Let's look at these issues in sequence, and then consider how they are related. First, the issue of financial paternalism. Paternalism creates dependency. It denies the wholeness of the individual and ultimately leads to his or her bondage and suppression. There can be no genuine reciprocity between individuals or groups when one of them treats the other like a child.
Paternalism opens the door to financial abuses.
Church leaders can and do go directly to funding agencies and churches in North America and Europe. But not all of them. Some of them use Western funds for their own ends, or to intimidate the mission to give more. Such manipulation is counterproductive and causes distrust, tending to divide the church from the mission. Very often, recipients provide little accountability for their use of the funds, either to the local church body or to the Western funding organizations.