Eyes On The Prize

Some of you know that I spent a year in Cairo, where I took a class from Barbara Harrell-Bond, a dedicated advocate for refugees with a skeptical attitude on the efficacy of UNHCR and other large aid organizations. Just a few days ago, William Dowell of the Global Post wrote on UNHCR's continuing troubles, including this bit:

In a landmark study of the UNHCR’s organizational culture released shortly after Guterres became High Commissioner in 2005, an external consultant, Barbara Wigley, notes that the UNHCR has two basic objectives: the protection of refugees, and the protection of its own existence. It follows that as money becomes tighter and staffers face uncertainty about their own future; the instinct for self-preservation becomes more intense.

Two points on this. First, stuff like this is why criticisms of aid have some traction and why we need to be responsible with who we give to. In this article, we learn, for example, that UNHCR is paying $30 million a year to "staff in between assignments"—basically dead weight that bureaucratic rules prevent them from firing. Second, it is always good to remember that no organization, no church, is immune to the tendency toward an introverted inertia. Of PIH, we learn that as it grew, it "was trying to accommodate newcomers, trying ... to 'normalize' the experience ... it was okay to have children, to go home some days at five o'clock, to take a vacation" (p. 243). One of the things I love about Mountains, though, is that it reminds me that monomaniacal pursuit is a frequently developed theme in the Bible. Self-preservation, on the other hand, does not get such a ringing endorsement. I do not know at what point Jesus' exhortations to his followers become unworkable at a systemic scale, so I'm not sure this is really good operating advice for an international bureaucracy.

Anyway, I guess my next point will be on hypocrisy and unironic bluster. What say you?