Why do some charities seem to be happy to be needed for ever? The way they concentrate on short term fixes to problems that seem to never end, rather than attempting to fix the problem really gets to me.
I sometimes describe Labour as being the new owner of a house that turns up the heating rather than installing insulation and double glazing. The symptoms are reduced or held in check short term. But the problem persists. And some charities seem very similar.
I understand it is a hard call when faced by a stark “yes or no” choice. Invest in infrastructure and whatever else for the future Vs. saving lives today, tomorrow, this week, this month with water, clean blood, medicine. Fair comment.
(Lets leave aside the pragmatics – life-saving heroics is better for fund-raising than job-creating improvements to infrastructure, good governance, local skills, local demand….)
But recently I nearly threw something at the radio. Radio 4 was interviewing a very smug sounding representative of a well known British based charity. This charity apparently exports bras donated to its numerous UK charity shops that have not been snapped up by British charity shop customers. It then sells them to dealers in developing countries (which is great for employment allegedly) and the bras are apparently happily bought by local people. And the charity representative thought this was a good thing!
What a load of rubbish!! Making a few individuals rich and their handful of staff employed cannot be better than helping to nurture a local industry employing skilled workers.
When I was a kid in Rhodesia, comprehensive sanctions were in place. Virtually everything consumed locally was made locally. A local company (called I think David Whitehead Textiles) employed literally thousands of people in the manufacture of school and military uniforms, sports clothes, soft furnishings, underwear and – I would guess – bras.
Why is it necessary to ship non-urgent, non-life saving items 1000’s of miles in the name of charity when a local fledgling business could be created instead? Is this large UK charity really doing what it is supposed to be doing? Is it preventing (or scaring off) local business people from filling local needs (whatever the may be) and thereby creating jobs and financial independence along the way? I remember reading last year about a charity that dumped 3 containers of unwanted clothes in Zambia. As a result 3 local clothes factories went bust as they couldn’t handle the competition.
What is a good way to assess the good a charity does? Should there not also be some long term Key Performance Indicators? Such as local jobs created? Exit strategies? Project timetables for completion? Do they ever enable local entrepreneurs or pump prime local projects or do they merely tie people in and make their beneficiaries increasingly dependent?
