For months now, the images of Kosovar refugees have filled the newspapers and television screens of western nations. The humanitarian aid dollars have been flowing, attracted by guilt, ideology and politics.
Conditions in the refugee camps where hundreds of thousands of displaced people live are grim but like the story of almost one billion citizens of the world who are undernourished, the issue is distribution of resources rather than a shortage.
In this war, as in most, money seems no object. The nations that bombed Yugoslavia and Kosovo into pre-industrial poverty will find the money to help rebuild.
Read Also
Crop insurance’s ability to help producers has its limitations
Farmers enrolled in crop insurance can do just as well financially when they have a horrible crop or no crop at all, compared to when they have a below average crop
After all, deficit-conscious NATO countries easily found the billions needed to take the war to Serbia. In Ottawa, as the bill for troops and materiŽl increased, there was none of the usual fretting about keeping spending “within the fiscal framework.”
Contrast that with the estimated 900,000 refugees in Africa who have been languishing in squalid conditions since the Rwandan massacres of 1994.
Last week, the United Nations World Food Program issued an urgent appeal for $13 million to keep food flowing to those people between June and September. With food stocks running low and new stocks not scheduled until September, rations have been reduced from low levels.
“We expect to find the money,” information officer Heather Hill said from WFP offices in Rome Monday. “But the situation is tense. We wanted to get the appeal out to the public.”
The truth is that it is much more difficult to find international aid money for long-term or marginalized refugees such as Rwandans or Palestinians or the people of Sierra Leone than it is to attract money to highly publicized disasters.
It would be comforting to imagine that wars are fought over ideology, politics and self-interest, but aid is based on need.
However, it is not simple cynicism to suggest less noble sentiments often are at work in aid decisions.
“We work to support a system of aid based on need,” said Tom Clark of the Canadian Council of Churches committee on refugees in Toronto. “We have a long way to go.”
Instead, there is the ideology of aid. Refugees from an enemy state like Yugoslavia or an ideological foe such as Cuba attract disproportionate amounts of western aid.
There are the politics of aid. Money dedicated to refugees with a strong and sympathetic media image often gains strong political support and brownie points for the generous government.
There are the politics of enlightened aid self-interest.
Millions of American aid dollars quickly flowed to hurricane victims in Central America. Beyond genuine humanitarian concern, there was the small problem of reports that many might migrate north to the southern United States.
Canadian food aid decisions sometimes have been influenced by which commodities were in costly surplus.
It is not to suggest all refugees do not deserve help. It is to suggest that the political motives of war, ideological struggle and aid are not always so different.
