Turf wars ‘mar disaster effort’
Members of the public often express doubts as to whether their (often very generous) donations for disaster victims actually reach the intended recipients. They have concerns about e.g. administrative costs, or integrity of local officials in the afflicted area.
This item from the BBC talks about a very different issue, one which creates conflict for the aid workers themselves:
Emergency aid efforts can be marred by “turf wars” between medical relief groups and development agencies, a leading medical charity figure says.
Medecins Sans Frontieres executive director Gorik Ooms said differing priorities could lead to clashes.
Writing in the Public Library of Science journal, he said development agencies and governments often insisted on long-term sustainable measures.
This sometimes meant they tried to block short-term health aid in crises.
He said: “The problem is that there is a conflict with what we are trying to achieve with health care.
”Development agencies want their interventions to be sustainable. That is to say, the host country has to be able to maintain the programme” …
During the flooding in Mozambique in February 2000, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) officials involved in the helicopter rescue wanted to provide antiretroviral drugs to help people with HIV/Aids but development agencies initially opposed it.
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