Aid and relief work finally got underway for victims of drought in the Horn of Africa at the beginning of this week.

This coincided with a week-long campaign by the Dutch United Relief Organisations (SHO) to persuade the Dutch to donate funds for the latest disaster in Africa. But will they have any luck raising money? How willing are people in countries such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa to donate money for disaster relief in the Horn of Africa?

Boukje Stam of WWAV, a marketing and communications agency for the non-profit sector, says Dutch confidence in aid and development organisations has been seriously dented over the last 18 months; the global economic crisis and falling consumer spending have not helped fundraising but it's the huge salaries enjoyed by people working for some aid organisations and the money that has been misspent or simply gone missing that have caused people in the Netherlands to be rather more reluctant to give to charity.

Ms Stam: “It has been very damaging and also very difficult to put behind us. We saw that during the fundraising campaigns for Haiti, but also previously in Asia. Once the idea that money is being misspent develops, it spreads and does a great deal of damage. People become very sceptical."

Orphanage in Haiti
Ms Stam says it has caused a real sea change: “Over the past few years, support for small charities – usually single issue – has risen. After the Haitian earthquake, we saw a large number of people donating money, but they did it through someone who was running an orphanage."

However, there is a discrepancy between a general belief in developmental aid and a willingness to donate money to specific emergency relief appeals, such as the current appeal for drought victims in the Horn of Africa.

She continues: “when people see just how bad it is in Africa, then they give generously. People are more than willing to give to disaster relief appeals; that's been more than apparent over the past few years."

Front-page news
Theo Schuyt, a professor of philanthropy and sponsoring, agrees with Ms Stam; he says the Dutch are very willing to give to charity, but the amount of money raised is dependent on a number of factors. The amount of media attention is crucial; is it front-page news? Are there photographs? The appeal also has to be connected with a natural disaster and have nothing to do with war or violent conflicts. It also has to be easy to donate and it helps if people are directly involved: “if people start collecting money for Africa themselves, for example setting up a collection box at a sports club, then the willingness to donate rises."

Opening the wallet
Professor Schuyt has observed that despite their growing scepticism, the Dutch are still very willing to open their wallets: “Globally speaking, there are just two countries where it is actually known how much people donate, that’s us and the USA. We’ve been surveying the nation’s charitable donation habits for the last 15 years but the US has been doing it for the last 50 years. Here in the Netherlands - in addition to our extremely high taxes when compared to the US - charitable donations make up almost 1% of GDP. Last year that amounted to almost €4.7 billion. In the US, charitable donations account for 2 percent of GDP.

By comparison, charitable donations by people in emerging economies, such as India and Brazil, lag far behind. The wealthy middle classes in the emerging economies are increasingly able and willing to give to charity. While that is also true for South Africa, the rest of the continent still has too many problems to be able to give to others.

China's slow reaction
China has vast and diverse economic interests spread across Africa but was slow to react to the call for emergency aid. Beijing did however announce on Friday that it will provide a total of 90 million yuan (9.7 million euro) worth of emergency food assistance to the Horn of Africa.

(jric/imm)