The other day, the WHO asked aid groups in Haiti not to leave for at least 60 days. I found that kind of confusing, to be honest, because no aid agency is going to leave Haiti on purpose. Their humanitarian mission will make them want to stay – these groups do after all, want to help people. So will their competitiveness. Getting to open an office in a new country is exciting, and expands an NGO’s global reach.
NGOs will leave Haiti when they no longer have the funding to stay. They will do their best to stay – intense public fundraising appeals, unsolicited proposals to government donors, staff drawdowns, and salary cuts – but eventually there will be no money to remain in Haiti. Then, and only then, they’ll leave. (Except MSF. MSF leaves when the “emergency phase is over.” But as far as I know, only MSF does that.)
That means there is no point in appealing to the NGOs to stay. The WHO is aiming its pleas in the wrong direction. It’s not, in the end, the NGOs’ choice. We need to donate the money to keep them there, and push our governments to do the same. Whether or not the NGOs stay in Haiti is up to us.
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Chosen because – that’s how you leave, right? On a jet plane?
In general, a very true post, the reality of aid, and humanitarian aid is no exception, a very much market based. With the market being the demand by donors, not by beneficiaries.
However, on MSF it might be a stretch: I thought MSF is one of the too few organisations who were in Haiti before the earthquake. In some areas of special concern, MSF does have long term projects, and don forget Haiti endures hurricane after hurricane, combined with a chronic humanitarian emergency.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by alanna_shaikh: When will the NGOs leave Haiti? New Blood and Milk post. http://bloodandmilk.org/?p=1529…
I think the point re MSF is that ’emergency’ is a very flexible noun that can cover a wiiiiiiiide range of things. Within MSF, we actually often talk about ‘chronic emergencies’ (as opposed to ‘acute emergencies’ — can you tell it’s a humanitarian-medical organisation?). It’s stll true that MSF usually tries to hand over their projects by the time it’s felt that other organisations with a more developmental outlook are more qualified to run them; which, as Alanna rightly points out, is already quite rare in the aid world.
An illustration of MSF’s stance on long-term emergencies:
‘“The immediate emergency phase may be over, but the long-term work is just beginning, and it’s no less an emergency,” said MSF Haiti Head of Mission Karline Kleijer.’