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Nadine
Cambodia, Aid Organizations and Corruption Rough Draft
New visitors to the Kingdom of Cambodia are often surprised by the disproportionate amount of luxury sport utility vehicles clogging the busy streets of Phnom Penh and parked in front of popular restaurants and bars. There are so many Range Rovers, Mercedes Benz SUVs, and Toyota Land Cruisers emblazoned with various Non-Government Organizations' insignia on the side panels. In addition the aid organizations' personnel live within extravagant walled villa compounds owned by wealthy locals. With 30% of population living below international poverty line of US$1.25 per day, these NGOs create a condescending image that reeks of European colonialism. Many Cambodians are desperately poor and in need of assistance. They already have to deal with corrupt government officials who siphon off aid funds from foreign governments and private associations, so their situation don't deserve to be further exploited by expatriates wasting well-intentioned donated currency. With over 2000 non-government aid agencies registered in Cambodia, it is unfortunate some of these organizations choose to operate with questionable expenditures, participate in deceitful practices, and overlook Cambodian authorities and their cronies' misappropriation of money, land and human rights abuses.
The large aid organizations headquartered in Phnom Penh appear to have lavish lifestyles with high salaries. The compensation packages and pay structures offered to NGO management and staff expatriates are inequitable to the local employees' salaries. According to a 2005 by Action Aid report, "In a single year, 700 top international consultants in Cambodia were paid an average of around $100,000. Their combined haul was roughly as much as the entire wage bill for 160,000 Cambodian civil servants" (Silverstein). The consultants' roles are varied; from providing logistics, project management, developing and writing new project proposals, creating internal processes and procedures, assisting with staff, management and administration issues, handling financial accounting, community development, and offering low cost water and sanitation solutions. With over twenty year history of consultancy work already done in Cambodia and a local infrastructure in place, many of these jobs can be entrusted to local employees who have the needed skills to complete the tasks.
Although there are many affordable accommodation options in Phnom Penh, many salaried NGO expatriate management and staff negotiate generous compensation packages which include spacious fully-staffed, French colonial mansions or luxury apartments. The area of high concentration of foreigners living in the capital, according to Craig Guthrie of Asia Times, is referred to as "NGO-ville" (Guthrie). These lifestyle choices contrast greatly with the aid organization volunteers; who after flying to Cambodia at their own expense, must scramble to find and pay for lodging, all for the privilege of working for free.
In addition to the glut of Mercedes, Land Rovers and Toyota high end vehicles driven by NGO expats, the streets are filled with even more Lexus SUVs- the preferred brand for the political elite and their affluent pals. All these types of luxury SUVs, as well as the mode of transportation for the common man, can be observed on Cambodia or Phnom Penh traffic videos on You Tube. Aid organizations claim they need these powerful vehicles to handle the rough terrain in the countryside, but most likely neither these SUVs nor their occupants, ever the leave the paved streets of Phnom Penh. The cost of importing each of these vehicles is prohibitively expensive, so the practical solution is to keep one four wheel drive auto instead of maintaining a whole fleet. As for ventures in the rural areas, there are SUV rental options available in the city and furthermore, in the remote sections of the country, cars cannot fit on the narrow tracks of land between fields which serve as local roads. There in the countryside, the only suitable types of conveyance are motorcycles or bicycles.
NGOs should be held accountability for their activities and the donor monies they receive, whether through self-regulation with a personal code of conduct and accountability practices manual which can be reviewed annually or through independent organizations such as INGO Accountability Charter and NGO Watch, a project of Global Governance Watch. According to Tim LaRocco from the Diplomat, in spite of the generosity of the NGOs, with high maintenance costs, salaries and benefits for the foreign workforce, the actual help has been limited to the poverty stricken people, (LaRocco). In order to maintain or regain their integrity, charities need to be responsible for the monies they manage. Large aid agencies can afford to enlist the help of the specialized audit associations and small NGOs can self-regulate with the help of One World trust, an independent charity that conducts research, develop s recommendations and advocates for reform to make policy and decision-making more accountable.
Other aid organizations in Cambodia deceive their donors and are driven by profit through various volunteer vacation schemes. Many so-called "voluntourism" vacation opportunities may not benefit the local communities but rather, after charging the volunteers $1,800 and more per week not including international airfare, these ventures enrich the tour operators or charities that are sponsoring the enterprise. Nick Walton from the South China Morning Post adds, "'There are a lot of groups that develop voluntourism projects not because there is a real need for the aid they are providing or because it's the best way to meet the actual need, but because they are attractive to donors" (Walton 5). Whether the "voluntourists" genuinely want to help others, are motivated by self-satisfaction or are looking to boost their resumes, many may arrive home with empty pockets and shattered dreams when they realize they could have provided more help by staying home and sending a monetary donation to one of the dozens of worthwhile charities such as KidsCare Cambodia, CHOICE Cambodia, Grace House Community Center, or People Improvement Organization which operate with little or no overhead.
Another negative aspect of volunteering is potential local workers become displaced to make room for the paying volunteers. Whether the tasks are building schools or teaching English, volunteering charities assign these tasks to foreign donors with no regard to ability. These same assignments are handed off week to week to new volunteers with the results of jobs poorly done. Money would be better spent hiring locals to do real work and earn wages. Schools will get completed, the students would benefit with teaching continuity and money stays in the local communities and eases the unemployment situation.
The fastest growing and most popular form of volunteering in Cambodia is orphanage tourism. It is highly lucrative for the orphanage directors and tour operators, and leads to the exploitation of the children and the tourists. According to a UNICEF report, while the number of orphans has decreased, the number of orphanages has increased from 153 to 269 in the past 5 years. Only twenty-one are state run; the rest are privately operated and since over 70% of the estimated 12,000 'orphans' have at least one living parent, orphanages should be considered the last resort (Country Statistics Cambodia). Some orphanages pay parents for "orphans" and other parents give up or rent out some of their children with the hopes, these orphans will have a better chance at achieving success. As reported by Monica Petrelli, a reporter from the Telegraph UK, "Unethical orphanages have recruited and even paid parents to give their children away. In other cases, children are rented for a short stay. The children are used to tug at the heartstring so tourists and volunteers, who are compelled to open up their hearts and wallets to help" (Pitrelli). These types of orphanages purposely keep the children in deplorable conditions with the hope the volunteers will feel compelled to provide even more donations when they arrive and survey the situation.
Tour operators set up volunteer opportunities and orphanage visits for their customers. With these volunteer tours, the customers pay the large fees before arrival, and then the tour operators and the chosen orphanages haggle over the money and accuse each other of pocketing the fees. Per Juliana Rhufus, an investigative journalist from Al Jeezera, Projects Abroad, the world's largest volunteering organization, places volunteers in orphanages in Cambodia without any vetting process, collects $1,945 fee per week for orphanage work, while only pass on $9 of the weekly fee to the orphanage (Ruhfus). This information is disputed by Projects Abroad, who claims to pay the orphanages $50 per month for each volunteer placement and now background checks are routinely run for volunteer projects involving children.
One of the most famous orphans, Maddox Jolie-Pitt, the son of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, has family in Cambodia and he along with his adopted family go to visit regularly. In addition, his new family set up and funds the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation which works on nature conservancy, wildlife conservation and humanitarian projects. Although this adoption worked out well in the end, in 2004 the adoption facilitator, Lauryn Galindo, pled guilty in federal court in Seattle to visa fraud, money laundering and currency structuring. She also acknowledged that some Cambodian children she had adopted out as orphans did, in fact, have one or more parents.
Another issue is although the actions of the Cambodian People's Party and their allies have contributed to Cambodia being listed among the top 20 corrupt countries in the world, NGOs should use their economic clout to hold Cambodia's politicians accountable for their illegal practices. Instead most of the international community is silent. Per Bert Hoak op-ed in Mekong.net, "Hiding under the argument that 'we don't get involved in politics' allows NGOs to continue on in the belief that they are helping the country to develop while ignoring the reality that there can be no true lasting development in a nation under the yoke of a despot" (Hoak). Although 50% of Cambodia's budget is dependent on foreign aid, the NGO community, with the exception of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Global Witness, ignore or indirectly contribute to Cambodian authorities land confiscation, human rights abuses and collection of bribes.
When international aid agencies do voice complaints or criticism of the Cambodia's regime, they find the government is hypersensitive and retaliation does follow. Global Witness, who has been a vocal critic of the Cambodian government's actions for several years, found their organization in 2007 banished from the Kingdom indefinitely and included threats of violence. Prime Minister Hun Sen's brother, a provincial governor and Forestry Minister, was quoted in a Cambodian newspaper as saying if anyone from Global Witness returned to Cambodia, he would "hit them until their heads are broken."(Cambodia), after they filed a report on illegal logging by the syndicate which includes members of the regime and the wealthy elite. GW was not intimidated and continued to file reports on Cambodian corruption in the allocation of Cambodia's natural resources in 2009 and another report in 2010 detailed how two senators monopolized the sand dredging business to Singapore.
Comically, the government has even chosen to devote a whole page on the Tourist Authority's website with four articles critical of aid organization. Here is an excerpt from one of the articles:
While accusing Cambodian government officials at all levels of being corrupt and making insinuations that the whole society is corrupt, one should take a look at the foreign NGO's who are based in Cambodia and for the matter, anywhere else in the world. They pay their local staff a pittance while they drive around in land cruisers and other SUV's, not respecting the law, not respecting the local culture and the people. Even their local employees have been thought this arrogance. It is normal to see vehicles with NGO plates running through traffic lights, park dangerously or haphazardly, the occupants behaving in a manner which is disrespectful to the Cambodians, live in luxury villas, spend a large portion of their budget on per diem expenses, living expenses and salaries and yet, churning out reports of reports of Government faults" (Lifestyle of the NGO).
The government officials are describing their own actions. They have chauffeurs who drive them around in their expensive Lexus vehicles with blacked out windows and government license plates. They power aggressively throughout the city on shopping excursions and frequent the same bars and restaurants as the NGOs. Also, they are the landlords and owners of the luxury villas rented to foreigners.
In spite of some poor representations of charity agencies, there are many other aid organizations, besides the ones already mentioned in this article, who work earnestly attacking the issues plaguing the impoverished Cambodian people. Large NGO's such as UNICEF and World Vision International focus on overwhelming tasks such as combating human trafficking and hunger and providing health and education services. UNICEF does great work around the world and sometime they are the first ones in to help. Sen, a guide/driver in Phnom Penh who unfortunately lost both his parents during the Pol Pot regime explained, "When we were starving, UNICEF was the only one who helped us. They gave us food, medicines and a place to live. They were the only ones" (Sen). With over 800 staff members addressing women and children sex workers and other forms of exploitative labor anti-trafficking issues, World Vision Cambodia is highly rated by Charity Watch, Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau. Some small grassroots organizations work directly with the local population in rural areas with little overhead, to supply desperately needed aid. According to Nick Walton, a small orphanage in Siem Reap, the Cambodian Poor Children's Support Organization, houses 25 children aged between three and sixteen relying on donations from volunteers. In addition CPCS0, sponsors 150 children with additional donated money and over 1,500 children and elderly in the surrounding communities are furnished with needed supplies (Walton 5). Another non-profit social enterprise, SeeBeyondBorders provides children in Cambodia with access to quality teaching and learning at school. They train Khmer primary teachers, develop school infrastructure and support local families trying to educate their children. In addition they provide meals and medications to the local population and assist landmine victims with new vocations. With 100% of the donation money used for the projects, SBB also welcomes volunteers to participate.
The Cambodian people have suffered the killing of one-quarter of the population during the Khmer Rouge regime, followed by the occupation of Vietnam, which resulted in an estimated five million land mines laid throughout the kingdom by the Khmer, Vietnamese, Communist insurgents and Cambodian forces. The somber reminders of the past atrocities are at the "killing fields" of Choeung Ek, the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide in Phnom Penh, and the landmine museum in Siem Reap. With over a 30 year history of conflict, most Cambodians have had to endure unfathomable hardships. In the end it is important to understand, despite the presence of questionable activities by adversaries, how much international aid is desperately needed to help uplift the Cambodian people's standard of living and to keep their sad past a distant memory.
Works Cited
"Cambodia." Global Witness.org, n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.
"Country Statistics Cambodia." UNICEF.org, n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.
"About Global Governance Watch" Global Governance Watch, n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012
Guthrie, Craig. "End of an NGO era in Cambodia." Asia Times Online, 14 Nov. 2008: n. pag.
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Sen. Personal interview. Dec. 2007
Hoak, Bert. "Thoughts on Foreign Aid." Mekong.net, 22 May 2008: n. pag. Web 28 Nov. 2012
LaRocco, Tim. "NGOs and Cambodia." The Diplomat, 14 Sep. 2011: n. pag. Web. 27 Nov. 2012
"Lifestyle of the NGO officials." Cambodia News. Preahvihearauthority, n.d. Web. 8
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Pitrelli, Monica. "Orphanage tourism: help or hindrance?" Telegraph.co.uk, 3 Feb. 2012: n. pag.
LexisNexis Academic. Web. 6 Nov. 2012.
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Web. 6 Nov. 2012.
Ruhfus, Juliana. "Cambodia's Orphan Business. Programmes People and Power. Al
Jeezera.com, 27 June 2012: n. pag. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.
"Silverstein, Ken. "Silence of the Lambs." Slate.com. Slate Magazine, 20 June 2011: n.pag. Web.
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Walton, Nick. "Take the higher road; Combining volunteer work with travel can be
enriching but there are caveats." South China Morning Post, 30 Oct. 2009, Features sec.:
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