Aid to Samoa
The Dom Post reports:
The Samoan prime minister is defending his country’s response to the devastating tsunami, denying claims of aid relief rorts and saying international relief is reaching disaster victims.
Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said yesterday that Samoan media had fabricated stories of corruption and aid diversion, including claims that some aid parcels were being sold off in local shops.
“Our media will print any story that anybody comes up with, and it is one of my contentions that our media should have come and analysed, followed up, the truth of these allegations,” he told Radio NZ.
But Porirua Deputy Mayor Litea Ah Hoi, who returned from Samoa on Saturday, said she had no doubt aid was being mismanaged by the government.
I always recommend that if people wish to assist victims of an overseas disaster, they donate to the Red Cross, for four reasons:
- The NZ Red Cross will pass onto the International Red Cross every cent donated towards a specific disaster. There is no deductions for marketing, admin, political lobbying or the like. In fact not even the cost of the telegraphic transfer is taken out of the appeal funds.
- The International Red Cross also does not deduct a cent for its own administration. The IRC (actually several bodies) funds it administration directly from grants from parties to the Geneva Conventions, foundations and member red cross societies. So every dollar earmarked for an appeal, is actually spent directly on field operations.
- The Red Cross has presence in 186 countries – basically every country on Earth. This means it doesn’t generally hand money over to Governments to spend, but they spend it themselves through the local Red Cross (or Crescent) Society. This reduces corruption immensely. It also tends to mean a little money can go a long way, as the local red cross society tends to have extensive volunteer networks.
- The Red Cross doesn’t discriminate as to whom it helps. It doesn’t do politics. It doesn’t try to convert people to a religion. It doesn’t also operate as a left-wing lobby group. The seven fundamental principles are why they are sometimes the only group allowed into war zones etc.
There are many good charities out there (Save the Children Fund is also excellent) and they generally all do good work. But for me, when there is an international disaster I always donate to the Red Cross.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Interesting post, DPF. especially as it seems the accusations are aimed at donations that went via private individuals, not agencies like Red Cross. The Free Market at work.
[DPF: What are you on about? What has the free market got to do with this, or are you trolling? Are you suggesting people should not be allowed to choose who they donate to?]
October 27th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Excellent idea to donate only through the Red Cross. I believe they also don’t waste donation takings by involving themselves heavily in domestic politics (unlike Save the Children Fund, for instance).
October 27th, 2009 at 11:30 am
It is sometimes hard to choose which worthy charities to donate to. I too have a little bit of an issue with charitable groups that also push a particular agenda (whether religious or political) while assisting those in need. Your comments on the Red Cross are good to keep in mind.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Thieves at work you mean.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:39 am
[DPF: What are you on about? What has the free market got to do with this, or are you trolling? Are you suggesting people should not be allowed to choose who they donate to?]
What I AM saying is that, almost every ase where aid money is siphoned off, it is not money sent via agencies such as Red Cross, but where private hands get to tickle the till. That was the gist of the complaints I heard from several Samoans on Sunday,
[DPF: You are using the wrong axis to measure. Governments embezzle a lot of aid money also. The measure should be how respected and reliable the person or organisation is. I would generally always trust the Red Cross. I would trust the NZ Govt not to embezzle, but not certain third world Govts. I would trust certain NZ companies to deliver aid to Samoa effectively, but wouldn't trust Jack down the street whom I know nothing about. It is not public/private - it is about reputation]
October 27th, 2009 at 11:42 am
MNIJ: there is a lot of allegation of corruption where money goes via the local governments. Particularly govt to govt aid. Is that the private hands you are talking about?
I would argue that govts are a far greater source of corruption than private individuals.
But in reality, corruption is something that is driven by individuals, it is crime pure and simple. Attempting to claim one system is superior to another based on the existence of crime seems a bit silly to me – crime can happen anywhere.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:46 am
I agree that Red Cross seems the best way to donate to specific disasters. But I also like Oxfam for general aid donations, they are also relatively unencumbered by agendas.
[DPF: I am not such a fan – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxfam#Criticism
October 27th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
The reputation of the Red Cross has been respected for a long time. Consider this story about smuggling escape maps in board games to POWs in WWII:
Hall and others familiar with the Monopoly maps say not wanting to compromise the integrity of the Red Cross, the secret service created fake charity groups to smuggle the games into the German camps.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/monopolys-hidden-maps-wwii-pows-escape/Story?id=8605905&page=1
October 27th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
No good deed goes unpunished; no bad deed goes unrewarded.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Interesting concept. I’d like to see some figures to back this up.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
The Red Cross is one of only a couple of Charities that I give to without question. They fund their admin cost via the First Aid courses etc that they run, so that all donations given get to where they need to.
MNIJ, I really am struggling to see what you are saying. IMO Left wing agencies and governments seem broadly to be more corrupt than any centre or rightwing agencies or governments.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Rotary International, similarly, has a well-respected reputation for its efforts in many spheres of activity around the world. Its non-partisan, non-political, non-religious stance is recognised by the way it is received. As a voluntary organisation with over 1.2 million members word-wide, Rotary takes no overheads and all money donated goes to the intended destination.
Without detracting from the work that the Red Cross does, there are other agencies in whom one can have total confidence in relation to aid activities. Rotary International is one.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Slightly more criticism than Red Cross have on Wikipedia but hardly substantial and nothing related to Oxfam NZ. I’m sure they don’t do a perfect job either but no one can.
Based on what? How can you quantify and compare? Or is it just “I’m Right so the Left must be worse”?
Do you see Red Cross as Right or Left?
October 27th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
the Red Cross certainly do good work. It’s important to have a range of organisations in a relief effort such as this though. Oxfam for example have a good reputation for their expertise in restoring clean water and longer term development projects which compliments the relief work of the Red Cross. I think that we could all agree that we should be avoiding many of the rogue charities like the one run by that crazy actress lady. Totally bonkers.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
I would suggest that everyone be very careful of the ‘Aid’ industry. Only this morning we see a report in the herald from a vistim of starvation saying that giving food (ie: the Bob Gledof aid thingy) is the wrong way to go.
Even the most ‘above board’ agencies spend up to 40% in NZ before anything goes overseas – wages, administration, advertising, etc.
And then you have a look at where it goes. Take Tonga – the king wasted a third of the total aid income (for the year) on his cornation. No way would I give aid to Tonga when the king takes it for his cornation. The money he took was aout the same as the ferry (that sunk) cost. They could have bought a decent ferry if he hadnt wasted so much.
And I think Africa was never better than the day before the colonial powers left. Ever since then theyve gone down hill – the more aid, the more die. Thats of course taking into account the backhanders that aid agencies have to give the administration in most african countries so that they can operate there. There are studies about african aid showing that rarely does more than 10% gets to the actual objective of helping people.
Im coning of the opinion that anything I give will be used within NZ – there are plenty of worthy targets here. And I will be giving directly to the target – not some intermediate agency.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Pete, Red Cross make a point of political neutrality .
As I noted, “IMO” which means “In my opinion”. And yes, I have seen examples of organisations that I think are misrepresenting what they tell the public (especially about their political agendas) and push a left wing agenda.
eg Greenpeace are the biggest bunch of leftwing anti-business nuts about. They lie to people and collect money which they then use to fund their further disemination of false ideas.
Another example are the anti-war and anti-nuclear organisations were funded by Soviet money during the 60’s and 70’s and I don’t know any of them that are pro business, yet they all say their purpose was anti war. Don’t even get me started on the communist and rotten socialist governments including the disgusting actions of the Rotten Labour government we just ditched.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Barry, you are right that there have been some mistakes made with all the good intentions in the world. Most of the reputable aid organisations are now very aware of building long term self reliance instead of just bringing in food. Oxfam for example have the scheme where you can donate a goat to a village. The goat produces milk and can be bred to make more goats etc. Most of these organisations will try to source supplies locally to encourage local business. The EU and US have a lot to answer for though. They subsidise farmers to grow crops they have no demand for they often dump these on 3rd world countries and call it aid. Local growers in the third world are then put out of business because they can’t sell their wheat/cocoa/tomatoes/nuts/sugar/milk products.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Havent read this blog before but this post caught the eye.
International Red Cross is good..I have helped with them abroad and often promoted them .They work hard.
Save the Children Fund is also great. They are one of the very very few charities where their staff are mostly volunteers and most of the money goes ot the cause.My mother was National publicity officer at one point so I grew up with them.Many charities still unfortunately take large adminstrative fees…
We had a successful appeal for our private Samoan Relief appeal for our charity, in spite of some odd nuisance inteference from some jealous cyber bullies which we ended up ignoring it was so ridiculous and factually incorrect …but our private appeal was accomplished successfully and we also do not have any adminstrative fees right now so that’s good.
Having dealt with both directly,Intl Red Cross and Save the Children Fund are my two top charities and have been most of the time.I can also recommend ours which we have planned since its inception to hold the official public launch next year in conjunction with another event.www.wildingfoundation.com