Giving Compass' Take:

• The Democratic Republic of Congo has boycotted a UN conference because of the UN's characterization of the crisis in DRC, which DCR finds insulting and overstated. They are not the first country to complain of poor treatment by the UN. 

• How can international bodies provide support and resources to countries in need without belittling and alienating them? To what extent are current aid structures damaging to and predatory of counties in need of aid?

• Find out why Ghana rejected European development aid. 

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has boycotted a United Nations conference in Geneva that reaped hundreds of millions of dollars to help its starving population.

The assembled diplomats and senior aid officials emerging from Room XIX had gathered to raise money for what the UN says is a major, protracted humanitarian crisis in DRC, but without representation from DRC itself, whose government had decided to boycott the event.

It is unprecedented for an affected country to stay away from a UN pledging conference being held for its benefit, but that is what DRC decided to do, accusing the UN of exaggerating the crisis, and talking the country down.

It is certainly true that the UN’s estimates for those in need in DRC are staggering: 13 million people, among them millions of children suffering acute malnutrition.

DRC, which is preparing for elections later this year and is keen to attract investors for its vast mineral resources, is not at all happy to be portrayed as a humanitarian crisis zone, a country on the brink of failure whose survival is dependent on outside help.

It is not the first country, and will certainly not be the last, to be uncomfortable with the negative headlines that tend to accompany massive foreign aid. Haiti has suggested it is weary of a narrative which portrays it as unable to achieve anything on its own.

Read the full article about shunning aid by Imogen Foulkes at SWI.