Would You Let This Girl Drown?

Humanitarian aid is an increasingly popular topic in the media today, with every celebrity seeming to support their own cause. In his op-ed piece, Nicholas Kristof analyzes the dynamics of humanitarian aid at both the world and personal levels. At the G-8 summit, world leaders discuss a variety of topics, one of the most prevalent being humanitarian aid. Some countries present at the summit, including the U.S. and Canada, have already met their donation targets for 2010, but others, including France and Italy, have come up short in their pledges. Kristof suggests that if these same world leaders witnessed a drowning girl there would be a unanimous desire to offer help. This same concept is then explored in the average citizen. Kristof asserts that people would be more likely to donate to a cause when a single person is the benefactor than if they are donating to a large-scale cause, such as finding a cure for malaria. He then offers reasons for this phenomenon which range from ineffective “advertising” by humanitarian groups to the degree of personal responsibility. In the latter rationale, Kristof contends that people will feel more compelled to donate to a cause if they feel that they are the only ones who hold responsibility.

Kristof backs up his explanations with study results conducted by universities. In one such study, an overwhelming majority of bystanders helped an injured individual when they were the only witness. However, when more than one person was present, the number of Good Samaritans decreased to less than ten percent. Because of these study results from reputable institutions, Kristof’s argument is convincing. Kristof’s reasoning eventual boils down to an ultimate cause: human nature. His writing also follows a logical procession, and at the end offers his suggestions for increasing humanitarian contributions. The G-8 summit, currently being held in Italy, is Kristof’s apparent motive for writing this piece, but his conclusions are timeless and will still be appropriate and pertinent years from now. The importance of humanitarian aid is intensified, as Kristof uses shocking statistics of the impact of human aid rather than the usual depressing statistics proving why aid should be given.