alt Hacker NewsEven donations to organisations such as UNICEF often end up in the wrong hands.
Lets go for the optimistic scenario in which UNICEF will only take a very small portion for the "processing" and really deliver lets say food and medical supplies to the region. Those warloard will simply come and take it away from those citizens and provide to their armies. Theres nothing those citizens can do against it.
Do i wish it would be different? Absolutely. But sadly the world doesn't work as i would wish it to.
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I'm a member of an organization that collects money for Sudanese soup kitchens and hospitals in affected areas (https://sound-of-sudan.org/) , and I know a few other organizations that indirectly support such campaigns (e.g. https://sudfa-media.com/). Being personally acquainted with people, who spend much of their time, energy and last-but-not-least their own money on such activities, your claim makes me slightly angry.
> such regions the most money will be "lost" halfway
Please elaborate and don't lump all "regions" in with each other. My personal impression is that the combination of the community kitchen movement (which has its roots in the failed Sudanese revolution) and money transfers to mobile phones makes it relatively transparent where one's money goes and what it achieves. I'm not in the US, but I have no doubt that money donated to an organization like the Sudanese American Medical Association (https://sama-sd.org/about-us/finances/) largely reaches the people that need it.
> Those warloard will simply come and take it away from those citizens and provide to their armies.
I can assure you none of use would send money to hospitals or community kitchens, if this was likely to happen. What makes you think so?
I'm not sure where you get your assumptions from, but UNICEF works in camps and outposts that people come to, often in safer areas to treat refugees and establish aid stations. They don't catapult money/food/water into warring nations and call it a wash.
UNICEF also works on a permissioned basis: They wait until they are asked, and so they often work in countries neighboring crisis centers, where it is much safer anyway. They are constantly negotiating to be "asked", yes, but this is through diplomatic ties. UNICEF works with refugees mostly, not in war zones. For famine/disease intervention, they are at ground zero, but again with permission.
And UNICEF's overhead is low - they are efficient, considering they sometimes have to establish, e.g., their own refueling station networks, cold storage logistics, flight controllers, etc. Often, powerful industrialists in the target nations provide significant help - or at least I know of one case of this.
Here's a good (not perfect) talk on the issue: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_abou...
I'm close to UNICEF, or was, so I got sneak peaks into some of the problems they deal with. I assure you, "processing" is not a revenue stream for them.
You're thinking of the breast cancer scams. UNICEF is not a charity, they're a logistics organization with nation-state level resources. When Amazon can do it cheaper - they use Amazon. No organization is perfect, but this one is good.