Due in part to its tumultuous past, sub-Saharan Africa is a region of the world that is stricken with war, famine, and poverty. Many people in richer parts of the world, including North America and Europe, view helping the people who inhabit this part of the world as their duty and obligation. Both non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governmental organizations such as the United Nations (UN) alike send humanitarian aid to sub-Saharan Africa. While this aid helps countless individuals and their families, humanitarian aid in sub-Saharan Africa fuels further conflict and enables violent groups, undermining the goals of the aid itself.
The history of humanitarian aid has been muddied by cases of NGOs and UN groups enabling violent groups by providing too much support and aid. During the Rwandan Genocide, two ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis, clashed and thousands of Tutsis were killed at the hands of the Hutus. Many people fled the country seeking refuge, and agencies set up refugee camps in some of the neighboring countries, beginning one of the largest humanitarian aid disasters that the world has ever seen (Lassiter 54). Many ex-combatants found their ways into these cams, receiving food and aid supplies. Some of these camps were even used as military bases where the ex-combatants could rally and then leave to kill their enemies. Thinking that they could curb reliance on aid workers and agencies, the aid was put under the control of the Rwandan soldiers. Because of the prejudice of the soldiers, only people of certain races and ethnicities received aid. The availability of aid to the military and militants enabled them to accomplish military objectives without fear of retribution. While the aid problems in the aftermat...
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...e and dandy, even though it is killing hundreds of people a month. In the case of Kony, aid has supported a group known to abduct children and rape them. While aid is designed to do a lot of good, its very presence can do harm. Aid is necessary for the survival of many people, so the inherent harm of aid must be mitigated and managed properly and very carefully. The goal of aid agencies can no longer be to do good; aid agencies must now strive to not do more harm than necessary.
Works Cited
Anderson, Mary. Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace – Or War. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1999. Print.
Lassiter, Randi. “How Aid Negatively Impacts Conflict: The moral and Political Dilemmas faced by Humanitarian Organizations.” The Monitor 13.1 (2007): 50-60. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
Pascal, Zachary. “Humanitarian Dilemmas.” Wilson Quarterly 32.3 (2008): 44-51. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.
Her memoir starts off in Darfur in 2005, where in her late 20’s, she hits rock bottom while managing a refugee camp for 24,000 civilians. It backtracks to her internship in Rwanda, while moving forward to her challenges in Darfur, in addition to her experiences in post- tsunami Indonesia, and post-quake in Haiti. By sharing her story, Alexander gives readers an opportunity to go behind-the-scenes into the devastations that are censored on media outlets. She stresses that these are often the problems that individuals claim they are educated on, but rarely make it their priority to solve. However, that is not the case for Jessica Alexander as she has over 12 years of experience working with different NGO’s and UN operations. As a result, Alexander earns the credibility to critique the multi-billion-dollar humanitarian aid industry. From her painful yet rewarding work experience, Alexander gives an honest and empathetic view of humanitarian aid as an establishment and a
The state-sponsored massacres of Hutus by the Tutsi-dominated Burundian army in 1972 was one of the most significant post-Holocaust genocides and as such received appropriate levels of international attention due to a lack of political distractions within western nations. The genocide broke out as a Hutu-lead rebellion in which Hutu insurgents massacred Tutsis and resisting Hutus in the lakeside towns of Rumonge and Nyanza-Lac. As many as 1200 people killed in this initial incident, the Tutsi-dominated government responded by declaring martial law and systematically proceeded to slaughter Hutus (Totten 325). After hundreds of thousands of Hutus had been massacred by the Burundian government, the neighboring nation of Zaire aided the Hutus in a counteroffensive attack on the Tutsi-controlled army. Having succeeded in their effort, the genocide was quickly brought to international attention within a few days. The United Nations invested $25,000 from the World Disaster Relief Account’s fund...
...on people face a similar fate in Darfur….” says one website. They say that America made promises to prevent any more bloodshed in the country, but never held up that promise. “The Khartoum government has systematically obstructed access to Darfur and blocked international efforts to establish a relief program,” says the web page. Because of the lack of effort Darfur suffers from the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. In all of these events the UN will take steps after to rectify the situation and prevent it in the future. There is little to no way to guarantee that these kinds of tragedies will never happen again, however the UN can make steps to improve the world’s response and overall international and national laws to prevent future case as best as possible. Which is why the UN continues to update policies to keep up with the ever changing times.
Jamieson, D. (2005). Duties to the Distant: Aid, Assistance, and Intervention in the Developing World. Journal Of Ethics, 9(1/2), 151-170. doi:10.1007/s10892-004-3324-9
The purpose of this essay is to adequately depict the current conflict in Darfur and discuss the effects that the Darfur Conflict has had on the neighboring countries, the Horn of Africa region and U.S. interest. In addition, this essay will explore how Darfur Conflict affects global concerns.
Every year, donors from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) give billions of dollars in foreign aid, with the United States contributing a large percentage of this sum (Eischen 2012) (Figure A). However, the amount and way in which this money is handled has given rise to heavy criticism. Books such as Dambisa Moya’s Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa and the innumerable news articles lamenting the state of the corrupt bureaucracies of receiving countries not only discuss the inefficiencies of foreign aid but also accuse these programs of being harmful (Ayodele et al. 2005). One such article claimed that, due to inefficiencies and corruption, at least twenty percent of aid is completely lost (Chakraborty 2013).
The United States is one of the leading suppliers of Foreign Aid in the world, and even though the US gives billions, European countries give aid money to the same countries, this causes many areas of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia to be almost fully dependent on foreign aid. This means that without aid from other countries, they would not be able to support themselves at all. Foreign aid is meant to help countries that are struggling with civil unrest, disease, or natural disasters, it is not meant to help keep the country out of debt, but that is where more and more of the US and The EU’s foreign aid budget is going. The question is, does all this money actually go where it is intended? It should be going towards the government and to help the people, but in many cases, the countries government does not have the resources to properly track the flow of money. The countries in most cases have poor infrastructure and corrupt or oppressive leaders, not always at a national level, but in the towns and cities. So this means there is almost no way to oversee the flow of foreign aid through the country, all we can see is that their situations aren't getting any better and the countries are still impoverished. If this is the case, where are the millions of dollars going? Countries like Afghanistan and Iraq receive the most money from American foreign aid and European aid, yet they are still under oppressive governmental rule and there is still an extreme difference between the rich and poor. Garrett Harding’s theory of “Lifeboat Ethics” exemplifies how not giving aid to others will allow the strongest of society to thrive, while teaching the impoverished to help themselves. He believes that giving aid to poor countries will only make ...
The way in which foreign aid is distributed is highly ineffective and fails to achieve its sole purpose. Corruption ravages the developing world; greedy diplomats and fraudulent officials are often known to embezzle vast amounts of the aid money given to help those most in need. As Lord P. T. Bauer of London School for Economics famously said, foreign aid is “an excellent method for transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.” The money does not reach those who need it but is instead pocketed by dishonest members of government in foreign countries. Over the past years more than half a billion pounds have been invested in Africa yet there is little visual improvement in extreme poverty, deprivation and the child mortality rate. Evidently, Britain’s aid scheme is uselessly trying to combat poverty against a brick wall of bureaucracy. Without doubt this money would be better invested within the UK improving health and education and lowering the deficit.
Foreign aid can destroy natural mechanisms of economic growth if not properly apportioned to the individuals with motivation and passion for expansion. When blindly given to governments and the public, aid destroys native markets and halts natural growth. NGOs, charities and governments need to take the time to meet the needs of the poor individuals ensuring that local governments have a symbiotic relationship with those they govern over and that governments do not become corrupt or prone to cause civil unrest. Aid focused on meeting the needs of those ensnared by poverty traps can exponentially initiate growth but only if done with appropriate care and caution.
In today’s world, it is of the utmost importance to learn from mistakes of the past. Certain events, especially tragedies that could have been avoided, hold within them the lessons and wisdom that should be used to prevent similar disasters. The 1994 Rwandan genocide resulted in over 800, 000 deaths of the Tutsi people, at the hands of the Hutu; the genocide, and the international response to it, is a lesson about the humanitarian responsibilities, successes, and shortcomings of the United Nations.
In response to the recent failure of the international community to prevent the famine crisis in the Horn of Africa since July 2011, Suzanne Dvorak the chief executive of Save the Children wrote that, “We need to provide help now. But we cannot forget that these children are wasting away in a disaster that we could - and should - have prevented” she added, “The UN estimates that every $1 spent in prevention saves $7 in emergency spending.” (Dvorak, 2011).
Chandler, David G. "The Road to Military Humanitarianism: How the Human Rights Ngos Shaped a New Humanitarian Agenda." Human Rights Quarterly. 23.3 (2001): 678-700. Print.
The allocation of foreign aid in international society is not predicated by notions of necessity and development, but rather by self interest and power. Foreign aid’s altruistic façade can often serve to mask a vehement power struggle between the super powers of global politics. In such a struggle aid is used as a currency to purchase power and influence. These powerful gains can be broken into three different categories, the first and most tangible of these gains is the economic dominance that foreign aid grants the donor nation, this is then followed by the security and stability that accompanies strategic aid allocation and finally the gain of soft power through the spread of norms, values and ideologies is prevalent in this ostensibly
The post-Cold war world is one that has been riddled with conflict, suffering and war. In the face of such times, the issue of humanitarian intervention and about who, when and how it should be employed, has become hotly debated. While some critics declare this kind of intervention to be a violation of national sovereignty, others believe that relief efforts aimed at ending human suffering are perfectly justifiable. (7) The key question here is, if internal wars cause unacceptable human suffering, should the international community develop collective mechanisms for preventing or alleviating it?(5) This essay will attempt to address such a question, by outlining the arguments for and against humanitarian intervention in the context of the Bosnian crisis of 1991. In light of the evidence, it will be proven that although humanitarian intervention does have flaws, it is a vital tool in alleviating the human suffering that so plagues contemporary society.
Glennie, Jonathan. "Giving Aid to Poor Countries Is Hardly a Great Act of Generosity." Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 14 June 2011. Web. 06 Mar. 2014.