aid industry professionals like to say, wouldn’t it be better to pay a local company to do a job than to fly people in from the U.S. or the U.K.?
Related:
- “Unicef Official Resigns Over His Past Conduct Toward Women” (Oxfam alumnus in trouble at Save the Children)
I think every non-profit/charitable “do-gooder” organization has two actual purposes. The first is exactly what it says on the tin (the charitable work). The second is providing stable jobs for people who want to work at non-profits. So, you idea of just hiring local talent or just sending money may work great for purpose one, but doesn’t work at all for purpose two.
(I ain’t even mad about this. The last thing we need in the developed world is more unemployed liberal arts majors.)
In mountainous regions of southeast Asia our NGO implements support projects at remote boarding schools for severely impoverished ethnic minority children, a vulnerable group indeed.
As an expatriate, when I or anyone from our US based organization visits these schools we are never without at least one accompanying local government staff, usually from the district or provincial Department of Education. On the grounds of the school, in the dorms or classrooms, we are also accompanied by a teacher and likely the director of the school. We are never alone with students.
This mutually agreed upon accompaniment by government officials not only provides oversight on our activities and behavior, it actually has other benefits, including saving our organization money (they always buy us lunch, for example)The local government does this at their own expense, and would not do so if they did not think our support at the schools was worth it.
Working in the oil biz I learned govt foreign aid often has clauses that specifically state “this $ can only be spent on products/services from company XYZ”. Then politician ABC can say “hey voters, I generously gave $” as XYZ’s executives make donations to support politician ABC.
A lot, maybe most, US foreign aid is used to buy products from US companies or services from US consultants, which are then donated and comprise a lot of foreign aid. There isn’t much of a political constituency in the US for people who live in say Mali or Chad or wherever so the US government doesn’t just drop bags of money in those places, which from a purely humanitarian perspective perhaps it should.
In Africa, at least, there is an enormous amount of corruption. Cash you would never send. Goods end up on the black market. Finally, there are no “workers” in Africa in the western sense, showing up on time, not disappearing for weeks at a time, not strealing stuff. If there were a critical mass of capable people in these countries there would not be a need for aid in the first place. This is the 21st century, and many of these countries have rich natural resources. And yet they are sh…. Strike that.
Charles: I think that this is the “white savior” theory on which Oxfam relies. However, nearly every African country seems to have a good mobile phone network. It is a lot harder to deploy and maintain LTE than to hand out food. Doesn’t that suggest that Oxfam could get a local contractor to do what it wants?
[Others: Oxfam is private, not government. (Subsidized via tax deductions, I think, though.)]
Corruption is an enormous problem both in the developed and less developed world
https://e.infogram.com/586ce860-5bef-453b-b9dd-959163b3ba3f?src=embed
You can’t just ship money, LTE equipment or food to some halfway
failed state and seriously expect good things to happen.
If you want positive change you should export enlightenment, democracy
and transparency
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4209956.stm
– but that’s proabably getting harder and harder as our own societies
are transformed by trickle down corruption.
Or you may ask. “If we can’t do anything about corruption at home, what are the chances we can do anything good in the world?”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/huds-new-table-for-secretary-carsons-dining-room-costs-31561.html
I’ve never understood those charities that take “white saviour” upper-middle-class computer programmers and middle managers to foreign countries to build houses for the poor people.
What on earth do those people know about house-building that couldn’t be learned by the locals in 10 minutes?! Why are they needed there?