Reimagining Aid
A large proportion of aid money ends up benefiting people and institutions of the Global North rather than the Global South. The aid funds serve the agendas of the rich donors and much of the money does not even reach its intended beneficiaries. Typically, more aid funds end up in the coffers of INGOs than to institutions in the countries to which the aid is supposedly ‘allocated.’ Moreover, as donors have moved toward funding indigenous in-country organizations, the INGOs have frequently set up local their NGO subsidiaries to be better positioned to continue receiving these funds. Instead of providing direct funds to capable ministries of health – who do the bulk of the work, funds often go to INGOs to implement donor-driven health programs that often fail to align with or meet the health needs of global communities.
May 31, 2020
Madagascar government uncovers $830 million of previously unknown ‘aid.’
The Government of Madagascar used the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) data to discover millions of dollars of spending on development and humanitarian projects in the country, that were previously unknown to them. See this 2021 report from the IATI https://iatistandard.org/en/about/case-studies/madagascar-casestudy/ Madagascar has a Aid Monitoring Platform (AMP), but many international organizations working in Madagascar…
August 25, 2019
Gates Foundation: Improve global health without addressing structural causes
Nicholas Kulish (NYTimes podcast/discussion) discusses how Bill Gates has defined problems and solutions to global health, avoiding structural change and protecting Big Pharma patent protections, while burnishing his image as a global health savior: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/podcasts/the-daily/coroanvirus-vaccine-bill-gates-covax.html “Bill Gates is, in many ways, a representative figure…of an era where private companies have such a huge say in…
October 16, 2005
Action Aid calls out “Phantom Aid” in 2005
Scandal of ‘phantom’ aid money | Larry Elliott, economics editor | The Guardian 2005 27 May A 2005 Action Aid report stated that the bulk of aid money allocated was wasted, misdirected or recycled within rich countries. They estimated that 61% of aid flows were “phantom” rather than “real” – rising to almost 90% in…
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