How to solve the aid sector crisis? Don’t employ expats

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/apr/02/solve-aid-sector-crisis-dont-employ-expats-dfid-amar-international

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I can guarantee that the charity I have been running in Iraq for the past 26 years will not be embarrassed by the shocking behaviour of our expat staff, as recently highlighted in the press. We don’t have any expat staff.

I founded Amar International to help the many thousands of Iraqis maimed by chemical weapons, the Marsh Arabs forced into tented exile in Iran, and the countless other victims of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal regime.

Every school, health clinic and training centre has been built and staffed by Iraqis – Arab or Kurd, Muslim, Christian and Yazidi. The 2,000-strong indigenous team has helped victims of the subsequent wars, invasions and inter-community strife.

Amar’s work is run in exactly the way the Department for International Development (DfID) believes is best: locally built, managed and sustainable.

But we have received only a derisory £15,000 – years ago – from the UK’s aid budget. Which is, frankly, outrageous.

Our Iraqi team believes the absence of expats is good for them, their development and our image, yet it leaves us on the outside.

Over two decades, the rise of massive global NGOs has mirrored the corporate world.

DfID distributes a staggering £13.4bn a year – and these huge charities have become hooked on their bumper annual fix of aid money.

The word “charity” comes from the Latin caritas – to love, to serve and care for others in their hour of need. It is very different from the self-perpetuating aid industry, with its well-paid professionals who behave almost as an occupying army.

At Amar International we show the effectiveness of a small, worldwide organisation feeding money and support to indigenous professionals.

DfID claims it meets government procurement targets to give a third of contracts to small organisations. But the truth is, most British aid is distributed among the biggest suppliers.

In the past, we have been advised not to bid for any aid projects of less than £10m, because that was too small to be worth monitoring by DfID and the UN.

But Amar’s annual turnover is usually half that, and we work incredibly hard to raise money and ensure that 92% goes directly to the work in the field.

It’s not how much you give, it’s how wisely and how well that money is spent.

It’s not just us – most small charities are excluded from DfID provision.

Yet it is these organisations that are most effective, cause least cultural dislocation, recognise corruption better and work at significantly lower cost.

Surely it’s healthy for competition and innovation to share opportunities between a wide group of organisations? The aid budget is now so large, there is a case for competition and market authority for the sector.

It would be interesting to examine the interchange between top charity executives, government and DfID appointments – to review how many civil servants have worked for NGOs and vice versa – to ensure we are not dealing with an aid cartel.

Amar focuses from the start on the training of internally displaced people and refugees to ensure they are able to provide for themselves as soon the opportunity arises.

We use aid to train and develop skills and entrepreneurship, and to invest in local firms that can help reconstruct destroyed infrastructure.

We call on DfID to refocus its resources away from long-term handouts to displaced people and refugees, which encourages dependency, and towards investment in businesses that will help countries improve prosperity and employment.

Poverty and having nothing to do can create conflict in the first place.

The solution to many of the world’s problems is to enable development of local people’s own efforts, rather than keeping them hostage to NGOs.

Over the past decade, Amar has delivered more than 4m medical consultations, 662,000 vaccinations and more than 2m visits by women trained to be health volunteers.

Our facilities include a soon-to-be completed maternity hospital, two schools, six primary healthcare centres – five of which are inside camps for internally displaced people – 10 kindergartens, and football pitches.

We have royal approval – Prince Charles is our patron. But with a bit of government help, we could do much more. The US government and the EU supports our work, so why don’t the British?

We need more support for smaller charities, more transparency in the bidding process, and a focus on small-scale, but sustainable, economic intervention.

I have spent a lifetime helping the dispossessed and the poor, so I’m the last person to knock overseas aid. However, it’s not how much you give, it’s how wisely and how well that money is spent.

Lady Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne is chair of the Amar International Foundation