Goverment Charity

[Tokis-Phoenix]

This is one thing i have been musing over of recent.

I have absolutely nothing against private charities doing their work- when people donate money to private charity they are doing so willingly and to a cause they agree with. Pretty much all charity is good- whether its a charity that keeps stray dogs & cats off the streets, a charity that looks after the elderly, a charity that gives help to cancer victims, a charity that gets kids involved in constructive activities, helps the disabled or protects nature reserves etc etc- they are all good and all important.

But how do you feel about the government using tax payers money in charitable causes abroad? This we do not get much choice about.
Is this right? Should governments be allowed to donate tax payers money to foriegn charitable causes?

While i agree with private charities 100 percent;, i don't agree so much with the government sending our tax money to causes abroad. I live in England- though it is a great country no doubt, we also have so many problems right here at home. A struggling NHS, elderly people who cannot afford to heat their homes, disabled (mentally or physically) people with families struggling to look after them, people being made redundant all the time, people homeless on the streets or animal causes (animal shelters, wildlife reserves etc) in desperate need of funding etc. And we are facing a budget crisis with cuts being made everywhere.

So i think that at least for the forseeable future, our money should be spent on our people & country before we help others outside. Private charities should be supported, but i have always felt that even in better times sending tax payers money abroad on charitable foriegn causes has always been a bit questionable.

I also think that in the case of Africa, it should definitely be a private charity rather than a government matter. Though for the most part, i am also now at the stage in thinking that Africa needs to sort out Africa's problems. It has been the worlds charity case since before i was even born, yet despite the billions that has been thrown at it over the decades it is definitely debatable whether it has improved at all.
I sometimes even wonder that if we hadn't thrown so much charity at it, whether its people would be more independant and would have revolted against their (bad) leaders long ago. I ultimately think though that charity cannot cure Africa's problems. Its a bit like giving paracetamol to a dying person- it might make them feel a bit better in the short term, but it's not going to cure their problems. I wonder how Africans feel about always being the worlds charity case?

Anyhoo, what do you think about the government using tax payers money on foreign/outside charitable causes- right, wrong or something else/inbetween?

 

[Haruspex]

I agree wholeheartedly. It's a stupid attempt to create something to feel better about.
-Oh the neighbour lady froze to death, dear, and they found her with icicles of piss hanging from her rocking chair.
-Don't you worry, honey, our state sent food to Africa so that Africa won't have to worry about producing any.

I think the UK has a real problem with all these stupid charities. I am for charities, don't get me wrong, charities that work. I love it how something happens. Something important, yet compared to other issues in the same region quite insignificant. Take Haiti, for example. There's this country with its people living in poverty and need for aeons and no one gives a ****. But oh, all of a sudden an earthquake ravages the country and all these socially-conscious, inbred, cretinous morons keep on yapping about it for two weeks and then c'est la vie Haiti, we saved 2000 people from the earthquake, now the rest of you can rot in your own filth and starve to death. And it's been going on for ages.

I would prefer state charities with voluntary donation that are big enough to sort out stuff and can solve real issues. Say, how about a charity that pays mercenaries to assassinate warlords and dictators in failed states? It's always this middle of the road rubbish from gutless wimps about love, tolerance, equality, peace, tranquility and so on. There is no love, tolerance, equality, peace and tranquility in many African states and the people are oppressed. Help them overthrow oppressive regimes, that's what they bloody need not food! Once the corruption's been dealt with they can take care of food themselves, holy ****!

 

[Hezam]

Well,When we hear about charity from governments Africa comes first to our minds,But what many people don't know is that hunderds of millions chinese and Indians and Asians in general are very poor.
South america too,,
Anyway,As Derfel said,They should rather give charity to solve the real problems like making companies,factories,hospitals...etc so people can have jobs and then they can buy what they need and save money for the future.

And it has been said "Don't give me fish, teach me to fish".

Most charities go to mercineries and governments...so i'm against that sort of charity.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

With the Haiti thing & similar stories, its all about the media. It usually doesn't matter how impoverished a country is and how much it generally needs help, unless something actually interesting happens, its not going to get in the media and if it doesn't make any headlines then people are simply not going to care that much about it. Its only until people start seeing pictures of people squished between slabs of concrete, mothers crying over their dead babies and people walking in despair and confusion covered in blood & dust that it actually tugs at people's heart strings.
Then people think we can save it with charity. But it was a broken country before the earthquake even struck.

Though i have to say (although i don't like to admit it), my heart strings have been pulled at so much by pictures of starving fly-ridden black babies on African charity appeal adverts on TV doing their usual emotional blackmail talks trying to get you to donate, that i'm beginning to not feel anything at all about such cases. I know its awful, but i've basically grown up my whole life seeing these adverts on TV (these sorts of charity appeal adds are on pretty much everyday, all channels), so much so that i'm beginning to feel emotionally numb towards such causes.

More controversially i also question the point of saving such babies. Africa has the largest fastest growing population in the world (even more so than China) and its problems are directly linked or caused by;
a. It has too many people to look after- adding more to the mix is not going to help this. Too many offspring exasperates the cycles of poverty.
b. It has plenty of fertile land to grow food on and physically it is more than capable of feeding itself (even with its current numbers)- the reason why it doesn't is down to its countries political messes. Take Zimbabwe- under the British empire it produced so much food it was known as the Bread Basket of Africa. It had great economy, stable structure and its people were happy & well-fed. Under President Mugabe its economy is in ruins, its people starving & and living in despair. The starvation and poverty has nothing to do with it not being able to produce enough food, but rather the fact that its farming economy was destroyed & left in ruins when Mugabe terrorised the white farmers off their farms and gave their lands to his thugs.

Will sending more aid (even a gigantic sum) to Zimbabwe solve its problems? No. Its problems are political and we don't control the place. If we did control the country then yes we could actually do something about its root problems, but IMO right now we're just sending money to country where its leader really doesn't give a hoot about his people's sufferings & is also the cause of all their sufferings.
And Zimbabwe is not alone by a long shot in this problem- most of Africa's problems boil down to politics rather than problems with the lands being able to support the peoples.
But even despite all this, when it comes to government charity i doubt that our government is ever being truly charitable (from the heart) when it gives away aid. Aid is a political tool and you only have to look at the aid relationship between America & N.Korea to realise that it has nothing to do with compassion but much more to do with politics & political control. Its all about bribery & blackmail.

 

[Hezam]

Will sending more aid (even a gigantic sum) to Zimbabwe solve its problems? No. Its problems are political and we don't control the place.

I agree,Like what happned in Pakistan last year when the rain flooded 20% of the land many countries sent charity but the government took the money and sent the food.!!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Well,When we hear about charity from governments Africa comes first to our minds,But what many people don't know is that hunderds of millions chinese and Indians and Asians in general are very poor.
South america too.

Yes i agree. I wonder why we have this obsession with Africa when there are so many other large countries or nations etc in need? What is the politics behind all this? Hmm...

 

[Hezam]

because of the wealths in Africa.

See the ads above :

Got it ?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hmm here's an interesting new developement on the matter;

UK 'to end direct aid to 16 countries'

"The UK is to stop direct aid to 16 countries, including Russia, China and Iraq, papers seen by the BBC suggest.

A draft copy of the government's review of its overseas aid budget - due to be published this week - also reveals aid to India will be frozen.

But overall, the international development budget will rise by a third in this Parliament as a new approach focuses on value for money, it says.

The report states that aid spending is good for Britain's economy and safety"

Full Story;

UK 'to end direct aid to 16 countries'

"India is currently one of the biggest recipients of UK development aid, and there have been media campaigns in the UK suggesting an economy growing at nearly 10% a year simply does not need British assistance."

Yes it has always miffed me why we send aid to a country which has its own space program >_> .

"The UK is to stop direct aid to 16 countries, including Russia, China and Iraq"

I agree with stopping sending aid to Russia & China as they are very rich countries which can look after their own people. But Iraq is only in the state it is because of us, so i think we have a responsibility to clean up the s**t we caused over there- they wouldn't be a charity case at all if it weren't for us.

"The report states that aid spending is good for Britain's economy"

Oh yes, so we should now be blackmailed into sending aid not because of other people's suffering but because of our own "rolls eyes"?

"...and safety"

Hmmm.....Now this sort of rings a bell here. Something about the Romans paying barbarian tribes to keep the peace? And those tribes extorting money out of the Romans as they increasingly realised that it was they who had the power? Something about the fall of Rome? Ah i forget the rest of the story .

But others point out that nearly half a billion people in India are still desperately poor, and efforts to reduce global poverty will not progress without significant aid.

Oh i'm fed up of this whole "If we send enough aid we can solve other countries problems- we just need to send more money to fix them!" -_- . The problem of so many other countries problems has never been a lack of money or food, but the problem of government corruption. While lack of money/food is what ends up killing so many people, the real problem is their own governments that they live under which deliberately cause the lack of money & food. Just look at N.Korea & S.Korea to see what a bad government and a good government can do to two previously (and still quite recently) identical peoples etc.
So the solution is not "We just need more money!"- in fact i don't think we can solve other countries problems at all with aid. Africa needs to sort out Africa's problems etc. I mean, how many billions have we sent to Africa since the 80's now? And what difference has it made??
If anything Africa's worse off than before.

"Earlier this weekend, it emerged that the UK is threatening to switch funding away from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization - which focuses on longer term projects, such as providing seeds and tools for agriculture - unless its performance improves.

Instead, more funding could go to the World Food Programme, which deals with emergency food aid around the globe."

Look if we have to send our tax payers money as aid at all, then why are we cutting funding to programs which will actually reduce people's dependance on aid in the long term??????? I don't care about statistical performance (which is extremely flawed), hasn't everybody heard that olde saying "A fish will feed a man for a day but give him a fishing net and he can feed his family for life" (or however it went)?? Give seeds not flour, cows not milk, tools not food etc.

Again the real crux of the problem is not that out government is actually stupid, just corrupt, and when you start looking at things from a non-charity perspective and start looking at it from a political perspective, what previously look like dumb *** decisions like above mentioned one, start to look a lot more interesting (in a bad way though).

Interesting article on the politics of aid (this article was written 28 December 2010);

Last year more than $40bn worth of aid was spent in Africa alone. Over the last four decades that figure has quadrupled. Aid agencies, or NGO's around the world are now thought to employ as many as 300,000 people. Some, like Today programme guest Editor and Oxfam Ambassador, actor Colin Firth, are now asking what is being achieved with all this cash.

A pig scavenges in the street in a slum in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.
A pig scavenges in the street in one of the 11 official slums in Freetown

By Mike Thomson
in Sierra Leone

Last year more than $40bn worth of aid was spent in Africa alone. Over the last four decades that figure has quadrupled. Aid agencies, or NGO's around the world are now thought to employ as many as 300,000 people. Some, like Today programme guest Editor and Oxfam Ambassador, actor Colin Firth, are now asking what is being achieved with all this cash.

It's not hard to see where the money goes when it comes to dealing with terrible earthquakes like the one in Haiti last January that killed 230,000 and made around 1.5 million more homeless.

The same is true when it comes to the Asian tsunami and Pakistan floods. The sheer scale of such disasters and the desperate need for help before people die makes emergency aid essential.

But, what about in the years that follow? How much improvement has international development aid brought to peoples lives after the immediate threat is over?

Journalist and the author of a book on aid, Linda Polman, believes much aid goes to the wrong people in the wrong places and that more aid projects fail than succeed.

She insists that some do more harm than good by spawning dependency cultures and fuelling corrupt governments. She concludes that the developing world might actually be better off if aid workers stayed at home.

Full Article;
BBC News - Today - The politics of aid