What is so Foreign About Foreign Aid?
A khaki-clad Western aid worker is helping unload a truck in a sun-baked, dusty, barren place surrounded by black (sometimes brown) faces. It could be a scene from any of the countless news clips from the equally countless number of crises that continue to rain down upon obscure parts of the world. The clips are ubiquitous, and yet hardly anybody notices the oddity of the Western aid worker, who ostensibly has flown around from whichever place s/he calls home at a pretty penny to do the readily outsourced job of (un)loading supplies from the truck.
Home Aid
Many Western aid programs mandate that the recipient country buy provisions (defense armaments to cans of food) from the donor nation. Many times, in fact, aid is provided in the form of products made by donor nation industries. So you can have 2.4 million Kellogg's pop-tarts being airdropped in Afghanistan.
Careerism and Bureaucratization
The rise of careerism and bureaucratization in the NGO industry are partly responsible for the failure of development assistance to the third world, according to Thomas Dichter, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago and author of “Despite Good Intentions: Why Development Assistance to the Third World Has Failed.”
Increased bureaucratization has led to a demand for “trained professionals” to fill the ranks. Paying heed to the rising demand, “entire college programs have sprung up, such as Wayne State University’s Nonprofit Sector Studies Program (NPSS). The NPSS mission states, “The nation’s fastest-growing sector needs administrators, policymakers, program managers, and advocates who will guide them into the future” writes Michael Donnely for Peace Corps Online.
NGO workers — Why do they get paid more?
“Government employees complain their co-workers employed by some non-governmental organizations are getting high salaries that cause a socio-economic imbalance in the society. The high-paid workers of NGOs have clouded the status and standard of life of the low-paid government employees. Torpikai, a government employee, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Sunday that despite 18 years of experience, she was paid 2,000 afghanis (40$), but her younger and inexperienced neighbor with the same qualifications was getting double her salary.”
Corruption
Washington Post reported a couple of years ago that employees in non-profits oftentimes take loans from the NGO funds at low interest rates. Other ethical violations are also rampant within NGOs. For example, Oxfam, an NGO and a 25% stakeholder of Cafedirect, campaigned vigorously against CafeDirect's competitors, accusing them of exploiting coffee growers by paying them a small fraction of their earnings.