The long horn of Africa- Blog action day 2011

Somalia, food distribution recipients

 I was back home in the summer. My 8 year old niece was very concerned about the images  she was seeing coming out  from the horn on Africa on TV, so my sister asked me -the aid expert that had lived in Africa and worked in Somalia- to explain to her about the famine. It went something like this:

"well, it's really about power and politics. There’s a lot of different clans, clans are like families, and they all want the power, and so the people, mostly women and children, get crushed in the middle of it" 

I’m not sure either of them understood or believed me, but that’s my version of the affair.  And you can see how –from my perspective- no amount of food distribution is going to solve the problem.

***

Sometimes we (the aid community) just need to get the f*ck out. Sometimes not only are we not helping, but we are actually making things worse, maintaining a status quo that should be unsustainable. Making the powerful stronger. The rich richer.

When I say something like this out loud people often argue that it would be unethical to walk away. That it would mean penalising the poor not the rich. That hundreds might die before anything actually changes, and they are right, actually, they often use Somalia as an example that no matter how bad a situation gets, it IS sustainable,   and they've got a point.

So maybe it comes down to aid with accountability.

We hate the idea of enforcing our values because a) we've been wrong so many times and b) it feels like colonialism all over again. But lets face it, aid without accountability is not only unethical but simply irresponsible. The donors and aid agencies  need to bite the bullet and ensure that certain values are enforced, that the vulnerable benefit, like really benefit, and no, number of women that attended a workshop or received a bag of food does not count as a gender strategy, (for example). Especially if those same women have no control over what happens to that food once it gets home, or have no way of earning an income because it is deemed unacceptable for women to take a job outside the home. If you don’t address the root causes you are not helping, you are just putting a band aid over an infected wound. Maybe it’s time to  learn how to walk away when we see there is no change, but more importantly, when we know there is no will to change. Why? Because for the most part they know that no matter how unaccountable they are to the money that has been distributed, how little things change, the money will keep flowing in. And for the most part, they are right. We need to start making them accountable in order to be accountable ourselves. 

Maybe its time to look at laws and national budgets, see where the country’s money is going, making them participate (economically) whenever they want us to donate. If they think it is important enough for us (the development community) to invest in it… then they should too.


Because in a civil war situation, and Somalia is a type of civil war, handing out food is not any more neutral than handing out guns. We have a responsibility to know what we are doing, where it is going, and who’s really benefitting.

food distribution center

NOTE: This post was originally a reply to a post on Tales From the Hood: simple  it got so long I decided best to keep on ranting over here.

another kind of simple

"I got my hair cut and a balloon"

for those of you complaining that I haven't been writing lately...

For those of you complaining that I have not been writing lately,  I just wanted  to let you know that I have written a couple of guest  post and articles  recently you can have a look at:

I'm on Tales from the Hood, a great site for deep critical thought on the aid world with "Finding the G spot", which is about gender and the  work place in the aid world, (or anywhere else really).


I wrote "why I'm a survivor" on  Band Back together, which is a group weblog that provides educational resources as well as a safe, moderated, supportive environment to share stories of survival.

and the "survival kit for moving away" on Matador life

so enjoy!

...(and stop complaining)

cause us privileged people that can read and access a computer have a responsibility to give a damn - The girl effect

UN food distribution center. Somalia

I saw this video a while back. I was flabbergasted  (do you even spell it like that?) I knew already everything that was in it. I do this for a living. What really shocked me was how simple  they had managed to make the message.  So simple and in-your-face that it was impossible to ignore. 

I'm a feminist. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I don't care how out of use or abused the word is, I believe that men and women are, like the t-shirts in Thailand put it, "same same, but different". I believe in the beauty of that difference, but I think it would be irresponsible for privileged women to ignore the abuse and disadvantages that most of our ... sisters? .. live under. And by the way,  if you are reading this, you have access to a computer AND you can read, so you are already a part of that privileged group. 

There are a lot of fights still pending. The developed countries do a lot of preaching, but the reality is that when everything has been said and done, there is usually a lot more said than done. You'd be surprised to see that indigenous women  in some mountain in Colombia are fighting for some the same things that we are: like equal pay and equal opportunity. I certainly was.

But even those women are fortunate. They are fighting, that means they have a voice, that means that someone, at some point in their life taught them that, and that is already more than many women (girls) have.

One of my most traumatic experiences  was reading "The road of lost Innocence" by Somali Mam.  Somali is a brave Cambodian woman that was sold into prostitution by her uncle at the age of  13. She survived, and by taking in one girl at a time founded an organization that helps other girls escape and survive that same experience. She tells her story in a brave book. Nothing I didn't already  know, but to read it told in first person rather than in cold statistics. To read it while living in Cambodia and holding my new born  daughter..... your heart breaks a little.

My mother often asks me why I went back to work after my children were born. She asks why I put myself in harms way when I have two small children at home that need me, that only have me, that would never be able to replace me. The answer is simple: I can't know what is happening and ignore it. I just can't. More so now because I have children of my own and all the statistics have become personal. Those girls are no different from my girl.

So here are some sobering statistics behind the so-called girl effect:

Drawing by the princess

When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more

years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2

fewer children.

(United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 1990.)

An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages

by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school:

15 to 25 percent.

(George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, “Returns to Investment in Education: A Further

Update,” Policy Research Working Paper 2881[Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002].)

Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship

between better infant and child health and higher

levels of schooling among mothers.

(George T. Bicego and J. Ties Boerma, “Maternal Education and Child Survival: A Comparative

Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries,” Social Science and Medicine 36 (9) [May 1993]:

1207–27.)

When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent

of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40

percent for a man.

(Chris Fortson, “Women’s Rights Vital for Developing World,” Yale News Daily 2003.)

Out of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth,

70 percent are girls.

(Human Rights Watch, “Promises Broken: An Assessment of Children’s Rights on the 10th Anniversary

of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/promises/education.

html [December 1999].)

Wondering how you can help? it's the girl effect blogging week. Write a post, or just share this one or  one of the  others posts written by other bloggers you like with your friends. Get the word out. In the words of Steve Jobs "Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."

POST DATA

Unfortunately it seems that Somali Mam's story might have been somewhat.... made up. the sobering fact remains that thousands of women (and boys) are sold into prostitution every year.

on caffeine

I thought this was an appropriate Monday morning post. Morning y'all. and hope all the best for the week for ya.

related post: first coffee photo post 

on clouds

I'm obsessed with the clouds in New York. There is something quite spectacular about them. The sky is always cyan (if you are a photographer you know what that means), and then there are these thick clouds that look like someone just came along and painted them on.

Mona Lisa - Photo post

this one is a bit of a mona lisa for me, not that I think I'm anywhere near a Michelangelo, but in so far as I find it haunting, can't work out if he's tired, scared, or if I'm going to have to scream to him for something he just did