Foreign Aid : A Long Track Record

Many skeptics challenge the reasoning for investing so much money into helping so many other countries when that money could instead help us improve internal affairs. After all, foreign aid spending has increased to $50 billion a year today, which could be put towards funding education to ensure that more kids go to college and possibly affecting the innovation of the future(Morris). Giving more than you receive is nice, but when it involves a country 's financial crisis, maybe it 's best if Santa cuts back some of this year 's presents. And although the argument may be valid, lending out a helping hand can create more allies than enemies to help us in return when we need it. In fact, foreign aid only accounts for 0.5 percent of the federal budget (Stearn). Compared to all the other matters at hand that the government is worrying about, the amount of spending put into aiding poorer countries is positive in both a moral aspect and a political aspect.

Ever had that one friend? The one who tries to help, but no matter how hard he tries, he just aggravates the situation. This friend, Steve, insists he is helping, and those around, too, would support that he is indeed helping. But Steve is actually worsening the circumstances. He is like countries who provide foreign aid to less developed countries. Foreign aid, defined as “the international transfer of capital, goods, or services from a country or international organization for the benefit of the recipient country or its population,” can be military, economic, or humanitarian (“Foreign”). It is often granted to less developed countries in order to evoke government reforms or to stimulate economic growth. However, foreign aid neither elicits government reform, nor does it consistently and reliably stimulate economic growth; therefore, the United States should discontinue providing foreign economic aid.

Riddell, Roger C. 2007. Does Foreign Aid Really Work? 1st ed. OXFORD: Oxford University Press, USA.

Since the turn of the century, the world has experienced various events that have rendered millions homeless, starving or even without a country. Such events may range from merciless persecution by a ruthless dictator to a furious tsunami that leaves destruction in its wake. In such incidents, it is human nature to help those affected rebuild their lives and find comfort again. As a result, governments spend billions on foreign aid projects aimed at helping populations rebuild themselves after a tragic event. Despite the funding and resources spent on these projects, their success rate is dismal. Coyne’s book explains the flaws of state-led humanitarianism. Using case studies that range from Afghanistan to Haiti, Coyne successfully argues against state aid proving that continuing with that approach is likely to remain unsuccessful. He further demonstrates that state aid fails to fulfill its mandate because the parties involved are either too arrogant or ignorant to acknowledge fundamental flaws of state-led aid. He says that the influence of agenda driven opinions of blurs the objectives of financial assistance from the beginning. Since governments focus on what they should, rather than what they can do, the goals of the most aid-funded projects in affected nations remain unrealized.

The main point of Banerjee and Duflo’s Poor Economics (2012) is that aid is neither good nor bad: there are instances where it can help greatly and instances where it can fail those it seeks to help(4). Aid is a powerful tool, therefore it’s imperative that we carefully select the right types of projects (Banerjee & Duflo, 2012, p. 4-5). Banerjee and Duflo (2012) present a few key points of action as a framework for approaching aid, with the broadest issue being the idea that too much responsibility is placed on the poor in making the most basic decisions (268-69). One example that Banerjee and Duflo (2012) offer is the fact that many of the poorest people don’t have sanitary water

I was shocked by the second myth in Bill Gates annual Letter that is titles “Foreign Aid is a Big Waste.” While I was aware that foreign aid is important to help countries, I did not know the profound impact that America and other nations have on them. If someone had asked me, before reading this article, how much money American spent on Foreign Aid, I would have guessed that we spent at least 10% of our budget on others. A large majority of the population, including myself, incorrectly believe that we spend a lot of money on others. In the Bill Nye video, he states that we spend less than 1% of our budget on foreign aid, but that one percent has a significant effect. With less than 1% of the Federal budget, we can stop many preventable diseases,

The question at hand is not whether aid from the developed north should be given at all, but whether or not it should be increased to help ease the suffering of the developing countries in the south. Every country, whether rich or poor, should have compassion for the suffering. However, it is not the duty of the developed north to completely take care of every developing country. In the present, there are serious problems that need to be addressed dealing with how aid is given out: misuse of funds by governments, the corruption it creates, economies it destroys, lack of votes it buys at the United Nations, and finally the question of who has priority.

Prior to doing the readings for this week, I did not know very much at all about foreign developmental aid. I only ever figured that foreign developmental aid was money that we provided to developing nations to help soothe poverty. After reading these articles, however, I now know that the intended goal of developmental aid is to alleviate poverty in the long-term, rather than as a short-term response. I also saw developmental aid as purely humanitarian, and never paused to consider that consequences of such aid, nor the possibility of the aid failing.

The actual definition of Foreign Aid is money, food, or other resources given or lent by one country to another, but it is a broad topic that looks different for every country that receives it. While it is a great thing in concept, it often runs into problems when it is put into practice. The country that gives the aid (the benefactor), usually doesn’t realize or try to fix the problems that these problems cause the other country (the beneficiary). Like everything in this world, it has benefits and drawbacks and although it does impact the country that provides aid, ultimately, the bigger concern is the country who receives it.Is it actually helpful, or is it a waste of time? What is the difference between helping and harming? Foreign Aid often walks a fine line, and there are many factors like corruption, poor planning, greed, and ulterior motives can do more harm to a country than good.

Sending massive amounts of foreign aid to other countries impacts countless lives. Many people, like Johnson C. Montgomery, believe that foreign aid is a waste of money. Foreign aid is defined as “economic, technical, or military aid given by one nation to another for purposes of relief and rehabilitation, for economic stabilization, or for mutual defense”. Montgomery wrote an article, which was published in Newsweek in 1974, stating his opinion on this issue. He was a California attorney and a member of the Zero Population Growth and attended Harvard University and the Stanford University Law School. His main claim in his article is that the US shouldn’t share wealth with other poorer nations. Montgomery is incorrect because of three reasons, such as poverty, environmental problems, and medical assistance.

The United States spends on average, 2.86 billion dollars of its budget on foreign aid. Although this appears to be a large amount, this money accounts for only about 1% of the U.S budget. In this 1%, foreign aid money helped other countries governments, militaries, economic development, education, environment, health, and humanitarian needs. Although this helps tremendously in the development of many third world countries, the war on poverty still continues. However although poverty and poor countries need the help it is still up for debate whether or not the U.S should continue giving aid or to lower the amount they spend. The U.S should not reduce its spending on foreign aid to concentrate on its on infrastructure

To begin with, a huge problem with foreign aid is that it does not reach the right people. When most people donate to an aid organization, they have no clue where their money is going. They are told it makes underprivileged lives better, but does it always? Most of the aid is given to the recipient’s government to distribute as they see fit. If there are guidelines, they are just that. They are ill-defined and inexact in their terms of agreement. Two reasons why the aid may not reach the right people are that the government does not always know where in the country needs money and help the most and the governments are

Foreign aid has played an enormous role in the United States government policy, especially since the mid-twentieth century, following World War II. At that time, the U.S. began providing financial aid, through the Marshall Plan, to help rebuild Europe (Williams, 2015). Today, foreign aid has evolved to mean a variety of things. Foreign aid is not strictly financial assistance. According to Williams in the Encyclopedia Britannica (2015), foreign assistance can include military assistance or equipment, medical assistance or equipment, or technical assistance and training. However, the most common foreign aid is official development assistance, which is organized through international organizations such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund or UNICEF and used to address poverty and promote development (Williams 2015). Many people feel in the United States feel that it is necessary to provide foreign assistance to the world. It is thought that helping less developed economies improves the market for everyone. Others feel that many people are in need here in the United States and that it does not make sense to send aid to other countries when people need right in their own city, state, or country. Most people think that a large portion of the U.S. budget is devoted to foreign aid. In contrast, according to Rutsch (2015), “the U.S. spends less than 1 percent of the federal budget on foreign aid”. With the state of the world today,

This paper exemplifies a fresh perspective on the long-standing debate of the effectiveness of aid conditionalities. This perspective casts a critical eye on the effectiveness of donor institutions and states in enforcing their own rules and goals rather than the usual critiques on recipient countries. In the past, political scientists and donor institutions and states have blamed the failure of aid conditionalities on recipient country deficiencies and factors as general as domestic regime type (Kono and Montinola 2009) and political economy (Molenaers et. al 2015) and as specific as recipient government’s degree of commitment to poverty reduction programs (Cordella and Dell’Ariccia 2002). On another note, this quantitative analysis will

‘In the world of development, if one mixes the poor and the non-poor [sic] in a program, the non-poor will always drive out the poor, and the less poor will drive out the more poor, unless protective measures are instituted right at the beginning. In such cases, the non-poor reap the benefits of all that is done in the name of the poor’ (Yunus, 1999:42). This quote goes to show how misunderstood the term ‘development’ is in the West, as the root causes of poverty are never fully addressed beforehand in order to assess what type of development is necessary for a country in the Third World. It is more important to look at whether the ways in which the West aids those countries deemed less developed actually works in practice as well as in