Having a detailed and auditable report of how money is being used is really helpful for creating the understanding you are talking about. That is what accounting is for and why it is so essential to modern life.

The site is obviously just an advertisement for a weird camera surveillance system, but the concern about incomplete accounting is very real. In many places one might want to contribute to non-profit efforts, IRS information isn't even available. In my work in Ecuador, I have seen a lot of fraud, and half-baked charities. Some rich NGOs sometimes walk in on some field trip that donors have paid for, make some statements about all they are going to do and disappear without follow-up. Basically they are just tourists on a free vacation taking publicity photos. There is a specific organization that comes down to build environmentally safe toilets. Not only are these built by young middle class volunteers that know nothing about building anything but their CVs, the communities they are helping don't even need new toilets. The building supplies tend to be repurposed after the volunteers are gone, every single year. I'd like to know if I paid for that. There are seeds of merit in the program, but also unnecessary waste.

Despite negative examples, there are many worthy things that are done, and could be done in the region. Northern money can go very far in the areas I work. It can do a lot to not just improve but transform people's lives. So you suggest that an answer to money misuse is to have personal experience with any organization you donate to. How many people who have the money are going to spend any real time in Amazonian Ecuador? They aren't there now. What is going to change? Since there are few people with money who can be personally involved, does that mean that no effort should be made to better people's lives there? Obviously, that is what accounting is for. I think the article is absolutely right about that. I find their solution to be creepy and invasive. Maybe just having better auditing and reporting standards makes more sense than pointing cameras at hospital patients, but what do I know?