Provocation: Feeding Bad Men With Guns

In the rumors and things heard department, I've been told that some percentage of food aid to Somalia - no one knows quite how much - winds up in the hands of militias, and other rather disreputable folk.

Which isn't all that surprising, considering that it's almost impossible for aid agencies to work in south-central Somalia, much less track exactly where food shipments go.  (Earlier this year, for instance, two World Food Program staff were killed in the space of a week.)

According to an article that appeared in HPN's Humanitarian Exchange Magazine earlier this year:

"[H]umanitarian workers are frequently unable to confirm that the majority of aid delivered is reaching the people who really need it. Rather, in parts of south and central Somalia, humanitarian managers admit that they sometimes have no idea how much assistance reaches its intended beneficiaries, and even less idea what impact it has."

If you can't monitor where the food goes, then why keep the food aid flowing?

Especially if it winds up in the hands of bad, bad men - like, say the Al Shabab militia, who last year buried a thirteen year-old girl up to her neck and stoned her to death for being raped.

(For those keeping score at home, she was technically tried on charges of adultery.)

Some argue that the scope of need in Somalia is so great, what with almost-famine and all, that we have to accept the inevitable trade-offs if it means that even some of the food gets through.

For instance, according to Philippe Lazzarini, the former head of the UN OCHA Somalia:

"A pragmatic choice has had to be made: abide by the [humanitarian] principles and cease to function, or compromise them and see that at least some life-saving humanitarian assistance gets to those who need it."

Which only begs another question - at what point does the compromise become unacceptable?  Is it alright to keep sending food shipments if 20% of the food winds up in the hands of militias?

That seems fair.

What about 50% - again, arguably fair; the poor and starving are receiving at least half.

What about if the Shabab take 70%?  Or 80%?  Or 90%?

Or what if we have no idea just how much aid actually gets through at all?

I'd say that there's no sense in shipping food if we can't guarantee that at least 50% winds up in the hands of those who need it most.

Otherwise, we're not so much providing aid as feeding and supporting the very groups that are causing these problems in the first place.

Which means it might be time to stop sending food aid into south-central Somalia.

Please, tell me I'm wrong.

[Image from Flickr- and, credit to GOOD Magazine for the idea of provocations.]