Better Aid Saves Lives - Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth

Director: Jesper Heldgaard
Producer: Anders Dencker Christensen
Produced by: Dansk AV Produktion
Duration: 28 min.
Year of Production: 2007
Original Title: For Mange Kokke...

In the small Mtombosi Health Clinic in central Tanzania the clinical officer in charge has not recorded a single case of cholera in four years. And a few miles away, Tawa Health Center has new beds and mosquitonets. In Tanzania, things have definitely changed for the better: Child mortality was reduced by a quarter in just five years. One of the main reasons behind the dramatic improvement is better cooperation between Tanzania’s government and the multitude of donors.
 
Better Aid Saves Lives takes the viewer to remote health clinics in Tanzania and shows how aid can yield much better results, when donors are willing to cooperate instead of focusing on success for their own projects to satisfy politicians and taxpayers at home, rather than the Tanzanian people. Today more and more donors allow the recipient, Tanzania, to act as chef in the kitchen – rather than each attempting to play the cook and consequently spoiling the broth.