‘Kony 2012’ highlights ties to Princeton in Africa

Invisible Children is pushing back against allegations of misallocating funds and oversimplifying complex issues. On a page on its website where the organization responds to common criticisms, Invisible Children specifically mentioned Princeton in Africa as a program that it relies upon to ensure that local partners are engaged in its projects.

“The organization meticulously monitors and evaluates the impact of its work on the ground, partnering with Princeton in Africa and employing qualified Monitoring & Evaluation professionals,” according to the website.

For 13 years, the Princeton in Africa program has served as an avenue for students to spend a year doing nonprofit work in poverty-stricken African countries. Though the organization is not officially affiliated with the University, its Fellows and Board of Directors are overwhelmingly composed of University faculty and current or former students.

For the past three years, Princeton in Africa has partnered with Invisible Children and has sent a Fellow to Uganda to spend a year assisting the organization with its aid work. The organization is currently in the process of selecting the Fellow for this coming year.

According to a Princeton in Africa statement provided to The Daily Princetonian, there is currently one Fellow, Columbia graduate Flannery Gallagher, employed and paid in Uganda by Invisible Children. The Fellow works to develop better monitoring and evaluation procedures for Invisible Children’s education and economic development programs.

Hilary Lambert ’10 served as a Fellow with the program and was a monitoring and evaluation officer for a year with Invisible Children in Uganda.

John Arndt ’08, a 2009 Princeton in Africa Fellow who worked for Invisible Children in Uganda for 18 months, said he was selected partly for his ability to do quantitative work for the nonprofit. Arndt helped create a system to collect and interpret data about Invisible Children’s programs and analyze the precise effect they had on the local population.

Princeton in Africa’s statement noted that the Fellows who work for Invisible Children generally perform similar tasks, and emphasized that this year’s Fellow has not been involved with the controversial “Kony 2012” campaign.

The initiative aims to rally support for the capture and arrest of Joseph Kony, the leader of a Ugandan Christian fundamentalist guerilla group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army. Earlier this month, Invisible Children produced a 30-minute video outlining war crimes allegedly committed by the LRA. The video went viral on multiple social networking sites and has been viewed over 75 million times on YouTube.

“Invisible Children has received a lot of attention following the release of their Kony 2012 video, but our Fellow’s work has been limited and focused on programs in the field seeking to improve the quality of life for war-affected individuals in Uganda,” Princeton in Africa’s statement read.

Invisible Children and its programming have come under criticism. Among the most vocal critics is Visible Children, a blog that has criticized what it sees as the “Kony 2012” campaign’s improper subject matter and the organization’s allocation of funds.

A former Princeton in Africa Fellow who did aid work with a different organization in the same war-torn region of northern Uganda expressed concerns with Invisible Children’s tactics. The Fellow was granted anonymity in discussing the relationship between Princeton in Africa and Invisible Children.

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“My first reaction upon seeing the video was that it should have been more like ‘Kony 2004,’ ” the former Fellow said, citing the fact that the LRA has not been active in Uganda for several years. “When I see this video, when it draws the conclusion that Kony is still a force to be reckoned with, I just don’t think that he’s nearly the threat that the video makes him out to be,” he explained.

He also argued that Invisible Children does not allocate enough of its funds toward nonadministrative initiatives in Uganda. According to Visible Children, Invisible Children only devotes 32 percent of its budget on direct aid to Uganda and uses a substantial portion of the rest of its budget for media and travel.

“If you look at the budgets of other organizations that are working in Uganda, you’ll find that they spend significantly less money on administrative costs and they deliver much more money to the programs that are directly impacting individuals,” the former Fellow said.

Professor of Politics and International Affairs Jennifer Widner, who studies African politics, said that Invisible Children’s defense against the recent wave of criticism was a normal response for a nonprofit organization thrust into the spotlight.

“Most organizations ... these days are asked by contributors, foundations, to explain what results have been achieved with the money provided,” Widner said.

She added, however, that Invisible Children should nonetheless answer several important — and potentially difficult — questions raised by skeptics in the wake of its wide-ranging Internet campaign.

“There are a lot of bad actors in other parts of the world, or other parts of Africa. How do you define what the priorities are going to be and who’s generally responsible? You want the countries in this region who are most afflicted to take the leading role,” Widner said. “Is a social media program that gives everyone the license, the right [to participate] — is that as supportable as working with the local communities in the area?”

However, the video has also elicited many positive reactions. Some have argued that criticism of Invisible Children only hurts the greater humanitarian cause in Africa by fueling the perception that international nonprofits cannot make a difference. Trent Fuenmayor ’12, a concentrator in the religion department who has spent three summers working in northern Uganda, said he views Invisible Children as a success.

“If the only thing you ever do is criticize, the people who are not aware of the issue are just going to think ‘Oh, just another issue of an NGO being bad at things, nothing’s ever going to change,’ ” Fuenmayor said.

Correction: Due to incorrect information provided to The Daily Princetonian, the title of Hilary Lambert '10 was misstated. She worked for one year as a monitoring and evaluation officer for Invisible Children in Uganda but does not currently work for Invisible Children.