Report says aid agencies exaggerated southern Africa crisis
Howard Lake | 17 January 2004 | News
A report by consultants Valid International for the Disasters Emergency Committee has found that international aid agencies overstated the food crisis in 2002-03 in southern Africa. Some of their fundraising appeals were therefore misleading.
The report into the 12 charities that make up the Disasters Emergency Committee acknowledges that many lives were saved by the charities, but points out that a number of mistakes were made.
Two appeals by the British Red Cross for work in Zimbabwe were criticised for using the word “famine”, and World Vision and Tearfund were found to have incorrectly compared the crisis to that of the 1984 Ethiopian disaster.
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Some charities were commended for their approaches, including Save the Children Fund and Cafod.
The independent report noted that the complex situation resulted in tensions between charities’ field staff and marketing staff in the UK.
The report looked at the charities’ work with local organisations and highlighted mistakes there too.
Overall however the report has been welcomed by the DEC which judged the appeal and the work it funded, in what was a complex situation, to have been successful. The criticisms of the report would be acted on.
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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.