Excellent and in-depth overview — I’d say this accurately represents why Ukrainians (including myself) are sceptic about big charity organizations.
I recalled another big case of mistrust — dealing with Ukrainian POWs. ICRC was supposed to be the mediator in overlooking how russians handle Ukrainian POWs, particularly in Olenivka. When russians purposefully blew it up, killing many POWs, ICRC didn’t react at all. All the Ukrainians who were at that camp said never saw ICRC once, even though they were supposed to be there after these POWs were transferred from besieged Mariupol. This played a huge role in adding on to the distrust everyone already had towards them.
I'm really glad it struck a chord with you. I've wanted to post about this for a long time but waited until I had a lot of both personal and public examples, to make the point thoroughly.
I remember reading about the Olenivka scandal. I don't think it would be possible for the ICRC to rehabilitate its reputation at this point, but I don't think they even care.
One of the most important things to know about "big aid" is that they rarely do anything on the ground. They are just data aggregaters. They collect the data (the work done) of other agencies and package it as their own work. If big aid does do something they use a "sub implementing partner". This is a good thing. I'm just pointing out that the UN, WHO, et al don't do any work.
Another important thing is demanding the grassroots small partners spend aid on useless projects. Instead of the actual needs in Ukraine. The best example is DEI money. Since day one there has been a lot of DEI money available. This breeds corruption. There is a hierarchy of needs during the war. Safety, shelter, food, medicine, subsistence. Until these needs are met, it's insulting to go into a village and ask about gender based violence or gender minority rights. Yet, since day one of the war granting partners have been pushing this.
So, you get people holding seminars in villages and handing out food. Taking a photo for compliance and saying "look, we met our DEI money goals."
This isn't a commentary on DEI. It's an example of large big aid granting partners being blind or motivated by the wrong thing.
Remember the story of the million starfish washed up on the beach. A child is throwing them back into the sea, one at a time. A passerby says 'That's not going to make a difference'. The child says 'It does to that one'. Maybe we should each just find a Ukrainian that needs help and help that one.
Anna, i would really love to talk to you about this article. You hit the nail squarely on the head. It has been sad to witness to the chaos of international organisations in Ukraine since 2022 and onwards. No one cared back in 2014 when i first stepped foot in Ukraine to help. Now, it is a fight over funding for large organisations, while small, grass roots orgs are left to beg on social media just to survive. Thank you for such an open and honest post. If you can spare a moment at your liking, please drop me an email at chris@prevailtogether.org
I liked the expression "moral glow". It described my first hand observations when I was a younger person working/volunteering at a cross cultural centre for many of the well known international relief agencies. Before, I go off on a tangent I need to compliment you on a well written report. I will likely read it several times over. My experiences with those who I would consider radiating a "moral glow" was pretty wide. IMHO, that moral glow often engenders massive hypocrisy which for me after a while gave way to me just staying away and not getting involved with any cause or issue. Often, the hypocrisy I am thinking of involved people who often are on the proverbial political left. Well meaning yes, but sometimes dangerous in the same way all fanaticism can be. I like reading about the Ukraine people. I believe what was described is so widespread that perhaps after the war there will be enough critical mass at the institutional level to prevent the kind of rationalism and virtue signaling that corporate media likes to serve as proof of the substance of our so called collective democratic virtues. Case in point, there is a yearly marathon event here in the Twin Cities that claims to be raising money for children with orthopedic issues. It has been proven over and over again that about 98% of the money raised is squandered by the family of the organizer on trips to the Caribbean. The press reports the positive side of a charity raising money for children but hardly a whisper of the down side. I guess the laws here allow for such an abuse and so I guess for the media who likes to have at least one happy news item of the day what's the point of reporting on the down side, except at the collective level that attitude is the same that excuses so much abuse of people who are not even at war, but see such abuses constantly repeated by those who radiate often a certain moral glow. Perhaps I have missed the point.
How depressing that it's been repeatedly proven but nobody seems to care! I've been wondering, though, why the media doesn't pick up on these stories about the Red Cross and UN agencies and I think you've got a good point there: they want to be able to keep filling column inches with the kind of stories that require the agencies in question to look heroic or at least credible.
So as I understand it, donors are likely to get the impression that the Ukrainian people are passively suffering, while the big organisations are hampered by physical and economical security issues (not getting their own killed, and not giving away money or stuff which could be fraudulently made advantage of). But if donors had a clearer idea of how active the people are in facing their own needs, they may get to believe that after all they manage well enough without external help! I feel that your answer to point 2 is key: management expenses are already absorbing a large part of donations to the big organisations, so it would be profitable to incur the additional expenses for "communication officers" interfacing with the small groups, in view of the bigger advantage of capillary distribution of resources.
The problem of potentially demotivating people from helping at all by putting them off the big charities is a significant one. I've concluded that the big charities do so little (in Ukraine, I can't speak for elsewhere) that the advantages of increasing people's knowledge outweighs the down sides. I would like to think that knowing more about how evacuations from Mariupol were done by clapped-out minibuses where the occupants were often shot on the way wouldn't make people think Ukraine doesn't need any help, but it does/would all come down to how this was presented in the media.
There is actually something called The Grand Bargain (https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/grand-bargain) which is intended to interface between charities and donors in a relevant way. A representative of a Ukrainian charity was going to write a piece about this for inclusion here, but unfortunately he hasn't done it yet. If that does happen, I will use it somewhere.
Excellent and in-depth overview — I’d say this accurately represents why Ukrainians (including myself) are sceptic about big charity organizations.
I recalled another big case of mistrust — dealing with Ukrainian POWs. ICRC was supposed to be the mediator in overlooking how russians handle Ukrainian POWs, particularly in Olenivka. When russians purposefully blew it up, killing many POWs, ICRC didn’t react at all. All the Ukrainians who were at that camp said never saw ICRC once, even though they were supposed to be there after these POWs were transferred from besieged Mariupol. This played a huge role in adding on to the distrust everyone already had towards them.
I'm really glad it struck a chord with you. I've wanted to post about this for a long time but waited until I had a lot of both personal and public examples, to make the point thoroughly.
I remember reading about the Olenivka scandal. I don't think it would be possible for the ICRC to rehabilitate its reputation at this point, but I don't think they even care.
One of the most important things to know about "big aid" is that they rarely do anything on the ground. They are just data aggregaters. They collect the data (the work done) of other agencies and package it as their own work. If big aid does do something they use a "sub implementing partner". This is a good thing. I'm just pointing out that the UN, WHO, et al don't do any work.
Another important thing is demanding the grassroots small partners spend aid on useless projects. Instead of the actual needs in Ukraine. The best example is DEI money. Since day one there has been a lot of DEI money available. This breeds corruption. There is a hierarchy of needs during the war. Safety, shelter, food, medicine, subsistence. Until these needs are met, it's insulting to go into a village and ask about gender based violence or gender minority rights. Yet, since day one of the war granting partners have been pushing this.
So, you get people holding seminars in villages and handing out food. Taking a photo for compliance and saying "look, we met our DEI money goals."
This isn't a commentary on DEI. It's an example of large big aid granting partners being blind or motivated by the wrong thing.
Thanks for this additional insight. I'd been vaguely aware that this must be the case, but not of how it's built into the system.
Remember the story of the million starfish washed up on the beach. A child is throwing them back into the sea, one at a time. A passerby says 'That's not going to make a difference'. The child says 'It does to that one'. Maybe we should each just find a Ukrainian that needs help and help that one.
Anna, i would really love to talk to you about this article. You hit the nail squarely on the head. It has been sad to witness to the chaos of international organisations in Ukraine since 2022 and onwards. No one cared back in 2014 when i first stepped foot in Ukraine to help. Now, it is a fight over funding for large organisations, while small, grass roots orgs are left to beg on social media just to survive. Thank you for such an open and honest post. If you can spare a moment at your liking, please drop me an email at chris@prevailtogether.org
I liked the expression "moral glow". It described my first hand observations when I was a younger person working/volunteering at a cross cultural centre for many of the well known international relief agencies. Before, I go off on a tangent I need to compliment you on a well written report. I will likely read it several times over. My experiences with those who I would consider radiating a "moral glow" was pretty wide. IMHO, that moral glow often engenders massive hypocrisy which for me after a while gave way to me just staying away and not getting involved with any cause or issue. Often, the hypocrisy I am thinking of involved people who often are on the proverbial political left. Well meaning yes, but sometimes dangerous in the same way all fanaticism can be. I like reading about the Ukraine people. I believe what was described is so widespread that perhaps after the war there will be enough critical mass at the institutional level to prevent the kind of rationalism and virtue signaling that corporate media likes to serve as proof of the substance of our so called collective democratic virtues. Case in point, there is a yearly marathon event here in the Twin Cities that claims to be raising money for children with orthopedic issues. It has been proven over and over again that about 98% of the money raised is squandered by the family of the organizer on trips to the Caribbean. The press reports the positive side of a charity raising money for children but hardly a whisper of the down side. I guess the laws here allow for such an abuse and so I guess for the media who likes to have at least one happy news item of the day what's the point of reporting on the down side, except at the collective level that attitude is the same that excuses so much abuse of people who are not even at war, but see such abuses constantly repeated by those who radiate often a certain moral glow. Perhaps I have missed the point.
How depressing that it's been repeatedly proven but nobody seems to care! I've been wondering, though, why the media doesn't pick up on these stories about the Red Cross and UN agencies and I think you've got a good point there: they want to be able to keep filling column inches with the kind of stories that require the agencies in question to look heroic or at least credible.
So as I understand it, donors are likely to get the impression that the Ukrainian people are passively suffering, while the big organisations are hampered by physical and economical security issues (not getting their own killed, and not giving away money or stuff which could be fraudulently made advantage of). But if donors had a clearer idea of how active the people are in facing their own needs, they may get to believe that after all they manage well enough without external help! I feel that your answer to point 2 is key: management expenses are already absorbing a large part of donations to the big organisations, so it would be profitable to incur the additional expenses for "communication officers" interfacing with the small groups, in view of the bigger advantage of capillary distribution of resources.
The problem of potentially demotivating people from helping at all by putting them off the big charities is a significant one. I've concluded that the big charities do so little (in Ukraine, I can't speak for elsewhere) that the advantages of increasing people's knowledge outweighs the down sides. I would like to think that knowing more about how evacuations from Mariupol were done by clapped-out minibuses where the occupants were often shot on the way wouldn't make people think Ukraine doesn't need any help, but it does/would all come down to how this was presented in the media.
There is actually something called The Grand Bargain (https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/grand-bargain) which is intended to interface between charities and donors in a relevant way. A representative of a Ukrainian charity was going to write a piece about this for inclusion here, but unfortunately he hasn't done it yet. If that does happen, I will use it somewhere.