Charity

I'm a big fan of charity me, I think its great when man voluntarily gives to fellow man, be it time money or expertise. That's the image I have in my head of charity.

So, I'm a big fan of that fake charities website whichs 'outs' those UK registered charities that as a result of their funding, are government agencies, wholly or mostly funded by the UK or EU governments. They're not charities in the sense of charity, cos the money they receive isn't given voluntarily. The government ought either not be spending money, or to actually be fixing the things that the charities are for, not paying them off.

There are certain things which fellow man pays the government to do through taxes, that's defend the nation, take away the rubbish and provide clean drinking water. Anything else the government does is a bonus, but not essential.

Here let's look at wikipedia's list of fastest growing nations in terms of GDP. Some of them are growing really fast, but the UK according to the list is growing at 3%, the Office of National Statistics has it at minus 1.5% Think about it.

Here's a charity called 'Charity:Water', proceeds from the London Twestival are going to them. I've heard about Charity:Water before, their Jennifer Connelly video is neat and I think BoingBoing covered them once. Something never set right with me about them.

It was India, they were building water towers in India. India's a big big, rich and fast growing nations, the 22nd fastest growing nation by GDP, the world's largest democracy. I'm not denying their need for water towers, but surely they can build their own? Surely its up to the Indian government to provide drinking water, and surely they can afford to do it themselves, without the need for a charity to provide it.

Ethiopia, now everyone knows that country is in a bad way. Well, not quite, its got a faster growing economy that India, in fact, the world's 12th fastest growing economy. Its not even an oil-rich state, that economic growth is genuine. So maybe the three hundred and two Charity:Water projects there give them a helping hand, but that economic growth has been going for the past ten years. And that big famine was more than twenty years ago, they can get over it.

Don't get me wrong, there are some great projects that Charity:Water do to provide drinking water to badly suffering nations, but at the same time, they're doing it to nations who are really in a position to do it themselves.

If the leaders of these countries know that someone else is providing essential services for their populations, then it lets them off the hook, that they can spend the tax revenue on less vital things, palaces and cars.

Its a stretch, but Twitheads and Charity:Water, with the best intentions, are enabling corruption and abuses of power.

No?