Elizabeth Blunt, IRIN, Switzerland – The one thing Filipinos affected by Typhoon Haiyan most wanted to change in the aid operation was something the agencies wouldn’t do: help everybody.
Who are the clients of aid agencies? Is it the donors, who pay the bills, or the people being helped? For all the talk of participation and community-led initiatives, when do people on the receiving end of aid get a chance to say what they think? And then, when they are invited to give their views, what difference does it make? Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines was followed by a relief operation that had an unusually high number of feedback systems.
As one speaker put it at a recent gathering in London organised by the Humanitarian Practice Network, aid agencies are getting better at asking “Are we doing it right?” but not necessarily ready to ask “Are we doing the right thing?”
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