(CAP) Aid agencies have become self-serving corporations dressed in the clothing of compassion | Ian Birrell | Commentisfree | The Guardian | CyberAdal أدال الفضائية
This makes an incendiary new report by Médecins Sans Frontières well timed.
The paper – provocatively titled Where is Everyone?
<http://www.msf.org/article/msf-report-where-everyone> – highlights how
other big aid groups are withdrawing from emergency work, especially in
dangerous conflict zones, in favour of lucrative work on modish concepts
such as conflict resolution, capacity building
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/aug/26/development-jargon-decoded-capacity-building>
and
governance. Two years ago I heard this from the head of their Haiti mission
in Port-au-Prince, despairing as he watched the aid caravan move on despite
a cholera outbreak and thousands still homeless after the devastating
earthquake.
The report accuses the UN of being at the heart of dysfunction in three
trouble spots, with conflicts of interest caused by its triple role as
donor, coordinator and implementer of programmes. Few who have seen its
bumbling efforts in action could dispute such a claim. But this report
marks the moment that MSF – the most tenacious and transparent of major
European relief agencies – goes public with accusations that other groups
focus on the wrong things.