Unequal aid.

[ENGLANDalltheway]

Was watching the World Cup and Haiti in group with Scotland. Haiti a country with humanitarian crisis and food insecurity, not improved much since devastation several years ago. UK gives approximately £30,000 per year. 5.5 million people.

UK gave Gaza £138 million in 2024. Gaza gets billions from worldwide donations (no wonder they have their own charity UNRA).

Sudan get £146 million with a population of 51.66 million

https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/aid-to-palestinians-per-capita-far-exceeds-other-recipients

This was pre the war. Understandably aid is huge now, they really need it, but has always been huge. Where did it go? Billions for 2.2 million pre conflict

Thank God the US help Haiti

"United States: The largest bilateral donor, typically providing over $270M to $466M annually in emergency relief, development assistance, and security support.Canada: A major continuous contributor, committing over $130M in recent multi-year assistance and emergency grants."

Yeman

"The UK recently committed over $190 million (£150 million) to Yemen's humanitarian response. This funding supports the UN's plan to tackle severe food insecurity affecting millions of Yemenis, focusing on cash assistance for food and ensuring over 700 health facilities have necessary medicines and vaccines."

Well presumably international aid is the same game as raising money for charity. Sad faces on the TV, get the journos and celebs onside for free PR, bob’s your uncle. Nobody in the UK is upset about Haiti (or dozens of other worthy causes) because they haven’t been riled up by the press and celebs and social media.

UK aid reduced ongoing

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10243/

Although really Haiti has been in need for at least 30 years, it was mentioned in Clueless, so what are they doing with all that US money to stabilise their situation and get sorted long term?

Wasn't there a scandal about an aid organisation abusing women in Haiti after the extreme weather damage several years ago?

I know this isn’t the main point of your thread but I think your “thank god the US help” is a little out of date. Haiti was significantly affected by the large aid cuts the US made last year.

No idea.

I realised how much aid money is sent to some countries but never quite reaches the people. I think Hamas leaders pinched billions for themselves. Maybe similar in Haiti?

Sorry. Thank God they used to help more. Obviously the US isn't giving as much under Trump

@ENGLANDalltheway
Yes. That was Oxfam following the devastating earthquake in 2010.

True. Depends which cause is trending. Many people in need and only so much money so certain causes get more?

Thanks. I recall some scandal but not sure what the outcome was. Oxfam. Did they sack the individuals concerned?

Well we sell weapons to Isreal that keeps Gaza in need of aid along with other countries

people being kept in misery is very profitable and money makes it way back to the richest and powerful countries in the end

Does it?

I thought Gaza aid ended up with Hamas leaders keeping it in Qatar Bank accounts.

I imagine its always been like that. Aid never reaches the people, greedy leaders pinching it. Whether in Africa, Gaza or elsewhere.

Do you think we actually give aud because we are kind. We do it for strategic, political reasons. As Haiti falls under the American sphere of influence we have, I expect by agreement, left it to them.
It's got no natural resources we need, we have other near by islands with better infrastructure if we need for military ops.

Cynical I know but true

Fair point.

Do Haiti no strategic or political interest to us. Is Gaza a strategic interest to us then, political?

Military Industrial Complex is very real, and still very much an active thing. It is not coincidence that every few years the US has a fit of pique where it dispenses practically everything in its conventional arsenal at some tinpot nation which has somehow offended it, then it goes quiet for a bit, before the whole thing is repeated in much the same way a few years later. It's as predictable as Israeli rampages in the final year of a US Presidential term.

There is too much money flowing out of this country. I would stop all foreign aid.

Well there's an utterly predictable wannabe inflamatory take from yet another poster with a random three word username.

Weird how frequently this is happening on this board. All just total coincidence, I'm sure.

Isnt it up to countries themselves to fix the mess they create? Why is up to other countries to bail them out?

And this should be for all countries

Well you could look at it from the point of view that if, for example, there is an enormous humanitarian disaster in the country next door, or perhaps a civil war leading to widespread displacement and famine, if you simply sit back and say "not my problem", it's very rapidly going to become your problem when the refugees arrive at your border. But not just that, they aren't going to stop at your border, because it's likely that even if you want to help every single last one, the practicalities of that mean that you are unlikely to be able to accommodate that, so some of them will pass to the next country, and the next, and then the next, and before you know it that disaster on the other side of the planet that you swore blind was fuck all to do with you, and that they really ought to be fixing themselves, very much is your problem. So it's probably best to help them fix it by themselves by lending them the financial assistance to attempt to do so.

Then there is the fact that a lot of the developing world is still exploited by rich nations because nobody minds too much if it's not their children toiling away down a heavy metals mine and totally destroying their health, but if it's some tinpot backwater's children who just so happen to live somewhere where the only option if they want to eat is to go "down t'pit" for 16 hours a day, that's fine. The resources still get sold to the developed world to produce goods we all use, but the profit from that isn't making it's way back to the children actually killing themselves mining the raw materials. It's likely being syphoned off by either the owner of the facility, or being divvied up between those and the corrupt government, meanwhile, there is no public provision to deal with the problems caused by widespread exploitation of child labour, and the government isn't about to magic up the money to remedy that, but we're still sitting at home using products made off the back of those exploited children, so perhaps we could think about intervening.

Politics to keep kn with Arabic countries which have leaders or influential people who are sympathetic to gaza or if those people get to power in one of the Arab countries

Fair points.

Gaza is a talking point in the UK with marchers protesting but Haiti not really of any interest here at all, despite the humanitarian crisis, it's a long way away and doesn't feature on the news, similar to other humanitarian crisis.

Very much enjoy these topics! I’m UN (name changed for this thread) and manage these large grants in Middle East living between Yemen / Syria / Gaza / Jordan and my partner is also UN and based in Haiti and central Africa (although I’ve never worked there).

I wasn’t quite sure on what your AIBU was? If it was that aid is unequal? Then what happens is every country that’s in emergency funding has something called an HRP (humanitarian response plan) where we along with local orgs / international NGO / government (depending on the country and what’s functioning!) map the needs and then publish the HRP with the total the country needs to meet all the needs - obviously these funding targets are never met.

For example to meet all the needs in Yemen in 2025 we needed just under 2.5 billion, the year ended with around only 29% funded, Haiti needed 908 million but only got 315.

Yes I think you picked up on a good point there are lots of “forgotten” crises that don’t receive as much attention for a range of reasons as others - also if there’s an emergency or new conflict throughout the year sometimes funding gets changed around.