Whose Charity?

POVERTY is by far the biggest business in Africa. Now, thanks to Tony Blair and Bob Geldof, it is boom time again.Whatever happens at this week's G8 summit, one thing is certain - a flood of fresh money is about to come rushing down the aid pipeline.
The "aid business" is waiting with open arms.
Ethiopia may rank near the bottom of virtually every league table - for child mortality, per capita income and life expectancy despite more than two decades of Western largesse - but when it comes to the aid game, the country plays in the premiership.
Among the charities, aid groups, development agencies and donor organisations that make up the so-called "international humanitarian community", Ethiopia is queen - an honour resulting from the 1984 famine and the unprecedented international reaction.

The legacy of Geldof's Band Aid charity record, Do They Know It's Christmas?, and the Live Aid concerts, which raised an estimated pound stg. 150million ($352million), lives on. Many of the organisations that flooded into the country then are still here, joined by others as new problems have arisen.
The shabby streets of the capital, Addis Ababa, are dotted with billboards of non-government organisations and aid groups from the Christian Right to liberal Left dealing with everything from adoption to female genital mutilation to vaccinations.
Ethiopia has a cachet among aid workers. The country is a particular favourite among young Western idealists keen for field experience.
At night, the car parks of trendy bars and fancy restaurants -- opened by yuppie Ethiopians returning from abroad with money - are packed with duty-free 4x4 vehicles. Inside, lively debates take place.
One issue, though, rarely has a hearing in this politically correct world: why doesn't it work? Why is it that after an estimated trillion dollars of aid to Africa over the past four decades, average per capita income across most of the continent is, according to the World Bank, lower than at the end of the 1960s?
Some of that answer lies in the aid business itself. One report recently estimated that about 70 per cent of all money raised went on NGOs' administration - cars, salaries, equipment and the all-important workshops and seminars.
till next time, Michelle.