Development agencies actually hire lots of local people. for USAID/State Department, they're called FSNs, and its pretty easy to find stories about them and the work that they do. According to one Document I found around 55k/75k state department employees were Foreign Nationals (aka local hires). [1] Foreign nationals don't run these agencies because these agencies are responsible to their respective governments and have missions and goals that extend beyond simple development. This post seems incredibly uninformed given that the extent of their research seems to be looking at the citation of the photographs/videos.
> In the case of photography, there’s simply no good excuse. Every country has photographers able to produce excellent work… and they’ll charge less than a globe-trotting Westerner. Why does the aid industry give so many assignments to Westerners?
I wager that the author doesn't know very much about professional photography.
[1] https://diplopundit.net/2017/05/08/statedeptusaid-staffing-c...