In 2014, the United States was the largest contributor of international humanitarian aid, according to a recent report (and fun interactive graphics) from Irin and Local2Global Protection.
Out of the global humanitarian funding of $22 billion in 2014, the United States accounts for almost $8 billion. But before we get too excited about our generosity, as a point of comparison, Americans also spent almost $3 billion on Halloween candy last year.
Of that $22 billion pie (yum, pie.....), half of it went to three major players: the World Food Programme, United Nations Refugee Agency, and UNICEF. Only a tiny percentage of the aid was supplied directly to NGOs and charities in the most affected countries. In general, before reaching the ultimate recipients, funding usually goes through 3-4 levels of subcontracting. It'd be fascinating to know what percentage actually gets to the front line!
Would it be better just to send all of our Halloween candy instead?
Hopefully not, but I'm not sure.
Overseas development assistance (ODA), as general development funding is often referred to, totalled a global $135 billion in 2014. That's roughly $61 per person to cover education, health, water, sanitation and safety for the roughly 2.2 billion people living on under $2 a day, or an extra $0.16 per day. With those kinds of funds, there's no need to concern ourselves with efficiency and effectiveness of spending, right? (That's my sarcasm font!)
The point is, there's a lot we don't know about where the dollars go.
Since our aid spending (humanitarian + development) is relatively small relative to the scale of poverty, how we spend it matters a lot.
Spending and efficiency are often scrutinized heavily at the non-profit level. What is our overhead? How can we maximize impact? But before the money ever gets to an actual service provider, many decisions are made on allocations - and many of these decisions cut huge chunks of funding out of the actual assistance bucket. A consulting firm gets hired to do a market study and develop a strategy. Jobs are promised to contractors in the donor country. And so forth.
These diversionary allocations are potentially justifiable (sometimes), but I'm in favor of making them more transparent. Christian Seelos and I wrote a piece in Stanford Social Innovation Review a few weeks ago arguing that we need Wikileaks in development (or a "WikiLIDS" as we call it). Personally I'd go for more of an "overheard in New York" meets Wikileaks model, since it's as much about the decisions and consequences in the field as what's on paper. Not to mention, which development worker doesn't have some great donor stories they'd love to share? Anonymously, of course!
Hey SEAWL, maybe you can put up a sister wikiLIDS site?
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