Charitable giving?? A question for you all...?

Question

I have just watched another advert asking for cash to help people in foreign parts. The poor buggers need help, that much is clear, but what I am wondering, is where the bloody h**l has all the money (a sum that equals billions upon billions of pounds) that we as a country have been donating gone?

Money is donated through Comic Relief, Children In Need, Live Aid, now Sports Relief, as well as the generous people who donate monthly to their chosen charity via Direct Debit. It would appear that on the whole there has been little to no improvement in these third world countries.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Very good question, I've often wondered that as well, so will keep my eyes on the answers

Answer 2

This is the terrible part of it. In many of those countries their is a government in name only. Corruption is rife. To get anything through to those in such  a desperate situation "fees" have to be paid either to some apparent government official or warlord perhaps both. This alone creams off a lot of the money. In any event the need is so desperate that it is like a big whole. From what I have heard these people are more than willing to work their way out of this situation but the political situation is so poor that whenever they get to anything like a viable situation someone comes along and takes it from them a gunpoint. I have no idea how this problem can be solved because behind all of this are foreign governments and large apparently respectable companies. Sadly the UN is also failing. The last i hears wad that a bigger proportion gets to where it is needed through the Church groups, but even this may be out of date. This does not mean we should not give because if no one does the situation will become even worse

Answer 3

First of all: you don't hear about the successes of all those millions of dollars, which are substantial. Look at Ghana. Look at where Liberia was 10 years ago vs. where it is now. Even with the recent riots, look at where Kenya is now versus 20 years ago. Look at Ethiopia, which dominated the news regarding the mass starvation back in the 1980s.

Secondly, just as much money, if not more, is being poured into weapons in these countries, which keeps many countries unstable. You also have people who are incredibly corrupt, like Mugabe, running Zimbabwe into the ground while other African leaders look away. In short, there are millions of dollars being funneled into *undoing* the work of Comic Relief, Children In Need, Live Aid, Sports Relief, the UN, CARE, Save the Children, OxFam and others.

Thirdly, there's the brain drain and AIDS. Look at Malawi -- doctors and nurses from Malawi leave for hugely better-paying jobs in other countries; a doctor can take care of his entire extended family if he or she goes elsewhere, but can barely make ends meet for just him or herself if she stays in her countrie. And AIDS is killing teachers, government workers, medical staff at a faster rate than those people can be replaced. The people who are in a position to turn all this around are either leaving or dieing.

The organizations you mention do have successes, and I suggest you look at their web sites and learn more about those, because you will rarely read about them in the media.  But if you think these little feel-good events can turn the tide in Africa and elsewhere by themselves in a few years... well, that's just not going to happen.

Answer 4

Well: firstly the hole that needs to be filled is HUGE. The number of people in need is massive and still growing.

Secondly the countries in need are undeveloped and so often have bureaucratic and ineffective systems or no systems in place in terms of managing their finances correctly. Example, I was in Zambia recently volunteering on a mission trip and there were two containers from Germany, filled with clothes, mattresses, toys etc. that had been sitting, locked for two years! The people in charge did not know how they would distribute the items - things that seemed simple to us too managerial skills unknown to the Zambian volunteers, who were not much better off than the people they had devoted their lives to helping.

Also, corruption is a major problem and due to this and the systems i mentioned, a lot of money is 'lost' somewhere.

Effective, independent bodies need to be put in place so that aid can be distributed and managed efficiently and effectively.