Generosity in times of Coronavirus
Will donations be used right?
By now it’s been weeks since we were confronted by Coronavirus. Many of us are socially distancing and are trying to manage the anxiety of this new normalcy. We are worried about our families and friends. Our cities have emptied, economies have slowed down and the future remains uncertain. If you are like me, you are probably already trying to figure out how to help in these times of need.
Generosity is a big part of being human. We are empathetic creatures, we are moved by the stories of others. We care about the future of our planet. Thus, catastrophes such as hurricane Harvey or the wildfires in Chile, both in 2017, the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 and, now of course COVID-19, are met with a massive increase in generosity.
While some people donate their time to alleviate the isolation anxiety, offering online cooking classes, Facebook live yoga lessons and even concerts, others are donating some of their hard earned money. Sadly, some of these financial contributions will undoubtedly end in the wrong hands. Instead of helping to find a cure, buy medical supplies or throw a lifeline to struggling businesses, a portion of the money we donate today will go directly into the pockets of some corrupt official. Am I being too pessimistic?
Let’s take a look at our track record
During his tenure as Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon highlighted the cost of corruption on societies, calculating that it “prevented 30 percent of all development assistance from reaching its final destination.”¹ More recently, the global cost of corruption was estimated to be at least $2.6² trillion, about 5 percent of the global gross domestic product³, by the World Economic Forum.
The truth is that there is no consolidated statistics on what we donate, but certain countries are more open with their numbers than others. According to Forbes, the top 100 US charities raised $51.5 billions in 2019. Which represents only 12% of the charitable contributions given in the US last year⁴. Going by the numbers given by the UN, this would mean that about $15.45 billion will disappear, if they haven’t already.
One of the largest financial efforts in aid ever recorded has been the Haiti earthquake relief efforts, which according to the UN added up to a total of $13.34 billion⁵. Considering Haiti’s GDP in 2018 was of $9.6 billion in 2018 and $6.6 billion in the year of the earthquake⁶, these contributions should have had a massive impact in the country. However, the changes do not seem to correlate with the amount of resources allocated to the earthquake relief. In June, 2015 an article published in ProPublica⁷ dived into the problem explaining how the Red Cross had built only six homes with the nearly half a billion they had raised as part of their earthquake relief campaign for Haiti. “The Red Cross won’t disclose details of how it spent the hundreds of millions of dollars donated for Haiti. But our reporting shows that less money reached those in need than the Red Cross has said.”⁸ Sadly, Haiti’s experiences with donations are echoed across the world, with funds allocated to solve hunger, poverty, healthcare emergencies, etc.
As we see charitable initiatives pop-up to alleviate the toll of Coronavirus, and while even Instagram has enabled a donation button to be inserted on their stories I can’t help but wonder where is all of this money going to end up? Is it truly going to help anyone or is it going to end in some protected account in a tax-haven? While the UN rolls out their $2 billion dollar global humanitarian response plan to fight against Coronavirus in the world’s most fragile economies⁹, these questions become more and more predominant in my head.
What do I propose
If you have read this far you might be a bit discouraged and losing faith in humanity. Do I think we should stop donating altogether? No. I believe what we need is to be smarter about donations. As I read through countless reporting on the matter, I’ve seen a few common denominators when it comes to corruption in aid. What stands out to me the most is that the problem seems to be strongly related to how long the donations take to be distributed to the beneficiaries and its use reported back to the donors. Across the world, we seem to rely mostly on end-of-the-year reporting of some “well established brands”. However, like in the case of Haiti, the resources were diverted way faster than their reporting. I believe that by implementing real-time transparency, available to all of us, organizations will be held accountable for their actions. Enough to dissuade them from misplacing your generous donations.
What we need to know is when, where and on what our donations are spent, while having access to impact information. As with most human relationships, what we ultimately have to have is open and fluid communication, especially to get us all through this COVID-19 crisis.
[1] UN News (https://news.un.org/en/story/2012/07/415122-high-level-discussion-un-officials-highlight-costs-corruption-societies)
[2] Monetary values have been expressed in US dollars.
[3] United Nations | Meetings coverage and press releases. https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/sc13493.doc.htm
[4] America’s top charities. https://www.forbes.com/lists/top-charities/#39971ba25f50
[5] What does Haiti have to show for the $13 Billion in Earthquake Aid. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/what-does-haiti-have-show-13-billion-earthquake-aid-n281661
[6] The World Bank. https://data.worldbank.org/country/haiti?view=chart
[7] How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes
[8] How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes.
[9] Funding the fight against COVID-19 in the world’s poorest countries. https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/funding-fight-against-covid-19-world%E2%80%99s-poorest-countries
