Only 20 percent of international aid gets through

[Dreamer128]

Action Aid and Oxfam say only 20 percent of money donated for aid actually reaches those who need it. They claim bureaucracy, inefficiency and nepotism account for the waste of more than five billion euros per year.

Forty percent of aid is used by donor governments to sell expensive goods and services abroad. The United States and Italy use up a massive 70 percent of their aid budgets domestically.

The aid groups also accuse international organisations of imposing impossible conditions on nations receiving aid.

(rnw.nl)

[LennonCook]

I see figures, I see conclusions, I don't see proofs, and I don't see specifics. The US uses 70% of their aid budget domestically - Ok, what do they use it on, and what counts as 'domestic' in terms of this study? International organisations imposing which impossible conditions?

I hope that this article is just spurting crap... because this is alot of money wastage. And this is before all the UN wastage the anti-UN voices talk of.

[johnny]

Well, i'm not really surprised to hear such a thing.

[Kakero]

Well, when there's a big piece of pie laying around. Who wouldn't be tempted to take a slice of it? [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img]

[Morgeruat]

Originally posted by LennonCook: I see figures, I see conclusions, I don't see proofs, and I don't see specifics. The US uses 70% of their aid budget domestically - Ok, what do they use it on, and what counts as 'domestic' in terms of this study? International organisations imposing which impossible conditions? I hope that this article is just spurting crap... because this is alot of money wastage. And this is before all the UN wastage the anti-UN voices talk of.

Lennoncook, good points, it also fails to mention whether it's the total aid budget or just the international aid budgets, as well as failing to mention how much is actually spent on transporting food supplies, clothing, bedding, etc. It strongly implies that it's international aid budgets, but doesn't actually say that.

Personally when I donate I always check the fine print to see how much of the $ I'm sending actually gets where it's going, and refuse to give to organizations that consume more than 3% internally. IIRC the Christians Childrens Fund (they're always having ad's on the TV especially around the holidays) uses a whopping 20% of every dollar given on "administrative fees" and they're not even the worst of the lot.

[ 03-01-2005, 08:44 AM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]

[pritchke]

There is more to it than that. This article is actually incomplete and does not explain what it is referring to. It also makes both the US and Italy seem like the villains when it actually includes alot of countries that do the same thing just maybe at a slightly less level to keep the heat off themselves.

The United States and Italy use up a massive 70 percent of their aid budgets domestically.

This is referring to the fact that they spend most this money domestically when they can easily by cheaper supplies and services that are just as good from other countries. Instead of getting the most bang for there buck they choose to spend all the money to help their economies. A little quid pro quo so to speak and almost all countries are guilty of it just the US and Italy tend to do this more so currently, and I stress currently. In an ideal world were the managers are not influenced by people in positions of higher powers they would look at all options (bidding) and pick the cheapest one that meets the requirements and not care if it is a supplier in the same country or not and they would not just let there close buddies make bids.

For example lets say we needed to buy shovels to dig people out of the rubble. The US buys 2 shovels to go toward aid from a US supplier, except if it bought them from China they could have had 10 shovels for the same price. While all the money is going to aid the cause it isn't being spent as effectively as it could have been. This is money spent that could have gone alot further except it helps the US economy not Chinas. Hope that makes more sense as what it is trying to refer to. The only way to determine if the money is being speant efficiency and nepotism isn't being used is through an audit. The donars have no way of knowing if the money is as effective as it could be only the percent that is being used for aid. We might feel good about donating to an organization that uses 98% of its money for aid and only 2% on admin fees but we have know way of know that if they purchased this from here and here we could have had more money for this and that.

[ 03-02-2005, 06:31 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]