Jon Stewart To Author Linda Polman: Do 'Aid Projects Prolong War'? (VIDEO)

Journalist Linda Polman discussed corruption and aid organizations, the topic of her new book, "The Crisis Caravan: What's Wrong With Humanitarian Aid?" last night with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show."

Stewart and Polman talked about the relief efforts in Haiti, which is still very much a work-in-progress.

"The United States has already donated a billion dollars to Haiti just after the earthquake to help people have tents and have food, for example," Polman said. "But that's the easy part. Now the difficult part should be starting, and that's rebuilding Haiti.

"One billion dollars is just absolutely nothing. It's just peanuts."

Stewart asked, "But you make the case that sometimes these aid projects prolong war."

Polman replied, "In Somalia, there's this huge investigation going on about the World Food Program, which is a UN charity." Of the program, valued at over $400 million, Polman continued, "The research that has looked into that program, they say they have proved that more than $200 million dollars are actually disappearing straight into the pockets of warlords."

"They can convert that money into weapons, they can buy soldiers to fight for them. Aid money is actually helping warlords to fill their war-chests."

The solution?

"They are not defining a central goal," Polman said.

Of the 10,000 aid organizations involved in Haiti now, Polman stated the problem is that they are all doing their own little thing individually and not cooperating.

"If you would work together as donors and as aid organizations you could make a fist against the abuse and against the theft and corruption."

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Comments

[Edy Williams]

11:17 PM on 10/29/2010

Jon Stewart just being there,addind his sense of humor,always hitting the "nail" right on the head,with Anderson Cooper holding up the more serious side, these two are the best out there!

[pennywhite]

12:09 AM on 10/02/2010

It just seems so luxurious to sit back and discuss the obstacles to effectively delivering aid. Desperate people don't have time for us to perfect the system.
It's a ridiculous shame that those who gave a water extraction system to a village in Mali didn't have the brains to teach them how to repair it if it broke. However, the village did have access to safe water for a period of time. Women who were pregnant during that time may have given birth to healthier babies, or been able to nurse more effectively. Young children and elderly people were less likely to suffer dehydration.
It was not enough, and it did not last. But it was infinitely better than nothing. I have no doubt that those who are sick hungry would prefer imperfect aid to no aid at all.

[WhyBecause]

03:59 PM on 09/30/2010

My brother is currently in Mali working for the Peace Corps, and while thankfully there is not the issue of war, he has noticed the detrimental effect that foreign aid has had on the country.

However, is it not the aid itself that is detrimental, it is the lack of oversight and shortsightedness of the organizations providing the aid that is the true cause.

My brother likens these organizations to giving people fish, without teaching them how to fish. One example would be an organization that gave a village a mechanism for extracting water. Everything was great, but after the group left, the mechanism broke and the village was right back where they started because they didn't know how to repair it.

The problem is that the population has become too dependent on foreign aid and has infiltrated their mentality. Whenever my brother hears good ideas from the locals, the answer to getting funding is always from another country.

This doesn't even include the amount of corruption involved because since many of these organizations don't follow up on how their money is being used, a great deal of it finds its way into the pockets of the wrong people.

Polman could be on to something. By consolidating aid organizations, there could be greater oversight that could help maximize the efficiency of foreign aid and reduce abuse of the money.

[considerthis]

11:47 AM on 10/01/2010

How can you blame the people as being too dependent when you just admitted the problem is ineffectual providers? it is ridiculous to install machinery and not teach the people to repair it. However, that is not the people's fault

[WhyBecause]

12:47 PM on 10/01/2010

I'm not blaming for being too dependent. I should have clarified, I didn't have enough space to write all I wanted. It's a mere fact that many are, but I don't place the blame on them. It IS the fault of the ineffectual providers, that's the whole point. I know not teaching people to repair machinery sounds ridiculous, and I'm not saying it is the case for all providers, but it DID happen, and that becomes a huge problem. Providers are not efficiently creating sustainability and in many aspects, inadvertently forces the people to become dependent on them. That's what my brother is there for, to help establish some form of sustainability.

[Buakaw Por Pramuk]

03:56 PM on 09/30/2010

After hurricane Ike our town was pretty much destroyed. Volunteers came from all over the country on mostly short term trips and helped rebuild. Just sending a boatload of money would not have helped anybody except some organization to build a bureaucracy and dole out money to a bunch of professionals. Imo the volunteer nature of the work was what made it work and no money being involved there was no corruption.

[october2009]

03:39 PM on 09/30/2010

The American government and the U.N. have unlimited access to taxpayer dollars, Federal Reserve loans and IMF loans, which is why they they have no incentive to do a good job.

Private charities do a much better job because they need to work hard in order to get people to voluntarily donate money to them.

Bottom line: Governments shouldn't be in the charity business because they don't do things right. Unlike private charities, they have zero financial incentive to do a good job.

[chaucer1]

03:24 PM on 09/30/2010

Jon apparently suffered from a bad case of interruptitis and/or was out of his depth. The lady was patient w/him. His final comment was uncalled for. Perhaps he's been watching too much "Hardball" lately.

[grasyknol]

02:52 PM on 09/30/2010

The guest appeared to make the case that aid organizations should combine their efforts under one central authority for greater effectiveness. Jon S seemed skeptical and wondered how that would prevent corruption.

This is one of those "I need to know more" issues which is okay. I'll try to learn more.

[Notsosurearewe]

03:22 PM on 09/30/2010

I guess the way to put it would be - if there were a single "chest" of money and a single person/group were in charge of it, it would be tempting for that individual to line their own pockets, especially since it would be so difficult to track back to the original owner. Or in this case, the original 64 owners. That's why Jon's skeptical - plus getting 64 different groups to agree to a single chest of money would be a massive undertaking in and of itself.