{"id":1252,"date":"2011-12-02T01:20:19","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T06:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=1252"},"modified":"2011-12-02T12:27:22","modified_gmt":"2011-12-02T17:27:22","slug":"notes-from-jewish-lecture-on-aid-to-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/12\/notes-from-jewish-lecture-on-aid-to-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Notes From Jewish Lecture on Aid to Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Top five points I took away from last night’s “Can Foreign Aid Really Help Africa?” talk in Seattle, featuring American Jewish World Service <\/a>president Ruth Messinger and University of Washington Prof. Dan Chirot<\/a>:<\/p>\n

1) Faith-based organizations are strongly motivated to help the poor, but be wary of those that may also be in it to proselytize. (Coincidentally or not, Jewish groups tend to be relatively better bets here, since unlike Christians, they traditionally don’t try to convert anyone.) On a related note, religious influence may also do more harm than good, such as the evangelical fingerprints — the Rev. Rick Warren’s eventual condemnation <\/a>notwithstanding —\u00a0\u00a0in Uganda’s harsh\u00a0anti-gay legislation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0When responding to a\u00a0crisis,\u00a0aid groups that are already established in a particular region may be better prepared to help effectively, rather than funding a group venturing into unfamiliar territory. Messinger cited the example of the Idaho church members who got in trouble in Haiti <\/a>last year for trying to evacuate kids who turned out not to be orphans.<\/p>\n

3) Talk to communities about what their funding needs are, versus being swayed by special interests, misinformed officials\u00a0or what donors want to fund. (A donor may insist on funding a new\u00a0health clinic, but perhaps what that village really needs is more help for its farmers.)\u00a0Messinger also cited the U.S. example of Hurricane Katrina, in which government officials\u00a0could have discovered earlier that\u00a0poor neighborhoods like the Lower 9th\u00a0Ward\u00a0— where few residents had cars — would be difficult to evacuate quickly and smoothly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

4) In a troubled region where corruption is rampant, it may be better to direct funding to small, local projects — even though these won’t “fix Darfur,” it’s easier to monitor such projects, ensuring high levels of accountability and sustainability.<\/p>\n

5) Noting that today was World AIDS Day, it’s great that the disease is no longer a death sentence in America, but it’s still a crisis in Africa — and one that could lead to more drug-resistant strains\u00a0if foreign aid isn’t applied strategically to provide affordable drugs while also addressing food needs (drugs must be taken with medicine), access to clinics\u00a0and follow-up care.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n

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Click here to\u00a0subscribe to Belief Beat\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0click here to\u00a0<\/a>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Top five points I took away from last night’s “Can Foreign Aid Really Help Africa?” talk in Seattle, featuring American Jewish World Service president Ruth Messinger and University of Washington Prof. Dan Chirot: 1) Faith-based organizations are strongly motivated to help the poor, but be wary of those that may also be in it to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[544,541,543,93,28,542,545,546],"class_list":["post-1252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-africaaid","tag-american-jewish-world-service","tag-don-chirot","tag-jewish","tag-judaism","tag-ruth-messinger","tag-world-aids-day","tag-world-aids-day-2011"],"yoast_head":"\nNotes From Jewish Lecture on Aid to Africa - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/12\/notes-from-jewish-lecture-on-aid-to-africa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Notes From Jewish Lecture on Aid to Africa - 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