Comments on: Philanthropy in Development: Undermining Democracy?

By: Democracy Works Foundation - POLICY BRIEF 25: THE POWER OF PHILANTHROPY TO BUILD RESILIENT CITIZENS, INSTITUTIONS & DEMOCRACIES

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 14:59:46 +0000

[…] (/2016/10/16/philanthropy-in-development-undermining-democracy/)Gara Lamarche (2014) Is Philanthropy Bad for Democracy? The Atlantic. October 30. […]

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By: John Ferrari

John Ferrari — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 16:09:05 +0000

Interesting article. If we lived in a perfect political world then the author would be spot on. However Washington and the states use handouts to help their political causes. Education is a perfect example. We should not need charter schools but we do. Charter Schools like Success Academy far outperform their public school piers. in a perfect world the public schools that compete with Charter would adopt Charter’s best practices. But they don’t. Why ? Mainly Unions and money. In NY State The Teachers union use their clout to help get their friends elected. Thus kids suffer.
The other thing that private philanthropy does is experiment. In government when it tries something new and doesn’t work out heads roll or politicians get elected out of office. In the real world organizations are always trying new things. Sometimes they work and other times they don”t. there is politics even in the NIH. How much money does the NIH give out to cure diabetes ? Not much especially when Diabetes consumes in some years 15 % of health cost. I guess i have seen to much in my 63 years to believe that the government would spend this money better then the current system. Democracy is messy and sometimes the Billionaires” foundations do a better job.

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By: Barbara Nost

Barbara Nost — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 15:06:26 +0000

Very interesting reading and confirming what one is not supposed to say amongst likeminded development professionals, as it seems almost inappropriate to say, particularly your statement “…..while financing the development of medicines is much needed, the philanthropic focus on specific diseases and medicines tends to set up disease-specific systems that compete for health workers and administrative talent, rather than strengthening underfunded national health systems in developing countries.” The emphasis of international funding bodies is not primary health care but where they think the money should go. Traveling across rural Africa and seeing people not even having access to the most inexpensive medicine is quite depressing.

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By: Alan Hirsch

Alan Hirsch — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 08:40:24 +0000

This is indeed an interesting and thought provoking post. As my graduate school receives funding from a foundation built on the profits of a duty-free business empire, these questions have bugged me. This philanthropist’s values generally align with ours, though many wouldn’t, and we wouldn’t take money from such. I have been struck at the great care with which this foundation has developed programmes and its very steady and coherent focus on inequality issues. In contrast, I recall the frustrations regularly experienced in dealing with the national bilateral agency for the country in which this foundation is based. In principle I agree with the author: pay you taxes and let the peoples’ governments allocate funds to worthy causes and projects. In practice, it’s great working with a smart and caring foundation.

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By: David Chester

David Chester — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 08:34:09 +0000

Remember the Chinese story of teaching a man to fish being better than providing him with a fish supper?

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By: davidmfields

davidmfields — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 03:44:16 +0000

Nice post. With respect to this, an interesting study would be to extend Dormhoff’s social network research on elites and influence to the intricacies of philanthropy and development.

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