News Update

People tend to be interested in matters that concern them and when I read whatever news source I can get my hands on I am no different. When I receive BusinessWeek I still scour it for articles on energy and investment banking but I’m also branching out into being excited about reading up on Latin America, development and NGOs, and socially conscious whatever it may be. Quite thankfully, all volunteers receive copies of Newsweek so we can stay semi-up-to-date on world issues. I read all the articles on the 2008 presidential race and business articles, but I struggle to get through the world affairs articles (unless they have to do with Latin America or China). I don’t know why, but international politics doesn’t interest me all that much. It’s one of those topics that I wish I were more knowledgeable on and more interested in, but I’m just not. An interesting article I did read lately deals with private foreign-aid providers. At first I thought it was kind of an oxymoron, USAID contracting out some development project to a private company instead of NGO…but then after reading the article I couldn’t decide which side I agree with. The argument to use private firms is that they can get the job to build x number of schools or y road connecting point A to point B done more efficiently (aka cheaper!) than an NGO can. But in reality the companies are only better at big infrastructure projects like bridges because of their expertise while they aren’t as good at the smaller projects that require knowledge and trust of the community that they’re working in. A PCV would side with the NGOs in the belief that you really need community support to make an aid project successful (and the fact that they say they waste less money in the levels of bureaucracy when they contract the jobs out because they have offices located in the communities) but my capitalistic way of thinking says that if it makes economic sense to use private companies for aid projects they should go ahead and use them. After all, in my short time here in Bolivia I’ve seen and heard of plenty unsuccessful projects executed by NGOs that are supposed to be better at development projects that actually make a difference. And so the debate continues…