A few men apparently ran rampant in Chad and Haiti. Disgusting! Especially disgusting if they bought sex with AID money. Nobody is saying that yet.
However, there is a very noisy press keeping this in the front of our awareness' daily. I am hoping, frantically, that this will not mean whole institutions -- UNICEF, Save The Children, OXFAM... are all penalised, deprived of funds, stigmatised, because a few men couldn't keep it in their trousers.
I have personally seen the work done by these Aid agencies when I worked for the British Council in four countries in Africa, for fifteen years. Sometimes I worked together with some of them in delivering joint objectives.
GTZ (German Aid) funded the thousands of Maths Methods books for Primary Schools, which we produced in Malawi. In Zambia, I worked with the UNICEF in promoting the education of girls and the careers of women in Primary Education.
These are two examples out of many that so many others in the AID business did for the countries in which they worked.
If the wrong people were recruited, the Head Quarters bears responsibility for this oversight. If misbehaviour was covered up, those who did it must take responsibility.
But this frenzy of brick-throwing is clearly wrong. Do we close a hospital down if a doctor abuses his position of trust? The whole of OXFAM is not culpable and should not be penalised.
There has been an agenda - a right-wing agenda-- to reduce funding in aid. This has been going on for a long time. Now the Press - the Right Wing Press -- has joined raucously, day after day. Like a leopard pouncing on a weakened prey.
The people who will suffer in the end, if Aid is curtailed, are the children, women, men, old people, sick people who need urgent assistance merely to survive. AID organisations have done a great job with resources always just short of need.
So, please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
However, there is a very noisy press keeping this in the front of our awareness' daily. I am hoping, frantically, that this will not mean whole institutions -- UNICEF, Save The Children, OXFAM... are all penalised, deprived of funds, stigmatised, because a few men couldn't keep it in their trousers.
I have personally seen the work done by these Aid agencies when I worked for the British Council in four countries in Africa, for fifteen years. Sometimes I worked together with some of them in delivering joint objectives.
GTZ (German Aid) funded the thousands of Maths Methods books for Primary Schools, which we produced in Malawi. In Zambia, I worked with the UNICEF in promoting the education of girls and the careers of women in Primary Education.
These are two examples out of many that so many others in the AID business did for the countries in which they worked.
If the wrong people were recruited, the Head Quarters bears responsibility for this oversight. If misbehaviour was covered up, those who did it must take responsibility.
But this frenzy of brick-throwing is clearly wrong. Do we close a hospital down if a doctor abuses his position of trust? The whole of OXFAM is not culpable and should not be penalised.
There has been an agenda - a right-wing agenda-- to reduce funding in aid. This has been going on for a long time. Now the Press - the Right Wing Press -- has joined raucously, day after day. Like a leopard pouncing on a weakened prey.
The people who will suffer in the end, if Aid is curtailed, are the children, women, men, old people, sick people who need urgent assistance merely to survive. AID organisations have done a great job with resources always just short of need.
So, please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
