It’s clear we are now having a serious problem identifying honest players among aid givers in the Third World; Africa is a prime example. The trouble is, industrializing nations like China and India, and already industrialized nations like the US and Russia, are going full out after the last big reservoir of remaining resources and indigenous peoples already made poor by exploitation (the Green Revolution, etc.) have no defense.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are all over the landscape and many are simply fronts for corporate investors like Monsanto. So how do we differentiate; how do we separate the honest helpers from the “carpetbaggers?”
Start at the base with simple operations that apply to real life circumstance, don’t try to enforce grandiose expectations and untried remedies. And apply the age-old formula every good parent applies with their children; don’t do it for them, teach them to do it for themselves.
One honest grassroots organization doing the right thing, following the E. F. Schumacher model – appropriate technologies, empowerment, individual ownership, etc. – is Prolinnova. We know about them because of Groundswell International, the organization that has been our primary guide helping us at GoodFood World identify the NGOs with integrity we can support; that is, those who follow the principles we subscribe to.
I must add, the Gates Foundation backing Monsanto and GMO solutions in Africa does not follow the Schumacher and Rodale missions but rather serves the general corporate political interests of capitalization and exploitation. It is time everyone realized the gross inequities and serious dysfunction inherent in aid programming by Western powers everywhere in the world.
More about:
Prolinnova – June 2013 Update (PDF, 204KB)