Who the site is for
This site is for those who work for aid programmes, especially those that claim to have benefit for 'the poorest' or for particular categories of people or groups.
The site looks at some of the contradictions and difficulties that many will have encountered during their work so that these can be overcome and the focus of aid redirected to those who really are in the greatest need of support.
The theme that runs through all the articles is that much more attention needs to be given to what I have called the Poor-Poor Divide. In other words, to move from the simplistic focus on broad categories such as 'the poor', towards the minority of people within those categories who really do need extra support but whom the aid agencies generally fail to work for or even recognise.The reason that this is so important is that the bulk of premature and child mortality as well as the majority who fail to be reached by the services falls exactly amongst those minorities who are failed by the aid agencies when they target the broad categories.
Another aspect of the papers on this site is that there are no simple technical fixes for this minority of people. Their situations are the result of ordinary human interactions. These determine the extent to which a person is healthy, can look after their families and is able to cope with what life throws at them.
The problem is the same whenever generalised categories are used to frame people for the purposes of aid programmes (e.g. based on gender, power, disability, type of work, ethnic origin).
These categories miss the fact that within any such category there is (generally) a minority who have great difficulties in coping or are subject to unequal treatment whilst others (the majority) are supported sufficiently to manage their lives successfully.
In making claims about their work for these categories of people, aid agencies mostly hide the fact that their work tends to benefit those who are already coping reasonably whilst failing to benefit those who have the most ill-health, the least support, the most injustice, and the least opportunity.
Aid workers often become jaded, cynical and pessimistic about the hypocrisies, hype, corruption and blatant commercialism of much of the aid industry. However, the aim is not to continue with the pessimism, but to analyse the various aspects of aid which give rise to disquiet. It is based on about 40 years of work with a variety of aid programmes at every level -- from the individual to the global.
The analysis is not fixed. It is sometimes provocative and as such it is hoped that anyone who wants to contribute their opinion does so.
Tony Klouda
