Ministering to Poor Governments

It occurred to me this morning just how much suffering in this world is caused by inept government and how much could be avoided by competence.

A lot of us in the United States think we know all about inept government (FEMA during Katrina, for instance), but I'm actually thinking of a level of ineptitude that is somewhere in the middle between, say, the old Katrina-FEMA on the mild side and Zimbabwe on the extreme side.

I'm thinking of nations whose officials are at least kinda-sorta trying to do a good job, but for lack of training they simply don't have the best skills.

It seems that for cases like this it would be good to have a Christian ministry made up of government officials from countries around the world who would occasionally take some of their vacation time and spend it with their governmental counterparts in poor countries. Public works directors matching off with public works directors, planning department officials spending time with planning department officials, ministers of finance hanging out with ministers of finance. They could just spend time with each other talking about how they do their jobs and how they might do them better.

Having suggested that, a big red flag comes to mind, which is that often ideas that seem good to western visitors are not good at all.

For example, I have a friend with a large organization that was doing work in Africa. The westerners had finished their work in the country and were leaving but still had a lot of their food left over, so my friend gave it to his driver, a national, who gave it to a group of nationals. They all ate the western food and all got sick because they were not used to such a high protein diet.

My point is that good intentions need to be matched with good understanding.

But having said that, it seems that with some cultural training and a large dose of humility, a ministry by government officials to government officials in poor countries might be very helpful. In fact, though I haven't heard of it, maybe it already exists. If you know about such an organization, let me know; I'd be interested.

UPDATE: After watching FEMA performing quite well during Hurricane Gustav, I felt I had to update this post to make clear that I was talking about FEMA during the Katrina hurricane. I'm delighted to see how much the agency has improved!