AID FOR THE RICH

One would think that the goal of any international ngo aiming to minimise the scandalous disbalance in the distribution of the world's resources ought to be, gradually, to put itself out of business. Or at least - to 'devolve' most of its business to those parts of the world where the aid is meant to be destined for.

Given the scandalous disbalance, and given the minute fraction of the rich world's enormous girth line that it is prepared to shed for the sake of the poorer world, there should need to be overpowering arguments to justify the continued existence of huge managerial structures, staffed by internationals at a rate from 10 to anything up to 100 times higher than locals would be paid, and located in cities which demand the highest office rents and day-to-day running costs of any in the world.

One would think. One might also think that one small thing that a huge ngo could do, at least over a 10 year period or so, would be to strengthen the capacity of local ngos - something they love to do - but to such a degree that the local ngos are doing the work, not the internationals. And one would surely think that the sign of a really successful international ngo - one which actually manages to alter the balance of power to some degree - would be that it gradually dies out, or at least slims down, as those in the recipient countries expand.

One would have thought that if we were doing our jobs well, we in the donor countries ought soon to be out of work, at least in this field. Or at the very least, we ought to be in work for the same rates that we deign to pay those in the 'recipient' countries.

Some nuggets to show how very far that thought is from the real world of so-called international aid.

See them all at this page.