[DRAFT] Aid on the Edge of Chaos

[Golgothastan]

Name

Aid on the Edge of Chaos

Description

After news of the son of a senior Bigtopian official buying a gold-plated hot tub using money earmarked for building a clean water project, an audit of the Department of International Aid has revealed shockingly high levels of corruption, fraud and waste. Taxpayers are asking angry questions about who the @@CURRENCY@@s they send overseas are really going to.

Validity

Nation has non-zero International Aid spending.

Options

[option]"Look at these accounts: it's nothing but foreign dictators lining their own pockets with the @@CURRENCY@@s the hardworking citizens of @@NAME@@ are sending overseas," complains @@RANDOMNAME@@ of the supposedly independent but suspiciously well-funded lobby group Taxpayers Against Government Waste. "That's the problem with foreign aid: it just ends up propping up corrupt regimes instead of going to the people truly in need. We should scrap the whole Department: if people are still worried about the famine in Bigtopia, they can just give to charity."
[effect]the government refuses to help foreign nations dealing with humanitarian crises

[option]"But what about all our programs?" gasps @@RANDOMNAME@@, Director of Overseas Development at the Department of International Aid. "Right now, we're supporting education and health projects in a dozen countries, all of which will face major disasters if we cut funding. Corruption is just an unavoidable risk of giving international aid, just like bad investments are a risk of doing business. But we have an obligation as a nation to help those most in need, and so long as some of the money gets through, that's still better than nothing."
[effect]the King of Marche Noire has thanked @@NAME@@ for their generous aid package from his new luxury yacht

[option]"Cancelling all our aid programs really would damage our international reputation," frets Foreign Service official @@RANDOMNAME@@. "But I also agree that the current levels of corruption undermine public trust. So how about we compromise: let's allow the public to vote on where they send their tax @@CURRENCY@@s? We'll set up a website listing overseas projects, and voters can choose. That way deserving projects will stay funded, and the wasteful ones will be scrapped. I can't think of a downside! Except for the massive cost of completely overhauling our foreign aid system, of course."
[effect]most of the foreign aid budget goes to kitten sanctuaries while clean toilet programs go sadly unfunded

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

OK,

1) Welcome back. Congrats on the "Herebedragons" issue.
2) "Department" makes it sound like a cabinet-level agency. Admittedly I don't know what the conventions for that are in issues; there seem to many "departments." "Agency" or "Office" of International Aid might work better in any case.
3) Why would a Foreign Service official propose potentially gutting his/her own department? Sounds like something another activist might introduce, or perhaps an opposition leader?
4) The currently named "Taxpayers Against Government Waste" demands a clever acronym.

[Gnejs]

I think this is a great idea. So great, in fact, that I wrote and submitted a draft of my own on the same theme earlier this summer. Player submissions will pretty much always trump staff drafts though, so that's not an issue.

Anyways, here's a simple structure of my draft, feel free to use any or none of it. I can send you a copy of the full submission via telegram if you're interested.

Debate: Aid funds have trouble reaching the people truly in need of it; excessive bureaucracy in the distribution system and widespread corruption on the receiving ends are flagged as obstacles.

#1: pretty much same as yours: Minister with amusing title rants about how this confirms all suspicions; it's all funding tinpot luxuries. Solution: cut it all, save us the money.

#2: Hip intern at an NGO/Oxfam-satire; some of the funding does wonders, especially where NGO's are involved. Solution: hand over all the aid money to the NGO; no reporting back or any accountability, but they publish really tasteful brochures yearly about everything that went well.

#3: Trusted civil servant; you can't trust the hippies with our money, the bums will always lose etc. Solution: hand over the administration of the aid funds to the department of bureaucratic oversight, they'll ensure proper implementation, with only a slight administrative overhead.

#4: Your brother or something similar: pictures of dying children are so depressing and conscience-money will never do any difference anyways. Solution: cut the supply and the demand will eventually fade away all by itself, use it to prop up domestic industry instead (written to be pretty much one of the most incompassionate options of all times).

[Golgothastan]

Thanks OMGTKK :) Can't keep me away, huh?

2) "Department" makes it sound like a cabinet-level agency. Admittedly I don't know what the conventions for that are in issues; there seem to many "departments." "Agency" or "Office" of International Aid might work better in any case.
3) Why would a Foreign Service official propose potentially gutting his/her own department? Sounds like something another activist might introduce, or perhaps an opposition leader?

In both cases, it's because in the UK it is a separate, Cabinet-level department. I guess in the US USAID is part of State? In any case I don't really mind changing it. I agree on the foreign service official, though; might change that to a political advisor.

I'll have a think on the acronym.

TG me your issue, Gnejs, and I'll take a look?

[Trotterdam]

Note: the game usually calls it Foreign Aid, not International Aid.

corruption, fraud, and waste

Add comma.

"We should scrap the whole Department: if people are still worried about the famine in Bigtopia, they can just give to charity."

...And then that charity gets embezzled instead?

[effect]the King of Marche Noire has thanked @@NAME@@ for their generous aid package from his new luxury yacht

Marche Noir is known to be hostile to the player nation (especially in #384). Maybe Maxtopia for a nation that's corrupt but has less bad blood with @@NAME@@, though its oil reserves mean it's not too poor financially. Lilliput(ia) would be a bit boring being used alongside Bigtopia once again. Eh, Marche Noir might work depending on what the situation there is right now (actually, it's the rebels who overthrew the monarchy that are hostile to @@NAME@@, so if there's a king now...).

Also, the usual spelling is "Marche Noir". (I get that one wrong too.)

[effect]most of the foreign aid budget goes to kitten sanctuaries while clean toilet programs go sadly unfunded

Quick! Upload a bunch of YouTube videos of cats trained to use human toilets! It's our only hope!

Really though, I don't think that public voting is particularly helpful in this situation. The public agreeing that a particular country needs aid has little to do with whether they can be trusted not to embezzle it, something that skilled auditors are probably better at determining than the general public who only read a few sensational news articles about how bad things are in Bigtopia.

Options I would expect include "add more bureaucracy to carefully trace where all aid money goes to prevent corruption (even though that bureaucracy itself will cost a lot of money)" and "invade Bigtopia and depose the corrupt dictators that are causing the problem - what do you mean 'that would ruin the nation and make them need even more aid money, and probably just leave a power vacuum for a new dictator to take advantage of anyway'?".

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

In both cases, it's because in the UK it is a separate, Cabinet-level department.

Fair enough, I wouldn't worry about it then. For some reason I was assuming most foreign-aid agencies were part of the foreign ministry.

[Logophilia Lyricalia]

Glad to see you back!

One possible option occurs to me based on a possibly apocryphal story that served as partial inspiration for the William Gibson novel "Spook Country:" in order to ensure the money can't be siphoned off by dictators or other corrupt officials, just have your military airlift pallets of cash directly to the suffering people. Drawbacks of this include that you can't eat or drink money, possible theft by rebels and warlords and criminals (instead of bureaucrats and autocrats and generals), and the difficulty that you can't spend money on building schools without some way of conveying that money to the construction company. But it sure makes it easy to convince your taxpayers you're helping out while still sidestepping corruption!

[Trotterdam]

just have your military airlift pallets of cash directly to the suffering people. Drawbacks of this include that you can't eat or drink money,

So, airlift food and water instead?

possible theft by rebels and warlords and criminals (instead of bureaucrats and autocrats and generals),

There's a difference?

and the difficulty that you can't spend money on building schools without some way of conveying that money to the construction company.

Airlift the construction workers too.

(Then watch them get kidnapped for ransom by the rebels and warlords and criminals.)

[Golgothastan]

One possible option occurs to me based on a possibly apocryphal story that served as partial inspiration for the William Gibson novel "Spook Country:" in order to ensure the money can't be siphoned off by dictators or other corrupt officials, just have your military airlift pallets of cash directly to the suffering people. Drawbacks of this include that you can't eat or drink money, possible theft by rebels and warlords and criminals (instead of bureaucrats and autocrats and generals), and the difficulty that you can't spend money on building schools without some way of conveying that money to the construction company. But it sure makes it easy to convince your taxpayers you're helping out while still sidestepping corruption!

I quite like this idea. I may steal it.

[The Land of Bitter Idealist]

Validity requirement should be corrected to "Nation that has more than zero foreign aid" due to foreign aid's stat could be Negative (ex. nation that RECEIVE foreign aid).

[Golgothastan]

I'll leave that kind of stat minutiae to the issue editors to sort out.

[Australian rePublic]

There are ways to bypass dictators you know

[Trotterdam]

There are ways to bypass dictators you know

...Those being?

[Australian rePublic]

There are ways to bypass dictators you know

...Those being?

I don't know. I think it involves giving it to the people specifically, rather than the back