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Shipping a laptop to a refugee camp in Uganda

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Re: Shipping a laptop to a refugee camp in Uganda

#121

Post by ruszki »

xp84 wrote: post #9

Two main takeaways: 1. Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue (and then their corrupt representatives extract bribes on top of it) 2. Django's gratitude and positivity in the face of all of it is an inspiration. I suspect I and most everyone I know would be in tears and would have given up in exasperation halfway through his quest…

It’s crazy that it’s magnitudes cheaper for me from the EU to go to a poor country with non existing administration, than the people from there to come to the EU. And magnitudes more convenient. Just to get a passport; for me, it’s a nuance and it basically costs nothing; for a lot of people in those countries, it’s impossible to get one legally, and one costs 100s or 1000s of dollars illegally. And that’s just the passport, not the traveling itself.

Re: Shipping a laptop to a refugee camp in Uganda

#122

Post by [deleted] »

nautikos1 wrote: post #61
komali2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please expand what you mean? It's not clear how money would have solved this problem better.

It would have been easier and cheaper to send money to Django than to send the laptop. Although, I'd say there is a certain charm in physical gifts.

[deleted]

Re: Shipping a laptop to a refugee camp in Uganda

#123

Post by anthk »

halayli wrote: post #112
xp84 wrote: post #9

Two main takeaways: 1. Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue (and then their corrupt representatives extract bribes on top of it) 2. Django's gratitude and positivity in the face of all of it is an inspiration. I suspect I and most everyone I know would be in tears and would have given up in exasperation halfway through his quest…

> Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue (and then their corrupt representatives extract bribes on top of it) being a developing country or not is orthogonal to what you have described. The top developed nations have one or more of these issues.

Man, I am a native Spaniard and even with Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao and industrial powerhouses we can't compete with furthern North Italy/Germany/Netherlands in some areas, but I've heard horror stories from Latin America that wouldn't happen in Spain without making the news.

Re: Shipping a laptop to a refugee camp in Uganda

#124

Post by anthk »

iririririr wrote: post #84
noduerme wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to snidely ask what Argentina's excuse was for its import tax on electronics, but it's been a decade since I lived there, and it appears they dropped the tariff to zero at the start of this year (2026). Really, talk about holding your economy back for the wrong reasons: Making it wildly expensive for people to get the tools they need to bring money into the local economy. Besides, all it did was open a bl…

Did you guys got your eletronics from Paraguay too? I wish we replace this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Duke_of_Caxias with a statue of a smuggler bringing computers from paraguay (they where sold two streets down this statue). It is much more heroic and positive outcome symbol to the country than some old military nobody on a horse.

Heh, Northern Spaniards as me would have a longass trip to Andorra to get tax-free devices. And some people in the Castilles/Galicia did the same... in Portugal.

Re: Shipping a laptop to a refugee camp in Uganda

#125

Post by RobinL »

nradov wrote: post #48
xp84 wrote: post #9

Two main takeaways: 1. Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue (and then their corrupt representatives extract bribes on top of it) 2. Django's gratitude and positivity in the face of all of it is an inspiration. I suspect I and most everyone I know would be in tears and would have given up in exasperation halfway through his quest…

This is unfortunately also one of the biggest problems with donating to NGOs that operate in many foreign countries. Much of the aid money gets stolen by corrupt officials and local criminals. Donors have to check carefully that NGOs are legitimately benefiting the intended recipients.

Yes, but it's important to note that just because a lot of aid is ineffective doesn't mean it all is. If you want to give to very poor people and be confident most (85%+) actually gets to them I encourage you to take a look at https://www.givedirectly.org/. Full disclosure, I'm an unpaid trustee of the UK sister charity

Re: Shipping a laptop to a refugee camp in Uganda

#126

Post by madradavid »

I am Ugandan.

I've shipped electronics and Laptops for Work quite a bit, and OP is right, the system is broken, it stays this way because a lot of corrupt individuals benefit from this mess. However, OP showed a degree of Hubris here, a mistake lots of us make when dealing with foreign countries, just because it works this way here, so it should work that way in XYZ.

OP would have saved themselves lots of time and money if they'd asked Django what the best way to get that laptop shipped to them was. Lots of Ugandans in Austria ship things back daily; they just do it differently, simply hand it to someone travelling back home, there are people travelling back daily, willing to help or just pay a shipping agency a small amount and they'll handle everything.

This is a good act of charity and I applaud OP for that; however, the first mistake they made was Google "How to send a laptop overseas" , a message to Django, asking the best way to get them the laptop would have saved them time and money.

We all fall into this trap of giving people in need what we think they need instead of asking them how best we can help. Local knowledge goes a long way.

All in all, I applaud OP, not many of us would have done this.

Re: Shipping a laptop to a refugee camp in Uganda

#127

Post by l23k4 »

solidasparagus wrote: post #58
komali2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please expand what you mean? It's not clear how money would have solved this problem better.

Specifically I was talking about this part > "At some point, one man quietly pulled me aside and suggested that if I "gave something," they could help solve the problem more easily.". You can pay that fee/bribe and things will go smoothly. But more generally my thought was that the western idea is that bureaucracy rules are something to be followed and, even if painful, are the path to getting the state to provide th…

>If you want to get goods to someone in Uganda, don't talk to the Australian Post about the rules, talk to a Ugandan importer who knows how to actually work the system that exists in practice.

Well, as it turns out, you also need to have sufficient local knowledge on the sending end to ensure that your parcel actually manages to exit the country in the first place.

Re: Shipping a laptop to a refugee camp in Uganda

#128

Post by pjscott »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #59
pseudosaid wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but how would that benefit those in government?

More to steal?

You're right, of course, but "those in government" aren't a single entity. There's always an incentive for one corrupt part of government to take more than their fair share of the loot, and then for the next part to take more, and so on... until their combined cut is over the revenue-maximizing percentage, and they make less than they could have if they had coordinated better.

(I want to call this "the tragedy of the commons," but that phrase doesn't sound quite dark enough.)

Re: Shipping a laptop to a refugee camp in Uganda

#129

Post by goobatrooba »

nradov wrote: post #48
xp84 wrote: post #9

Two main takeaways: 1. Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue (and then their corrupt representatives extract bribes on top of it) 2. Django's gratitude and positivity in the face of all of it is an inspiration. I suspect I and most everyone I know would be in tears and would have given up in exasperation halfway through his quest…

This is unfortunately also one of the biggest problems with donating to NGOs that operate in many foreign countries. Much of the aid money gets stolen by corrupt officials and local criminals. Donors have to check carefully that NGOs are legitimately benefiting the intended recipients.

"much" is an unqualified and unjustified word here. It definitely happens but this would at most affect a tiny fraction of donor money.

Many of the NGOs have strict no-bribery policies, else they would not receive support from bodies like the EU (which is the biggest humanitarian donor on the planet).

In some cases the choice may be between "letting people starve" and "feeding people but the local warlord extracts some benefits" but these are rare and only the worst crisis contexts (think South Sudan, DRC).

Re: Shipping a laptop to a refugee camp in Uganda

#130

Post by user_7832 »

madradavid wrote: post #126

I am Ugandan. I've shipped electronics and Laptops for Work quite a bit, and OP is right, the system is broken, it stays this way because a lot of corrupt individuals benefit from this mess. However, OP showed a degree of Hubris here, a mistake lots of us make when dealing with foreign countries, just because it works this way here, so it should work that way in XYZ. OP would have saved themselves lots of time and mo…

For better or worse, "person from 1st world country does what they think helps, based on their worldview - but never asks 3rd world recipient" is unfortunately a very common troupe.

(I'm from a 3rd world country and have seen it over and over again.)

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