By Adam Andrews, Amanda Ng and Harshvardhan Singh
Existing political conflicts and corruption continue to impede foreign aid provision, creating a huge difficulty for humanitarian organizations to intervene.
ZOA International disaster response director Geoff Andrews said as civil conflicts continued, conditions within refugee camps became more permanent.
With restricted movement and opportunity, communities develop more dependency on food aid and yields potential to prolong the crisis.
Global poverty: 360° interactive map and story experience
"It's near impossible to get food to some places as you have to cross multiple militarized lines," Mr Andrews said.
“There is a possibility for either those who deliver such aid to be killed, or that the food will be stolen by the armed forces.”
Mr Andrews said international security and political bodies, such as the United Nations, failed to seek conflict resolution during the poverty crisis.
“Civil wars create huge difficulty for organisations to intervene, as it is not clear who is on what side,” he said.
However, while political conflict remains an issue to be resolved to ease the flow of foreign aid, not all organisations realise this to be the biggest issue.
Global poverty: 360° interactive map and story experience
Travis Benson*, spokesperson of Burundi Aid, said although food aid was delivered to conflicting nations and refugee camps, it was often stolen by the government to support its own people.
“The Burundi government neglect those they dislike and support those who stand with them in conflict,” he said.
“This industry is a dog fight for funding and negotiation, and 90 per cent of the time we are dealing with completely broken political and social circumstances.”
Mr Benson said the stranglehold of corrupt governing made it difficult to get food to those who desperately needed it without the government siphoning the supplies.
“The idea of foreign aid is to construct a stronger nation state, but with the level of corruption that exists within the government here, it is very hard to operate," Mr Benson said.
"However, even some of the major NGO's have extreme channels of corruption running through them.”
Oxfam's United States Food Aid report states that the recent reforms of US. food aid policies have often focused on current programs’ inefficiencies, unnecessary taxpayer costs, and subsidies to narrow special interests, such as the shipping industry.
These costs have prompted a re-evaluation of the human impact of wasteful regulations.
Mr Andrews said to move forward with foreign aid, the western values of financial wealth could not be applied to nations in such squalor.
Global poverty: 360° interactive map and story experience
“They need a cohesive community, not individual wealth.”
*Not his real name
