[afro-nets] Famine in Niger - Another example of failed development (3)

[Peter Burgess <Profitinafrica@aol.com>]

Famine in Niger - Another example of failed development (3)
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Dear Mizan Siddiqi

The UN system has people with amazing commitment and perform-
ance, who often put themselves at personal risk in trying to de-
liver a greater good... but it also has a level of mediocrity
and bureaucracy that makes the system almost dysfunctional.

 From time to time the UN system does absolutely wonderful
work... and then wastes the effort because the system cannot
provide the follow through. It is a systemic problem and enor-
mously difficult to change. And as time goes on it gets more and
more difficult as more and more people are "tenured" in the sys-
tem and need to stay employed until "retirement" no matter what
the UN's performance might be.

 From time to time the WFP delivers food against all the odds and
saves lives. But, to put it bluntly, the WFP rarely delivers
food in an appropriate way so that a crisis is averted. In my
experience, WFP and other food donors have allowed lives to be
lost because of their clumsy bureaucratic processes, and then
deliver food LATE when crops have improved. Instead of just hav-
ing a humanitarian crisis of hunger, the local communities now
have in addition a crisis of economics with their first harvest
essentially valueless in the marketplace because of surplus food
supplies.

Mizan refers to all the data that exists about crops and poten-
tial food shortages and potential famine. I would like someone
to show me the links between the data and the appropriate ac-
tion... my experience suggests that most action is too little
and too late.

Like Mizan, I would love to have WFP's take on this, as well as
other key donors and the leaders of the official relief and de-
velopment assistance (ORDA) community.

Sincerely

Peter Burgess
Tr-Ac-Net in New York
Tel. +1-212-772-6918
mailto:peterbnyc@gmail.com
The Transparency and Accountability Network
With Kris Dev in Chennai India
and others in South Asia, Africa and Latin America
http://tr-ac-net.blogspot.com