Germaine Greer re the Tsunami and aid/help
Discussion
In her column in Saturday's Telegraph she made some useful insights into the West's usefulness with regards humanitarian aid etc. Whilst the article is not specifically about the recent tsunami, she does relate whether lessons have been learnt from previous aid eforts. In summary she basically 'accuses' western countries who take part in these aid efforts of inadequately assesing needs. If you were more vehement you might label it as ignorance.
She writes about the aid effort in Bengal in 1972 and illustates with an example of how western countries sent baby food, obviously to feed the starving babies there. The only problem being, western baby food formula was useless in a place like this as the babies are not use to it and cannot digest it. Huge tins of the stuff amass which may lead to reports that aid is not being distributed to the needy. When local administrators try to sell the donated babyfood there may be reports of aid abuse etc.
There is also comment about other donations/materials which are simply not needed as they are cheaper or in sufficient supply locally. There is also danger of destabilising the local economy by supplying item they don't need or which are produced locally.
I suppose the point is that the gestures and sentiment are nice and much needed but a little more thought would help rather than donating anything you can think of or donating mindlessly for the sake of donating. What they need and what 'we' think they need can be two entirely different things.
She writes about the aid effort in Bengal in 1972 and illustates with an example of how western countries sent baby food, obviously to feed the starving babies there. The only problem being, western baby food formula was useless in a place like this as the babies are not use to it and cannot digest it. Huge tins of the stuff amass which may lead to reports that aid is not being distributed to the needy. When local administrators try to sell the donated babyfood there may be reports of aid abuse etc.
There is also comment about other donations/materials which are simply not needed as they are cheaper or in sufficient supply locally. There is also danger of destabilising the local economy by supplying item they don't need or which are produced locally.
I suppose the point is that the gestures and sentiment are nice and much needed but a little more thought would help rather than donating anything you can think of or donating mindlessly for the sake of donating. What they need and what 'we' think they need can be two entirely different things.
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