Are charities that effective?

You can give a starving man a fish, which will help him survive for a day or two, or you can teach that man how to fish, then he will be set for life.

While they are not the best solution, those people still need help, even if it's short term. A long term solution would be building schools, helping a 3d world country establish good infrastructure, industry etc. That of course is only possible in a perfect world, where countries help each other, but alas we live in a dog eat dog world.

 

so, you think we should all be pissing on ethiopia?

 

That's what a fair amount of charities such as Oxfam, Red Cross and Doctor's Without Frontiers do. However they are doing it in massive countries with less funding than said countries' government (who are doing sod all in this regard) so of course they aren't going to make a big splash on the news but in their own small quiet way they do help people.
Then again I may be slightly biased because I volunteer for Oxfam.

 

AskWazzup thinks we should all be pissing on each other. Seriously though, brandonhart61 does have a point. Many charities are sincere in their efforts, but they do not have the resources required to have a lasting effect on a global scale. While it may be practical on a regional scale to concentrate efforts on a smaller area to make those people more self sufficient, that would mean abandoning needy people throughout the rest of the world to help that smaller area. Neither option is ideal.

 

I'd hate to sound like an advertize, but there is and organization that helps former trafficked women in India get the help they need. They even self publish a magazine in case you wanna see how they are doing

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2011/06/201162081055517275.html

I'd suggest giving money to them

 

There are websites like Charity Navigator (though this only analyzes American charities) that will give a break down of where your donations go, and overall assessment of the effectiveness of the organization. You should do research into any charity before donating.

But anyway, I think it's been said: there is really only so much a group can do. Doesn't mean to stop being charitable. And it is stupid to say that charities don't have any success; there are lives and situations being improved. It's unrealistic to think that the problems of the world could entirely be fixed, especially just through donations and in, as you have suggested, 50 years.

 

I always doubt if the money go to the right hands. After all, you never know if you payed for a $100 lunch, or helped starving African kids.

 

And how do you propose to force many charities to focus on just one country? Did you consider the side-effect of neglecting other areas?

 

Implying any help given to 3rd world countries does not end up in the hands of warlords.

 

In my experience, disaster relief charities are invaluable in situations of, well, disaster. On the other hand, development charities (NGO's) are very hit and miss (mostly miss).

 

Plenty of charities do focus on building infrastructure by education people that live there. That's the entire point of things like microcredit loans.

 

For every NGO that builds stuff there are at least a dozen that organize worthless seminars and shit like that.

 

that's a waste of good piss

 

This is called the Nirvana fallacy OP.

It's like saying, "Lol, you gave a sandwich to a homeless man? Yeah, that's doing a lot to stop world hunger."

It's basically when you dismiss anything in the real world because you're comparing it to an unrealistic, perfect ideal to which it pales in comparison. It's a problem because it keeps us from getting anything fucking done.

To quote Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

 

You haven't really answered my questions. You're repeating what you already said.

 

That's a pretty bullshit website though.

Red Cross gets the highest rating available? What?

 

The Red Cross has always had a bad reputation going back at least as far as WW2. People working for the Red Cross had a tendancy to keep packages that didn't belong to them.