ALTRUISM OR EGO? THE LIMITATIONS AND RISKS OF TOP-DOWN PHILANTHROPY

Mon, Dec 2, 2024

It is easy to believe that we are stuck with this humanitarian aid system- the pot of money at $38 billion of public funding seems huge and it is controlled by forces that don’t believe in a change in the existing power dynamics. But we are depending on a very small number of people to make these global decisions. The US government alone contributes 39% of all humanitarian funding and this figure rests ultimately in the hands of very few people. We have shown in the third blog in this series that in other richer countries a small group of bureacrats are making aid decisions that further the interests of the state they are employed by. The top decision makers for the most part are elected officials, but are they really representing the interests of their constituents when they make these decisions about humanitarian aid? Do we need to leave it to such a small group of people to make decisions about how 81% of all global humanitarian aid funding is distributed?

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