How can we best help people?

That is the main question that I ask myself when I consider the needs around the world and the actions of humanitarian aid.  I think that at this point everyone knows that we cannot willy nilly do humanitarian aid.  There needs to be a strategy.  There needs to be a plan.  There needs to be a reason behind the things that we do, the resources that we use, the manpower that we utilize, and the money that we spend.  And all of this needs to revolve around one simple question: How can we best help people?

I would like to offer a simple and yet strategic way to best help people: simplifying humanitarian aid down to two specific forms of aid.  We need to re-think “short-term” and “long-term” forms of aid.  We need to change them to be more specific, more strategic, and more accurate.  Here are the two forms of aid that we should be focusing upon: Desperate and End.

Desperate-term. This form of aid is extremely similar to short term.  This is the type of aid reserved for people who are in desperate situations.  This is the aid that people need or else they will die or suffer or continue to live in extreme oppression.  This aid is the type of aid that needs no thinking.  It doesn’t matter where it comes from or who gives it or anything.  People need help.  They need it now.  And those who have the ability to help – they have to help.  This is desperate term aid.

End-term. Now end-term aid is a lot different than long-term aid.  End-term aid is doing things that are going to literally end these problems.  That means we need to do big things, macro things.  End-term aid revolves around changing the context so that these problems fully end.  There is a lot more to say about this type of aid, as it is a relatively new idea.  But end-term aid is all about ending these problems.

And those are the two places where we need to focus.  Help people today.  Help people forever.  And that is all we need to be doing in order to give people the best help possible.

Are you ready?

Let’s go.

I recently returned from a mission trip to Nicaragua and was reminded again of something that has been on my mind a lot lately.  I quite simply can’t escape it.  Basically, it is the concept that in order to truly end the effects of extreme poverty, the entire context needs to be changed.

Working in some of the small, poor neighborhoods in Nicaragua, I was really struck again by the thought that nothing our group did would really change things.  I mean, we definitely helped some kids and some families.  But tomorrow morning, they will still wake up in their same context of poverty: terrible local economy, no good jobs, limited education, terrible infrastructure, etc.  No matter what good things people can do to help them in the short-term (which is still a vital need), it does not change the context.  Today, tomorrow, and twenty years from now they will still be living in poverty because their context is poverty.

So I keep coming back to this question: “What is the best thing that we can do to help those living in poverty?”

I believe the answer is this: Change the context.

We have to find ways to change the entire context if people are going to be put in the best position to succeed and not suffer.  This can be accomplished in a myriad of ways including establishing up-to-date infrastructure and communication abilities, focusing on assets and natural resources, maximizing the macro-economy, and several other things.  These things are not as tangible or immediate as short-term aid or some of the other popular forms of aid used today, but they are much more effective in the long-run.

Really, I think that it all comes down to this: Changing the context for people living in poverty is the best thing that we can do to help those living in poverty.