During our final lecture we spoke about emergency assistance. A definitely flawed process. I thought the biggest concern was probably the fact that emergency aid is usually a band-aid solution and often used over long periods of time resulting in food and aid dependency (think some of the IDP camps in Northern Uganda). However, aside from the necessary need to help those in a dire condition over a short period of time, there exists a whole bunch of structural problems within the field itself.
I think one of the more interesting aspects is the “forgotten emergency” difficulty. We sat down with the Executive Director of CARE Canada who admitted that, yes, while propotionality (treating all emergencies the same) is a part of the ethics of humanitarian assistance, it usually isn’t possible. Donors and governments often ear mark funds for those that are more prominent (media) or follow their political agendas (military). Apparently this is called the instrumentalization of aid: governments want to send humanitarian workers where the troops are. Humanitarian workers don’t want to go because they lose their only source of protection, impartiality. Colin Powell, the fantastic man that he is (ha), called NGOs “force multpliers.”
One way to overcome this difficulty is to rely on size. While CARE clearly puts more emphasis on some conflicts than others, they also operate in volume. Kevin McCort pointed out that CARE often has 20-30 project proposals in front of CIDA and other donor organizations. This ensures that some of their work gets picked up and that they can cover a wider variety since different donors have different agendas.
While there was a lot of technical mish-mash in the interview, on a personal level, it was great to realize that the head of an important aid agency isn’t a brainwashed idealist. His approach is pragmatic, cost-effective and efficient: have local staff, give money for local agencies to implement, remain nameless as much as possible to avoid conflict, hope for failures so that they can be avoided etc. It infused a bit of hope in a week where development has generally been bashed.
AID will forever be a debate. NGO’s need these monies to live – obviously the ever target is not the subject, but to further presence.
Can Africa stay without AID???
Well, you definitely have a point about the “aid” debate. It has been going on since the beginning of aid itself. This is natural to any field or theory though. I am not sure I understand the second part of the comment: do you mean that ‘aid debators’ are more in favor of furthering their organizations’ presence and is less interested in the subject of aid itself? This may be true. After all, it’s a massive business that employs a large portion of the “Western” world. However, I think this type of self-interested role applies more to bigger institutions like the IMF or the World Bank. Those who have seem to have made regular and significant mistakes in their past. I am no expert though, so this assumption should be followed up.
As for whether Africa can stay without aid… In the way that North America and Europe, for example, are without aid, in the “African” sense, I believe so. I am not sure it’s now, or anytime soon, but the natural progression and the process of empowerment on the continent are telltale signs of what is to come. This and the rise of Eastern powers – as much as this may be debilitating to African countries – indicate a new status quo.