No More For NGOs

UBI for libs

Submitted by ngowifeguy

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are in the spotlight as President Trump attacks the money spigot. NGOs claim to play a role in addressing humanitarian, environmental, and economic challenges across the world. Nonprofit workers smile with pride when they describe their job. Many people see them as critical actors in international development, providing aid where governments cannot or will not. In America, they are an end around laws or proof of direct funding of liberal pet projects. Despite their noble mission statements, many NGOs fail due to mismanagement, lack of accountability, corruption, and inefficiency. In some cases, these failures created consequences that worsened the conditions they sought to alleviate. This essay covers some of the failures of NGOs by analyzing three international cases: Oxfam, Invisible Children, and The Red Cross’s Haiti Relief Effort. These examples contradict their great publicity by mass media.

Oxfam, one of the world’s largest “humanitarian” organizations, had a major scandal in 2018 when it was revealed that senior staff members had engaged in sexual exploitation in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. They hired child prostitutes in a disaster zone! An internal report exposed that Oxfam officials, including the country director, had hired sex workers (allegedly including underage hookers) while on a humanitarian mission. Despite being aware of the misconduct, Oxfam failed to take immediate action. On top of this, Oxfam allowed the individuals involved to resign rather than face legal consequences. Anyone who knows the history of UN Peacekeeper sex scandals might see a pattern for exploiting war torn areas.

This failure exposed deep flaws in NGOs’ behavior, accountability and oversight. Oxfam claims it is a leader in humanitarian aid, yet its inability to regulate its own staff raised concerns about the ethical standards. People know Oxfam. Few if any know about this scandal. Governments did react. The scandal damaged Oxfam temporarily and led to the withdrawal of government funding from the UK and some major donors. Oxfam’s failure in Haiti serves as a reminder that without strict oversight, even well-touted organizations can become complicit in harm rather than relief. Who watches them anyway? Members of the same progressive club?

Haiti is a dump and offers many opportunities for NGOs to flex and pat themselves on the back. Oxfam was not the only unethical NGO in Haiti. Following that same 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the American Red Cross launched a massive fundraising campaign, collecting nearly $500 million to aid in relief and reconstruction efforts. What was the outcome? A 2015 investigative report by ProPublica and NPR exposed how the Red Cross failed to deliver on its promises. Despite raising an enormous amount of money, the organization built only six permanent homes in Haiti. Six. Your local evangelical mission trip can build that in two weeks.

Two major issues were mismanagement and bureaucracy. Those nonprofit workers with credentials need to pay off their student loans. Much of the donated money was lost in administrative costs, high salaries, and ineffective subcontracting to other organizations, leading to everyone wetting their beak. These NGOs know how to work the system and hit the media trail. The Red Cross made big claims about its impact (“helped millions”) without substantial evidence to back these claims. Six homes rebuilt. Six.

Many Haitian communities reported that they received little to no aid, while funds were being spent on projects that never materialized. The failure of the Red Cross in Haiti underscores the dangers of large-scale NGOs prioritizing publicity over tangible solutions. It also reveals the risks of centralized, bureaucratic organizations losing touch with the street.

We should note that social media now offers NGOs more opportunity to pimp their name and supposed deeds rather than work. One of the early social media psyops was Kony 2012. That was a viral campaign to go after warlord Joseph Kony.

He became a social media, 2 minute hate because of an NGO. Invisible Children, an American NGO, was a flash in the pan in 2012 with its viral Kony 2012 campaign that wanted to “raise awareness” about Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. The campaign encouraged international efforts to capture Kony, who was responsible for child soldier recruitment and war crimes. Standard post-colonial, African war activity but he was singled out for attack. Despite the massive social media movement (this swept through normie America like wildfire) and financial support, the campaign failed in multiple ways.

The campaign was criticized for oversimplifying a complex issue. It presented Kony as an active threat in Uganda, despite the fact that he had already left the country years earlier. Why did he matter now and why did it matter to Americans? The documentary they produced neglected to provide proper context about the political complexities of the region and the conflict. It was a cleverly crafted, attention grabbing campaign to nowhere.

Like the Red Cross in Haiti, this NGO mismanaged funds. Funny how this is a recurring theme. Financial reports revealed that a significant portion of donations went toward filmmaking and marketing rather than direct aid to affected communities in Africa. For the record, Christian missions feed these children and often hide them from warbands looking to recruit new child soldiers. This was like a start up NGO and a real test run for the later woke flash NGOs. The organization’s leadership suffered from controversy when co-founder Jason Russell had a public breakdown, which ended with him naked jacking it in San Diego. It was a viral Youtube sensation that overwhelmed him.

Did the NGO succeed? No. The campaign failed to achieve its ultimate, public goal: capturing Mr. Kony. A decade later, Kony is still out there. While it did bring international attention to the issue, it did little to create long-term solutions for those affected by the LRA. The failure of Invisible Children shows the risks of media-driven activism that prioritizes awareness over tangible action. The story arc is a lot more like Mel Brooks’ The Producers than your local soup kitchen.

These NGOs are an embarrassment that work great at PR, paying their executives and raising awareness. They show the impression of doing work. Mr. Beast is a Zoomer Youtuber yet provided drinking water for thousands of Africans by drilling wells. International NGOs criticized him for his actions. He perpetuated stereotypes, wah wah wahhhhh. What he really did was show that these NGOs are do-nothing entities. They operate to fulfill the righteous virtue that the employees and donors feel and pay the puppeteers who run them.

These NGOs are everywhere in America, too. They live off of federal grants, foundation donations and a little bit from naive but sweet donors. These are makework jobs for liberals with MAs and do little to no good for their supposed targets. Many people who enter the NGO world do so with good intentions, but they also burn out and leave that sphere shortly. They get exploited by management staff that collects fat checks and raises awareness. If Trump wants to turn off the money faucet, let him weld it shut.