Western NGOs - The' New Imperialism'?

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

It has been said that the people in the Western World should just keep out of developing nations, that
the era of ' the White Man's Burden' is over, and we can never correct the mistakes of the past ourselves.

So, what are we to do about the situation that we see on our TV screens, I ask?

I know there are some that say 'Just accept the fact that you are privileged - there is nothing you can do for the poor in developing countries'.

Oh , yeah? How about ...

Amnesty International. do you realise that Amnesty is over 50 yrs old, and has freed many people from detention around the world? It has supported the peaceful struggle for democratic representation and is currently still fighting the corner for Aung San Su Ky and for Democracy in Burma.

The Fair Fair Trade Foundation.
By setting up workers co operatives with people in the developing world, it enables people in those countries to grow food and earn more money than they would by working on a plantation run by Nestle or any other traditional corporation.

The Grameen Bank.
By supplying micro credit to people in the third world, mostly women , they enable people to start businesses and make income of their own .

Trade Justice.
The world's poor take their goods to market. but the tariffs, quotas, commodity prices and such are all set out by the World Trade Organisation, that meets in New York. The UK can afford to send many delegates to the USA to argue their case and speak up for them and their industries. Sadly, the people of Ghana cannot afford to send anyone. like many developing nations, their voice is never heard at the trade conferences were decisions involving them get made.

So, I think that we ought to be supporting these causes and organisations as individuals and as national communities.

the Mises Institute has said that the Fair trade movement is 'distorting the market', yet I don't hear Mises complain when the US government subsidises the American Cotton growing corporations and allows them to dump subsidised cotton on the world market that kills local competition in developing countries stone dead.

The Mises Institute doesn't mind an easy ride for the rich it seems , but wants to discourage us from helping the poor.

But anyway - how can anyone complain about the activities of these organisations in the developing world?
What do local people say about them? What alternatives are there that right wingers and other critics would put up ?

The free market, did someone say?
the free market gave us Nestle - which prompted the Nestle Boycott.
the Free Market led to the backlash that prompted the rise of Socialism in Britain .
lets remember that the people of the Soviet bloc who risked their lives to cross the Berlin Wall were not heading for a free market, but rather the regulated markets and mixed economies of democratic Western Europe.

in the last 50 years, the NGOs like Amnesty International and the Fair Trade Foundation have done a great deal to develop a higher standard of living in the poorer nations of the world. free trade , by contrast, has gone in and marketed tobacco in Africa in order to make easier profits - marketing and advertising regulations have lower standards than the UK and USA, and tobacco corporations are quick to take advantage and go for easy profits here. I feel it's the corporations that represent the new Imperialism , and not the NGOs like Amnesty International.

Comments

[tridus.livejournal.com]

People need to put some thought into what they're actually doing when they try to "help".

There was an article not too long ago I read about someone harassing their friends for donations so they could go to Africa and build houses. People who refused were threatened with being "outed" on Facebook for not caring about poor people.

Now if you think about that for a moment, what does caring about poor people have to do with taking a rich privileged person, spending thousands of dollars on fuel and food to send them halfway around the planet so they can volunteer to do something that the local population is perfectly capable of doing on their own (and might be doing as paid work)?

So there's a perfect example of where they advice "keep out" is entirely correct. This person is doing far more harm then good with their do-gooder attitude.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

True.

however, I would not put Amnesty International in the same bracket, myself.

there are any number of bogus charities that pester people like me for donations, and are simply there so that the registered charity can pay people a cheque for the work done on its behalf.

This does not mean that Charities themselves are all wrong in principle.

I think AI has been going now for over 50 years , and has a decent track record . You ?

[tridus.livejournal.com]

AI seems to do pretty good work. I'm not saying that "keep out" is a universal truth, but it's good advice a fair bit of the time.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Voluntourism is a scourge. If you don't have skills that the locals don't have, why are you there? You can earn money in the first world and send it, that's worth much more than your labour. Having said that I absolutely understand the desire to combine travel with helping people, but you shouldn't be putting people out of a job (like construction). There is actually a large demand for people interested in working with animals and the disabled in the third world because the society cannot afford to look after them themselves. Volunteering at a dog shelter in Thailand can actually bring a benefit to the local society. I know one western NGO that is trying to get the wild dogs under control on an island in Thailand. The dogs aren't native, so they're upsetting the local ecosystem and they are dangerous for the locals to boot. Without these Westerners nothing would be being done about the problem, so you can say that there is a genuine need and benefit there.