THE Lowly Peon

NGOs and my Hypocrisy 
21 June 2010, 10:26am

A while back, daisy and I had a pretty heated conversation about pollution and who's responsible. My argument seemed crystal clear to me: no one person can change the world, but everyone has a vote. Her argument, clearly from the perspective of someone who grew up under the Chinese communist government rule, was that individuals have no power, so we're best leaving it to the government to decide.

Fast forward now, nearly two years later, to the present. To say the very least, a lot has changed in both of us, as well as between us. We spent the better part of this morning's bus ride to work talking about the chemical leak in Bhopal, India, in 1984, who was ultimately responsible for it, and who should have taken more responsibility. As a follow up, on this afternoon's bus ride home, daisy asked if there were many NGOs in Chicago. And we started talking about NGOs.

NGOs obviously do some pretty good stuff. And generally speaking, I admire people who work for them and who dedicate their lives to doing stuff like that. (Really, big kudos.) But I'm still a bit uneasy about the idea of donating money to a big NGO for a handful of reasons. While talking to daisy about them, it seemed very clear to me. But on my bike ride home, I started comparing my side of the debate to her side of the pollution debate so long ago.

First and foremost, I worry about how NGOs really are just a group of people, and how lots of people, myself included, tend to force their opinions on others. I think about how so many Christian missionaries back in the day went to poorer parts of the world and genuinely believed they were doing good, but in retrospect, most people would disagree. It's never black and white. I think it would benefit China greatly to have stronger traffic laws, but who am I to say for sure?

Second, I think about the money itself. If I give a majority of my paycheck, even, how do I know I'm not just paying for a group of Americans to have a special dinner en route to southern Thailand?

Finally, and the one that's hardest for me to see clearly, goes back to the idea of teaching a man to fish. I'm not by any means saying giving money to poor countries is a waste. But again I think about the actual money involved. For example, one of the biggest problems right now in the world is the number of people without access to clean water. I could donate $3mil and buy lots of people water. And this would clearly help. This would be fantastic. But wouldn't my money be better spent building a filtration and distribution system instead? Likewise, if I give a homeless guy $100, is it really going to help the situation improve? Or is he going to think about how much easier it was to get $100 panhandling than working? This isn't so much giving a man a fish versus teaching him, but the idea is the same; there's a way to fight the symptoms, and a way to fight the illness.

After my ride home, I started to realize how hypocritical I was. I was horrified that daisy thought she couldn't make a difference with regard to pollution, and here I am saying I don't know if my $100 will be the best spent $100, so I'm not going to spend any at all.

So, after having given it some thought, I really like the idea of giving some money to a carefully picked out NGO that somehow assures me that the above three points won't be an issue. I still wonder if my money would be better spent in water filtration research and development, or even in fission power. But I'm all ears if you have any better suggestions.

update
[21 June 2010, 10:33am]