Awaiting World Vision’s Response
Posted on February 16, 2011 at 8:55 am
UPDATE: World Vision did respond to some questions posed by Aid Watch. It was posted late Wednesday night.
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It’s been five days since World Vision last addressed criticisms to their NFL t-shirt donation program. Their response at that time did little to address the concerns and questions of their critics. In fact, 34 posts have been written by bloggers since World Vision’s response.
Of the 47 posts (excluding World Vision’s) that have been written on the controversy thus far. Two have been in favor of the program (one of those was written by a world vision staff member), and 45 are critical of the program. These posts have been written by aid workers, business people, the diaspora, donors, and one person living in a country scheduled to receive the t-shirts.
While on the surface this may appear to be a silly debate over t-shirts, in reality this is a debate over the professionalism of the aid industry. World Vision is a major player in the aid world, they work in 96 countries on 5 continents. World Vision has played a major role in the creation of many industry standards and are signatories to many others including:
- Red Cross Code of Conduct and the INGO Accountability Charter.
- the Sphere Project
- Humanitarian Accountability Project (HAP),
- the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Practice (ALNAP),
- People in Aid (PIA)
- the Emergency Capacity Building Project (ECB)
- Association of Evangelical Relief and Development Organizations (AERDO) Standards
- InterAction Private Voluntary Organization (PVO) Standards
This fight is not just about 100,000 shirts. It’s about whether a leader in the aid industry, and the aid industry as a whole, is going to follow the standards they’ve set for themselves. And in following standards, not just the letter of the standard, but the spirit of the standard. Another question is whether the standards are good enough.
The post Changes Needed does a great job of laying out three changes that we need now in the nonprofit sector:
- Revise existing standards
- Remove “overhead” from the conversation
- Relentlessly insist on good practice
This debate is about far more than just shirts. This debate is about asking the questions: where are we now, where are we going, and what standards are we going to hold ourselves accountable to?
Hopefully today’s response from World Vision will answer some of these questions.
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For all posts written about this controversy see Tracking the World Vision / NFL Shirt Donation Controversy
« An example of why the percent spent on administration is meaningless • The World Vision controversy continues »
To continue the discussion here Saundra, I agree with many of the points you’re making. Over-consumption – or better yet, impatience – by American consumers is the reason these 100,000 t-shirts exist in the first place. Unfortunately, this is the foundation we have built our economy upon. Consumerism. Stuff we don’t need for folks we don’t like. Companies live and die (as do their stocks) based on consumer spending.
But back to our original topic, I don’t see any more problems with GIK in foreign countries than here in America. The Salvation Army and goodwill stores everywhere aren’t helping local textile manufacturers.
And most of all, I believe the key here is emphasizing what *good* aid is. Because to be honest, everyone I know holds shoe drives and jean drives and the like. If we’ve established this is bad, then what is good? What *tangible* things should we, as regular citizens, be doing in America? Is there anything, outside of giving money, that we can do to help people in other countries?
Definitely agree that the massive import of second hand clothing has not supported their local textile manufacturing and that our society is currently based on over-consumption.
Here are tangible things the average American could do. Lobby congress to change trade policies, tariffs, farm subsidies, and immigration policies – remittances from family living abroad are a great help to the local economy. We could decrease our over-consumption and spend that extra money saved on the often more expensive goods that are made in ways that environmentally friendly and pay fair wages. Travel to those countries – as a tourist – and stay in local accommodations, eat at local restaurants, and purchase goods in the market place. Invest in or support the development of local businesses.
I’d love to hear what other suggestions the aid blogosphere has.
Thanks for asking.
Thanks, Saundra. I appreciate that list. And I look forward to hearing what suggestions anyone else can add to the list too.
[...] Awaiting World Vision’s Reply – Good Intentions are Not Enough – Discusses how this is about more than just t-shirts, [...]
Appleseed, the difference between a goodwill store and GIK is that the goodwill/charity shops don’t tend to give stuff away. For me, that is a crucial difference. If you are sending SHC abroad because people want to buy it, for me that is very different to sending swedow just because your corporate donors want you to.
Joe,
But he’s right, studies show that the massive importation of second hand clothing has, in combination with cheaper imports from Asia, really destroyed local textile manufacturing. And that massive importation is also based on our over-consumption. See the links in this comment .
Yes, I’ve read all those reports. The thing is that we’re where we are – the SHC market exists and supports a whole network of people. Simply removing the market (even if it was possible to imagine that happening) would just encourage imports from elsewhere – reopening local factories are not on the agenda of anyone. I’d like it to be different, but it isn’t.
The only thing that will change this mess would be a change in the economic system in which rich people are able to throw away so much stuff that others desire.
[...] link: Awaiting World Vision’s Response AKPC_IDS += [...]
Personally, i don’t believe that “GIK” like the 100,000 shirts are really having a significant effect on foreign economies. It may be true that yes if people receive these articles of clothing it is less they will buy locally, but hopefully these shirts will be going to people who dont necessarily have a large effect on the economy to begin with. I would hope they are going to people who NEEED clothes not people who just want to go out and buy some. And yes we do have a market driven by consumerism but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Honestly, why is it so terrible for the NFL to send these shirts? I don’t think these imports would really have a significant effect on the economy.
It’s not just these shirts, World Vision gave out $251 million in GIK last year. And thousands of other nonprofits are also giving out GIK every year. So there is a cumulative impact. And for having given out 1 billion in GIK over the past 3 years, WV claims to have never done an overall evaluation of exactly what the impact – good or bad – actually is.
I wasn’t really thinking about the big picture initially, seeing that World Vision gave $251 million in GIK last year changes my original view. With World Vision giving that much along with the other nonprofits and whoever else may be contributing, it makes me realize that yes, it would undoubtedly be affecting their local economy. I also think in that World Vision should most definitely have an evaluation of exactly where there GIK are going and how they are affecting the places to which they are sent. The impact is much bigger than i first thought, especially for countries who may be underdeveloped that much USD would have an even greater impact on the local economy.