By Titilope F. Ajayi, University of Ghana – Legon
The CIHA Blog makes a statement on the latest NGO controversy in Ghana (Read the full news piece here).
In a scandal that defies logic on multiple levels, at least 130 young Spanish volunteers aged 16 to 24 were evacuated from Ghana after discovering that an aid project that they had signed up for was a scam. In the absence of concrete facts, any detailed discussion is necessarily speculative, but the situation nevertheless raises several important points/questions. First is Africa’s historic lure as a dumping grounds for a jumbled assortment of global “aid”. Wide-eyed, impoverished dark-skinned children have long stirred the world’s loins to tackle poverty, but not always for good. The Yes We Help case, like the Oxfam debacle, is a clear illustration of just how vulnerable humanitarianism is to hijack by scoundrels looking to make a dirty profit.
That social media was the chosen means to propagate images of the fictitious aid project exposes how easily the Internet can be manipulated to distort reality using false pictorial depictions of life in faraway places. It also makes clear the opportunities that cyberspace does not offer for verifying grandiose claims, particularly by so-called digital celebrities.
If one can get past the incredulity of so many young Europeans being willing to pay 850 euros (almost USD 1000) per head and travel so far without extensive verification, there is no denying the geopolitics of global humanitarianism at play in the apparent ease with which they journeyed with evidently little scrutiny of their prospective activities , where clearly the reverse would not be as straightforward.
The news has received little media attention and public engagement in Ghana, a heated political space confronting its share of a global NGO legitimacy crisis. Even so, the scandal highlights the very loose regulatory framework for NGOs and transnational humanitarianism more broadly in Ghana and globally and the lack of dedicated structures to respond to a scandal of this nature.
About the Author
Titilope F. Ajayi is an independent editor, writer, and civil society and gender and security scholar. Currently a PhD student of international affairs at the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy, University of Ghana, Legon, Titilope coordinates the portal, http://www.doingaphdinafrica.com/ and writes periodically for the Nonprofit Quarterly and CIHA Blog. She is also a 2017/8 Social Science Research Council Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa Doctoral Fellow. For more, follow her on Twitter: @MataLope