Good Intentions Are Not Enough

What would the ideal aid agency rating system look like?

This post has been moved to Good Intentions' new website. Click here to read the post.

When is it appropriate for a donor to visit an aid recipient?

Education, Not Titillation

Reflecting on the debate over disaster/poverty tourism a couple of weeks back some bloggers, such as Tales from the Hood and Pepy Tours, have argued that there is a benefit, if done right, of donors visiting aid recipients. And, if done right, I agree. One of the common complaints after the tsunami was that donors did not come and check whether aid work was done well or learn about the real needs of aid recipients. Donors do need to have a greater understanding of what does and does not work in aid as well as common problems associated with aid. Properly structured visits can help them become better donors.

However, it is important that donor visitations are done is such a way that it puts the needs of aid recipient over the needs of the donor. Care should be taken so that the visit does not objectify aid recipients and ensures that the recipients concerns are heard (concerns about objectifying aid recipients and gratuitous visits prompted my Disaster Tourism posting).

Volunteer surgical teams struggle with common aid problems

Normally I wait until Sunday to post related news items, but the article titled Volunteering Overseas - Lessons from Surgical Brigades from the New England Journal of Medicine is worth posting on it's own.  Although the article focuses on issues related to surgeries, it hits upon many of the topics I've covered in this blog.

Good aid takes time
Because of all the challenges faced in working in these conditions one doctor spoke of the need for surgeons that can stay for at least a few weeks. One doctor went as far as to say "But the real impact is made by people who are able to stay in a place for years on end. In my own experience, it took a year to really understand what was going on in a cultural and social context."
(related post: Guideline #1 for volunteering overseas)

Guideline #4 for volunteering overseas

Manage your expectations

Although volunteering overseas can be a life-changing experience, it's also one of the hardest things you'll ever do. Many people have an unrealistic expectation that their experience will be as glamorous as it seems in the Kashi commericals. Managing your expectation before you volunteer will help you have a more successful volunteer experience. Below are some of the common issues international volunteers face.

Guideline #3 for Volunteering Overseas

Examine your motivations

The debate over voluntourism seems to be coalescing around one point - motivation matters. Before volunteering it’s important to have an honest conversation with yourself and examine your motivations and whether putting yourself in the lives of aid recipients is the best way to meet your needs.

If your goal is to help people, start by helping people in your own home town

As a Peace Corps recruiter I often told recruits that you won’t save the world because the world doesn't want to be saved. You will not come riding in on a white horse with all the solutions. Social problems are not easily solved, and there are many factors contributing to them (see posting Mosquito nets, condoms, and recycling). Just as it is difficult to solve problems in our own community, it can be even harder to solve problems in someone else’s community. If your goal is to really make a difference, then consider staying at home and volunteering with charities in your own community. There are plenty of non-profits that need talented people and it may even lead to a paid position, which means you’ll be around long enough to potentially have a real impact.

What to look for when evaluating an aid agency

When people hear I'm writing a book on aid I immediately get asked about specific aid agencies they gave to. Unfortunately, I cannot tell them the quality of those aid agencies without spending time to research them. What I can tell them is how they can research the aid agency themselves.

Evaluating aid agencies before donating is critical

If you don't have time to research an aid agency, then I would suggest not donating. There is no body that regulates aid and no outside entity ensuring that the aid agency is providing quality aid or working in the best interest of those you want to help. Without properly vetting an aid agency before giving, you risk your donation being used on programs that may do more harm than good. To ensure that your money is doing the good you intended you have to look past aid agency advertising, name recognition, and "happy stories", and instead look for evidence that the aid agency is following best practices and constantly improving their organization.

Guideline #2 for volunteering overseas

Don't volunteer to do what a local person could be paid to do

When it gets right down to it, the fundamental reason why people may need aid is that they don't have enough money to pay for something themselves. Anyone that has enough money could meet all of their own needs. Saudi Arabia has very little local food production, but they don’t have a food crisis because they have the money to pay to import food. People wouldn’t need an aid agency to come in and build school for them if they could earn a good enough money to contribute to the cost of the school themselves. Therefore, one key to alleviating poverty is creating jobs that pay a living wage. By working for free to do something a local person could be hired to do, you are essentially undercutting the local labor market, thereby continuing the poverty cycle.

Guideline #1 for Volunteering Overseas

Guideline # 1 - Good volunteer projects require a significant commitment of time

While most development workers can tell stories of volunteers or volunteer projects that did more harm than good, most of us also got our start through volunteering or an internship. I personally was a Peace Corps Volunteer. With the debate raging over poverty tourism, disaster tourism and voluntourism (see links at end of post), I thought it might be a good time to develop guidelines for useful and appropriate overseas volunteer work.

Because there are many factors to consider in evaluating a volunteer project, this will be a series of posts. I welcome feedback that will help clarify, tweak, or improve the guidelines so that potential volunteers can use these to make informed decisions.

It takes time to understand the local needs and to develop a successful project

This may either be your time or the time of the organization with which you are volunteering. Significant time is needed to truly understand the local needs, their abilities, and how you can best contribute. This requires that either you or the organization understands the local language, culture, and politics. In addition, the people you are helping need to play a key role in determining the type of aid that will be provided and how it will be provided. This cannot be accomplished over a one or two week visit. In fact, Peace Corps used to counsel overanxious volunteers to not even try to accomplish anything their first year, but to spend that time learning the local context and developing relationships that will be key to a successful project. 

Welcome

As a leading expert in the post-2004 tsunami recovery efforts in Thailand, I have seen the impact of aid from all perspectives: villagers, government officials, religious leaders, aid agency staff and directors, the United Nations, and various donors. Through these interactions I found that donors are key to improving the delivery of aid, yet they lack the knowledge necessary to make funding decisions that positively impact that delivery. The goal of this blog is to help individual donors give in ways that match their good intentions.