Co-operation or competition?
Howard Lake | 26 January 2010 | Blogs
A report from the Lancet at the weekend complained about the many aid agencies in Haiti spending too much time competing for air space and not enough working together. They misunderstand the way of the world I fear..
Whilst the details of the report have been dealt with elsewhere its worth reflecting on the realities. Those realities show that its the combination of co-operation AND competition that gets aid generated fast and delivered to where it needs to be. If they want co-ordiantion on the ground it might be best to remember that it was a massive earthquake that caused the chaos not the US army or aid agencies.
Of course we need to learn and deal with the issues on the ground and they take time and aren’t always dealt with correctly.But we are too quick to complain and undermine the pretty effective way we act as the conduit for well meaning people who want to help and do good.
Sometimes we get the balance wrong between co-operation and competition and even independence and collaboration. But we need all of them to be effective. And ultimately, its the donors who decide who gets that balance right, not us…
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.