Let me start by saying that I have met many brilliant people working in aid.
Spending time at the coalface of some of the world’s most desperate human situations is not easy. War. Disease. Rape. These are just some of the topics of your working week. Couple all that with the challenges of living thousands of miles from home, sometimes without the basic necessities of electricity, internet and security, and you’ll understand that it’s not a career path for those in search of an easy life.
But that’s no excuse for the extreme culture perpetuated by a small few within the industry. I spent almost two years in Africa’s aid capital, Addis Ababa and I saw how time and time again agencies turned a blind eye to hedonism and moral bankruptcy.
‘With legal prostitution, a party culture and plethora of development specialists, it was a perfect storm for revelry’
Dark side
Addis Ababa is a major hub for international aid. Ethiopia is second biggest receiver of UK and US aid expenditure as well as home to the Africa Union, the UN, and base for operations in more dangerous countries such as Sudan and Somalia.
It’s swarming with fusty diplomats, wide-eyed twenty-somethings and matter of fact country directors who manage the delivery of big-investment aid projects. Walk into one of the city’s major hotels and you’ll find it swarming with foreigners trying to solve some of the world’s most challenging issues.
But I quickly came across the city’s darker side. With legal prostitution, a party culture and plethora of development specialists, it was a perfect storm for revelry. Working near the red light district, I’d often see lone white men stumbling out of brothels at night.
There was one well-known club where foreign aid workers and businessmen would publicly pick up girls. With reliable drivers in short supply, a small group of taxis monopolised foreign business, carrying drunken, licentious men from brothels to orgy.
Widespread use of prostitutes
‘Top marks for hypocrisy to the aid worker who spends five days a week challenging the power structures that restrict women, and then spends the two remaining days trailing through the red light district’
Drivers (though they may have exaggerated the details) made it their business to retell the debauchery. I heard stories of senior aid workers and diplomats keeping prostitutes in separate apartments near the airport for late night ‘visits’ when passing through town. This was a salacious side to aid you never heard about at home. And one that was booming.
Top marks for hypocrisy to the aid worker who spends five days a week challenging the power structures that restrict women, and then spends the two remaining days trailing through the red light district, trousers down. The Oxfam scandal is remarkable only in that it was made public.
This is an industry where prostitution and seediness is the norm – everyone knows about it. An industry where predominantly white men laud power over women, with few consequences for the former, and a lack of opportunities for the latter. I heard rumours of abuse in major institutions but still aid agencies continually failed to acknowledge that there was a problem, in fact, as we’ve seen, some of their leadership exacerbated it. I’m sure there are panicked PR teams in almost every major NGO right now. And so there should be.
The Oxfam crisis serves as a warning to the entire aid industry of what happens when you fail to reform. We live in unforgiving times. An anti-aid collective on the right of politics waits in the wings for the next big cockup. Unless the sector changes they’ll continue, with reason, to tear the industry to shreds. The entire existence of the sector depends on its ability to respond and reform.
Aid is at a nadir. The Oxfam incident is symptomatic of a wider industry malaise that has long gone ignored. It’s now up to the industry to respond.
Susannah is a media consultant who has led non-for-profit programs in Africa, Asia and Europe.
