Where do relief funds go?
Published:Tuesday | February 9, 2010 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
The international relief and development community is now deployed in Haiti, with substantial funds having been mobilised. At this point people are talking of more than US$500 million.
There is increasing concern that there is little or no accountability for these funds but the large organisations engaged in the work are totally unresponsive about accountability. They are busy, but the need for this information is critical not only for accountability but also for operational management.
Little change
I worked in the field for a number of years going back to the 1980s and 1990s. Very little has changed. while there are more data, the use of the data is for data overload rather than for increased progress and performance.
An initiative to develop and deploy community analytics may be a solution to some of these issues. This is an approach to accountability that has a focus on community more than on organisation - very powerful with rather little data.
I am, etc.,
Peter Burgess