Odd as it may seem, that’s a big question right now within the aid and development community.
By a simple measure of the number of news stories and organizational appeals out there, clearly the answer is: Yes, people should donate to disaster relief in Japan.
Perhaps the most blunt argument answering the question in the negative has come from Felix Salmon, economics columnist for Reuters, who said simply: Don’t Donate Money to Japan.
I’ve posted on this debate a few times, including an anonymous post from an aid worker decrying the “ugly game” of fund-raisingaround the Japan quake-tsunami disaster.
Others have written as well about the question of whether Japan needs/wants help from outside groups such as Stephanie Strom at the New York Times and Saundra Schimmelpfennig at Good Intentions Are Not Enough.
