Category: International Cooperation

Foreign aid to Afghanistan bypasses the forgotten poor

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For all the billions of dollars in foreign aid that have poured into Afghanistan over the past 12 years, Sajeda, her head-to-toe burqa covered in dust, sobs that the world has forgotten the poorest of the poor in the largely untroubled north of the country.

One of the paradoxes of Western aid: the northern region of Afghanistan which supported the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 has got significantly less help than the south and east, home of the Taliban militants.

Over the past decade, much of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding has been spent in the strongholds of the insurgents as part of Washington’s strategy to win the “hearts and minds” of the local population. A disproportionate share of U.S. aid, which makes about two-thirds of all development assistance in Afghanistan, has ended up in the southern provinces where it has been used to achieve political and military objectives.

“We are the poorest and most unfortunate people of this country and no one pays attention to us. We are forgotten,” said Sajeda, who lost 12 members of her family in the landslide that killed hundreds in northern Badakhshan province.

Despite the most expensive reconstruction effort ever undertaken in a single country, Afghanistan remains one of the world’s poorest states.

[Reuters]

Humanitarian groups urge action on Central African Republic

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Citing fears of genocide, representatives of humanitarian organizations tried Thursday to focus U.S. lawmakers’ attention on the Central African Republic, where the situation is on the verge of exploding into a “decades-long conflict,” one aid group said.

Mercy Corps believes “right now is the time to act, and we are asking Congress to make smart, forward-thinking decisions,” said Madeline Rose, a policy adviser to the group, in a telephone interview prior to addressing the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on African Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations.

The group fears “that the current crisis in CAR is on the verge of metastasizing into a new, decades-long conflict,” she added. At least 2,000 people have died in the fighting, and 2.2 million others — about half the country’s population — need humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations.

The continuing violence has raised the specter of genocide, as occurred 20 years ago in Rwanda.

“Do not repeat the mistakes of the past — heed the lessons,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last month during a visit to the country.

Catholic Relief Services Chief Operating Officer Sean Callahan. “The world stood by as nearly one million people were killed in Rwanda 20 yrs ago, and we cannot let the violence tear the social fabric of CAR,” he said.

Rose agreed. “We’ve seen this over and over again in the way the international community responds to crises like these — where we focus too narrowly on short-term, emergency needs and don’t take a step back to make long-term, strategic investments and decisions about how to solve the root problem.”

[CNN]

A big step forward for Chinese philanthropy

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The billionaire co-founder of Alibaba.com has set up charitable trusts ahead of the company’s highly anticipated IPO, a move that could mark the start of a new era of Chinese philanthropy.

Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, along with current CEO Joe Tsai, said Friday that they have established two trusts funded by share options worth about 2% of the company. The philanthropic effort will initially benefit environmental, medical, education and cultural causes in China, according to a statement.

Ma said he established the trusts because “concern and complaints cannot change the current situation. … We must assume responsibility and take action to improve the environment that our children will inherit,” he said.

The establishment of the trusts makes Ma one of China’s first billionaires to set up a major philanthropic endeavor, and puts him in the ranks other successful executives who have pledged large portions of the fortunes to charity. Three of those — Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — praised Ma’s decision.

[CNN] 

Does Foreign Aid Work?

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Fareed Zakaria speaks with Helene Gayle, president of CARE USA, and Bill Easterly, professor of economics at New York University, about whether foreign aid is effective. Some excerpts:

The context here is Bill Gates did his annual letter in which he argued that our foreign aid has been astonishingly effective and that people should stop attacking it.  One of the people who has attacked it and whom Gates mentions by name often when he makes this point is Bill Easterly. So, Bill, what is your response to Gates’ basic argument?

Easterly: Well, you know what sends me at the moment is that foreign aid is really on the wrong side of the debate that we see going on right now in the world between freedom and autocracy.  And we see, too often, the aid agencies and the philanthropists, like even Mr. Gates himself, siding with the autocrats in many poor countries against the poor people who are rising up, seeking their own freedom.

Gayle: I think the case has been made that aid is very effective and that being able to provide resources in the right way makes a difference.  It saves lives.  It educates children.  It helps to feed people.  And I think we know that, for instance, rates of poverty have decreased dramatically over the last decades. And so I think the numbers are there that show that, clearly, aid has made a difference. I think the debate is really around how can we make aid more effective.

Watch the video for the full discussion. 

Lebanon highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world

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The number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has passed 1 million, the United Nations’ refugee agency said Thursday, making up almost a quarter of the country’s resident population.

Their numbers have made Lebanon the country with the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world, the agency said.

“The influx of a million refugees would be massive in any country. For Lebanon, a small nation beset by internal difficulties, the impact is staggering,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

The total number of registered Syrian refugees in all countries is 2.58 million, according to the United Nations. Other nations with large populations of Syrian refugees include Jordan and Turkey.

The number in Lebanon has now risen into seven figures, from just 18,000 two years ago.U.N. staff in Lebanon register 2,500 new Syrian refugees every day, the UNHCR said.

U.S. warns Egypt concerning financial aid

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The United States warned Egypt that executing supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood may affect the aid that Washington provides to Cairo.

“The imposition of the death penalty for 529 defendants after a two-day summary proceeding cannot be reconciled with Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law, and its implementation of these sentences, as I said, would be unconscionable,” Deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf stressed, according to AFP.

Harf made clear that the way Egypt proceeds regarding the trials and death sentences will have consequences for future American aid. The United States previously announced it would cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Egypt over its displeasure with the military’s pace of restoring democracy following the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi.

U.S. law forbids sending aid to countries where a democratic government was deposed by a military coup, though Washington has never qualified Morsi’s ouster as a “coup”.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the trial of a further 682 Islamists began, among them the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Mohammed Badie, who was arrested last August after a brief spell in hiding.

India and Southeast Asia officially certified polio-free

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Rukhsar Khatoon, 4, is too young to fully grasp the significance of her life: that she is the final documented case of polio in a country of 1.2 billion people. She has become the greatest symbol of India’s valiant — and successful — effort to rid itself of a crippling and potentially deadly disease.

Her face has appeared in newspapers and on television. She’s been invited to national events by Rotary International, the organization that led the effort to rid India of polio. She is a literal poster child, an inspiration, a symbol of a feat that no doctor or health official thought possible even a few years ago. But this past Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially certified India as being polio-free.

This is great news that all Southeast Asia is certified polio-free by the World Health Organization — a momentous achievement for global public health and the worldwide effort to eradicate polio.

This extraordinary feat wasn’t easy. Most experts believed that India, with its high population density, poor health care services and regional accessibility problems, would remain the most polio-endemic region in the world.

Great achievements don’t just happen; they require the great efforts of many. The polio eradication movement, started in 1988, was a joint effort between the Indian government; WHO; Rotary International; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; UNICEF and various other NGOs; the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and about 2 million workers who vaccinated nearly 170 million throughout the country to finally wipe out the disease.

Truly, this worldwide effort should serve as a reminder that when the global community bands together to solve an issue, great things can be achieved. And today should serve as a call to not simply continue the efforts but to exponentially increase them.

[CNN]

Syria the worst refugee crisis in recent history

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Civil war in Syria has created the worst refugee crisis in 20 years, aid agencies have warned, with no end to the conflict in sight.

Since March 2011, more than 2.5 million Syrians have fled abroad and another 6.5 million have been internally displaced. That means a third of the country has now been forced to leave their homes.

With an average of 6,000 people fleeing every day in 2013, Antonio Guterres, the UN’s refugee chief, said refugee numbers had not risen “at such a frightening rate” since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Aid agencies are calling it the worst humanitarian disaster in recent history.

According to the UN’s Relief and Works Agency, Jordan is currently home to more than 584,000 Syrian refugees, including around 100,000 in the Zaatari refugee camp alone. Turkey hosts the second largest number, with 634,900.

Lebanon, which had a pre-Syrian war population of just over four million, is now sheltering nearly a million refugees. (The number hosted by Lebanon as a ratio of its population would be equivalent to nearly 15 million in France, 32 million in Russia or 71 million in the United States!)

[The Telegraph]

NBA star builds hospital in The Congo

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Three years ago, a woman gave birth to premature triplets in a small village clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The doctors were not equipped to provide the medical care these tiny patients required, so the parents were told the babies would simply be left to die.

But the triplets’ father had heard about a new, state-of-the-art hospital just up the road built by Congolese American and former NBA star Dikembe Mutombo. The father begged the doctors to call the United States.

Mutombo says that phone call is just one example of why he decided to open a hospital in his hometown of Kinshasa. Built with funds raised through his Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, the hospital bears the name of his mother, Biamba Marie Mutombo, who he says taught him the importance of helping others.

“For everything she did for her children and for her family, the value of love and giving back and sharing. Not just with you, not just with your family, but with the people you encounter in life, with your community, and that was the kind of love that my mom gave.”

Mutombo hopes his hospital will help provide medical care desperately needed in the Congo. He says the hospital has treated more than 30,000 patients and employs nearly 400 doctors and nurses.

And those triplets? They spent more than three months on life-saving machines and now are thriving toddlers. The parents were so grateful that they named the babies after the 7-foot, 2-inch basketball player.

[CNN]

Fears of genocide brewing in Central African Republic

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The United Nations — estimating more than half of Central African Republic’s population is affected by the worsening humanitarian crisis — has said it fears genocide brewing.

According to the United Nations, more than 700,000 people across the Central African Republic have been displaced — including about 290,000 alone in the capital of Bangui — and 2.6 million “need immediate humanitarian assistance.”

Attempts to purge Muslims from parts of the war-torn country have prompted “a Muslim exodus of historic proportions,” according to rights group Amnesty International.

The UN’s top official on refugees, Antonio Guterres, said the country is “a humanitarian catastrophe.”

“There is an ethnic-religious cleansing taking place. It must be stopped,” Guterres said. “There are people who are still being killed here and there — even some massacres still taking place.”