Nancy, I’m not an expert in this field, you’re absolutely right and a lot of commentary in this area, including mine, needs more rigour.

But I think the area that we do understand well and can comment on is the effect of certain types of messages on public perceptions and behaviours.

It is clear, when we do examine this effect, that the messages are not leading towards a better understanding of the picture that you illustrate or more progressive behaviours.

I tried to make the distinction between emergency aid and development, but that wasn’t clear, I agree, and this is a key distinction.

There’s no doubt that disasters need emotive appeals and for the public to give “immediately and generously”, as you say. But most of the emotive Christmas appeals this year, and many others, are NOT connected to emergency relief, but to the general, ongoing levels of African need.

That this distinction has blurred into one — and that, despite trying, I didn’t extricate the two clearly — is, at least in part, a symptom of the way that this work is articulated through mass public campaigns — not just through more subtle messages that come through social media feeds to members and supporters.

Do people understand the distinction that you highlight? If not, should we be doing more to talk about the two types of intervention differently? Wouldn’t it make your job easier if there were higher levels of understanding of this distinction?

And you seem to have missed the point about how this kind of advertising fuels outdated popular understanding of Africa. Your point about adult misunderstandings seems to agree with that point? Wouldn’t you rather that public campaigns increased understanding of the issues you’re working on?

Its a very live debate and one that we should all be having.

There was a similar article (more thorough) in the Spectator:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/7652098/big-charity.thtml

One particularly interesting section:

“Aid workers know they are not saints; privately, they admit the shortcomings of their trade. They accept that billions have been wasted on failed ideas and flawed projects, and acknowledge that huge sums still go missing or are misspent. These concerns find increasingly strong echoes across the developing world. A swelling chorus of economists, politicians and pundits argue that western aid policies are patronising, destructive and outdated.”

http://www.psfk.com/2011/12/gaming-for-good-concepts-to-support-the-climate-reality-group.html

But none of them look remotely fun!

Many of our workshop attendees felt that the Commonwealth Games was a better model in this way.

From my part though, the paralympics affords an opportunity to influence sport at the grass roots level — this is where it makes a difference. The person who uses a wheelchair being paired with an able bodied person in a tennis match because they are of the same tennis ability, the person with an intellectual disability playing football with his peers because he has the same football ability as boys of similar age to him, the ability to use adapted equipment to allow the life of a lawn bowler to be extended, well after arthritis would have stolen the opportunity to bowl… and for all these participants to be accepted, given the opportunity and embraced.

It’s not about segregation in sport, but aspiration! And this aspiration, I believe, floats down to the grass roots level, making inclusion more attractive and possible.

I am very much looking forward to many more of your posts provoking me to rethink what I thought I already knew…

http://www.seeafricadifferently.com is attempting to change people’s perceptions of Africa — focusing on good news stories from the continent. I hope to see sites like http://www.kiva.org increasingly engage a new generation of givers in the UK to be part of a positive solution to poverty rather than only guilt-giving to short term disaster relieve appeals.