Charities wasting our money

Sleepy

iguana wrote:

This can't ever happen fully as most charities have political or religious ideals which can fall into conflict with each other. Of the three main Irish charities, three of them are catholic and recieve funds and support from the catholic church. This also means that in the developing world they make some controversial choices under pressure from the church.

Isn't that simply more of a reason to merge the charities into one international aid agency? If it was large enough, no religion or political entity would be able to force it's hand on any single issue. It would require a great deal of co-operation from the international community (in order to do things like prevent religious aid organisations from trying to circumvent the umbrella body i.e. your money is welcome but your people/beliefs aren't) but as we start the 21st century, surely this is something we should be to do.

DadaKopf

It was once envisaged that the World Bank, IMF and UN would form a single organisation. That didn't happen because post-war powers had their own interests. Within the UN system, the Economic and Social Council and the UN Development Programme were imagined to be that global NGO. But that didn't happen because the post-war powers had their own interests. They (they being the USA and the UK, mainly) saw it as more strategically sound to consolidate their political-economic power in the World Bank and IMF, which they controlled, and to undermine the UN, which the rest of the world controls (this strategy accelerated around the period of decolonisation).

That's the geopolitical context in which global aid/development/human rights governance, or stuff, happens. The situation regarding these global governance institutions is roughly the same now as it was in 1948.

The reality is, though, that working together, sharing the load, making use of comparative advantage is very fashionable in official aid, which is, in fact, lagging behind the NGOs.

Government aid departments like Irish Aid, the UK Department for International Development etc. are pursuing coherence and complimentarity strategies (or, at least, say they are). Within government, countries like Finland have integrated their aid department with all other departments to improve policy coherence (e.g. to ensure their trade policies don't undermine their aid activities in developing countries).

Government aid agencies are also improving co-ordination among themselves. The OECD Development Assistance Committee is a forum and think tank which is pushing this coherence and co-ordination agenda, and Irish Aid, for example, make regular refereces to it in their policy statements.

On the ground, government aid agencies are pooling funds and resources in developing countries in areas such as agricultural development (where they have a comparative advantage), election funds, and they channel money directly into governments and, depending on the exact country, form donor consortiums and represent themselves to the developing countries as a single bloc.

EU expansion and integration is also pushing this agenda - the big EU aid policy issue is how to harmonise EU-wide aid practises. It's a dirty political game and really confusing.

But I'm skeptical that this will happen, and I'm not sure that it should happen. From a developing country perspective, I might imagine that one huge hulk of an aid body composed of countries I don't trust might make things difficult for me and make it easier for them to pursue their own interests at my expense. Because official aid is foreign policy. From a developed country perspective, with the exception of the EU, whose members have a common trade policy, Country A's interests may conflict with Country B's and, things being as they are, former aid partnerships could easily fragment. And now there's China weighing in, upturning the apple cart. The scamble for Africa is happening again.

I can only second what iguana said about NGOs. The world being as it is, people have irreconcilable differences, and that's fine, so long as they can work together to achieve urgent common goals. I know that, for example, Concern, Oxfam, Trócaire (not Goal, ptooee), Banúlacht, Comhlámh, Christian Aid, ICTU, the IRC and so on are in constant contact and co-ordinate many of their activities through the NGO umbrella body, Dóchas. Combined with the level of public funding (state grants and private donations), this indicates a vibrant civil society that is required in any democracy to keep the government in check.

I think it'd be dangerous to let states take care of all development work. States are the most powerful instruments to promote development when they work well, when they work genuinely eliminate poverty. They're the gatekeepers to the money, trade policies, agriculture policies, intellectual property etc. Developing country governments are also vital actors. 'Development co-operation' - rich and poor/donor and recipient countries pursuing meaningful relationships to eliminate poverty is the current paradigm.

But without NGOs - a radically diverse net of NGOs - democracy wouldn't function and probably nothing would get done because reasons of state always trump touchy-feely crap. NGOs are there to do what the state doesn't and, luckily, in this country, the state funds them to do what the government knows it doesn't, or can't be seen to. Maybe it's a crude political calculation. That's a hell of a lot better than just doing nothing.

What works best is when governments and people work together.

Sleepy

Interesting post DadaKopf. I'm probably being over-simplistic in my looking at this but I still can't see the reason for there to be so many different charities all focused on the same thing. A single, professionally managed, NGO would still seem like the best option to me. All governmental aid funding, religious aid funding, privately donated etc. etc. etc. flowing through a single independent, secular organisation. Of course it's probably naieve to expect governments to actually give their aid unilatterally and to expect the religious organisations to be open-minded enough to just give their charity to those who need it without the chance to force their religious beliefs upon the recipient but economically it would seem like the best means of erradicating extreme poverty in a single life-time.

DadaKopf

What I meant in the first paragraph was that it has been attempted, and it was murdered.

I just don't think that's how people, societies work. Governments themselves are fractious entities - Ireland is a major culprate of not linking its aid policies up with trade policies. On one hand, we have Irish Aid attempting to reduce poverty (yes, reduce, not eliminate) while Mary Coughlan and Brian Cowen (and their svengali senior civil servants) pursue agenda which undermine that. Departments compete against each other so a singular, cohesive state is a myth, really. And the same thing goes for relations between states, globally.

As for NGOs, society just works that way. And there's an argument to me made that NGOs are better off specialising because a lot would get lost in translation in a "world aid agency". Effectiviess is, therefore, undermined, and it would also send a message to the developing world (governments especially) that forming independent associations and organisations is a bad idea. There could be major conditions/barriers to entry. People would be, to that degree, more unfree. Think of people's criticisms of the trades union movement (though it's actually, generally, a decent model of common social organisation, as is the Christian Right in America, I guess . It would be more difficult for locally-based issues to be dealt with because they'd get crowded out by the big guns. This, also, in a context where corruption is a major issue in developing countries (less so our own).

There's a need for greater levels of co-operation and co-ordination among aid/development organisations. There's certainly need for improved global governance, but we already have the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO. Why not, instead, mobilise the unified diversity of the global justice movement to transform those institutions into what you're talking about? At least if they're not perfect, those organisations can be made better through a people's movement. There's no need to go back to scratch.

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/8002997?view=Eircomnet

DadaKopf

That story's not quite true, and the backstory is in-fighting between board members who got annoyed at somebody or other's promotion.

The Independent went mental and Self Help have been fiercely rejecting its accusations.

The Irish Times reports:

Mick McCarthy, one of the group which has called the egm, said the meeting was being convened to reconstitute the board. The legal advice was that the meeting was properly called.

He claimed there was concern about the level of administration costs within the organisation, which he put at €500,000 of the €1.49 million raised last year.

However, an agency source denied this, saying it was arrived at by including the salaries of overseas project staff under administrative costs.

Basically, spending administration costs on local staff in Africa would be considered aid because the money is going into the locality. Self Help's accounts are run in such a way that they just count everything as administration costs, even though many different forms of spending fall under that bracket.

For example, Self Help flies celebrities over to their projects in Africa to drive fundraising. They ensure that the €1,000 it takes to fly them over there is compensated with €4,000 extra donations - they spend €1,000 to make €4,000.

Out of the so-called quarter of donations going on administration, much less than that actually does, and the rest goes to fundraising, paying locals etc. Roughly 10% is real administration costs. In-line with best practise.

Victor

DadaKopf wrote:

For example, Self Help flies celebrities over to their projects in Africa to drive fundraising. They ensure that the €1,000 it takes to fly them over there is compensated with €4,000 extra donations - they spend €1,000 to make €4,000.

Fundraising expenses are part of the overhead, so €1,000 / €4,000 = 25%

Then again thats possibly why professional fundraisers are so busy these days.

GOAT_Ali

There's a hell of a lot of people getting rich and 'famous' from their so called mercy missions to Africa. I'd like to se their CV as regards charity at home. Africa has ben for far to long an easy option for a lot of these charities, a lot of these people wouldn't cross the road to help their damn neighbour, yet they will beg, steal and borrow to help Africans?, it doesn't make sense.

Africa needs Africans to be calling the shots, not westerners on ego trips dictating to them.

DadaKopf

There's a hell of a lot of people getting rich and 'famous' from their so called mercy missions to Africa. I'd like to se their CV as regards charity at home. Africa has ben for far to long an easy option for a lot of these charities, a lot of these people wouldn't cross the road to help their damn neighbour, yet they will beg, steal and borrow to help Africans?, it doesn't make sense.

Africa needs Africans to be calling the shots, not westerners on ego trips dictating to them.

Whoa, there. You've got two issues there. Africa is the poorest continent in the world and badly needs resources to develop, and has urgent needs which Africans can't provide for themselves right now. The second issue is certain celebrities - *ahem*John O'Shea*ahem* - grandstanding, pushing racist stereotypes as a publicity tool to raise cash, which I completely abhor. Goal staff do great work, but O'Shea is a lunatic.

In any case, you don't know what celebrities who lend their faces to aid NGOs do in other areas. And since when should we ourselves before anyone else? Why shouldn't celebrities do stuff for other places? There are plenty to go around. Truth is, out of an island of four million people, there's a wide spread of people, and celebrities, helping out all kinds of causes left, right and centre.

Victor wrote:

Fundraising expenses are part of the overhead, so €1,000 / €4,000 = 25%

Then again thats possibly why professional fundraisers are so busy these days.

George Jacob, Communications Officer, SHI, on George Hook 6th May 2006 wrote:

George Jacob: Self Help expended just 6% of its 2004 budget, which was €4.2 million, on admin, that figure was actually brought down to 5% last year. Now what the critics have been doing is they have been incorporating into administration the cost of fundraising, and now you will appreciate in the, in the charity sector, fundraising, you don’t make money without expending money.

George Hook: the [Your] figures on promotion are about 14%-15%, which if we talk about ratios is, ratio of promotion and fundraising is about standard for charities across the board, 14%. Also what is a standard ratio across the board, if I looked at Oxfam and looked at Children in Need, eh I looked at a pile of accounts today on the internet for the charities, income of 4 to expenditure for 1 is about average, which is the case for you, 4 to 1. I think where Mr. McCarthy has a point if I may say so, is at the end of the day the €925,000 is set off against income of €1.5 million. Whereas although your total income is over €4 million, that comes from Government Aid and so on.

[...]

I think where Mr. McCarthy has a point if I may say so, is at the end of the day the €925,000 is set off against income of €1.5 million. Whereas although your total income is over €4 million, that comes from Government Aid and so on.

George Jacob (Communications Officer, Self Help): Sure yes, but you only receive, em, from the Government we’re actually only one of five Irish Agencies that receives multi-annual programme support from Irish Aid the Department of Foreign Affairs, and they rigorously evaluate our expenditure and the effectiveness of our work in Africa, em, you know the point you make, em, they will fund up to 70% of the cost of a programme, and we need to go out publicly to raise the balance. You receive, you know like 6 to 1 and 7 to 1 ratios of the amount that you can raise.

[...]

George Hook: All right ok, well you know, all of us who work for charity em, give, and everybody who does it, gives it with big open hearts, but ultimately em, in order surely to develop any kind of charity and to work in very difficult conditions of dictatorships or otherwise, professional people are needed. Do you not accept that they have to pay, I mean that the have to pay professional people to raise money, professional people to put structures together or whatever?

Mick McCarthy: Of course you do, of course you do, but the two instances I outlined there of flying people to India from Africa, flying, big numbers of people, flying big numbers of people to Ireland, again from Africa, at enormous costs.

George Hook: You’ll have to answer that one quickly, because I’ll be in terrible trouble with the News.

George Jacob (Communications Officer, Self Help): Well I’ll just answer the second point about em you know like 12 people coming to Ireland.

George Hook: Quickly please.

George Jacob (Communications Officer, Self Help): And you know the number was actually six, em, that came to Ireland, and they were the country directors from the five country’s plus our African Director, and you know, we had critical meetings with Irish Aid and with other donors and supporters, and they needed to travel to Ireland for that.

Sorry, it's the critics, annoyed at the recent appointment who are cooking the books. So this 25% figure is nonsense.

And this is from SHDI's Press Release:

SHDI STATEMENT: RESPONSE TO RECENT MEDIA CLAIMS

Weekend reports about the Irish charity Self Help Development International are untrue. Self Help expended just 6 per cent of it's 2004 budget of €4.2 million on administration costs - and invested approximately 80 % of funding received on our programme work in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Malawi, Kenya and Uganda.

In 2005 our budget was €5.4 million – from which 5% was spent on administration, 14% on promotion and fund-raising, and 81% on our programme work in Africa – where we have a staff of approximately 300 people.

Self Help is one of just five Irish agencies that has been approved for multi-annual programme support (MAPS) through the Irish Government's Irish Aid. The Dept of Foreign Affairs rigorously evaluates Self Help's expenditure and the effectiveness of its work. In total Self Help received €2.25 million from the state in this way in 2004.

A distinguishing feature of Self Help is the way it keeps overheads down and gets funds to where they are most needed. The organisation does not employ expatriate staff in Africa, but instead ensures that local people benefit from the work of their own people. The Irish headquarters is in Hacketstown, Co Carlow.

Since Self Help Development International was founded in 1984, it has directly helped approximately 2.5 million African small-holding farmers and those living in rural communities to achieve self-sufficiency in food production. The total cost of this was under €30 million.

Self Help relies upon funding support and contributions from the Irish public, and its audited accounts are open and available to anyone who might wish to view them.