Some Poor Nations Question Whether Charity is Reaching Those Who Need It

From the New York Times:


Some foreign governments have begun to criticize international aid agencies for the way they raise and spend money, echoing the demands of many American donors that a larger part of their charitable gifts be used for the purposes for which they were originally intended. The health minister of Niger fired the opening salvo at the end of the year, charging that some international aid groups had overstated the extent of the hunger crisis in his drought- and locust-ravaged country as part of a strategy to raise money for their own purposes...An official in Sri Lanka said his government had quietly complained to the French government about Doctors Without Borders after the group contacted donors following the tsunami in December 2004 and asked if it could use more than three-quarters of the money it had raised for that disaster to address other crises.
Indonesia, too, is vexed that aid agencies have scaled back their commitments to build housing in Banda Aceh after raising money for that purpose and other projects to aid tsunami victims.


Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes