Foreign Aid Poverty

Whether or not foreign aid is being used as a tool or as a weapon remains a question. Each year we use foreign aid to threaten hungry countries all over the world. People fear the United States will withdraw from any type of aid they are associated with causing even more trouble than good. About half of U.S. foreign aid goes to the six countries that are Washington’s allies; these are against terror attacks and drug transportation. Foreign aid is viewed as good because it makes the world a safer place, it leaves countries cleaner and healthier, however others view it as harmful because of the cost, it fuels rampant corruption in countries that receive it, and it creates poverty.

Harvard Business School’s Case Study “Aid, Debt Relief, and Trade: An agenda for fighting World Poverty” outlines the steps, and missteps, that the world community has taken since World War II to address the efficacy of international assistance. The study focuses on international financial institutions (IFIs) and their ability to help poor nations break out of poverty and the possible obligations of rich, developed countries to assist the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs). Additionally, the study seeks to see if this assistance has been and can be parlayed into growth and investment for the HIPCs.

Foreign aid is defined as the help given by one nation's government to another nation to help with social and financial advancement. Also, foreign aid is used in order to help a country to respond a disaster such as natural disaster, disease, etc. It can include providing financial help, medicines (science), food, clothes, etc. Likewise, foreign aid can be used for education (knowledge), infrastructures, equipment, and to fight poverty. I believe that foreign aid helps poor countries especially when it is well designed, and delivered, works, saving the lives of many and helping to promote economic growth. In addition, it is good for those countries in need because it is free, good for the improvement of a poor countries economy, and it

There are billions of dollars that developed countries give to the developing countries to say that they are helping the poor and that they are bring the poor countries up out of the dirt. But studies have shown that giving money alone does not help, it could actually make the country worse off. Foreign countries should not give money to developing nations because the developing countries become too reliant on the developed countries, it does not help the developing countries, and with money, comes corruption. The better way for foreign aid to work which is to give technological aid. A quote from Maimonides, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This quote tells a tale of how society works and the importance of learning. This can be applied to a multiple of things like how a developed country needs to teach another country how to survive. The developed countries are just giving money and food instead of teaching the public about how to grow food and how to have a stable economy. Countries around the world that depend on foreign aid are now

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.

On one side of the issue the supporters of developmental aid believe that the United States is doing more than a great job by offering economic assistance to countries that need help to develop. These individuals are aware of the unfortunate poverty levels in many countries abroad. They believe that it is the duty of the American people to help reduce the poverty levels in countries in which people live with less than a dollar a day. In fact, some supporters believe that the U.S. is not offering enough support to the poorer countries. Many have

Does American Aid help poverty in foreign countries? No, they don’t spend our wages on things they need to grow their living conditions and economy. Our compensation will not encourage them to become involved in world politics, instead it is just going to teach them to live off of our handouts. What good is a charity if it is not going to help anything? The purpose of America financially benefiting other countries is for them to take the money and help fix their economical issues and make a better livelihood status for themselves. Since it hardly seems like they are going to use our cash to promote their own society, they should be indebted to us and pay our unmitigated promotion. According to Stephen Moore, “There is zero evidence that any

In some countries, people living in poverty may be oppressed, current low economic status causing unemployment or homelessness. Many people are living in poverty due to situations out of their control. It seems like in other countries, direct assistance has helped influence the reduction of poverty. There have been many studies performed to change societies perceptions and solutions to rid poverty such as providing education, reduce the cost of living, raise minimum wage and try direct assistance. Education can be a helpful tool in bringing people out of poverty because it increases the number of highly skilled workers which help generate more money for everyone.

First of all, giving financial aid to other countries helps them to continue their current way of life with ease. However, by giving aid in the form of money, medical supplies, and food hinders hard working people because they have to pay taxes, for a service that does not benefit them in any way. If aid is constantly given to poor countries, we will eventually find ourselves in hardship situations, and we will have no one to help us in future times of need. Each and every country should have its own unassisted emergency fund in case of natural disaster or any other form of tragedy, and should not be dependent upon the U.S. every time they are in need. If handouts are frequently given to poor countries, they may

However, the aid has some drawbacks which include some of the policies not being practical and occasionally being too political which makes the targeted poor people more vulnerable. Also governments receiving the aid could be partial which can also result in uneven and biased distribution of the aid which doesn’t solve any problems.

Another factor of foreign aid that hurts the aided country is over-population. The biggest cause of over population is sending foreign countries supplies of food. The land can only support so many people and their technology does not allow for surplus. Naturally when you run out of food the population will cease to grow. Adding food to a country increases the amount of people that can live in the country. Because there is more available food the population will grow thereby crowding the country causing a scarcity of resources such as clean water, growing room for food, and jobs. When the availability of food increases people become less dependent on their private farms. This can allow them the opportunity to move into the cities causing over-crowding and increasing the size of slums. If the United States continues to give food to these

Many programs are available to the public in order to help Latin America and the people thereof. I believe the people themselves and the entire dynamic of Latin America will need to change before the poverty levels change significantly. Donations and charities may help but they will only scratch the surface. The issues of Latin America are deep and need to be dug up and dealt with by the people of Latin America.

The trouble with aid reveals, over time government in start to lose their sovereignty as they keep receiving aid. The aid created restrictions by the government because of the regulations of placed by those giving the donations. For they have a certain idea of how and where the money should be spent. This reduces the accountability of the government to its people and gives more agency in countries to while reducing the agency of the local government to intervene their rule of a state.

Governments and state agencies need to be more concerned in the obliteration of poverty through providing foreign aid. "As much as people think that America does its part in providing foreign aid, statistics from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development show that the U.S has been at the bottom of the list of industrialized countries as per proceeds that they give to foreign support." (Singer, 2009)

Whereas the United States? budget deficit forces many government agencies, including the Agency for International Development(AID), to lose funding. Furthermore there is no reason to send billions of dollars over seas when northern countries like the United States and Great Britain currently face the highest levels of child poverty that either country has seen in over 25 years. In addition to poverty, other domestic problems such as rape, robberies, and murders in this country still exist. Until domestic issues are solved, any future increase in foreign aid should also be kept to a minimum.