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January 11, 2013 | 1:24 PM | By  | 

Three years later: Was the massive humanitarian response in Haiti a success? | 

Co-authored by Tom Murphy

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Immediately after the 2010 quake, many Haitians were given tents as 'temporary' shelters. Three years later, nearly 400,000 still live in them. UNDP
Immediately after the 2010 quake, many Haitians were given tents as ‘temporary’ shelters. Three years later, nearly 400,000 still live in them. UNDP

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The international community’s response to the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Haiti was one of the largest disaster relief responses ever carried out involving many governments, agencies, hundreds of humanitarian organizations and about $9 billion in private donations and foreign government assistance.

So it may be a bit disconcerting that, three years on, the aid and development community still can’t seem to agree on whether the effort should be regarded as largely a success or a failure.

“There are still something like 360,000 people living in tents,” said Nicole Phillips, a human rights attorney with the Institute for Justice and Democracy and Haiti. Philips is speaking today at the University of Washington along with documentary filmmaker Michele Mitchell who is screening her film Haiti: Where Did the Money Go? – a critical analysis of the lack of accountability within the humanitarian community.

Vijaya Ramachandran
Vijaya Ramachandran

Other aid experts, like Vijaya Ramachandran at the prestigious DC-based think tank the Center for Global Development, have asked the same question. As Ramachandran wrote last spring:

The Government of Haiti has received just 1 percent of humanitarian aid and somewhere between 15 and 21 percent of longer-term relief aid. As a result, NGOs and private contractors in Haiti have built an extensive infrastructure for the provision of social services. Yet, these entities appear to have limited accountability….

But many of those who actually do the work there say this alleged lack of adequate financial accountability doesn’t necessarily mean Haitians did not benefit, that lives were not saved and that many millions of people’s lives have been improved.

JeffWright2“There’s a reason it’s called a disaster,” said Jeff Wright, emergency operations manager for World Vision and a disaster relief worker with lots of experience in Haiti. These situations are always chaotic and hardly ideal for precise bookkeeping, Wright said, adding that Haiti was chaotic and difficult before the quake.

“Are things in Haiti good today? No. Are they better than they would have been had we not responded? Absolutely.” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Justice, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, cholera, disaster relief, foreign aid, Global Partnerships, Haiti, Mercy Corps, UN, World Vision
February 16, 2012 | 10:20 AM | By  | 

Guest post: Welcome to Seattle President Obama. Now, about those foreign aid cuts … | 

President Barack Obama is scheduled to be in the Seattle area tomorrow, as part of a West Coast campaign fund-raising push.

Given this city’s largely liberal and Democratic bent, Obama is likely to be warmly welcomed and celebrated. But our local humanitarian and aid community may not be so welcoming and friendly — given Obama’s proposed budget cutbacks to U.S. foreign aid, disaster relief and global health.

Here’s one such perspective from Joy Portella of Mercy Corps in Seattle:

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Mercy Corps

Joy Portella

This week, President Obama submitted his 2013 budget request to Congress. This request included the international affairs budget, which among other things, provides aid for impoverished families around the world.

Foreign assistance amounts to less than 1 percent of the total budget. That may shock many Americans who think we spend 5 or 10 percent – or even more – on aid.

President Obama’s request for foreign assistance is a mixed bag. Overall, the President would like to increase the aid budget by 2 percent over what he proposed last year. On one level, that looks like a strong commitment to the world’s poor, but a closer look at the numbers reveals something different.

If the President’s proposed budget is accepted, the United States’ ability to help families grappling with poverty, famine or natural disaster would be seriously undermined – at the same time that needs are growing around the globe. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Politics, Barack Obama, foreign aid, Joy Portella, Mercy Corps
January 27, 2012 | 11:02 AM | By  | 

Update: Humanitarian rankers don’t like getting ranked on | 

In case you haven’t been following the comment thread on my earlier post regarding the Top 100 NGOs as identified by Global Journal, I wanted to post here a critical look at the rankings by development professional Dave Algoso.

Dave Algoso

Algoso is an expert on aid and development issues. Here is his post Lies, Damned Lies and Ranking Lists: The Top 100 Best NGOs written in response to my earlier post about Global Journal:

Ranking lists are great publicity for both the rankers and the ranked but they usually involve bad analysis and mislead the readers…. Most of these NGOs are, to the best of my knowledge, quite good. My big disagreement is with GJ‘s ranking methodology. And the fact that they created this list at all.

Meanwhile, the equally well-intentioned folks at Geneva-based Global Journal have expressed, to me by email and in various comment threads, their disappointment at being ‘ranked on’ for publishing their list of the top non-governmental organizations working at making the world a better place.

The editor, Jean-Christophe Nothias, takes special umbrage at being criticized by lowly bloggers and even contends this may involve ‘libel.’ Says Nothias of their rankings:

It is a journalistic approach, not an academic, not a mathematical, one approach that understands a simple fact. Profit has a metric, money. How do you measure solidarity? How do you measure healing, suffering? Do you believe such a ranking has anything to do with the S&P, the NYSE and other financials index?

Right, so how did they do it? How did Global Journal arrive at placing Seattle-based PATH as 6th best NGO in the world — along with ranking a few other local organizations like Mercy Corps and Landesa — and inexplicably exclude other top NGOs like World Vision and the Gates Foundation?

The folks at Global Journal don’t want to go into the details. They appear to be arguing that they didn’t depend solely upon a quantitative methodology that can be checked by others for reliability. They also relied on their journalistic methodology, their own expert judgment, as Nothias says:

Do bloggers have a methodology? Do they make a difference between being a reporter and a rapporteur? Or is journalism, in their eyes, at the cemetery? We have an ethic and a strong belief in the fact that journalism is already part of the methodology.

As a journalist who is also apparently a blogger, I can say with great confidence that the ‘methodology’ and reliability of journalism is highly variable. Ranking, by its very nature, implies some kind of quantitative assessment that should be independent of even the best journalistic judgments.

As far as Algoso is concerned, Global Journal’s list is so arbitrary and subjective it is meaningless:

Ultimately, it sounds like the methodology was: we browsed the web, talked to a couple people, then sat around the conference table arguing among ourselves. Here’s the result. Sorry, guys, but that just doesn’t cut it. That’s not a methodology.

Well, so what? The folks at Global Journal are basically arguing that an imperfect listing is better than no listing.

Algoso disagrees. He notes that many organizations are already using the magazine’s ranking for promotional reasons — for fund-raising, that is. So there’s one obvious downside to Global Journal’s rankings. Should donors not give to World Vision because they aren’t on the list? Says Algoso:

As a development professional, I want to see a more efficient market for funding social causes. That’s an economics-y way of saying that I want funds to flow to those NGOs that can best convert them into positive social impact.

There is a great need to improving the evaluation of impact and effectiveness within the humanitarian, or NGO, community. It’s actually quite difficult to find consensus on the best metrics in this field. Many experts are struggling to come up with the most reliable measures of effectiveness.

In the meantime, people like Algoso think subjective short-cuts to rigorous evaluations may do more harm than good — if only by shifting funding away from those who actually are doing a better job toward organizations that happen to have won a media-sponsored lottery.

FILED UNDER: Basics, Global Journal, Landesa, Mercy Corps, PATH, World Vision
August 17, 2011 | 10:30 AM | By  | 

Mercy Corps battling famine in Horn of Africa | 

Erin Gray/Mercy Corps photo

Eighteen-year-old Saadia Farah and her one-year-old daughter Amina

Last week I wrote about IREX, an international, nonprofit agency working in the famine-struck Horn of Africa on long-term projects like education, media and community building. Today I’m focusing on another group that is hard at work providing immediate aid to the region – Mercy Corps.

Tom Paulson recently posted a couple of reports on the work Mercy Corps Communications Director Joy Portella, and others, have been doing in getting out the news on issues in Africa and how they are, basically filling in for news organizations that have dropped the ball on international coverage. But today’s post is not about Mercy Corps’ communications role. It’s about Mercy Corps’ ongoing direct effort to head off starvation for more than 1 million people.

Yesterday, Seattle-based Portella and a colleague, Erin Gray, a communications officer for Mercy Corps’ European headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland, gave me a rundown of the aid agency’s work in the areas facing famine.

Joy Portella/Mercy Corps photo

A traditional herder stands on the withered landscape outside the drought-stricken town of Hadado, Kenya

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Justice, Africa, famine, Horn of Africa, Mercy Corps
July 21, 2011 | 12:02 PM | By  | 

News update: Aid organizations continue to do media’s job | 

As I noted earlier, members of humanitarian organizations are often doing the media’s job overseas — of being there (when the media organization isn’t) and “reporting” on what’s happening.

Joy Portella of Mercy Corps (the subject of my earlier post) is back in Seattle after traveling in East Africa and sharing her observations for her organization’s blog — as well as doing stories for other media. Portella was in the world’s newest nation South Sudan for its first independence day celebration and after that traveled to do reports on drought-stricken east Africa.

Portella worked with many media and wrote a number or articles, including these compelling stories for CNN. Here she is on CNN being interviewed for further perspective:

The reports all feature photos credited to Mercy Corps and the latest CNN interview with Portella ends with a suggestion that people donate funds to Mercy Corps and other such organizations.

Portella also wrote this op-ed today for the Christian Science Monitor contending, correctly I think, that the famine now killing thousands in the Horn of Africa is at least as deserving of American aid as was Japan after it was hit by a devastating quake and tsunami:

The people of the Horn of Africa are suffering in numbers bigger than those that inspired the Live Aid anti-famine movement of the 1980s. Things won’t get better in the coming months leading up to the hoped-for fall rains. If we – American donors, the U.S. government, and other donor countries, together with the governments of the affected region – don’t act now, the vice will keep tightening, and families will get squeezed dry.

I think Portella’s stories and op-eds are great. But I also think it’s important to note that she has been serving as a proxy for media organizations who are not on the scene and not really doing the reporting. The fund-raising pitch at the end of the CNN video is a little disturbing, as another indication that the line between those doing aid and those reporting on it is getting blurred.

I would be interested in seeing a comparative analysis of both the humanitarian response and the media’s response to the tragedies in Japan and East Africa.

I think I’m on solid ground saying that the media devoted much more attention and resources to the tragedy in Japan than it has, so far, to the much more severe and devastating catastrophe unfolding in East Africa. What about the humanitarian response? Did we actually give more money to Japan?

Is the lack of investment by the media in telling the story of the crisis in East Africa part of the problem here? Is the increasing practice of asking members of aid organizations, people like Portella, to act as proxies for the absent media a stop-gap solution, or also a potential problem?

FILED UNDER: Basics, east Africa, famine, Joy Portella, media, Mercy Corps
July 13, 2011 | 12:53 PM | By  | 

Joy in Africa: Are humanitarian groups doing the media’s job overseas? | 

There was a flurry of stories within the last week or so about the world’s newest nation, South Sudan, a nation with a tortured past and a future full of promise, uncertainty and plenty of lhumanitarian needs.

Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps' Joy Portella at South Sudan Independence Day

Joy Portella with Mercy Corps‘ Seattle office was there in the new South Sudanese capitol city of Juba, sent by the Northwest-based humanitarian group to witness and report on the new nation’s declaration of independence.

Portella travels a lot and reported out of the new South Sudan capitol city of Juba, including doing this article for the Seattle Times. Portella says pretty much the same thing on one of her earlier blog posts for Mercy Corps, ending with this concluding paragraph:

South Sudan will soon start the hard work of building a nation from the ground up in the face of challenges such as extreme poverty and lack of access to almost everything – roads, education, medical care, electricity – the list goes on. But today was a day to put those concerns aside to celebrate and imagine the possible. After decades of war and sacrifice, the South Sudanese have certainly earned their celebration.

Chris Sheach of World Concern, also from Seattle (okay, well Shoreline) was also in Juba reporting on this historic event for organization. One post from Sheach focused on Sudan’s educational needs and mentions some of the work World Concern is doing on this front: Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Chris Sheach, Joy Portella, media, Mercy Corps, South Sudan, World Concern
April 18, 2011 | 9:30 AM | By  | 

Two views on disaster relief in Japan | 

Flickr, jchong

More than a month after the disastrous earthquake and tsunami that struck northeast Japan, experts are still analyzing the cataclysmic event and coming to startling conclusions — such as the recent announcement the tsunami was more than 120 feet high in at least one location.

Another surprising observation made early on by some aid experts was that, despite the size and scope of the tragedy, Japan didn’t want or need disaster relief assistance.

Some aid watchdog organizations, like GiveWell, have consistently recommended against donating to the relief effort — and specifically questioned a $1 million Gates Foundation grant to Mercy Corps for Japan relief work.

Throughout the crisis, the Japanese government had asked that private, outside relief organizations stay away because of the pressure outsiders put on the already strained infrastructure and resources.

Some did, some didn’t. But many did actively solicit funds to assist Japan.

One aid worker who wrote a post for Humanosphere anonymously called the fund-raising done by many aid groups an “ugly game” because it was unlikely the money would be needed in Japan, the third wealthiest nation in the world.

Others said it may have been misleading, but it was a legitimate opportunity to raise funds that could be used elsewhere to help those in crises given less media attention.

Japan did seek and receive assistance from governments, the U.S. military and the International Red Cross. But it’s still not clear to what extent private relief organizations have been able to assist.

Here are two views.

One is from Joy Portella of Mercy Corps, which did offer active assistance in Japan. Portella says:

If you had asked me two months ago if Mercy Corps – which normally works in impoverished places like Afghanistan, Somalia and North Korea – would ever respond to an earthquake in Japan, I would have said “no way.” That was before this incredibly unusual event, and before I saw Japan’s devastation and need with my own eyes.

Another view is offered by Derek Sciba of World Concern. The organization decided early on not to try to offer direct assistance in Japan. Sciba says:

World Concern’s mission is to serve the poorest of the poor in developing countries – those who have no means of responding themselves, or rebuilding their lives. Because of this, we have elected to not mount a direct response in Japan – or to solicit funds on a large scale. It was a decision that we did not take lightly, but it has to do with who World Concern is called to serve.

You can read their full perspectives below. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, disaster relief, Japan, Mercy Corps, NGOs, World Concern
March 29, 2011 | 10:43 AM | By  | 

Mercy Corps, World Vision and the nagging question of how to help in Japan | 

World Vision

World Vision in Japan, unloading relief supplies

The Japanese government and the UN agency coordinating humanitarian relief operations, in response to the March 11 quake and tsunami, have repeatedly asked that many foreign organizations refrain from trying to actively assist in the relief efforts.

Is this falling on deaf, if well-intentioned, ears? Or is it a request made to disguise the government’s inability to adequately respond?

I can’t tell.

The request by Japanese and UN officials may appear counter-intuitive, but it’s not too hard to understand upon further reflection. There is limited access on the roads and fuel shortages. The government and in-country assistance organizations need to have priority access. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: earthquake, Japan, Mercy Corps, relief organizations, tsunami, World Vision