Typhoon Haiyan, Another Natural Disaster

Hi there
I support INDIVIDUAL charities like the Jesuit Missions , Medecins sans Frontiers. Salvation army etc but am 100% against the big "Aid" corporate businesses.

Here's what I wrote to a Newspaper a couple of days ago about this whole issue : (Translated back into English).

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I think the whole messy exercise in the Philippines (as in the case of HAITI previously) shows how totally STUPID the current Foreign aid system is.

The whole place is SWAMPED out by reporters and TV crews – probably consuming prodigious amounts of what little fuel, food and accomodation is left and there are a whole slew of Aid agencies all vying with each other going on World TV saying we’ve got so many THOUSAND people on site- we’ve got the MOST MONEY, the MOST AID etc – it becomes a sort of Horror reality show where people are just banding about meaningless numbers etc with a prize going to the agency blowing the loudest trumpet..

In these situations – (I’ve done logistics for years now at Major international Oil companies) the FIRST thing you need to do is get Heavy equipment on site ASAP to clear roads and open the nearest airport so you can get the stuff in quickly and then get some proper LAW ENFORCEMENT and a SINGLE COMMAND STRUCTURE in place to control all the various people all over the place to sort out WHO DOES WHAT and WHO REPORTS TO WHOM – then you need to get CLEAR evidence of what people need FIRST – usually that’s very different from the sort of aid that gets shipped out –for instance when you’ve got NO POWER, No TOOLS, or NO FUEL what on earth is the use of canned food when it has to be cooked. You also need some sort of Law and order around quickly too to protect workers and LOCALS from looters / other disturbances. With no infrastructure – no delivery and Aid just gets wasted.

Add a bit of backhanders to the mix and the whole thing becomes a totally inefficient exercise – in Haiti it took days and days to get the airport open – while aid was left rotting in distribution centres –if only taxpayers knew how their donations were often WASTED in this way.

I’m not a big admirer of the UN but this is one case where it WOULD work. It should be the co-ordinating / controlling agency – keep some heavy specialized gear around for repairing the infrastructure and have a permanent force of well trained people (e.g ex military, mining / doctors/engineers) to be the first on the scene –THEN invite private organisations like OXFAM in to supplement the needs.

As this would be non political there shouldn’t be too many problems – imagine if a US agency wanted to go for example to IRAN.

At the moment there’s so many “ancilliary people" out there I’m surprised ANYTHING is getting done. There’s NO central authority – all these agencies are just SPENDING YOUR MONEY inefficiently and doing “their own thing”.

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I'm not callous or selfish in these situations -- it's just a CRYING SHAME when so much money collected by individual people with the best will and generosity around the world gets TOTALLY WASTED in all sorts of "Big Power Politics".

Cheers
jimbo

I hear you jimbo. It's just sad. I'm angry at the same time ashamed knowing what's the best thing should be done (like what you said) and knowing you can't do a thing about it.

Hi there
I hope it's beginning to work out now -- at least there weren't 10,000 or more who died.

Cheers
jimbo

Sorry to hear that at this very time, some politicians are still thinking about politics and turn aside from the suffering humanity. But good to hear that there are people like you, jimbo, care about them and try to help.