January 20, 2005 | Read Time: 5 minutes
In the days after the tsunamis devastated South Asia, philanthropy’s response to the catastrophe attracted plenty of attention, and the attention does not seem to be letting up.
What is surprising — especially after the controversy over the gifts made after the September 11 attacks — is how much attention the news media have given to donors and the amount raised, while devoting relatively little coverage to the beneficiaries and whether the money is doing a good job of reaching those who need help.
Even more sorely lacking is attention to the long-term issues affecting South Asia that will require philanthropic support for many years.
The focus on the numbers was triggered in part by a United Nations official who said Western nations were stingy in committing aid because they did not want to raise taxes on their citizens. But as the scale of the disaster became more apparent (and Christmas holidays came to an end), government coffers opened wider, matched — in the United States and elsewhere — by an outpouring of volunteers as well as millions of dollars, products, and services provided by individuals, corporations, and foundations.
Much the same pattern has followed other calamities. The force behind the outpouring of aid lies deep in human nature, in feelings of sympathy and obligation that can be as strong as self-interest. Whatever U. N. officials might think, crises such as the Indian Ocean tsunamis remind us that people do not have to be taxed, prodded by political leaders and celebrities, or cultivated by fund raisers to be generous, but will give readily, even to strangers, when they believe it is necessary to do so. That seems to be especially true of those who live in the world’s wealthiest countries (except, perhaps, for the oil sheikdoms of the Middle East), a fact of which those who bemoan “global inequality” might well take note.
The focus on the numbers also produced some controversy when one organization, Doctors Without Borders, said it didn’t need any more money to provide emergency medical care to the tsunami victims.
Some charity leaders worried that that message would stop donors from giving, but instead it is more likely to revive a criticism leveled against them after September 11: that humanitarian charities are more interested in raising money than anything else.
It is only now, weeks after the catastrophe, that a few journalists have begun to ask the deeper question behind the numbers story: Is the money that has been donated getting to the victims effectively and efficiently?
It is still too early to tell how much good the money is doing, but the record of humanitarian charities in response to other recent catastrophes, especially in war-torn areas like Indonesia and Sri Lanka, does not inspire a great deal of confidence. But whether the charities are doing well or not, questions will always be raised about their activities. Those questions are a reflection of the complexity, diversity, and lack of coordination of the philanthropic world itself.
As a whole, the system of providing relief after a disaster like this one looks hopelessly chaotic, unduly wasteful, excessively competitive, and impossibly hard to understand, let alone hold accountable.
But it also fosters multiple ways of providing assistance, appealing to donors, identifying areas needing attention, responding rapidly, and tackling a challenge of unimaginable enormity and distress. Moreover, charities should not worry that donors are incapable of distinguishing among different types of organizations and appeals or that they will be unable to recognize the many kinds of help needed by people who lost their whole way of life to the forces of nature.
Despite the faults of our current arrangements, more carefully planned and centrally managed efforts would probably not do as well, assuming enough consensus could be reached to initiate them at all.
It is also important to keep in mind what happens after the relief stage is over. Nonprofit groups will be called upon to play a critical role in dealing with the economic and political problems that make countries, such as those hit by the tsunamis, especially vulnerable.
During the past decade, the International Red Cross’s World Disaster Study reports, one-fifth of natural disasters occurred in countries of “low human development,” but half of the fatalities; average deaths were 13 times greater in these countries than they were in more highly developed nations. The Indian Ocean tsunamis have already made this macabre ratio far worse.
Yet, in recent years philanthropy’s record in international development has not been impressive. To be sure, foundations have sponsored some notable successes, such as support for the “Green Revolution,” the development of pest-resistant strains of rice and other crops, which reduced the threat of famine in many parts of the world. But such efforts have come under increasing criticism for leading developing countries to rely excessively on Western technology and corporations, rather than on their own home-grown methods and markets.
Unless these methods can produce substantial economic gains, however, they will leave developing countries not only more impoverished, but also more exposed to risks in the wake of disasters such as tsunamis.
So far, philanthropy’s response to what happened to the countries bordering the Indian Ocean has demonstrated its strengths, both in raising money and in mobilizing a vast number of organizations to provide desperately needed services.
What philanthropy does when the immediate crisis passes, and the world’s attention turns elsewhere, will help determine whether it will have to come back for another major relief effort.
Leslie Lenkowsky is professor of public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University and a regular contributor to these pages. He can be reached at llenkows@iupui.edu.
