> After three years moving through 35 countries in Africa, this sums up my experience and thoughts on aid money. I have spent considerable time with a ton of UN and NGO people in many different countries, and heard plenty of great first-hand accounts of how things actually work on the ground.

I also worked in Africa (although in a more limited way than you) and I came to the same conclusion, it really was an eye opening. Actually our company which had absolutely zero humanitarian goals (and the CEO himself was very far from those ideals, he was just in for the money) was doing more locally than the vast majority of NGOs there.

It's not a surprise: when all others give you fish, a company may give you a fishing rod (I don't know if it was what happened in your case, but I wouldn't be surprised).

> It sounds great, and the people giving the money really think they're helping. Unfortunately, it's rarely the case

I don't think your experience driving around Africa gave you a enough information to adequately support your conclusion (which I could not leave unchallenged). I mean this in a non-disparaging way: you got breadth, but not depth. I, an African, on the other hand, have depth, but not breadth.

I have some experience with both sides of the NGO coin: I've seen communities and individuals positively. From disease eradication in whole communities to people regaining their vision. People giving money are helping in most of the cases. On the other side of the coin - I agree that NGOs have a lot of fat they could cut in terms of expenditures that do not directly go to their mission, but this depends entirely on which NGO it is and what their culture is, not all of them are the same. This is an industry ripe for disruption by leaner setups, too bad VCs aren't really geared for this.

Donors are helping, but maybe not as much as they think they are (per dollar). It would be great if they would research the org they are donating to to find how many cents per dollar are going to the cause. More transparency in this area is needed.

> I don't think your experience driving around Africa gave you a enough information to adequately support your conclusion....you got breadth, but not depth. I, an African, on the other hand, have depth, but not breadth.

That's a great point I had not thought enough about, and I think you are correct.

Certainly your examples of health (disease and sight) sound very positive.

Also examples where NGOs or World Vision or whoever bring in massive quantities of food appear very positive on the surface, though the long term consequences are extremely unhealthy, and just create more of a dependence loop than ever before, until locals are utterly unable to help themselves.

> Donors are helping, but maybe not as much as they think they are (per dollar). It would be great if they would research the org they are donating to to find how many cents per dollar are going to the cause. More transparency in this area is needed.

More transparency is absolutely the key, but I also think it's really important to take a step back and really think about if and how any donor is actually "helping" at all. We in the west have this funny idea that money is the answer to everything and more money = a better life. Certainly it's important to have healthcare and clean drinking water, but after that a lot of times I saw money degrading African society, not making anything better at all.

I'm terrified we'll turn many special countries into "little America" or "little Europe" complete with high cancer rates, stress, 9-5 jobs, pollution, lack of care for our community and neighbors, high crime, rampant greed and inequality ,etc. etc.

> I also think it's really important to take a step back and really think about if and how any donor is actually "helping" at all. We in the west have this funny idea that money is the answer to everything and more money = a better life.

I agree that there can be a charity can cause a vicious cycle by damaging local industry. However, it is pointless to talk about charity in isolation without considering other factors such as the harm caused by trade policies of developed nations (to be fair, is in their national interest), "exploitation"[1] of resources by MNC with no meaningful value-addition in host country, as well as a general lack of accountability among African political leaders.

Cutting all aid seems like an easy solution, but it won't spur development of local farms or industries if they are undercut by subsidized goods from abroad. The 'difficult' solution, but more likely to work, would be overhauling leadership culture, and getting a fairer trade system in place (e.g. no farm subsidies) - sadly, I do not see any appetite for either due to self-interest among the actors.

1. scare-quotes because raw resources are extracted and paid for, but the value addition is done abroad. Ghana produces a huge chunk of the world's cocoa, but most of the profits are captured by European chocolateers.

I live in Tanzania and the only people who don’t want the country turn into “little America” or “little Europe” is foreigners who just want to go on Safari. I and everyone else would love skyscrapers, 9-5 jobs, money, IPhones, etc.

> I and everyone else would love skyscrapers, 9-5 jobs, money, IPhones, etc.

Of course you do. What you don't want is skyrocketing cancer rates, heart disease, spousal abuse, a severe lack of time, people who are so poor they can't feed themselves, high crime rates and all the other things that come along with the "shiny" stuff like 9-5 jobs, money & iPhones.

The thing is the developed world hasn't figured out how to get one without the other, and if I were you, I would think long and hard if you really, really want what you're asking for.

I lived that life of the developed first world city, and frankly, it's horrible. I recently spent time in one of the world's most livable cities, supposedly a great place to live. After three years in Africa I would rather die than live in that "great western city".

I moved from NYC to Tanzania and spousal abuse, cancer, poverty, and crime is way higher here than there. The only tangibly better part of the culture is the sense of community.

I love Tanzania, but I recognize that it’s because I have the money to live a very good life here.

Unfortunately, I’ve gotten a little addicted to the power of having a cook, housekeeper, and gardener for under $15/day total. I miss NYC, but I also realize how hard it will be to go back to just being an average joe.

Sure, but you live in a city in Tanzania, which is already going the way of "Western City", so it already has all the bad stuff.

Get out into a town or village, or better yet, get to a country that isn't overrun with tourists like Tanzania is. Gabon is simply breathtaking, Congo is wild, Burundi really is the heart of Africa, Djibouti is like a different planet! There is a lot to explore, a huge part of me wishes I could turn around and drive south right now!

> It would be great if they would research the org they are donating to to find how many cents per dollar are going to the cause.

Charity Navigator can help: https://www.charitynavigator.org/

What then do you think is the right way to help these countries out of the rut they are in?

I used to think the Grameen Bank way was the best way, but even that has come under criticism [0].

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Bank#Criticism

The first thing I would do is say that someone must spent at least two years on the ground in the country they're trying to "help". They shouldn't "do" anything for those two years, just live with the local people and observe and learn.

I honestly think that anyone that doesn't actually live there on the ground doesn't have the faintest clue how to help, or what is even actually needed.

Also, the very idea that "help" is even required becomes quite strange after you've lived there a while. Certainly giving money helps nothing, very likely makes it worse.

Maybe training. Maybe education (but that will be very church or western oriented, so it's dangerous).

Maybe the best approach is to let people figure things out for themselves, and come up with their own solutions to problems. Maybe we could just offer some advice or pointers from time to time, if asked.

>and heard plenty of great first-hand accounts of how things actually work on the ground.

I'm interested: how do things actually work on the ground?

UN people are making $1000 USD per day, NGOs spend millions on a project that leaves a town worse off than before, foreigners come in and mess with the local economy in every way they possibly can.

Aid money buys foreign rice, floods the African market with it so the locals don't grow any next year, then the problem is worse and the dependence just grows every year.

I'll write at least a chapter on all these and more in the book I'm writing about my time around Africa.

It seems to me the most sensible way to provide aid, is to hire locals to do the work. By all means have some people there to check they're doing a good job, but certainly don't replace the work the locals are doing, or you're just creating unemployment.

I too heard that African farmers have been going bankrupt due to free rice from foreign aid after Live Aid and similar projects. Better to give locals money to buy rice from local farmers for a better price, and important food if that's not enough. Or use your foreign aid money to buy food from local farmers first, supplemented with foreign food if it's not enough, and distribute that. But keeping it as part of the local economy, rather than completely replacing the local economy, seems like a much better idea.

If you want to build houses in Haiti, hire locals to build those houses.

> It seems to me the most sensible way to provide aid, is to hire locals to do the work.

Absolutely, that's step number 1.

But of course, it has a ton of negative consequences too. Firstly, lots of these people are not used to having "jobs" or even any real money. So now some of them go to work all day, which means they are away from their families. They also get a lot of money relative to everyone else, so pretty soon they're buying motorbikes, beer and touch-screen cell phones.

So now you have this segment of the community that's "Living like Americans" while everyone else is still in a mud hut. The rich people's quality of life goes down - they don't get much time with their families, they drink too much, they eat badly, they're forced to buy food because they don't have time to grow and cook it, etc. - but paradoxically everyone else wants to be like them.

Basically you start to get all the problems of "Western Society" in a society that has never really had the concept of working for someone else or money.

Then later the work dries up (project finished or more likely runs out of money before complete) and now all these people are as screwed as Americans with no jobs. They're not growing their own food, they can't support their lifestyle (motorbikes, food, toys) and suddenly become very dependent.

In essence, we just turn them into the worst of Western Society, which, from what I saw, is horrible.

The thing is, this problem is extremely, extremely hard, and basically any suggestion solution has very, very real negative consequences. That's why I suggest spending some time and thinking really, really hard about if there is anything to "fix" in the first place. It's also why I think training and possibly some education is about the only things we should be "giving". It means the transition will be much slower than if we just built it for them (or paid them to build it) but in the long run the society will be stronger and better.

Join Kiva[1]. They do exactly as you say, and they are extremely successful.

[1]: https://www.kiva.org/

That's microcredits, isn't it? Definitely one of the bigger successes in supporting development in poor countries, all the more effective because they're loans that get paid back and can be loaned out again. But I'm not sure it's a great model for rebuilding after a disaster, which requires money that's not going to be paid back.

Or so it seems to me, at least. Maybe you know something I don't.

Yep, microcredit is not a donation, so it will not work for desperate situations, but you cannot hire locals in desperate situation too. If you want to hire locals and use other locals to check the work, then situation must be controllable, and locals must be rational and accountable. Banking system must work at least. In these conditions, Kiva provides very good "result achieved"/"money spent" ratio.

However, it's your money, so you can just throw them (donate) at refuges[1] or somebody who need a housing[2], if you want that, but it's doesn't work well for local economy.

[1]: https://www.kiva.org/lend/refugees-and-i-d-ps [2]: https://www.kiva.org/lend?sector=10

Why can't money be paid back after a disaster?

I suppose it could, but do you want to? I thought the issue here was that people donate money to be spent on housing, not to be loaned on housing and then paid back.

Microcredits are great in the long run because lots of small improvements really add up. The problem with big disasters is that you need more than small improvements to fix the problem, and to expect all of that to be paid back saddles poor people (or a poor country) with a lot of debt.

At least, that's what it seems like to me, but I'm no expert on this. They seem like two very different cases that require different solutions.

Please do! I'd be very interested in reading that. Will you announce that book in one of your links in your profile?

Yes, I will. I'm theroadchoseme.com

Not OP but I presume one of the root problems is how the aid is organized. You need lot of grass roots work to actually figure out what works locally. But that's not how you progress in a western organization. You need clear project plans, then you need a budget and follow ups on the project milestones. Which is all paperwork, and not directly related to the actual effect of the project on ground.

It's like a re-enactment of the Soviet Union. Big plans, big scopes ...