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How best to help Haiti

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The earthquake in Haiti happened more than two weeks ago. Yet aid organizations continue to struggle with basic questions there. Feeding hungry survivors has proved a big challenge. And work is just starting on temporary tent camps meant to get homeless survivors out of the squalid makeshift camps where they love now. Americans who want to help have been urged to give money to reputable aid organizations. But we’ve also heard of smaller organizations that are collecting things like tents or food. So, should you donate items, or is money still the best way to go? David Case is an editor with the online news website Global Post. Download MP3

• BBC Haiti coverage
• Case’s article “Help with money – not stuff”

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MARCO WERMAN: The earthquake in Haiti happened more than two weeks ago yet aid organizations continue to struggle with basic questions there.  Feeding hungry survivors has proved a big challenge.  Work is just starting on temporary tent camps meant to get homeless survivors out of the squalid makeshift camps where they live now.  Americans who want to help have been urged to give money to reputable aid organizations, but we’ve also heard of smaller organizations that are collecting things like tents or food.  So, should you donate items or is money still the best way to go?  Well David Case is an editor with the online new website global post and David, you wrote an article, right after the earthquake titled “Help with Money, not Stuff” and then you said that experience has shown that regardless of your intentions, you’ll only make matters worse if you send stuff instead of money, so explain this to us.  Why?

DAVID CASE: That’s absolutely right.  My article is actually based on my experience Aceh, Indonesia, after the tsunami.  What we witnessed there was a lot of people with very good intentions, of course, sent boxes of all kinds of things, medical supplies, clothes, everything from Bibles to birth control pills.  One of the biggest challenges to a disaster situation like this is that the entire logistical system in the country will have broken down.  The hardest thing to do, really, is to distribute the supplies, not to actually get the supplies because good relief organizations can buy those supplies anywhere.  When you have unsorted materials, it creates an enormous logistical problem for the pros who are trying to get vital supplies in.

MARCO WERMAN: Ultimately money has to go to buying those supplies anyway, so what is the advantage of actually getting cash then?

DAVID CASE: The advantage of giving cash is that you can leave the buying decision to the pros.  One of the concerns, I think one of the reasons why people send stuff instead of cash is they’re worried how their money is going to be spent.  If you send your money to a reputable aid organization you don’t really need to worry too much about this.  From my experience in many places around the world, these are some of the most hardworking, dedicated people you’ll ever find.

MARCO WERMAN: As you said, you spent time in Aceh after the tsunami hit there in 2004 in Indonesia.  Presumably there were some medicines that were desperately needed that were sent in.  One can make a solid argument to send in medicine, can’t you?

DAVID CASE: Well you can and what we witnessed in Aceh is that so much medicine arrived that it rendered all of that medicine pretty much useless.  The French group, Pharmacists without Borders, did a study of the situation after things had gotten better in Aceh and they found that four pounds of medicine for every person in the tsunami zone had been sent.  Four pounds, that’s a lot of medicine.  What it meant was that vital supplies, like state of the art malaria medicines, were buried under boxes from people from Texas that had sent their half opened pharmaceuticals from their medicine cabinet.  The United Nations is capable, and other reputable relief organizations like Doctors without Borders, or Care to get the medicine to the right people and you should provide them with the means to actually do that by sending money.

MARCO WERMAN: Now you mentioned earlier the concern among Americans that if they give money it could potentially go down the tubes in a country like Haiti where there’s a long history of corruption.  That is a concern, isn’t it?

DAVID CASE: Well absolutely, but don’t forget if you send vital supplies, if they fall into the wrong hands they’ll just be sold on the black market for a lot of money.  If you send a tent right now in Haiti, people might be willing to pay a lot of money for that.  If you send money to a reputable relief organization, the chances of that relief getting in the right hands are far greater.

MARCO WERMAN: Now you mention tents, I’ve seen reports that Haitian President Rene Preval has actually asked the world to send 200,000 tents to Haiti.  What is the right response to that?

DAVID CASE: Well, again, let organizations that are the experts decide which tents to buy and how to deliver them to Haiti.  If every one of us went to EMS and bought a tent and sent it, the refugee camps would have a tremendous logistical problem of trying to teach people how to set these tents up.  These camps would be disastrously chaotic.

MARCO WERMAN: And so if people are concerned about shelter, maybe they should give to an organization that deals specifically wither shelter, is that what you’re saying?

DAVID CASE: Yes.

MARCO WERMAN: David Case, editor at the online site global post, thanks very much for your time.

DAVID CASE: Thank you Marco.

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