I know it is a bit counter-zeitgeist to address deficiencies in the
global NGOs in the middle of a vast disaster, but I want to acknowledge
an important piece of blogging on Winds of Change today. I will
let you read it yourself, it is a kind of expose of the NGO “princes” of the Afghanistan reconstruction. Glenn Reynolds helpfully pointed to this article.
The misuse of aid money is a topic that has also come up, backstage, in
our work on Sudan. For example, UN pay for relief workers in
Sudan is reportedly $10,000 per month–obviously a great sum in
Sudan. It is paid to members of the global NGO professional
class. In Jerusalem the talk in the “social change expat”
community is about whether to “sell out” or not, with going to Sudan
selling out. No one misses that the $10,000 could go farther if
paid to locals, or if paid to Africans from neighboring countries, or
if put into direct aid. On the other hand, $10k to a young, white
progressive professional in the Middle East and Africa can go a long
way too….
We really really need to fix the UN.
Or we really really need a new organization to address global crises.
One idea: The donor governments might pull money from the UN and
instead fund a federation of NGOs who are willing to make their funding
and their operations transparent, who are willing to hire as many
locals as possible. The donors would have to agree that the money
they put into the federation would be allocated by the federation (or
some independent board) according to need and population, rather than
to specific political allies of the donors. The federation would
set up global coordination centers and networks, so that the federation
could work as effectively–hopefully much more effectively–than
current UN operations.
I know it is a bit counter-zeitgeist to address deficiencies in the
global NGOs in the middle of a vast disaster, but I want to acknowledge
an important piece of blogging on Winds of Change today. I will
let you read it yourself, it is a kind of expose of the NGO “princes” of the Afghanistan reconstruction. Glenn Reynolds helpfully pointed to this article.
The misuse of aid money is a topic that has also come up, backstage, in
our work on Sudan. For example, UN pay for relief workers in
Sudan is reportedly $10,000 per month–obviously a great sum in
Sudan. It is paid to members of the global NGO professional
class. In Jerusalem the talk in the “social change expat”
community is about whether to “sell out” or not, with going to Sudan
selling out. No one misses that the $10,000 could go farther if
paid to locals, or if paid to Africans from neighboring countries, or
if put into direct aid. On the other hand, $10k to a young, white
progressive professional in the Middle East and Africa can go a long
way too….
We really really need to fix the UN.
Or we really really need a new organization to address global crises.
One idea: The donor governments might pull money from the UN and
instead fund a federation of NGOs who are willing to make their funding
and their operations transparent, who are willing to hire as many
locals as possible. The donors would have to agree that the money
they put into the federation would be allocated by the federation (or
some independent board) according to need and population, rather than
to specific political allies of the donors. The federation would
set up global coordination centers and networks, so that the federation
could work as effectively–hopefully much more effectively–than
current UN operations.
