Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty

By Alanna Shaikh | 15 October, 200815 November, 2011 | 1 Comments |

Everything that matters in international development comes back to poverty. Poverty saps your ability to affect the path of your life, stay (or start out) healthy, find a job, or invest in education or a small business.

Information on global poverty:

Dani Rodrik talks about international poverty.

A nice Foreign Affairs article on reducing global poverty.

The World Bank’s most recent numbers on global poverty.

Oxfam’s take on reducing global poverty.

You will notice that not all of the sources I have listed agree with each other. Poverty is a complex topic, and there are no obvious answers on what to do. If you want to get involved in fighting global poverty, I suggest the ONE campaign. If you’d like to donate money to help alleviate global poverty, give to an NGO you already know and trust. Poverty is part of all our major problems, and fighting it is part of every solution. Donate to a food pantry in your home town, to Feeding America, International Medical Corps, or the Treatment Action Campaign or Oxfam. Every NGO trying to make the world a better place is fighting poverty one way or another; choose one that is credible and give what you can.

Blog Posts I’ve written that touch on poverty:

Briefing: Tuberculosis

Suffering does not make you special

Your money does not make you special

Keep your banana to yourself

Why health matters (if you only read one of my posts, read this one)

Field and headquarters relationships

By Alanna Shaikh | 6 September, 200814 November, 2011 | 0 Comments |

Your field offices always think that everyone in DC is out-of-touch, bureaucratic, and totally unaware of how things really work. Obsessively fixated on unimportant details, lazy, and overpaid. Evil parasitic weasels. Your HQ office always thinks that the field offices are reckless, single-minded, and don’t understand the context of the work or the political realities of getting funding. Cowboys.

That’s just how it is. But don’t worry. Field and HQ instantly unite when faced with the dreaded donor.

Photo credit: foundphotos

How to help in Georgia

By Alanna Shaikh | 17 August, 200820 December, 2011 | 2 Comments |

Georgia is a developing country, but not among the poorest of the poor. It’s not Haiti or Bangladesh. Therefore, the displaced persons who fled probably have some level of savings, and left with some household items. They’re not going to be at immediate risk for starvation, but things will get very tough for displaced persons in about a month. After that, the major risk is winter. Cold weather in the Caucasus is extremely cold, and displaced persons are likely to be in inadequate housing without the funds to pay for heating fuel or the clothes and blankets needed to keep warm.

If you want to provide help to displaced persons, I offer the same advice I always do. Find an NGO that already operates in the region. I suggest CARE, which has been in Georgia for about 15 years, and CHF, which also has an established presence. Give to the organization’s general fund, so your funds will be used as effectively as possible.

You may also want to think about other victims of the crisis. Consider supporting groups who assist and protect ethnic Georgians in Russia, and ethnic Russians in Georgia. By all accounts, the nationalism is getting ugly on both sides, and resident minorities will be at risk. I suggest supporting the Open Society Institute’s (OSI) Russia organization to help ethnic Georgians in Russia and OSI’s Georgian arm for the inverse.

Lastly, I suggest supporting civil society, human rights, and independent media in both countries. Democracies don’t go to war like this.

Photo: Joao Silva for The New York Times

Reader Question – International Social Work

By Alanna Shaikh | 27 July, 200820 December, 2011 | 0 Comments |

Dear Alanna,

I have one main question: from your experience, what would you say the need for international social workers is in NGOs?

Background info: I have an MA in international and I work for a NGO in the US, in their Africa dept – as a program associate, so I don’t go to Africa. I am going to go to (redacted) for a bit more than 3 months in September and will volunteer in a hospital that treats raped women. I know 3 months is not nearly enough to give me credibility, but that’s all I can do.

Now I’m thinking about going back to school. I am leaning towards a MSW that would allow me to focus on mental health and trauma. Do you think this would be valued in the NGO world?

Sincerely,

Katherine

Dear Katherine,

International social workers in NGOs – it’s a tricky question. There is a tremendous need for psychosocial help for survivors of disasters, and NGOs are paying more and more attention to those needs. International Medical Corps has some useful links: http://www.imcworldwide.org/content/media/detail/1379/. A social work background would fit in nicely and meet a need.

That being said, everyone I actually know with an MSW who works in international development is doing something unrelated. It ends up being treated as just another master’s degree – a credential for a job that requires that level of education, but not a set of technical skills that are actually used in daily practice. Since you already have a master’s degree, I am not sure what the value added would be for you.

Your best bet might be to spend a year or two doing other things to build your skills and background on trauma and mental health. Your volunteering is a great start. Maybe you could also volunteer with trauma victims when you come back to the US? I know the DC Rape Crisis Center will train people to be advocates and answer their hotline. There must be other opportunities as well. You can put that kind of thing on your resume and frame yourself as having the right background and then start applying for the jobs that you feel passionate about.

Here’s an obvious thing, but just in case you have not thought of it – have you searched idealist.org or a similar site to see what jobs require an MSW, and if they interest you?

Best,

Alanna

Jargon of the Day: Leverage

By Alanna Shaikh | 26 July, 200814 November, 2011 | 0 Comments |

Jargon: Leverage

Translation: Officially, it means to use one kind of funding as a way to inspire other donors. So you could leverage a $500 donation by getting a foundation to match it, and have $1000. In practice, though, it just means to use multiple funding streams to fund one project, whether or not the later funds were donated because of the first ones. NGOs claim all the time that they are leveraging your donation when what they really mean is “combining with other kinds of money.”

Things I don’t believe in #10 – Donating stuff instead of money

By Alanna Shaikh | 18 June, 200814 November, 2011 | 1 Comments |

Give money. Don’t send food, bottled water, clothing or useful-seeming stuff. Give money.

Your old stuff costs money to ship. It is almost always cheaper to just buy it in country, and doing it that way benefits the local economy. It’s also more respectful to survivors of humanitarian emergencies, and allows relief agencies to procure exactly what is needed instead of struggling to find a use for randomly selected used junk. Disaster News Network talks about the used clothes problem in “The Trouble with Trousers.” which features a really depressing anecdote about Hurricane Hugo.

Your food costs money to ship, too. It is probably not food anyone in the recipient area would recognize. How exactly will the people of Burma know what to do with canned refried beans or artichoke hearts? Sending donated American food doesn’t drive income to local farmers or help local retailers start selling again. Buying in-country gets food people will actually understand how to cook and supports the local economy.

Here’s another example – some people wanted to send their old tents to China to house earthquake survivors. A sweet idea – provide quick, free housing. But every different kind of tent would have different set-up instructions, and how many people save their tent instructions once they’ve learned how to do it? It would take a huge time investment in figuring out each type of tent, and then training for the people in China who had to set up the tents. All of this time translates to a delay in providing housing, and it’s time used by paid staff, which means it is also squandered money.

Interaction, the coalition of disaster-relief NGOs, has a nice piece about why cash donations are most effective. They mention needs-based procurement, efficient delivery, lower costs, economic support, and cultural and environmental appropriateness as advantages of cash. World Volunteer Web has a good explanation too, breaking down the myths about post-disaster aid.

Usually people end these kinds of articles with links to the three or so places who will take your old clothes and possessions for international donation. I am not going to do it. Don’t waste everyone’s effort that way. Give your old stuff to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, or St. Vincent de Paul; they’ll make the best use of it. They’ll sell your things locally and use the money for their charitable purposes.

Giving stuff instead of money is easy for you, it’s cheaper for you, and it’s quick. It is not quick, easy, or affordable for the NGOs who are actually trying to help people.

If you want to help, give money.

[Picture of old clothes in Haiti from Flickr by Vanessa Bertozzi]