Many of the NGOs have strict no-bribery policies, else they would not receive support from bodies like the EU (which is the biggest humanitarian donor on the planet).
In some cases the choice may be between "letting people starve" and "feeding people but the local warlord extracts some benefits" but these are rare and only the worst crisis contexts (think South Sudan, DRC).
that is not what happened for example in Gaza. UNRWA sent billions to Gaza where that aid was hijacked by HAMAS, and even when the aid was distributed to people outside of HAMAS, HAMAS directly controlled the distribution of that aid. And i don't see UN operating any different at the other places too.
Or like Rubio said:
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/10/24/unrwa-is-subsidiary-...
"U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) of being “a subsidiary of Hamas” "
Debates
Use of Hamas to undermine the Palestinian Authority
In an interview with Israeli journalist, Dan Margalit in December 2012, Netanyahu told Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Netanyahu also added that having two strong rivals, this would lessen pressure on him to negotiate towards a Palestinian state.[10] In an interview with the Israeli Army Radio in August 2019, Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001, said that Netanyahu's main strategy is to keep Hamas "alive and kicking" in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority, even at the expense of "abandoning the citizens [of the south]."[41] In an interview with Politico in 2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, "In the last 15 years, Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas", before adding that "Gaza was on the brink of collapse because they had no resources, they had no money, and the PA refused to give Hamas any money. Bibi saved them. Bibi made a deal with Qatar and they started to move millions and millions of dollars to Gaza."[42]
At a Likud party conference in 2019, Netanyahu said: "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas ... This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."[43][44] Netanyahu responded to the accusations of funding and strengthening Hamas by calling them "ridiculous".[45] In an interview with Time in 2024, he denied of giving support to Hamas and said that it was one of "many misquotes" attributed to him.[46]
Gershon Hacohen, former commander of the 7th Armored Brigade and an associate of Netanyahu, said in 2019 in an interview: "Netanyahu's strategy is to prevent the option of two states, so he is turning Hamas into his closest partner. Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, it's an ally."[47][48] Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right lawmaker and finance minister under the Netanyahu government, called the Palestinian Authority a "burden" and Hamas an "asset".[49][50] Allegations of Israeli support for the creation of Hamas
Yuval Diskin, former director of Shin Bet from 2005 to 2011, told Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in 2013, that "if we look at it over the years, one of the main people contributing to Hamas's strengthening has been Bibi (Benjamin) Netanyahu, since his first term as prime minister."[41][51] In October 2023, former Intelligence Chief of Saudi Arabia, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, accused Israel of "funnelling Qatari money" to Hamas.[52]
On 19 January 2024, Reuters reported that Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, said while receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Valladolid that "Israel had financed the creation of Palestinian militant group Hamas, publicly contradicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has denied such allegations." and that "Borrell added the only peaceful solution included the creation of a Palestinian state. 'We only believe a two-state solution imposed from the outside would bring peace even though Israel insists on the negative,' he said."[53][54][55] Borrell also described Israel as having "created Hamas", but immediately continued saying that "yes, Hamas was financed by Israel to weaken the Palestinian Authority".[b]
Professor Avner Cohen, publicly acknowledged that "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation" and that Israel had "encouraged them as a counterweight to ... Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah."[61] David Hacham, who worked in Gaza as an Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military in the late 1980s and early 1990s stated, "When I look back at the chain of events, I think we made a mistake. But at the time, nobody thought about the possible results."[62] Similar statements have been made by Yasser Arafat. For example, in an interview with Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera in December 2001, he referred to Hamas as a "creature of Israel".[63][64] Use of Hamas as a tool to disengage from peace talks
Shlomo Brom [he], retired general and former deputy to Israel's national security adviser, believes that an empowered Hamas helps Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu avoid negotiating over a Palestinian state, suggesting that there is no viable partner for peace talks.[10]
The question here is who made Gazans prefer HAMAS over PA? And why would HAMAS and PA be enemies to each other instead of allies?
HAMAS mostly exists in Gaza.
Therefore UNRWA perhaps sustains HAMAS by delaying the indiscriminate mass murder of Gazans through manmade famine.
I don't really see how this would make UNRWA a subsidiary of HAMAS even if it happened to be true that the existence of HAMAS was predicated on the existence of UNRWA.
In practice, the only way to prevent this aid from reaching HAMAS is to prevent it from reaching anyone in Gaza.
>UNRWA sustains life in Gaza.
and that doesn't seem true to me. Looking at pre-war Gaza - it seems that the regular Gazans have existed on their own, not much affected by UNRWA. There were businesses, trade, construction, some worked in Israel. Look at pre-war satellite photos - how much solar panels were on roofs there. I remember some Gazans even started to appear here on HN. And there was HAMAS fed by UNRWA. Removing HAMAS from the equation, there pretty much wouldn't be a need for UNRWA.
Shouldn’t people stop helping further entrench these shady practices?
If Ugandan decision makers know the people will effectively always be underwritten to receive some bread and water… no matter what happens…
Then what exactly is stopping them from piling on more and more nonsense?
One example is the Canadian charity One4Another which performs surgeries to reverse some common birth defects in kids and babies in Uganda. They're not trying to feed the world, they're not interfering with the local economy; in fact they're employing doctors and nurses to perform a one-time intervention that changes the life of thousands of kids a year in the catchment area of their facility.
Obviously there are things that a group like this can't do but a massive NGO can, and that's great too, but for what I have to give, I feel very good about the impact per dollar of this.
Edit: my point is just that bribery and blackmail aren't the same as Global Northerners treating charities as synecures.
Anyway as I say it's not everything but I thought it seemed relevant to the GP post talking about NGOs and charity efficiency.
As a Brazilian with a love for electronics and DIY, I feel this pain every day.
two of them started cloning cpus designs (8080 and 68k iirc). they sold well all over the (1st and 2nd) world (still no local market). until one company did a publicity stunt lying they had a full mac clone (it was an actual mac, but they did have something else).
then apple and others pressured the US state department, which pressured the brazilian gov with tarifs on oranges (most of the new elite created in the millitary coups were now big land owners and orange was the cash crop). They were so afraid of the tarifs that they closed both factories as requested, and added the import tax as a good will gesture on top!
and many (30%) brazilians today think another military coup will sort things out
I wish we replace this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Duke_of_Caxias with a statue of a smuggler bringing computers from paraguay (they where sold two streets down this statue). It is much more heroic and positive outcome symbol to the country than some old military nobody on a horse.
I'm a US citizen so it wasn't that bad for me unless I needed replacement parts without physically traveling to get them. We would just trade gifts of laptops with people when anyone was going to the US, but nothing in new packaging. At that time IIRC there was a $500 limit on how much Argentines could spend on a bank card outside the country for the entirety of a trip abroad, and obviously cash controls to prevent taking cash out and import controls on anything you brought in. The normal pattern for rich Argentines was to go to Miami and open a US bank account, then use that to buy stuff and bring it into the country in your suitcase. Fueling that US bank account was where things got very interesting (and also was the best use case I've seen for cryptocurrency, where someone in BsAs would take your cash, buy local Bitcoin with it, send the Bitcoin to their partner in Miami, who would change it to USD and deposit it in your bank account there). It was a clever economy.
being a developing country or not is orthogonal to what you have described. The top developed nations have one or more of these issues.
Someone may say "a tax or fee is just a legalized bribe to the state!"
Which, sure, you could look at it that way, but it's codified and predictable and that lack of surprise is extremely valuable.
And if you bypass their abuse, you're a "smuggler", shamed on by the press.
Whatever one thinks about the overall subject of migrants, I think one can at least agree with these two things:
1. We won't fix poverty and corruption in the developing world by everyone there just jumping to the nearest 'rich' country.
2. Once migrants are in the 'rich' country, it's more controversial and difficult to force them to go back home than it is to not enable them to come in the first place.
This can happen in the West too.
I volunteered at a homeless shelter, and we helped those who had lost everything get important documents like their Social Security card and s state ID, and the bureaucracy was atrocious. Sometimes we literally had to beg a senator's office to help.
At least they didn't ask for bribes, but I wonder if that would've made things easier.
I asked another Dutch co-worker to help look at it. We pretty much couldn't make sense of the last letters. No idea what he had to do next. We joked that if we got that much corospondence we would flee the country.
A few months later he moved to Canada.
If there is anything characteristic of developing countries’ taxing systems, it would be how short reaching and inadequate it is. Many of these countries’ governments are corrupt, sure, but these small revenue extracting schemes are about the only way they can collect “taxes” at all.
Sources:
1. Virginia Democratic governor less than 24 hours after becoming governor: https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/virginia-new-gover...
2: Seattle collectivist “my parents still pay for my cell plan since I have never had a real job” mayor: https://townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-curtis/2025/11/14/seattle-...
3: NY new socialist wannabe Palestinian liberator mayor: https://nypost.com/2026/04/10/us-news/mamdani-pushed-combine...
4: California “I hate liars” liar and “Free 10x cost Diapers for everyone” Newsom government proposals: https://nypost.com/2026/02/12/us-news/californians-have-just...
Until now, items below 150eur (bought by private citizens) were not a subject to customs, and some time ago not even for VAT if below 22eur. From july 1st, it's becoming painful, in slovenia for example, 3eur per TARIC code + customs fee + vat.
So, for example you go on alixpress, you buy a silicone phone case for 1eur, a screen protector/foil for 1eur, a phone "sock" for 1eur and a stylus for 1 eur (+whatever shipping, often free).
A few years ago, you'd pay 4eur and get the package. Then they implemented IOSS, so aliexpress has to report the 4eur order to EU, and they charge you 22% VAT on that, so you'd pay 4.88eur directly to aliexpress and they'd pay the tax. Ok, a bit more expensive but doable, unless you want to go outside of eu and order the stuff there and just bring it in with you.
And now? Since they're 4 different items, that's 4 TARIC codes, and that's 3eur per each separate item, so that makes 4eur for items themselves, 4x3eur for customs (16eur together with the item price), then you pay VAT on the full price (including customs!), that makes it 19.52eur + whatever the post office decides to charge for "processing" (used to be ~4-5euros, but usually avoided by aliexpress shippers).
So, instead of 4euros, you'll pay 20-25euros for the same thing, the government taking 20 euros of tax on 4euros of items (even less total worth, aliexpress + chinese shipping has to earn their share too).
I mean sure, they want you to buy locally from dropshippers, but it's still cheaper than that, or from amazon, which will probably be the biggest winner here, and it's not even a european company.
I'm not saying it's perfect, it's not how I would have done it if I was a benevolent dictator, but there are good reasons for it.
So, back then, i'd pay 1eur and get the case (a bit later 1eur+vat), or 4eur (+vat) for all the items. I'd have money left over, that I could spend at a local restaurant, where other people would get paid, for cooking and serving me a meal (and farmers before that). (i won't give the "save to buy an apartment" example, because none of the EU states is actually doing anything to make that peossible for normal people, quite the opposite).
And now I either pay a lot more money to the government (and get notting more back from them), pay a lot of money to a reseller/dropshipper, and get the item a week earlier than from aliexpress. There will be no european phone case company to take over that business, the just 'stuff' will be just more expensive, and we, europeans, will be able to afford less.
And yes, I know, aliexpress will adapt, they'll build warehouses in EU, and iphone cases will be shipped from romania or hungary or somewhere, but they'll still be more expensive. And that's just phone cases... if you have an iphone, you'll find them in aliexpress warehouses locally. But what if you want custom electronics only found on aliexpress? Some niche esp32 board? Some salved controller for a retro computer? Can you count on aliexpress storing those things in EU too? Or will your other hobbies become much more expensive too?
How long will the white man be blamed for every single thing happening in Africa today? Will a century be enough? 200 years? More?
Aren't Africans adults with agency who are ultimately responsible for the state of their countries?
Read more about the history of the continent.
Running away seems a valid option. Europe seems a good place to run to. Who would have thought.
If I look at a country like Zimbabwe, it’s in worse shape than when it became independent and the West had not interfered. If anything it supported it with development funds.
Zimbabwe, we’re talking about the one that had China, USSR and SA providing weapons and training up until the end of Rhodesia around 1980? Then IMF/World Bank imposed market liberalization in the 90s, then sanctions from 2002-2024?
Truly, can’t understand why they’d be in bad shape, must be all their own fault. My brilliant white brain thinks it must be something genetic, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink.
As for Zimbabwe, nobody forced them to ally with the USSR and China. That was their decision. As was their agreement with the IMF.
It’s not great to infantalize nations like Zimbabwe and act like they have no agency. They fought for their independence, got it and made their own bed.
Oh, interesting, because you're treating time and ethnicity, as the only factors in economic development. If you take a country full of Ugandans, and a country full of Singaporeans (the countries in your theory are the same of course), and terminate "colonization" (which is the same thing everywhere) at roughly the same time, if the Singaporeans do better, that means the Ugandans are... stupider? Less good at capitalism? What's your full, stated theory here? Can you please say it outright?
Anyway, you're ignoring a lot of other relevant factors. The two countries decolonized at roughly the same time, however Singapore is a tiny maritime city-state, whereas Uganda is a large, landlocked, agrarian country, and its agrarian economy completely taken over by cash crops.
Btw it's also a bit bizarre that you're just saying, "Africans." Africa is a huge continent with wildly different ecologies and economies across it. Regardless, Ugandans do indeed have agency, and that agency is the same as anyone's agency: operating within the constraints into which they were born.
Overall, bad people try to seize power -- that's a constant the world over since bad people will always exist and they have less moral inhibitions than anyone else. It takes a lot of good luck, courage, and a tremendous amount of organization[1] for good people (or more commonly, people who are at least not outright bad) to prevent it -- and even more of those to reverse it once it's happened. And the struggle will never end.
Bad and incompetent people mismanage everything since their only priority is self-enrichment and power, so because they won most of the struggles in the poor countries, very little has improved for the common man compared to what should have been possible.
The only way that things will improve in those countries will probably involve tremendous bloodshed - revolutions. The leaders who can't or purposely won't let commoners share in what wealth is available aren't going to just spontaneously abdicate.
I want to point out that I actually don't blame Ugandans or any other poor-country commoners for not overthrowing their corrupt overlords. If and when they do, it will require a tremendous sacrifice of lives to achieve it. I know I would personally not have the cojones to charge the palace armed with rocks and clubs -- whether I had a crowd of 10,000 other freedom fighters behind me or not. I'd just deal with the banal bullshit of the regime and make the best of it to avoid the high likelihood of getting shot.
[1] by this I mean the organization of a good government system -- a constitution for example and empowered courts and law enforcement to actually enforce it. Or in its absence, organization among incredibly-brave individuals to build their own system that can outmaneuver the bad leaders.
The ones that do it though are all religious institutions so their goals are more social/moral rather than economic or geopolitical.