international aid

One of the international organisations I worked with – one of the better ones in terms of understanding and empowering those with whom they worked – had a 'Caucasus Team' 8 years ago consisting of 1 person. So successful was that 1 person in understanding and empowering – or at least, in winning grants to empower and understand – that the Caucasus Team in London now consists of 4 1/2 people. Full time. Four-and-a-half people on London salaries, occupying four-and-a-half deskspaces in a central London office, receiving four-and-a-half pensions and paying four-and-a-half people's taxes back to the British Government (the programme has been funded mostly by the British government, through the British taxpayer).

If you were a network of IDPs (refugees) in Georgia and you had €4,500 - how would you spend it? Bear in mind that most of the members of your network (perhaps 20 organisations) have almost non-existent resources: they work hand-to-mouth, subsisting rather than existing, waiting for the next small project grant to tide them over. Neither the network as a whole nor individual members have funds to do things like printing and photocopying leaflets - in fact most of the members will not have a computer or access to the internet, nor, quite possibly, the electricity required to run them. Travelling to other regions for meetings, translating resources into Georgian, and even buying basic stationary are all dependent on winning a grant from some kind-hearted western government or private foundation.

A bit of background:

• In March 2001, UNDP estimated that 50.7% of Georgian families were in poverty, and that about 10% of families face 'daily and serious problems' in securing a minimum diet¹.
• The World Bank has put the 'recommended' poverty line at 55 GEL (€ 23.45) per month². (I wonder how many World Bank employees can manage to eat breakfast for €24 while in Georgia).
• In 'roundtable discussions' with UNDP, participants 'declared unanimously that it would be "impossible" to make ends meet with 55 GEL/month.... With 75 GEL/month, the answer was "hardly possible" while 110 GEL/month would provide a "more bearable existence"'³.

And then we shouldn't forget the 'non-poor' in Georgia:

[Consider] a family of four composed by two adults and two children with a total income of 115 GEL/month. If this family lives in Tbilisi, has a professional knowledge about nutrition, manages to find all products of the food basket and is able to capture all economies of scale, then the minimum budget for food would be 80 GEL. However, it should be noted that economies of scale in food consumption is a crucial assumption, for without them the cost of food alone could climb to 140 GEL thus overcoming the entire family budget. If the breadwinner has to take a bus to work, then the disposable family income would be approximately about 27 GEL. If a refrigerator is used, somebody takes a quick shower once every four days, and only one light is kept on for five hours a day, the disposable income would then fall to 17 GEL. If at least one room, only one for four people, is kept relatively warm and food is cooked, disposable income would fall to approximately 2 GEL. This leaves almost nothing for education in a family in which two children are of school age, nothing for health care, nothing for a bus ticket for the family member in charge of finding those good food deals, and nothing for personal hygiene.

From National Human Development Report: Georgia 2001/2002

Given these statistics on poverty, and given the fact that IDPs are among the most vulnerable in Georgian society, how might your network be wise to spend this unexpected bonus of €4,500?

Let us think through a few ideas. You do, incidentally, already have the chance to send 25 members of the network to Tbilisi for a 4 day meeting / training on 'advocacy'. That will cost another €6,000-odd, on top of the €4,500 bonus. You won't see that €6,000, and you didn't actually have a choice about whether that was the way you wanted to spend it, but never mind that for the moment. Let us assume the network needs it. So we are looking only at the additional €4,500 at your disposal, over and above what is necessary for the meeting to take place. You may use this €4,500 bonus to deepen the network's understanding of advocacy and its ability to advocate effectively.

Some choices

Here are a few ideas...

• You could send 2-4 members of the network to the UK for a 5-day study visit, so that they could visit organisations and study the way that 'advocacy' works (or doesn't work) over here.
• You could send 5-6 members of the network to Slovakia for a 6-day study visit so that they could visit organisations and study the way that advocacy works (or doesn't work) there.
• You could invite a group of members of the network to research and organise translation of about 100 pages on the theory and practice of advocacy in other countries, and then print 500 copies for other NGOs.
• You could plan two or three additional meetings of the network, either for fewer days or organised more cheaply than the one that is already planned.
• You could invite a trainer in advocacy from a Georgian NGO, probably trained several times over by various western experts in the course of the last 15 years. The Georgian trainer will cost about €500. S/he could work with the group for the meeting that the network will be having anyway, and that would still leave €4,000 to spend on other things. You might use that to give each member or each region an allowance (about €900 for each key region), which they could spend as they think best, making sure that the local organisations are able to meet and communicate with one another. You could even buy several computers and pay for internet access.
• You could invite a trainer from any of the other former Soviet Republics (approx. 5 days @ €100 / day + €300 for the air ticket). That would still leave €3,500 to spend on the network.
• Or ... you know what's coming now... you could invite an International Expert, a trainer on advocacy from the UK to Georgia for 4 days. That would use up the whole budget, what with per diems, fat consultancy fees and carbon-busting air fares.

I don't know which of these options would actually be the best use of the money. Maybe the last option - the trainer from the UK - is really what the network needs and wants most, even if it seems to me that it is a wild and inappropriate use of scarce resources, an obscene extravagance given the way the member organisations live from day to day. Untold sums of money have been spent over the past 15 years 'training' Georgian trainers (and Georgian trainers of trainers) on advocacy and other related topics: so where are they now, and why are they not thought to be good enough - better - than someone from a different planet at knowing the hurdles in the Georgian system and how best to hurdle them?

I know that the €350 I would be paid for each day of the training is more than some of the network members receive in a year - and I know that I am not worth that much more than them (and that I need it less than them). I know that climate change is urgent and that air travel has to be undertaken only when absolutely necessary, when there is no alternative; and I know that at this stage in the network's development, every training that the members go to with an international trainer flown in specially is likely to be one step backwards, one step further away from feeling that they can find their own routes, that they need to find their own solutions, and that they can start now: they are ready to advocate already.

Most of all, I know that the network should be asked. And I don't mean that they should be asked 'do you want a trainer from the UK and a nice free meeting for 4 days in Tbilisi?' - because they will say yes. Anyone would. They should be asked 'what do you think the network should do with €4,500?'. And they should decide. As a network.

But they are never asked. In the best case, the 2 or 3 Georgian coordinators (based in Tbilisi, and earning a regular salary from the project) will decide, in conjunction with the UK managers. But even then the choice is not a genuine one: for one thing, the EU gives grants to organisations which still claim to need western 'expertise', and not to those who claim they already know how to do it themselves. The EU likes its money to stay in the EU; and of course those in the funding department do not want to fund an organisation in Georgia that is self-sufficient, 'sustainable' and capable of running its own business. Once it is those things, an organisation no longer needs the EU funding department: only if it claims to be still 'learning', still needing international experts can it have access to those funds.

There are so many vested interests in the world of so-called international aid. Most people involved can indeed be acting out of the very best motives: they really want to help. In fact, we all go into it for that very reason. But once we are in the system, it is almost impossible to remove our own interests and make decisions which are really helpful, which are the best possible for those being 'helped'. It is hard not only because we have become used to writing the proposals, managing the projects, making the decisions on behalf of others, bossing them about. It is hard, above all, because removing our interests from the equation almost inevitably means harming our personal interests. Our lives - the life of an international 'aider' - our careers, prestige, salary, and even our identity have been built around our being needed, being revered, and being paid for being needed and revered. Yet if our work is to be successful in any way, we surely ought to work with one key aim: to make ourselves redundant, to put ourselves out of work, and to ensure that those with whom we have been working are capable of carrying on without us.

When we have done our work successfully, we ought to be able to leave the work to those who do it for real. And then we ought to leave.

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