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In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

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Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#121

Post by SloopJon »

jacquesm wrote: post #3

I stopped giving to 'big charities' twenty years ago and since then have only helped people locally where I can see what happens to the money. That's a real pity because of course on a relative scale those are probably much less in need than the people in Haiti (and Nepal and other areas devastated by natural disasters). But the red cross - once a paragon of virtue - and a number of other big time charities that were…

I was upset to hear that nearly $30 million of the tsunami relief money ended up subsidizing the Japanese whaling fleet. (Heard that on Whale Wars, so I'm not 100% sure it's true.)

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#122

Post by mfoy_ »

jnbiche wrote: post #119

Just think the impact that would have had if it had been divided up and given directly to each Haitian adult. The adult population of Haiti is roughly 6 million, so we're talking about almost $100 per adult Haitian. Roughly, it's about 1/8 of the per capita GDP of Haiti. Imagine what you could if you were a poor American and received 1/8 of the American per capita GDP after a disaster (~6000 USD). That's a new roof,…

Food, clean water, and shelter are important after a disaster... not cash.

Who are you going to buy "a new roof" from when everything is in shambles?

What value does money have when everyone has the same amount, but no one has the things you want to buy?

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#123

Post by pvaldes »

orbitingpluto wrote: post #88

My antecdote about corruption in Haiti. Went to a friend's wedding in 2007. One of the guests worked at CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency). I asked the guest as many questions as I could. There was a preliminary research trip before a Canadian official made her visit to Haiti. The purpose? To geolocate and photograph the facilities. And when I say facilities, think toilets. Making sure the white Canadia…

> Making sure the white Canadian could poo-poo comfortably counted as aid.

Well, yes of course, it is aid.

And making sure also that this doctor can wash his hands before their next chirurgical intervention (is really so relevant to notice that is canadian, thus probably white?).

Doctors also need to go to the bathroom (is not so easy if you are a woman). Or clean itselves of vomit and blood after a hard day. Somebody need to assure that the volunteers have their most basical needs covered and can focus all his precious skills in doing the job (instead to just get ill and totally useless just 24 hours after their arrival). To study first the access to clean water and a way to avoid faeces spreading all around your clinic area and contaminating hundreds of wounded people is not corruption at all. Is to invest wisely your resources.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#124

Post by gambiting »

Gupie wrote: post #55
gambiting wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>According to the article the Red Cross built shelters for 130,000 people. Where do you see that? The article very clearly says that Red Cross reported building shelters for 130k people,but all in all, they built....6 houses.

The Red Cross report of building shelters for 130k people is mentioned 3 times in the article. No where does the article contradict this.

"To really understand what happened, take a look at one of the Red Cross' marquee projects — a housing project. [...] He explains in Creole that about three years ago the Red Cross came with glossy booklets saying it was going to build hundreds of new homes, a water and sanitation system and a health clinic. None of that happened."

"They never had a real plan for what they wanted to do in housing," Malany says."

"McGovern wrote an email to her senior staff in November 2013 saying that a particular housing project was "going bust.""

"Now the U.S. government is holding the money and is currently trying to find a different charity to run this 4-year-old housing project, which has yet to produce a single home."

"But if you go in search of those tens of thousands of new permanent homes in Haiti, you won't find them."

I don't know about you, but the general vibe I got from the article is that Red Cross has not provided the housing they said they provided. Even if they provided some, this further undermines the claim of providing shelter for 130k people:

"Not long ago, the charity hired a group of consultants to review one of its projects in the north of the country. They found the charity's math unreliable when it came to counting people it helped. There was double-counting, undercounting, and in one instance the Red Cross claimed to have helped more people than actually lived there."

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#125

Post by RobertoG »

duaneb wrote: post #89
RobertoG wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe is time for them to modernize of close. I think that Internet make possible new models of charities. A donation can be, at the same time, not local and very personalized. I would like to recommend watsi: https://watsi.org/ You can donate to concrete people and, they give you an accurate report, after the fact, of what happened. I think we need more charities like them. Maybe something with education? Disclaimer…

I don't think that would scale to disaster relief. You need to organize people on the ground and deal with problems.

Of course you are right. I was talking in a more general sense that disaster relief.

All kind of charity organizations have problems with accountability.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#126

Post by GFischer »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #120
jnbiche wrote: post #119

Just think the impact that would have had if it had been divided up and given directly to each Haitian adult. The adult population of Haiti is roughly 6 million, so we're talking about almost $100 per adult Haitian. Roughly, it's about 1/8 of the per capita GDP of Haiti. Imagine what you could if you were a poor American and received 1/8 of the American per capita GDP after a disaster (~6000 USD). That's a new roof,…

Maybe not as much as you'd think. Haiti doesn't have goods for ready cash. Most of the relief issue was shipping goods into the country where needed.

But maybe good ol' capitalism would have worked then, if many people had some income to spend, an enterprising importer could have shipped some stuff out of China or something :) . Relief can be very inefficient in those cases.

I posted on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9666194 that jbniche's theory seems to be supported by the studies in that article.

Edit: I think a combination of both approaches might be needed. I'd really like to know what the Red Cross did and the effect it had, but we can't if they're being so opaque.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#127

Post by maxerickson »

shawnee_ wrote: post #73
nodata wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Red Cross provides almost zero information about how it spends its money. If that is true, how can Charity Navigator rate it 80.5/100? http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...

Have a look at RC's "Annual Report" from 2014 ... http://www.redcross.org/images/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m4... This is a fluff piece full of pictures and words. No numbers or financial statements. On page 26 there are a couple pie charts that vaguely outline some general categories of outflows and inflows. No details. If a NYSE company (or even a private company) tried to put out an Annual Report with this kind of…

They do publish their financial statements and tax returns, see here:

http://www.redcross.org/about-us/publications

This seems to be a common pattern with non profits, to separately issue their financials and annual reports. I'm not sure why.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#128

Post by mturmon »

orbitingpluto wrote: post #88

My antecdote about corruption in Haiti. Went to a friend's wedding in 2007. One of the guests worked at CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency). I asked the guest as many questions as I could. There was a preliminary research trip before a Canadian official made her visit to Haiti. The purpose? To geolocate and photograph the facilities. And when I say facilities, think toilets. Making sure the white Canadia…

About the difference between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and the regionally-unique levels of poverty in Haiti: I think this can be traced historically to the Haitian slave revolt of 1791-1804, and the resulting shock and revenge taken on Haiti by the U.S., France, and other powers.

Such action-at-a-distance may seem fanciful, but here's a surprising fact: Haiti was still paying reparations to France until 1947, as compensation for damage and lost property from the slave revolt, including the value of the freed slaves themselves. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_debt_of_Haiti)

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#129

Post by mturmon »

bargl wrote: post #56
nate_meurer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you have rich experience and strong opinions, but your writing is so unclear I can't understand what you're saying. I have a vague idea which of your experiences (Haiti or Bolivia) was positive and which was negative, but the reasons are unclear. Would you be able to clarify a bit?

Thank you, I'm going to re-write this. I was angry when I wrote the first draft and just posted it. I've decided to post the original here just so that people can read what was originally there, even though it wasn't very good. Original Below OH man this infuriates me. I spent about three months on the ground in Haiti about 6 months after the earthquake. Ii was both in Port Au Prince and Cap Hatien. I am no expert on…

Thanks for the second attempt. I appreciate the first-hand perspective.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#130

Post by pvaldes »

88e282102ae2e5b wrote: post #14

Their defense is pretty weak. Essentially they're claiming the reason houses didn't get built was because they didn't know how to build them, or that there were land disputes. All of which are true. But that should have prevented them from spending any significant amount of money.

The sad facts is that you can spend lots of money, don't do nothing bad... and don't achieve nothing.

Not always your fault.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23507559/ns/world_news-americas/t/...

"I'd have rather thrown the aid in the water, said Michaud. The Canadian Embassy intervened and the $10.000 'custom fee' demanded by port autorities was later waived".

http://thehaitianblogger.blogspot.com.es/2008/12/food-donati...

"Large tracts of land, including former sugar plantations are in the hands of a few elite families. Much of the rest is divided into small plots for farming"

http://www.3news.co.nz/world/two-months-on-haiti-rots-as-rai...

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