The director of the disaster relief coordination for the Quisqueya Christiqan school told me the WHO is charging non registered NGO's for medicine that was donated to them. I believe I had it backwards.
Nonetheless, it is a shame because there are many, many groups that came here right after the tragedy who are now having to pay for the medicine they donate to the Haitians in addition to covering all the other costs in order to be able to do such a valuable job.
My only experience working with WHO was on a different continent and in a non-disaster context, so I can't comment on their practices in Haiti post-earthquake.
In my experience (which admittedly is in a whole other context), WHO works primarily with government institutions and does not focus much on the actual distribution of medicine. They seek to improve the supply chain to national systems, protocol, national public health programs, etc. In other words, on a more "macro" level of health care. (Their role is described here:
The role of WHO in Public Health.)
I can't imagine them getting involved to the "micro" level of a Christian school- they tend to "farm" those type of relationships to larger NGOs or government who then subgrant it out. But... from what I have heard from friends, many organizations are doing things they do not normally do. In fact, on this page:
Donating to the Survivors of the Haiti Earthquake WHO discourages in-kind donations of medicines, since it can mess with established protocol, create dependency, etc. Then it links to this page (
Haiti Earthquake Updates on Donations) where they acknowledge the in-kind donations they have received. (We trust that all donations met protocol standards for Haiti...)
Now, in my experience with big-time donors of any nationality or multi-nationality, they often require their partners to have some sort of NGO registration either in the country of origin of the donor or the country where the NGO operates. (Each donor is different.) This, of course, is to help determine which potential recipients are transparent enough to have opened their books/programming to whatever authorizing body gives them status.
Therefore, your allegation surprises me, since most donors wouldn't want to work with "non-registered" NGOs at all, regardless of any sort of fleecing that could be had.
Hopefully it is all a misunderstanding...
