Check out this article in The Standard, one of the two largest daily newspapers in Kenya.
270bn KSH is lost to corruption each year. That is approximately 3.3 billion USD every year. The article provides very jarring comparisons of that sum to the budgets of ministries within the Kenyan government, but as an American I have been thinking about it in terms of foreign aid.
The PEPFAR program in Kenya has a yearly budget of about $500 million ($15 billion worldwide budget over 5 years). The worldwide Peace Corps budget for FY 2010 is $373 million. I was not able to find the USAID budget for Kenya, but in fiscal year 2005 I found that USAID proposed to invest approximately $1 billion for all of sub-saharan African in the areas of development assistance, child survival and health, and Global AIDS Initiative funding.
Any way you slice it, $3.3 billion comes up as A LOT of money and is probably comparable to, if not greater than, the yearly foreign aid to Kenya. How do Kenyan members of parliament continue to wield an ability to raise their own paychecks? Maybe it is because there is enough foreign aid that services will still be provided. How come schools function even if $3.3 billion is stolen yearly? Maybe it is because governments are forthcoming with money to help out.
08 December 2010
17 November 2010
Thoughts On Building a More Perfect Union
After finishing Parting the Waters, I had a strong desire to read something a little more politically upbeat. Audacity of Hope is effective in its goal of giving me hope and left me a little more optimistic than before.
It is clear though that many of the changes he proposes wont be effected, which led to to wonder, what change in the American system would be most effective at shifting the social conscience of our nation? Are we largely shaped in the image of our parents or what are the external factors carry that carry the most influence over us? For instance, if all children receive more education in elementary school about the poverty of the bottom half of the world's population, would that lead them to become more socially liberal? What about mandating a community service component to students' learning from an early age? What if we took children from affluent schools to do activities with children from schools in poorer areas and vice versa? I believe that, if my personal aims in these proposals are ignored, most conservatives as well as liberals would agree they are generally wholesome additions to a child's education.
It is clear that most Americans want ours to be a meritocratic society, which we usually apply to financial standing, but what extending the idea of meritocracy to social beliefs also: we want a child from the morally worst household to have the support to become the most virtuous person. Would objective activities such as community service or pen pals in Africa change their world views?
Of course, their must be a strong critical analysis component to these activities because otherwise you might breed people who think debt-relief to African governments or direct budget supplements is a good idea (the problem is that these programs promote higher levels of corruption without a proportional increase in public outcry against the vice).
I was always raised to believe that education is central to shaping who you become and that it is one asset no one can take away from you. Maybe if we place weight on a well rounded and high quality education system in all corners of America, our future sons and daughters will make socially enlightened decisions on issues that are today vehemently debated.
It is clear though that many of the changes he proposes wont be effected, which led to to wonder, what change in the American system would be most effective at shifting the social conscience of our nation? Are we largely shaped in the image of our parents or what are the external factors carry that carry the most influence over us? For instance, if all children receive more education in elementary school about the poverty of the bottom half of the world's population, would that lead them to become more socially liberal? What about mandating a community service component to students' learning from an early age? What if we took children from affluent schools to do activities with children from schools in poorer areas and vice versa? I believe that, if my personal aims in these proposals are ignored, most conservatives as well as liberals would agree they are generally wholesome additions to a child's education.
It is clear that most Americans want ours to be a meritocratic society, which we usually apply to financial standing, but what extending the idea of meritocracy to social beliefs also: we want a child from the morally worst household to have the support to become the most virtuous person. Would objective activities such as community service or pen pals in Africa change their world views?
Of course, their must be a strong critical analysis component to these activities because otherwise you might breed people who think debt-relief to African governments or direct budget supplements is a good idea (the problem is that these programs promote higher levels of corruption without a proportional increase in public outcry against the vice).
I was always raised to believe that education is central to shaping who you become and that it is one asset no one can take away from you. Maybe if we place weight on a well rounded and high quality education system in all corners of America, our future sons and daughters will make socially enlightened decisions on issues that are today vehemently debated.
12 November 2010
Book Review and Subsequent Reflections: Parting the Waters
One of my goals before leaving Peace Corps was to finish reading Parting the Waters, an extensive biography of Martin Luther King Jr.'s involvement in the civil rights movement from 1954-1963.
Unfortunately, for our collective ego, a facile summarization of the book would be that it is a 922 page record of atrocities committed by Americans against our own people, in many instances receiving the tacit, and sometimes explicit, consent of individuals within the government. Here is one of the many graphic examples supporting this compendium:
At the beginning of the Freedom Rides to test the enforcement of desegregation of inter-state bus facilities, the local police formed a pact with local segregationists that they would not arrive at the scene for at least ten minutes. In this context, “a dozen men surrounded Jim Zwerg, the white Wisconsin exchange student [ who was on the Freedom ride . . . ] one man pinned Zwerg's head between his knees so that the others could take turns hitting him. As they steadily knocked out his teeth, and his face and chest were streaming with blood, a few adults on the perimeter put their children on their shoulders to view the carnage. A small girl asked what the men were doing, and her father replied 'Well, they're really carrying on.' ”
When the police did arrive they issued an injunction against the Freedom Riders, stating that they were under arrest for inciting violence, ignoring the fact that their movement was grounded in the principles of non-violence and blatantly disregarding all of the violent acts committed against them.
In light of these barbarous attacks and repression by city and state officials it would be reasonable to expect agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation to aid in the prosecution of the true criminals. Conversely though, under Hoover's orders the FBI seemed primarily interested in falsely interpreting situations in a manner to suggest that King's associates were communist spies, directed by Moscow to subvert the United States government. Throughout this era, Hoover hid behind the supposed necessity of protecting implanted agents and informants as grounds for offering only unsupported accusations to the executive branch. To hide this affront to justice, after King was assassinated a federal judge ordered all FBI files related to King be sealed away, preventing public scrutiny of the FBI's groundless claims until 50 years later when a legal team fought, and won, the declassification of the files.
Reading these accounts within Parting the Waters, which are supported by an 82 page bibliography, makes me feel ashamed to be a human being and an American, and makes me distrust what we, the public, believe we know about the work of our government. If the same secrecy exists today that existed then, even Obama may not know exactly which lenses certain branches of our government are using to filter their presentations of information.
To put into a broader context why I am embarrassed, societies with a written history have existed since around 5,000 BC. A conservative estimate of the rise of the first democracy is 500BC, with the rise of Athens. In 1776 America began the journey towards democracy with the declaration of independence, at which point our founding fathers acknowledged as “self-evident, that all men are created equal” and that we have been endowed by our creator with “unalienable Rights, [ . . . ] Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It took roughly 200 years for these rights to be applied to Americans with more skin pigment than the founding fathers. In the broader context of colonialism and world slavery, it took approximately 6,960 years for these Rights to be nearly universally recognized across the globe (approximately 6,980 years for the dilatory South African government). Stated another way, minority groups have had their rights recognized for loosely 0.7% of recorded history and 2.4% of democratic history. These numbers of course are all debatable, and simply to to highlight the point that it has taken a very long time for civilizations to globally acknowledge equality based on skin color. Many people might even argue that we have not currently reached an acceptable recognition of Rights (consider, for example, people deemed “illegal aliens” by the government who have lived in America for almost their entire lives).
If something so basic has taken so long, what will happen now that our world is changing ever-more quickly, both ecologically and technologically? I am left feeling pessimistic that societies can pull together for the pressing, yet controversial, issue of transforming economies for the sake of environmental preservation.
Further, given the short time span over which “unalienable Rights” have been recognized as a preclusion to commit the atrocities of slavery and racially inspired violence, what should lead us to believe we have now reached a point where our social institution will forever dutifully protect basic human rights and freedoms?
Perhaps the problem is based on the observation of Reinhold Neibuhr (quoted in Parting the Waters), that “only in extremity do people 'discover what they really live by.' ” Only when a situation disrupts our complacency and rouses us from routine existence do we recognize an intrusion upon our core values. When we become complacent again, forgetting past struggles, so to may our application of rights wane.
Unfortunately, for our collective ego, a facile summarization of the book would be that it is a 922 page record of atrocities committed by Americans against our own people, in many instances receiving the tacit, and sometimes explicit, consent of individuals within the government. Here is one of the many graphic examples supporting this compendium:
At the beginning of the Freedom Rides to test the enforcement of desegregation of inter-state bus facilities, the local police formed a pact with local segregationists that they would not arrive at the scene for at least ten minutes. In this context, “a dozen men surrounded Jim Zwerg, the white Wisconsin exchange student [ who was on the Freedom ride . . . ] one man pinned Zwerg's head between his knees so that the others could take turns hitting him. As they steadily knocked out his teeth, and his face and chest were streaming with blood, a few adults on the perimeter put their children on their shoulders to view the carnage. A small girl asked what the men were doing, and her father replied 'Well, they're really carrying on.' ”
When the police did arrive they issued an injunction against the Freedom Riders, stating that they were under arrest for inciting violence, ignoring the fact that their movement was grounded in the principles of non-violence and blatantly disregarding all of the violent acts committed against them.
In light of these barbarous attacks and repression by city and state officials it would be reasonable to expect agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation to aid in the prosecution of the true criminals. Conversely though, under Hoover's orders the FBI seemed primarily interested in falsely interpreting situations in a manner to suggest that King's associates were communist spies, directed by Moscow to subvert the United States government. Throughout this era, Hoover hid behind the supposed necessity of protecting implanted agents and informants as grounds for offering only unsupported accusations to the executive branch. To hide this affront to justice, after King was assassinated a federal judge ordered all FBI files related to King be sealed away, preventing public scrutiny of the FBI's groundless claims until 50 years later when a legal team fought, and won, the declassification of the files.
Reading these accounts within Parting the Waters, which are supported by an 82 page bibliography, makes me feel ashamed to be a human being and an American, and makes me distrust what we, the public, believe we know about the work of our government. If the same secrecy exists today that existed then, even Obama may not know exactly which lenses certain branches of our government are using to filter their presentations of information.
To put into a broader context why I am embarrassed, societies with a written history have existed since around 5,000 BC. A conservative estimate of the rise of the first democracy is 500BC, with the rise of Athens. In 1776 America began the journey towards democracy with the declaration of independence, at which point our founding fathers acknowledged as “self-evident, that all men are created equal” and that we have been endowed by our creator with “unalienable Rights, [ . . . ] Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It took roughly 200 years for these rights to be applied to Americans with more skin pigment than the founding fathers. In the broader context of colonialism and world slavery, it took approximately 6,960 years for these Rights to be nearly universally recognized across the globe (approximately 6,980 years for the dilatory South African government). Stated another way, minority groups have had their rights recognized for loosely 0.7% of recorded history and 2.4% of democratic history. These numbers of course are all debatable, and simply to to highlight the point that it has taken a very long time for civilizations to globally acknowledge equality based on skin color. Many people might even argue that we have not currently reached an acceptable recognition of Rights (consider, for example, people deemed “illegal aliens” by the government who have lived in America for almost their entire lives).
If something so basic has taken so long, what will happen now that our world is changing ever-more quickly, both ecologically and technologically? I am left feeling pessimistic that societies can pull together for the pressing, yet controversial, issue of transforming economies for the sake of environmental preservation.
Further, given the short time span over which “unalienable Rights” have been recognized as a preclusion to commit the atrocities of slavery and racially inspired violence, what should lead us to believe we have now reached a point where our social institution will forever dutifully protect basic human rights and freedoms?
Perhaps the problem is based on the observation of Reinhold Neibuhr (quoted in Parting the Waters), that “only in extremity do people 'discover what they really live by.' ” Only when a situation disrupts our complacency and rouses us from routine existence do we recognize an intrusion upon our core values. When we become complacent again, forgetting past struggles, so to may our application of rights wane.
27 October 2010
Oloitokitok
I am back in town, for a week of assisting with the 2010 Math/Science Secondary Education Pre-Service Training. The new training group is great: they are eager, level-headed, and will make good teachers.
In addition to assisting the Peace Corps staff to organize sessions and choose sites for the trainees, I also went to visit my host family. I wanted to bring them a chicken, and wanting to arrive as early as possible after the day's work was done, I ran with the chicken held in both hands out in front of me. I ran for maybe 3 kilometers this way, which I am sure was a fantastic site for all those I passed.
The last time I slaughtered a chicken for my host family was the end of December 2008. This was the first chicken I had ever slaughtered, so when I cut off the head and it kept moving I was startled and let it go. Yes, the chicken did run around with its head cut off, but it also flew, spraying blood on me and on my younger host brother's clothes. Needless to say, I had something to prove, and I did prove it. I chopped the head, defeathered it, and removed the internal organs. The only time I embarrassed myself was when I broke its leg to butcher it and a mix of chicken juices got into my eye.
Afterwards I sat outside, looking up at Mt. Kilimanjaro and husked black-eyed peas for my host mother. While sitting there I felt this overwhelming calm about me and I thought to myself that this is how I imagined my Peace Corps experience. I imagined leading a simple life, a slow life, filled with many calm moments sitting outside in cool shade. My experience has been this way in some instances, but in others I have chosen to retain my stressed out technology-crazed life (take the netbook that I am writing this on as one example). Instead of making time to separate rocks from unprocessed rice, I find it much nicer to buy processed rice with the rocks already removed. Often times, when people want to talk talk talk about nothing, instead of entertaining them I become fidgety and make an excuse to leave.
My life is certainly less crazy than it has been at many points, but I have retained more of my Western customs than I expected to.
After my nice sit, watching the cows and goats and husking peas, I went inside to talk to my host father about lots of things of little importance. We sat, and I enjoyed it. I did not become very fidgety. Then we ate, and realizing it was getting late, instead of rushing back to the hotel I asked if they had an extra bed to sleep there.
Leaving at 7am, I began my quick paced life again, running back to the hotel to shower, eat, and rush to Peace Corps training.
In addition to assisting the Peace Corps staff to organize sessions and choose sites for the trainees, I also went to visit my host family. I wanted to bring them a chicken, and wanting to arrive as early as possible after the day's work was done, I ran with the chicken held in both hands out in front of me. I ran for maybe 3 kilometers this way, which I am sure was a fantastic site for all those I passed.
The last time I slaughtered a chicken for my host family was the end of December 2008. This was the first chicken I had ever slaughtered, so when I cut off the head and it kept moving I was startled and let it go. Yes, the chicken did run around with its head cut off, but it also flew, spraying blood on me and on my younger host brother's clothes. Needless to say, I had something to prove, and I did prove it. I chopped the head, defeathered it, and removed the internal organs. The only time I embarrassed myself was when I broke its leg to butcher it and a mix of chicken juices got into my eye.
Afterwards I sat outside, looking up at Mt. Kilimanjaro and husked black-eyed peas for my host mother. While sitting there I felt this overwhelming calm about me and I thought to myself that this is how I imagined my Peace Corps experience. I imagined leading a simple life, a slow life, filled with many calm moments sitting outside in cool shade. My experience has been this way in some instances, but in others I have chosen to retain my stressed out technology-crazed life (take the netbook that I am writing this on as one example). Instead of making time to separate rocks from unprocessed rice, I find it much nicer to buy processed rice with the rocks already removed. Often times, when people want to talk talk talk about nothing, instead of entertaining them I become fidgety and make an excuse to leave.
My life is certainly less crazy than it has been at many points, but I have retained more of my Western customs than I expected to.
After my nice sit, watching the cows and goats and husking peas, I went inside to talk to my host father about lots of things of little importance. We sat, and I enjoyed it. I did not become very fidgety. Then we ate, and realizing it was getting late, instead of rushing back to the hotel I asked if they had an extra bed to sleep there.
Leaving at 7am, I began my quick paced life again, running back to the hotel to shower, eat, and rush to Peace Corps training.
Theft: A Lost Knife and Self-Questioning
Friday morning, while walking past the row of classrooms I encountered a student walking in the other direction. When we got closer I realized he had a knife twirling from his king ring; not only that, but the knife was mine!
He told me he had purchased it “in Nanyuki, or rather, it was Meru town.” You cannot find CRKT knives in Kenya. Even in Nairobi there are only two stores that sell serious outdoor gear and they sell a single brand of gear (not CRKT).
When the student was called to the principal's office the story changed again and the student said he purchased it in Nyeri at the gate to a Scout camp out we attended. And the price at which he purchased this knife new? 350KSH, or approximately $4.50. Admittedly CRKT is a cheaper brand of knife, but I bought this one for at least $20.
The worst part of this ordeal was that while I was reclaiming my knife from him I had in my other hand a picture of him and 4 other scouts smiling and enjoying themselves at the aforementioned camp out (the first camp out I took them on). Unlike America where there are many adult leaders who participate in the camp outs, I was alone with them for two nights. We cooked together, played frisbee, and shivered next to one another.
I interacted with them very freely. As an example, the only dry area at the camp was my tent, which I offered as a storage facility for the grains. The scouts entered it even when I was not present, which I permitted them to do because I trusted them.
I do still trust most of them. The biggest question I have is to what extent my faith in them can change their habits. For instance, I was also dismayed to find out on the more recent camp out that they were trying to trap animals. I guess trapping animals is the sort of activity most boys would do if they thought they had the opportunity, even American boys. In Kenya though, trapping animals is very illegal, yet the animals are still over-trapped, leading to a decline in animal populations.
As a parent, a leader, or a teacher, how should I balance showing my disapproval with offering loving-kindness to keep them from hardening their deviant behaviors? Does it take two people working together to pull this off? - One who is the yin, showing unconditional love, and the other who is sharp and critical? I am a 24 year old male and I find myself fitting the stereotype that young males tend to be critical and exacting in their code of conduct. And, like a true addict, I find myself justifying it, while simultaneously acknowledging that I make more enemies than friends through this conduct. My self appraisal might be hyperbolic to some degree, but I guess the point is I am still at a point in my life where I am trying to figure out how to be a good coach and mentor.
I wanted quick and moving justice exacted on the student, but the principal and deputy were more verbally critical of the behavior than they were with their actions – which I see to be neither yin nor yang, but just ineffective.
After the knife was paraded as evidence I sat down with it, filed out the dings, tightened the bolts, and gave it to a Kenyan friend: I did not miss the knife too greatly while it was gone.
He told me he had purchased it “in Nanyuki, or rather, it was Meru town.” You cannot find CRKT knives in Kenya. Even in Nairobi there are only two stores that sell serious outdoor gear and they sell a single brand of gear (not CRKT).
When the student was called to the principal's office the story changed again and the student said he purchased it in Nyeri at the gate to a Scout camp out we attended. And the price at which he purchased this knife new? 350KSH, or approximately $4.50. Admittedly CRKT is a cheaper brand of knife, but I bought this one for at least $20.
The worst part of this ordeal was that while I was reclaiming my knife from him I had in my other hand a picture of him and 4 other scouts smiling and enjoying themselves at the aforementioned camp out (the first camp out I took them on). Unlike America where there are many adult leaders who participate in the camp outs, I was alone with them for two nights. We cooked together, played frisbee, and shivered next to one another.
I interacted with them very freely. As an example, the only dry area at the camp was my tent, which I offered as a storage facility for the grains. The scouts entered it even when I was not present, which I permitted them to do because I trusted them.
I do still trust most of them. The biggest question I have is to what extent my faith in them can change their habits. For instance, I was also dismayed to find out on the more recent camp out that they were trying to trap animals. I guess trapping animals is the sort of activity most boys would do if they thought they had the opportunity, even American boys. In Kenya though, trapping animals is very illegal, yet the animals are still over-trapped, leading to a decline in animal populations.
As a parent, a leader, or a teacher, how should I balance showing my disapproval with offering loving-kindness to keep them from hardening their deviant behaviors? Does it take two people working together to pull this off? - One who is the yin, showing unconditional love, and the other who is sharp and critical? I am a 24 year old male and I find myself fitting the stereotype that young males tend to be critical and exacting in their code of conduct. And, like a true addict, I find myself justifying it, while simultaneously acknowledging that I make more enemies than friends through this conduct. My self appraisal might be hyperbolic to some degree, but I guess the point is I am still at a point in my life where I am trying to figure out how to be a good coach and mentor.
I wanted quick and moving justice exacted on the student, but the principal and deputy were more verbally critical of the behavior than they were with their actions – which I see to be neither yin nor yang, but just ineffective.
After the knife was paraded as evidence I sat down with it, filed out the dings, tightened the bolts, and gave it to a Kenyan friend: I did not miss the knife too greatly while it was gone.
06 October 2010
Why I Am Skeptical of Donating My Money to NGOs
NGOs obviously do a lot of good. Take for instance AMREF, which has the endorsement of the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation and has a 4 star charity rating from "Charity Navigator" (whoever that is). There is no way to get the endorsements that AMREF has without doing MANY good things.
I wonder if they really need my money though... Take the following situation as an example:
There is a Peace Corps Volunteer living in desert Masai-land somewhere south of Nairobi. Shortly after he arrived at his site AMREF showed up with four computers. They explained that the computers were loaded with all sorts of health-related education software and that the students should be instructed to use the software to raise their awareness of health issues and how to protect themselves. Sounds great, right? Well, this school's electricity comes from a few small solar panels. The electricity is powerful enough to charge cell phones and power approximately one laptop at a time, but NOT powerful enough to run even one desktop, let alone four.
Okay, so AMREF made a single mistake... they did not confirm whether or not the computers could function before they took off in their shining luxury Land Rover, but thankfully they came back some time later to check how things were coming. Only one of the computers had been taken out of the box until the morning when AMREF was to arrive, at which point the other computers were hurriedly set up and dusted off. The officials arrived, were shown around, and were told by the school that things were going great: THANKS FOR THE FREE COMPUTERS, we are making excellent use of them (as receptors for passing dust)!!! At the end of the visit the volunteer took the officials aside and informed them of the charades they had just been put through. The official looked concerned and instructed the volunteer to begin sending AMREF reports on the subject. The volunteer acquiesced at first, but never received a reply and eventually quit.
Some months later along comes AMREF again, this time with a 72" thin screen, state-of-the-art, impress-your-neighbors TV in tow (Okay, I don't know the exact size of the TV, but the box was more than 4 ft. long and about 2.5ft tall). They told the school the TV was for the school's HIV/AIDS resource center. The problem? The school has no resource center and has no plans of constructing one. Additionally, again, the school's electricity is almost definitely not sufficient to power an electricity sucking vampire like this one. When I visited my friend some months after the TV arrived I found it in the corner of a storage room, still in its box.
As I said, in other situations AMREF does probably do useful things to improve community health. I wonder though, how many other schools and communities are targeted in such ridiculous ways.
This story is meant to highlight the dissonance between what people hear about from NGOs about the need for more money and the NGOs ability to wantonly spend money.
This state can be attributed to a few factors, among them: (1) NGOs usually do not have people on the ground to assess potential methods of conveying information and (2) in order to increase the scope and reach of their organization they must continue to show donors they need more money, which can become a vicious cycle.
Additionally, NGOs (and groups like Peace Corps) really want to brag about how many people they are reaching per money they are spending. A one-time investment such as a TV and a few computers allows them to say that they are initially reaching around 350 students and around another 70 each year, which if true would be great. Therefore, they have some incentive to ignore the finer details of their projects and focus on the report numbers.
I wonder if they really need my money though... Take the following situation as an example:
There is a Peace Corps Volunteer living in desert Masai-land somewhere south of Nairobi. Shortly after he arrived at his site AMREF showed up with four computers. They explained that the computers were loaded with all sorts of health-related education software and that the students should be instructed to use the software to raise their awareness of health issues and how to protect themselves. Sounds great, right? Well, this school's electricity comes from a few small solar panels. The electricity is powerful enough to charge cell phones and power approximately one laptop at a time, but NOT powerful enough to run even one desktop, let alone four.
Okay, so AMREF made a single mistake... they did not confirm whether or not the computers could function before they took off in their shining luxury Land Rover, but thankfully they came back some time later to check how things were coming. Only one of the computers had been taken out of the box until the morning when AMREF was to arrive, at which point the other computers were hurriedly set up and dusted off. The officials arrived, were shown around, and were told by the school that things were going great: THANKS FOR THE FREE COMPUTERS, we are making excellent use of them (as receptors for passing dust)!!! At the end of the visit the volunteer took the officials aside and informed them of the charades they had just been put through. The official looked concerned and instructed the volunteer to begin sending AMREF reports on the subject. The volunteer acquiesced at first, but never received a reply and eventually quit.
Some months later along comes AMREF again, this time with a 72" thin screen, state-of-the-art, impress-your-neighbors TV in tow (Okay, I don't know the exact size of the TV, but the box was more than 4 ft. long and about 2.5ft tall). They told the school the TV was for the school's HIV/AIDS resource center. The problem? The school has no resource center and has no plans of constructing one. Additionally, again, the school's electricity is almost definitely not sufficient to power an electricity sucking vampire like this one. When I visited my friend some months after the TV arrived I found it in the corner of a storage room, still in its box.
As I said, in other situations AMREF does probably do useful things to improve community health. I wonder though, how many other schools and communities are targeted in such ridiculous ways.
This story is meant to highlight the dissonance between what people hear about from NGOs about the need for more money and the NGOs ability to wantonly spend money.
This state can be attributed to a few factors, among them: (1) NGOs usually do not have people on the ground to assess potential methods of conveying information and (2) in order to increase the scope and reach of their organization they must continue to show donors they need more money, which can become a vicious cycle.
Additionally, NGOs (and groups like Peace Corps) really want to brag about how many people they are reaching per money they are spending. A one-time investment such as a TV and a few computers allows them to say that they are initially reaching around 350 students and around another 70 each year, which if true would be great. Therefore, they have some incentive to ignore the finer details of their projects and focus on the report numbers.
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