Fatal Failure: Did Aid Agencies Let Up To 100,000 Somalis Die In 2011?

Even the best aid agencies find they can rarely admit their faults. Aid depends on donations, and donors need to feel confidence and trust to hand over money to an aid agency, which means the $126-billion-a-year foreign aid industry might collapse if aid groups didn’t present a convincing portrait of capable altruism. In some ways, that’s a good thing: it encourages aid organizations to produce good results.  But it also encourages them to make results look good. That immutable fact of aid agency life finds recognition in the positioning of a publicity and marketing operation at the core of any big aid organization. These departments have two aims: to present the agency in the best possible light, and to drum up donations for their work. Self-criticism is extremely rare.

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