In any situation of desperation, there will generally be UN agencies, NGOs, and faith-based organizations present who all claim to be assisting as aid workers. The personnel making up these groups can come from local communities or from foreign locations. The missions are often different and communication seriously lacks between such entities. As an example of the disaster that can arise from this, let’s look at the refugee crisis in Ghana in a camp called Buduburam. After the Liberian civil wars, thousands of refugees moved into Ghana and a large percentage settled for many years in Buduburam. Naturally, when a settlement exists of people who are clinging to life from the get go, a certain wave of desperation will arise. Many of the people were so desperate to rise above the poverty of the camp that they would attempt to corrupt and steal from the very organizations that helped them the most. The Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are the organizations that are most often corrupted, many times by a single selfish person in these situations. In a developed area, a single person would not even dream of starting their own NGO alone with such little resources, but in Buduburam there were over 300 NGOs that were started by the refugees themselves. Many of these organizations claim to have great proposals, but are just attempts to get the few foreign volunteers who come to the area to contribute money. They often provide little aid to the community as most of the money donated is taken by those in control and used for personal affairs. It is also shocking to note that many of these groups were created and run by teenagers that were supposed to be in secondary or technical school. A problem with this is that many of these children were child soldiers, victims of torture, or had no living family members. Many of them are incredibly intelligent, but have not been able to obtain any education because of the societal stigma, trauma, and lack of money to take the necessary educational tests that the UN stopped providing free of charge. This void of direction is what causes masses of ex-child soldiers around the world to simply give up on life and loose hope. The lack of communication with the UN from the community as a whole contributed further to the problems of rule of law and resource allocation. Meanwhile, many of the mission groups and faith-based organizations in the camp would obstruct development by putting more money and energy going toward building churches than first making sure there was food in the stomachs of the people going inside. This example of disorganization and corruption highlights similar problems existing within the aid and development community worldwide. The communication breakdown that persists between what should be humanitarian colleagues is plaguing and stagnating development efforts. In this example from Ghana, we can see that there would have been benefit from a few larger NGOs run by the refugees that could have had bureaucracies to reduce corruption and develop a voice in discussions with the UN and other agencies. It would have also been beneficial for the UN agencies to focus their efforts together to identify and address the priorities in the area rather than work separately on their areas of expertise. Finally, it would have been useful if the faith-based organizations and church groups from the United States, Europe, and elsewhere had simply donated money to the World Food Programme or a larger NGO working on the camp if they wanted to have a real developmental impact. In Rwanda, we can learn a lot from this. While the corruption aspect does not persist, the communication and collaboration issues do within the various aid counterparts. The ‘one UN’ pilot scheme was a step in the right direction with the goal of harmonizing all efforts by UN agencies working in the same country. This program was initiated in Rwanda in 2007 and the initial hope was to contribute to efficiency and speed up progress towards the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Such an effort must be coordinated within the NGO community in Rwanda that focuses the attention of aid within specific areas of need to ensure the most progress will be made and that a pooling of resources occurs in specific sectors. It is not regulation that is needed in Rwanda, but communication. The various sectors of civil society and aid must take this responsibility upon themselves. The responsibility that is so necessary involves a united effort. Nick Fiore is the co-founder of Global Peace Exchange, Resolution Fellow, and iMUSE fellow. He has worked on multiple development projects in Rwanda, coordinates volunteer exchanges, and works on intercultural dialogue project worldwide. Email: nickafiore@gmail.com
