A11: Honor Among Thieves

In the fictional novel, Honor Among Thieves, it highlights several of the key topics learned throughout the course. The book follows the World Aid Corporation in Cambodia as they are recently given a very generous grant of five hundred thousand dollars. The terms to the grant were fairly open and allowed the main characters who were located in Cambodia to assess the issues around them and develop a plan of action. As the novel progresses it shows the structure and operations day-to-day of an NGO as Patty and Mary-Anne (aid workers in Cambodia) have to deal with outside factors such as their hard-headed boss Todd and CEO Julianna. The grant which the World Aid Corporation has received has a massive potential to make a real difference in Cambodia and assist those who are desperately in need. After surveying the local communities for those most in need both Patty and Mary-Anne decided upon Baray Santuck, a small farming community outside Phnom Phen stricken by poor rainy seasons and increasing debt, as their most viable location. The group decides that cash-transfers, health education, and food were the most effective way to solve the communities issues. However, Maxima Enterprises (the company providing the grant) had been behind closed doors attempting to expand into a local factory, which also produced clothing products called Naga Apparel, but in order to do so needed to have tangible evidence of benefitting Cambodia. Naga Apparel was a glorified sweatshop that had been caught years prior in human trafficking and was attempting to join forces with Maxima in order to gain a better brand image.

From this novel, it is very apparent how flawed the humanitarian aid sector truly is. The divide between organization and people on the ground integrates the humanitarian aid imperative as well as flag planting. There were countless NGO’s both large and small in Cambodia and all providing some sort of “difference” for their communities but how much really was it doing? One of the passages which highlighted the humanitarian imperative the most in the novel was, ” The problem is in the NGO world brand loyalty very quickly overshadows actual, like, performance in the real world” (J. 116-117). Rather than actually make a difference or cause change within the humanitarian aid sector, businesses corporations and people were to solely focused on personal gain and image. Another passage which also exemplified the issues within the aid sector that I felt J. crafted very well was, “The thing to understand,” Patty was speaking again, “and that I figured out far too late, is that for all of their originally laudable, altruistic intentions, NGOs become primarily about ensuring their own survival, pretty much within minutes of forming” (J. 116).

Discussion Questions:

How do you think the Aid Sector can solve the divide between corporate and boots on the ground?

Will the aid sector ever be a conglomerate of several different NGO’s merging to solve various issues in each country?

Works Cited:

J.. Honor Among Thieves (p. 120). Evil Genius Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition.

https://www.phnompenhpost.com/fiction-novel-takes-cynical-look-cambodias-aid-industry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QzcvLJyJlo