Time and Tide Waits for No Man

Marooned on the Holy Island Causeway

Please click on this link to enjoy the full video.

If there is one thing in Northumberland that reminds me of parallels in Cambodia it is the Holy Island crossing, where fools never cease to try beating the tide and end up marooned in mid-sea.  Even a Buddhist monk in this video defies his Karma as if to allow me to make my connection here with Cambodia.

MFI micro-credit can increase poverty, not help to solve it.

I have written the contents of this blog for the World Bank's Inspection Panel. They contacted me, to my surprise, in response to several of my Twitter postings where I complained about the World Bank's inaction. I am very pleased that they did. Most Tweets were in relation to the treatment of community activist Tep Vanny whose land disputes should have been resolved after an Inspection Panel's previous report. In fact she continued to be detained by authorities for maintaining her community's protest. Next to her case I criticized the way Micro-Finance Institutions were operating in Cambodia in increasing rather than alleviating poverty: “MFI's have lost their way”. By chance our journalist colleague David Hutt released an article this week making much the same points.

August 2019 - please see in-depth analysis by LICADHO on how and why MFI malpractice is posing a danger to so many poor Cambodians. The issue aroused more controversy in July 2020 when Acleda Bank and the Khmer Times weighed-in. (See updates below)

Cambodia Election 2018: Neither Free nor Fair nor Credible.

Takhmau Cambodia the CPP Election Post nearest our house. Please note the Church poster. I tweeted that what it depicted might be apt for what CPP did to the Opposition CNRP party but had they overlooked that after the crucification came the resurrection?

For more photographs capturing the "atmosphere" please visit John Brown's album.

Cambodia in the modern era, since the Paris Peace Accords of 1991, and its subsequent new democratic constitution, has had national elections every five years since 1993 as well as local commune elections. Until the National Assembly election in July 2018, every election was fought competitively - if not fairly - by the ruling and opposition parties with the processes subjected to scrutiny by reputable international election observers.

This year, however, the only real challenging opposition party, was dissolved and banned from participating, accused by the ruling party of fomenting a colour revolution to overthrow it and risking a return to conflict.

Malfeasance in Foreign Aid: the Essay

Some images first to set the scene:

Link to Tweet and full article in DEVEX by Sophie Edwards.
My comment at the end of the article:

Forward:

This piece is about a definition submitted to Wikipedia I hope to add to Foreign Aid literature so that misconduct whenever it occurs is not kept being seen in isolation but part of a wider phenomenon peculiar to the sector, with circumstances creating a culture that tolerates it instead of deterring it.

As well as "Malfeasance in Foreign Aid", there are three closely-related pages:

Abuse of Power

Malfeasance in Office

Development Aid - section on Corruption

My suggestions for amendments here can be found below "Notes".

There is some excellent work done by Oliver May, formerly of OXFAM, including an excellent tool-kit that should be used extensively by all charities and NGOs operating abroad.

.....ooo0ooo.....

Malfeasance in Foreign Aid

Malfeasance  [1] in Foreign Aid [2] or Development Aid [3] is wrongdoing by an officer or agent of an organisation, public or private, not-for-profit or commercial, engaged in the administration and arrangement of funds and assets given for the relief and development of people in need usually in a “developing” or “least developed country”. [4].  Malfeasance also occurs in Humanitarian Aid. [5] (Old English includes the word "misfeasance".)

Malfeasance in Foreign Aid has existed for many years, reported as far back as 2002 [6] and before, but has become more well-known after 2017 because of serious cases rapidly receiving widespread attention in mainstream and social media.

Children know best!

Article for St Helena Independent - to be published.

Thea surprised us all.  For a start she was a girl [1].  She was neither the oldest nor the brightest. She was one of the more disabled in our troupe of mixed-ability children.  She had been reluctant to join.  She was shy.  Yet there was no mistaking it.  Thea (short for Sokunthea) had emerged as their leader.  All the children were poor [2].  That’s why they were with us.  They just wanted to be like “normal” children [3] able to learn Computing and English, a small element in our project for mainly poor and disabled people with two main components. One was to improve livelihoods. The other “was to do something about their low status”.

Going up in the world!

Street 251 Takhmau - our new concrete road elevated 1 metre above surrounding land

The idea behind this blog had been in my mind for a long time.  Apart from the sad case of the Boeung Kak Lake community who had lost their homes, and Phnom Penh city a wonderful amenity, the way we have been treated in Takhmau illustrates just what keeps going wrong.  There is a dedicated up-to-date blog about our own case.

May 2019 - Robin Spiess in the SE Asia Globe has written a great relevant article about Takhmau.

Going up in the world?  Or from one extreme to the other?

A blog continuing the theme of comparing and contrasting Northumberland (UK) with Cambodia, and how things can be done better, lessons learned, if there is the good will to do so.

Planning permission to build or change land use in the United Kingdom is often a long-winded process, if for good reasons.  In Cambodia it’s the exact opposite and for reasons known only to a select few.

When the cat's away the mouse will play

The Governing Council of a local Cambodian NGO, elected representatives of community self-help groups of disabled people, who pursued a complaint against a UK charity 2008-13 on behalf of their members, 800 families in Tuok Phos District, Kampong Chhnang province, Cambodia. Photograph John Lowrie.

Foreword:

Public life comes under scrutiny and fire whenever someone falls from expected standards. In developed democracies where there is good knowledge of standards, usually people falling well-short - and superiors responsible for them - can be held to account. Those are the advantages of an educated population; a system of checks and balances; rule of law and a free press to try to bring about accountability.
  

When it comes to “#foreignaid” and charities operating abroad, such as OXFAM and Save the Children who were recently caught up in scandals, those advantages don't usually exist. It's where all kinds of malfeasance can occur.

Fascinating Back Streets and Coal-Shed Doors

Alnwick – one of the backstreets we would use often as children. Today you don't see children playing there. The old tin dustbins are gone, replaced by wheelie-bins but one family is still using the old-fashioned clothes- line instead of the modern  indoor electric clothes-drier.  It was fun to cycle or run through all washing lines pegged with clothes hung out to dry to the shouts of many a woman upset we were soiling her washing.  Quite often soot from chimneys did a better job than us.  This picture was taken from beside the once railway line near Alnwick Station, now housing Barter Books - I write about them and their "Keep Calm and Carry On" fame here.

Despite suffering a pique of jealousy – because a friend got there before me – I want to relate my fascination with back streets. I was pipped at the post to extol the virtues of the “The Run” in Jamestown Saint Helena. [See poem below] It must, however, be one of the best, possibly the very best of back alleyways in the world.  I have come across a few other candidates for the title.  Some like the ones I talk about here in Alnwick, Northumberland, qualify because of their past glory, hence this blog. Others like our current street in Takhmau, Cambodia, make the list because in many respects they are today like others were in the [good] old days.

"Your mission is over. You go!"

The fine levied on me for overstaying my visa Cambodia

"Your mission is over. You go!"

Those were not the words anyone would want said to them after 20 years of service, half an entire working professional career in Cambodia, but those were the final words in impeccable English delivered by the grim-faced Immigration Official, a senior uniformed and well-decorated Police Chief, at Phnom Penh Airport on 23 February 2018.  I had to pay my fine of US$220 to him for the privilege too.  That is more than a week's of my UK state pension, the source of income that enables me to continue to give voluntary support to causes in Cambodia.