Charities face government challenges globally

The Indian government labeled Greenpeace India “anti-national” for its campaigns against coal mining, genetically modified crops and nuclear power, and blocked its bank accounts, deported foreign workers and stopped Indian staff from overseas travel. But it is not alone in facing a crackdown by governments which see the growing affluence and influence of charities backed by social media as a threat, say experts.

Thousands of foreign-funded non-government organizations from Latin America and Africa to the Middle East and Asia have come up against authorities imposing or drafting laws which put a squeeze on their foreign donations, jeopardizing their work. Over 60 countries in the last three years (These include Russia, China, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Uganda, Israel, Ethiopia, Angola, Honduras, Venezuela and Egypt) have sought to curb the ability of non-profit groups to receive or use overseas funds, using justifications which range from labeling them as “foreign agents” to allegations of financial misconduct, says the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL).

The move comes following a surge in funding–and a shift in focus for many non-profit groups that has made governments edgy. Civil society groups received $17.7 billion from developed nations in 2013, up from $2.7 billion in 2004, according to humanitarian data researcher Development Initiatives. Alongside this, they have shifted from traditional work in basic service provision to advocacy and campaigning, mobilizing public support through Facebook and Twitter on issues ranging from corruption and conservation to religious and gender rights.

In India over the last three months, the home affairs ministry has canceled the licenses of more than 13,000 organizations, saying they have violated a law on foreign funding. Pakistan has ordered all foreign non-profits to re-register within three months and is drafting a law allowing officials to stop overseas funded charities from operating.

Big donors are not immune. The U.S.-based Ford Foundation faces a probe into funding a group run by a prominent rights activist and critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and auditors are investigating the finances of charities funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Charities welcome regulation and transparency, aware of the need to keep the booming sector in check, but say the law is being abused to the detriment of those they are trying to help–the poor and marginalized.

[Reuters]

Doing good is harder than it looks

It’s clear that doing good is harder than it looks. For example, abundant evidence suggests that education can be transformative in a poor country, so donors often pay for schools. But building a school is expensive and can line the pockets of corrupt officials. And in my reporting I’ve found that the big truancy problem in poor countries typically involves not students but teachers: I remember one rural Indian school where the teachers appeared only once or twice a year to administer standardized tests. To make sure that the students didn’t do embarrassingly badly on those exams, the teachers wrote all the answers on the blackboard. The critics can cite similar unexpected difficulties in almost every nook of the aid universe.

An emerging synthesis … would acknowledge the shortcomings of aid, but also note some grand successes. For example, the number of children dying each year before the age of 5 has dropped by three million worldwide since 1990, largely because of foreign aid. Yes, aid often fails — but more than balancing the failures is quite a triumph: one child’s life saved every 11 seconds (according to calculations from United Nations statistics).

Moreover, pragmatic donors are figuring out creative ways to overcome the obstacles. Take education. Given the problems with school-building programs, donors have turned to other strategies to increase the number of students, and these are often much more cost-effective: (1) Deworm children. This costs about 50 cents per child per year and reduces absenteeism from anemia, sickness and malnutrition. A Kenya study found, in effect, that it is only one twenty-fifth as expensive to increase school attendance by deworming students as by constructing schools. (2) Bribe parents. One of the most successful antipoverty initiatives is Oportunidades in Mexico, which pays impoverished mothers a monthly stipend if their kids attend school regularly. Oportunidades has raised high school enrollment in some rural areas by 85 percent.

The upshot is that we can now see that there are many aid programs that work very well. We don’t need to distract ourselves with theoretical questions about aid, so long as we can focus on deworming children and bribing parents. The new synthesis should embrace specific interventions that all sides agree have merit, while also borrowing from an important insight of the aid critics: trade is usually preferable to aid.

[Excerpts from Nicholas D. Kristof, author, with Sheryl WuDunn, of “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.”]

The global humanitarian system on the verge of collapse

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the largest humanitarian relief agency in the world, has announced that it is cutting food rations to Syrian refugees living in Lebanon and Jordan. As a result, nearly 1.6 million Syrian refugees will be at greater risk of hunger and malnutrition. In Syria itself, about one-quarter of the country’s population, rely on the agency’s food assistance to survive.

The WFP and other humanitarian organizations can only respond if resources are available. Yet according to the U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, less than 25 percent of global humanitarian needs have been funded in the first six months of 2015. That’s the lowest mid-year percentage in the U.N.’s history.

And it’s not just the WFP. UNICEF has also been forced to make cuts in Syria as a result of budget shortfalls.

It’s not just Syria either. In the past five years, at least 14 conflicts have erupted or reignited across the globe that have caused millions of families to flee their homes. In fact, in its latest Global Trends report, the UNHCR notes that the total number of refugees and internally displaced people worldwide stands at an all-time high.

Globally, one in every 122 people is now either a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum. From 2013 to 2014, the number of refugees grew by nearly 8 million — the biggest leap in a single year in UNHCR’s history. Right now, an estimated 78 million people across the globe are displaced through no fault of their own. If this figure were the population of a country, it would be the world’s 24th biggest.

Providing humanitarian assistance in Syria and elsewhere isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s also the smart thing to do. History has proven that helping victims of war and persecution leads to greater stability, prosperity and goodwill for generations to come.

The U.S. government has consistently led the world in fighting hunger and addressing humanitarian needs. Once again, U.S. leadership is needed to mobilize the international community to address this “new normal.” While governments may disagree on the causes and possible solutions to the conflicts, all can agree that no child should suffer from hunger and malnutrition as a consequence of these conflicts. 

[By Rick Leach, the president and CEO of World Food Program USA, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that supports the mission of the U.N. World Food Programme] 

UNICEF describes grim trend of the world’s poorest children

UNICEF warned of what it described as grim trend lines for the world’s poorest children over the next 15 years, saying in a new report that many millions face preventable deaths, diseases, stunted growth and illiteracy. The forecasts in the report suggested that despite reductions of poverty and other deprivations in underdeveloped countries since 2000, what’s obscured is a worsening trend among the poorest segments of their populations.

The report was described by UNICEF officials as its “final report card” on whether children had been helped by the so-called Millennium Development Goals, a group of benchmarks established by the United Nations in 2000 for measuring progress in reducing poverty, hunger, child mortality, gender inequality, illiteracy and environmental degradation by the end of 2015.

While the Millennium Development Goals contributed to “tremendous progress for children,” the report said, “In the rush to make that progress, many focused on the easiest-to-reach children and communities, not those in greatest need.” Anthony Lake, the UNICEF executive director, added, “In doing so, national progress may actually have been slowed.”

The report showed, for example, that accounting for population growth, 68 million children under the age of 5 will die of mostly preventable causes by 2030 if current trends in child mortality continue, and 119 million children under 5 will suffer stunted development. It further showed that under current trends, a half billion people–more than the population of the United States–will be practicing open defecation in 2030, posing serious health risks.

[New York Times]

Training socially-and-economically-disadvantaged women to start their own businesses

Isolde and Carla are two women who met at FEDES Vocational Training School outside Santiago. After they graduated, they started a successful business creating service clothing and school uniforms.

Giving women the ability of supporting themselves and their families is the reason FEDES exists. The FEDES tailoring and sewing courses are geared to train socially-and-economically-disadvantaged women, allowing them to learn a trade. Basic business concepts are also taught, aiding the women in creating a business plan to start their own micro-enterprise.

Since the women are from extremely poor social strata, they also receive subsidies for transport, and seed capital at the end of the course to help them buy a sewing machine and get their businesses started.

Read more about FEDES in Chile