Comments on: Container Headed to Haiti on Friday https://bernews.com/2011/02/container-headed-to-haiti-on-friday/ Bermuda's #1 source for 24/7 breaking news, photos & videos Sat, 04 Apr 2026 09:46:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.7.5 By: kimberley https://bernews.com/2011/02/container-headed-to-haiti-on-friday/#comment-27767 Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:57:27 +0000 http://bernews.com/?p=49120#comment-27767 Andrew- while I can understand your poitn and the discussion that surrounds GIKs, my question to you is what then would be a better alternative? to assist the people of Haiti?

]]> By: hmmm https://bernews.com/2011/02/container-headed-to-haiti-on-friday/#comment-27765 Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:52:00 +0000 http://bernews.com/?p=49120#comment-27765 took the words right out of my mouth. thank you.

]]> By: Andrew Simons https://bernews.com/2011/02/container-headed-to-haiti-on-friday/#comment-27753 Thu, 24 Feb 2011 13:48:47 +0000 http://bernews.com/?p=49120#comment-27753 While it is uncomfortable to acknowledge this, gift in kind (GIK) donations are often an ineffective way of helping poor people in other countries. In some cases, this is obvious; flying low value foodstuffs to Haiti in a private jet isn’t cost effective. In other cases, such as donating used clothes, the issues are more subtle.

The short explanation is that most of the items people donate (food and clothes) are already sold by locals. Donations simply flood the market and put those locals out of business.

Many aid practitioners tackled this topic last month after the NFL made a big show of donating 100k t-shirts to World Vision. That debate about gift in kind donations is summarized in the following few posts.

http://texasinafrica.blogspot.com/2011/02/on-world-vision.html
http://goodintents.org/aid-debates/world-vision-nfl-controversy
http://texasinafrica.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-t-shirts-are-bad-aid-research.html

Andrew

]]> By: kathy https://bernews.com/2011/02/container-headed-to-haiti-on-friday/#comment-27747 Thu, 24 Feb 2011 10:22:20 +0000 http://bernews.com/?p=49120#comment-27747 Beautiful!!

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