Humanitarian Aid: Winning the Terror War

[Rex Brynen]

I have always felt that UNICEF has been one of the greatest contributors to instability and war in Africa. Through their fru-fru feel good efforts to save children who normally would have died because the environment/country could not support them naturally, without any assistance to give these additional young adults jobs or homes or help of any kind, they create breading grounds of young, homeless, jobless disgruntled young adults that gravitate towards crime and/or rebellion. Unless you have a complete plan for security, poverty reduction, employment, infrastructure, you are going to have instability.

I've never been much of a believer, on either ethical or practical grounds, of letting people die because "a country can't support them naturally." Most children in sub-Saharan Africa do not die because of some sort of Malthusian absolute limits on food or other resources, but because of preventable disease and, in the case of wars, man-made disaster.

Nor do the majority of UNICEF field workers that I know have anything particularly "fru fru" about them. Some of them see, and deal with, stunning degrees of human suffering on a daily basis.

Finally, while UNICEF is certainly engaged in immediate short-term humanitarian assistance, the vast bulk of that organization's efforts are directed at longer term and sustainable change. This is particularly true with regard to child immunization (where UNICEF has played a key role both in technical assistance and, through partnerships, in implementation), and in improving education (which is generally accepted to be the single best was to improve living conditions and reduce mortality rates in the longer term).

To cite but one example:

ATLANTA/GENEVA/NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, 4 December 2008 – Measles deaths worldwide fell by 74 per cent between 2000 and 2007, from an estimated 750 000 to 197 000. In addition, the Eastern Mediterranean region* which includes countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and the Sudan has cut measles deaths by a remarkable 90 per cent — from an estimated 96 000 to 10 000 — during the same period, thus achieving the United Nations goal to reduce measles deaths by 90 per cent by 2010, three years early.

The progress was announced today by the founding partners of the Measles Initiative: the American Red Cross, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United Nations Foundation (UN Foundation), UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO). The data will be published in the 5 December edition of WHO’s Weekly Epidemiological Record and CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Issues of post-childhood employment typically fall outside UNICEF's mandate, and are taken up by other agencies--UNDP, the World Bank, bilateral donor assistance, etc. Obviously, however, the healthier and better educated children are, the more likely they are to make a successful transition into the job market. In Africa in particular, poor economic performance and high youth unemployment are often a product of poor political leadership and corruption, not a lack of natural resources. Do we let kids in Zimbabwe die of cholera because Mugabe is evil? Or should UNICEF being doing what it should to prevent these wholly preventable deaths?

Obviously, the aid and humanitarian assistance community is far from perfect. There are many example of poorly-planned and implemented projects, and incompetent staff. However, there are also many cases of successful projects—and its important not to lose sight of the bigger picture.