International Aid Quotes

“Love first; ask questions later.”
― Jeremy Courtney, Preemptive Love: Pursuing Peace One Heart at a Time

“The aid agencies are not run by fools. they are full of intelligent people severely constrained by what public opinion permits.”
― Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

“The key obstacle to reforming aid is public opinion.. Public opinion drives them into the "I care" photo opportunities that dominate aid.”
― Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

“Most of the institutions that come in to offer help after disaster don't have the resources to provide concrete help. . . . Donor communities invest billions funding peace talks and disarmament. Then they stop. The most important part of postwar help is missing: providing basic social services to people. Not having those resources might have been a reason men went to war in the first place; they crossed a border and joined an armed group because they didn't have jobs. In Liberia right now, there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people, and they're ready-made mercenaries for wars in West Africa. You'd think the international community would be sensible enough to know they should work to change this. But they aren't.”
― Leymah Gbowee, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War

“The aid program that I am suggesting must not be used by the wealthy nations as a surreptitious means to control the poor nations. Such an approach would lead to a new form of paternalism and a neocolonialism which no self-respecting nation could accept. Ultimately, foreign aid programs must be motivated by a compassionate and committed effort to wipe poverty, ignorance and disease from the face of the earth. Money devoid of genuine empathy is like salt devoid of savor, good for nothing except to be trodden under foot of men.

The West must enter into the program with humility and penitence and a sober realization that everything will not always “go our way.” It cannot be forgotten that the Western powers were but yesterday the colonial masters. The house of the West is far from in order, and its hands are far from clean.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

“It strikes me as unfortunate that this approach - affording the same dignity to and investing in the same quality for a poor child as you would for your own - is so often received as provocative.”
― Jacob Lief

“Indefinite dependency on aid has gradually become the default long-term response to refugees.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“The current system for refugees who remain in their region of origin is a disaster. It is premised upon an almost exclusively 'humanitarian' response. A system designed for the emergency phase - to offer an immediate lifeline - ends up enduring year after year, sometimes decade after decade. External provision of food, clothing, and shelter is absolutely essential in the aftermath of having to run for your life. But over time, if it is provided as a substitute for access to jobs, education, and other opportunities, humanitarian aid soon undermines human dignity and autonomy.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System