I have an issue in my mind, and would like other peoples opinions.

As some of you know, I am working for an aid bank. I am just wrapping up a year in the Pacific on countries that look idyllic but are actually third world. It had been fun, but I am having some doubts:

1. Most aid is actually biased and misdirected. AusIAD has just ramped up its aid program, but everyone seems to think it is connected with UN votes. We give you aid, you vote the way we direct. Its not just Australia, the Taiwanese and Japanese fight over each other to give aid - in exchange to the rights to over-fish tuna in the Pacific.

Look at AusAID: http://www.ausaid.gov.au/anrep/rep11/ataglance.cfm


2. Thousands of highly paid workers trample around the world as advisors etc. They are paid a fortune, the shag the local girls (AFP Advisors are notorious for this), push up accommodation costs and buy up everything in the shops.

As an idea of salaries, take a look at:
http://www.ausaid.gov.au/publication...-framework.pdf

People are getting AUD 968-1161/day TAX FREE (AusAID workers and contractors are exempt from all tax) AND they get very good per diems, meaning that the remuneration goes straight into the bank.

This wealth just pisses off the locals, especially the ones who you have to work with. They get by on a local salary of +/- AUD1000 a month and pay tax on it....


3. Vast amounts of the money just flows into Australian (or UK, US, Japanese etc) organizations. Incredibly, a Packer family Trust Fund based in there Bahamas received over a BILLION of AusAID funding for its GRM International company. God knows where it went to, or upon who....

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/07/12/...international/

Most of the money is spent on "Advisors", "Consultants" and expensive Western made equipment - meaning the aid money never actually leave the donor countries shores. Much of it goes into management companies like Coffey and PMP.

4. Most of the projects are HIGHLY over bureaucratized - I know of one consultant who flew thousands of miles to do a cost benefit analysis of a water tank next to a church. She completed the CBA on her business class flight, and took two weeks holiday..... The cost of administering and managing the projects is massive, and most are just studies anyway.


5. The thing most on my mind, is that the aid workers try to push countries into 21C lifestyles that ,many of there population really don't want. They see aid programs destroying their way of life, and things that they have accepted for hundreds of years. Most simply want to be left alone.


Am I right to feel disillusioned? Should I say sod it and go back to the real world? Should I go to the press or write a book?

I could say a lot more, but I might get into confidentiality areas. Right now organizations are falling over themselves to get me onto the next gravy train. I on the other hand......

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

I remember the US food aid for Africa a few years back. US government and NGOs will raise money, then use that money to buy surplus potatoes from US farmers, then give those potatoes away in Africa. So, the primary beneficiaries are US farmers, not Africans.

Still, this is better than invading other countries and starting wars which benefit US arms manufacturers and oil companies.

Probably in a unique position to get a invesitgative journo interested. How about sending exactly what you've typed, to the Washington Post or John Pilger if he is still around.

If it's occupying your mind in a months time then go for it.... If not thank your lucky stars that you dont have this topic and not much else filling your head for the next few years.

Agreed. In many ways Aid Workers are no more than modern day colonialists waving cheques instead of beads.

As Rory Stewart wrote in "The Paces In Between" administrators are less the neo-colonialists. At least the colonialists did work at understanding the the people they were governing. They recruited people who were prepared to spend their entire careers in dangerous provinces of a single alien nation. They invested in teaching administrators and military officers the local languages. They established effective departments of state, trained the local elite, and continues the countless academic studies of their subjects through institutes and museums. They balanced the budget and generated fiscal revenue.

Aid workers fly in, hold a brief meeting(in English) and fly out on the next business class seat....

the cynic in me always looks at these govt aid programs as a defence fortification means. In some countries it is a means of keeping home grown terrorism/asylum seekers/insert problem here at bay by buttering up the said country. Not sure what that ulterior motive might be in Tuvalu, but I am sure its geographical location would be important should a major war break out.

In UK government terms, I've always considered aid projects to be offshoots of the FCO - with a similar set of personnel and a similar outlook. Apart from a few instances I think it tends to be badly considered - systemwise and too much concerned about patching up issues rather than dealing with root causes.

It's no surprise that the money goes to help other aims as well as the obvious purpose, and to some extent it's no bad thing to go for win/wins. However too often it's more focused on the win for the donor than it is removing the problem simply.

Hell, often the easiest win would be to just top the king/president/first minister of the country concerned.

In the end the cheapest and best solution would probably be a DVD (with solar power player) of "all those things you could do with knowing, to do it yourself". Mass produced the bang for the buck would best any external agency effort.

The best charities are small local ones without all the swanning around, or those that enable the community to help themselves. I distrust big charities with their glossy brochures etc.

The only international charity i support is Medicines sans frontiers... And for the first time in over 20 years I've had to suspend my donations to them due to my own economic crisis...

All the others are local... And I doubt nurses at the hospital I make kids quilts for are taking them home with them on the sly...

Foreign Aid = vote dollars

2 companies that I have worked for, Merlin Gerin (now Schneider) from France and Mitsubishi Electric from Japan. French and Japanese governments (not the only ones) give aid, low-cost loans, 'preferential trade' conditions to 3rd world countries, with the proviso that any equipment, plant, infrastructure etc is purchased from French and Japanese companies. And with these kind of contracts, price is not an issue and everything supplied costs at least twice as much as it should, and is often far too technologically advanced for what is needed. Therefore you get state of the art Japanese 275kV GIS substations being built in the middle of nowhere, when a perfectly adequate open terminal substation, costing 1/5 of the price could be built.

It's all one big gravy train. The wife was telling me about when the Americans came to Indonesia to help after the tsunami, US gov pledged x amount of millions of dollars in aid, but out of that aid was taken all the costs for the personnel. At the end of the day virtually all the aid was used up by the Americans themselves.

I saw you mentioned maybe a gig with The World Bank, when i was in London, a friend of the wife's fresh out of uni got a job at the WB in New York. First assignment, flew to London, first class and put up in a 5* Hotel.

Sounds like good work to me, just leave your conscience at the door.

World Bank, Asia Development Bank - both just puppets of the US aren't they? That's what I've heard.

I oppose all overseas aid. It takes money from poor people in rich countries and gives it to rich people in foreign countries.

This thread is depressing me...

The world is an evil EVIL place!

Sorry Elice....