PHA-Exch> Big aid donors (2)

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: "Peter Burgess" <peterbnyc at gmail.com>

Dear Alison

Are you the Alison Katz that wrote the open letter to WHO's Dr. Chan
last January?
http://phmoz.org/wiki/index.php?title=Katz_Open_Letter

If so great ... if not, we seem to be on somewhat the same wave,
anyway. In fact, I take considerable encouragement from the fact that
there are a lot of people who are thinking about the issues and coming
up with pretty much the same conclusion.

The challenge is not only to do the analysis and get the right answer
... but also to figure out how to do something that is effective.

I am trying to make a contribution to this by developing a web-based
platform that will bring community information into play ...
Not surprisingly, most of the established organizations in the
interrnational sector are not at all anxious for this sort of
performance metrics and the associated accounting and accountability
to be established ... but it will facilitate much improved
performance, and I am sure we shall prevail in due course.
Peter, The Transparency and Accountability Network: Tr-Ac-Net in New York

>From:  Alison Katz <katz.alison at gmail.com> wrote:
> I much appreciate this comment. I expect you have heard of or read Thomas
> Pogge "Give and Take. What's the matter with foreign aid" (Zed books, 2002).
> This book is full of valuable facts and observations. Essential reading. It
> confirms (as Susan George said 20 years ago), international aid is part of
> the problem.
>
> We are fighting for the right to health or the right to food - emphatically
> NOT for charitable efforts to provide these temporarily, unreliably, and
> incoherently. International aid is at its very best "charity" and at worst
> (and most of the time) it is another arm of foreign policy aimed at
> continued capacity to exploit human and material resources of poor
> countries.
>
> Effectively assisting poor countries towards emancipatory development is the
> last thing that is wanted by powerful donor countries. Weakness, dependence
> and confusion (as to real motivation and real interests) however are
> qualities to cultivate and in this aid has been very effective indeed.