Starving People Need Food, not Money
DH | Jan 16, 2010 | Comments 4
I am deeply saddened and moved that we are witnessing an entire nation collapsing, one of the most fragile places in the world, and our federal government STILL has not figured out how to respond.
People are starving in Haiti. Stores, their homes, their lives are in rubble. Amid the starvation, they are burying their dead. But, if you place a call to U.S. AID (Agency for International Development), you are told to only send money.
Now, let’s examine what happens when you send money to the federal government (or most assistance organizations) – there must be accounting, committees appointed to allocate funds, monetary oversight committees, bidding processes, reviews of bids, logistics … and on and on. Time passes, and in the meantime, we have put an entire nation at risk of even surviving. Our allegedly sophisticated society has become inbred with terminal dysfunction that smothers attempts at entrepreneurial humanitarian efforts.
I have a client … a extraordinarily generous, sharing and giving client … that has at least ten pallets of pure cane sugar – about ten (10) tons of sugar – ready NOW for the people of Haiti. It is the basic food ingredients that we hear through the news that people in Haiti need … and medicine. People need water, flour, sugar and other basics to stay alive, not money (Hey, feds, their stores lie in ruin, you bozos!)
It took this sugar company about an hour to find ten tons of sugar, and I’m betting the tonnage will actually increase by the end of the day. Their challenge now is finding a way to get the sugar to Haiti because the federal government won’t help.
Your ideas are welcome … please.
I wonder if our federal government is turning Haiti into another New Orleans … only worse.
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David, Perfectly understand your frustration. One observation: first line needs seem to be rations packaged for individuals, or families etc. Readiness for distribution seems to be a serious challenge. It may not be for this disaster, but would your client consider linking up with other staple food producers and investigate the possibilities of producing small basic staple food ration packages which can be bought by aid organisations at a fair price [with all the money donated] to be distributed in such situations? Idea needs development; moreover would it be bad PR for any enterprises to be able to tell the thousands of stories of such a joint endeavour? This surely will not be the last natural or manmade disaster to strike large portions of our troubled humanity. Corporate preparation may be the word.
The sentiment of yur comment is right on. The realities of mounting a disaster response are daunting. During the war in Croatia and then Bosnia, I ran many efforts to provide aid to refugees. Our first response was to send several containers of material: shoes, toys, foodstuffs to the region. Here are the realities on the ground:
- Someone has to receive the matieral.
-Someone has to process/categorize the material.
- Someone has to distribute the material.
These three processes are profoundly labor intensive. The reality is, if you send material to a country in response to a disaster, it just sits at a dock. Someone has to pay for unloading it, catagorizing it, storing it, finding a way to ship it to where it is needed, having local resources to receive it.
That is why sending food id not practical. In fact, sending anything other then money presents huge logistical problems. That is why aid agencies in the past 15 years or so have asked that donations be of money. Ideally, the recipient of the money has their own channels to acquire, categorize, store and distribute needed material. In fact, this should be what one looks for when planning a donation of money.
The other way to go is to fund organizations that build the local capacity to receive aid. This s a vanshingly rare service aid agencies do. But, it is in fact, vital to sustainable reconstruction. The Unity Project is one such organization http://www.unityproject.org.
I hope this is helpful.
John