Post #6

The principal concerns raised by Linda Polman in her book Crisis Caravan are that aid organizations help warring parties in conflict zones, that they spend too much time and resources marketing themselves, and that they do not deliver aid in an effective way. The story she chose to lead this book with, about the horrific conditions perpetuated by aid organizations in the refugee camps around Goma in what was then Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) following the Rwandan genocide is a perfect example. She highlighted the fact that these UN-run camps were actually the home of the genocidal government-in-exile of Rwanda, running from those who would’ve held them accountable had they stayed in their home country. The aid organizations active in these camps clothed, fed, and cared for these government officials and their solders, allowing them to lead raids to continue their genocide back in to Rwanda and strengthen themselves for an attempt to take back their country and reinstitute their genocidal policies. Additionally, with hard currency flowing from these aid organizations directly in to the pockets of these officials, they could afford to fly weapons directly in to the camps, further bolstering the threat they posed. Polman argued that based on what we know now about those camps, aid organizations had no business being there and actually contributed to the rampant instability that effects this region through the present day, including in fueling several wars in the DRC.

Polman says “Aid organizations are businesses dressed up like Mother Teresa” because they are. She outlines how aid organizations rely on donor contracts for their continued existence, and this leads to massive competition between them. Organizations who’s public image is that of care and healing are really running huge ad campaigns so they can continue receiving enough donations to stay solvent. As the horrific story described above appropriately points out, these organizations don’t really care who they’re helping or how much of their aid gets syphoned off by warlords, brutal governments, and terrorists as long as the money keeps rolling in.

Polman spent a lot of time laying out the myriad problems with humanitarian aid organizations, but she admitted herself in her afterword that there is no easy or obvious solution. I agree completely; there is no obvious solution and I don’t think there ever will be. The solutions that have been proposed, including in our class discussion, are all contingent on enforcement. Just like with any law, creating a binding code of conduct for aid organizations would mean nothing if the organizations knew they could flaunt those laws with no consequences. No western country wants to send law enforcement to every disaster area. Polman made it evident in this book that journalists are no help either since, in a world where everybody wants high quality news but nobody wants to pay for it, journalists’ trips to disaster areas are usually covered in whole or in part by one of these large aid organizations. With no oversight whatsoever currently in place, and most large donors driven by headlines instead of a through accounting of an organizations goals and practices, I simply can’t see any way that these organizations will ever be regulated. Thinking from a political perspective, the prospects seem even more bleak. Politicians would only have to consider what their opponent would have to say about them during the next election cycle if they were the first in the nation to punish charitable organizations. It’s not a very pragmatic or popular point of view, but it’s one this world urgently needs to take.