James Ferguson Developmental Aid Case Study

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

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

Hardin informs us that the well- intentioned of helping is actually counterproductive. When the United States gives international aid to third world countries, we cause more suffering in the end. The poor country that receives aid is not growing wealthy or

The JSTOR Review by Kristian Hoelscher on the book Dead Aid elaborates how Moyo “half-right” in her critique of foreign aid nonetheless Hoelscher mentions how “her review is unfortunately shallow and lacking nuance” in the areas of acknowledging the successes of aid in Africa. Additionally, another review of JSTOR by S.U. Fwatshak reiterated how “aid could not have been the fundamental reason why Africa poor… African’s problem are rooted in a mosaic of a factors (157).” These two reviews provided to be good sources to shed light on the issues of foreign aid and to counter-balance the Moyo’s critique on aid. Lastly, the book is quite short with only one-hundred and eighty-three pages therefore it seemed so like some concepts needed to be elaborated more but were not. On the other hand, the reason I choose this as a source because it does a suitable job in showing the history of aid, speaking on aid effectiveness, and exemplifying the stagnant economic growth (e.g. ten percent Africans are living in poverty in the 1970s compared to seventy-percent now (Moyo 33)). While, I wished the book concentrated more in a section of Africa, such as Sub-Saharan, it was an insightful and factual

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

According the US Census Bureau, the United States spent $44.957 billion on foreign aid in 2009, in terms of total foreign assistance. Of that, just over $11 billion was military assistance. The nations that received the most foreign aid were Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Pakistan. Some aid went to financial institutions and to aid agencies, and therefore is difficult to classify by country. By regions, Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East were the biggest recipients of foreign aid. The recipients and types of foreign aid are indicative of priorities that the US government has with respect to foreign relations. As many people applaud high levels of foreign aid from the US to poor countries around the world, foreign aid also has its critics. From a domestic perspective, criticisms include the argument that this money would be better used in the United States, and the libertarian argument against all forms of foreign aid in general. It is worth noting that many critics of foreign aid still support aid to support military objectives, which includes the four largest recipient of aid (Traub, 2011). External critics of foreign aid argue that such aid has generally failed to achieve its objectives, for a variety of reasons ranging from rapidly increasing populations to corruption to the promotion of dependency relationships (Bovard, 1986). This paper will analyze US foreign aid in the context of its success and failures and make the case that the United States

An innocent child begs her mother for food, a single tear running down her cheek. The fires of life that once filled the girl’s eyes slowly begin to fade. The mother embraces her child, tells her the pain will be gone within a few moments. As she holds her, she feels the warmth slip away; her little girl’s body becomes engulfed by empty coldness. So much could have been done to save that life, from local government support to foreign aid, yet not enough aid was given. And so, society is posed with the question of “How much aid should wealthy nations provide for developing countries?” This paper will look at the philosophy behind this question by analyzing two articles.

One of my main arguments being how people do not believe that foreign aid helps, meaning they stop donating all together, creating immorality. This idea is supported in Banerjee and Duflo’s Poor Economics; they discuss the general reaction when faced with a major issue like poverty. Generally, our first instinct is to be generous and then our second thought is that there is no point to our generosity. Banerjee and Duflo are able to describe the general feeling that “our contribution would be a drop in the bucket, and the bucket probably leaks” (Banerjee and Duflo, 2). Regardless of the fact Banerjee and Duflo are trying to fight the assumption that we cannot do anything to help, it does not change the fact that this is the common belief when it comes to large issues like poverty. While I still believe that the frustration with inequality and poverty breeds immorality, I now believe that the bigger issue is on the global scale. In his book Encounter Development, Escobar makes the point that “development was – and continues to be for the most part – a top-down, ethnocentric, and technocratic approach, which treated people and cultures as abstract concepts, statistical figures to be moved up and down in charts of ‘progress’” summing up the immorality created by development thinkers who are there to “help” eradicate poverty (Escobar, 44). The inequality between the first world and the third world

Before we close, let’s get one thing straight: Albeit its inefficiencies, the current system does not make injections of money redundant. Development assistance is indeed an important stream of resources that can be employed more efficiently to prevent and treat

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.

Glennie, Jonathan. "Giving Aid to Poor Countries Is Hardly a Great Act of Generosity." Poverty Matters Blog. Guardian News and Media, 14 June 2011. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.

In past examples, “the accountability of the government to its people . . . gradually [was] replaced by accountability to its major aid donors"(David Sogge 15). The government is being forced to put the aid money towards things that are vastly different than what they truly need. “these countries become poorer because instead of using their funds to invest in profitable projects and channel their income to other investments, they use what they have to pay their debt”(Green Garage 11). So even when a country’s leader truly wants what’s best, they may not be able to accomplish what they wanted to due to the nature of some types of foreign aid. Though not all problems can/should be solved with outside help, these factors just push people away from what they can do to help remedy the real

When I chose Brazil as the subject country for examining its foreign aid received, I ran into a bit of a dilemma. Brazil has evolved from being a foreign aid recipient and less developed nation of the past, to become a major foreign aid provider in recent years. This fact places this emerging country in a unique and interesting position as both a donor and recipient as of 2010 records reveal and Brazil’s donor status is on the increase since this new “middle-of-the-road” development status for this intriguing country emerged.

National development and foreign aid are the two word combinations have been competing on which has been uttered more frequently in the Presidential Palace. Presidents, advisors and even cleaning staff comes and goes but the eternal question remains – to collect or not to collect the international aid to facilitate national development. The ideas range on the spectrum from claims that foreign aid rarely translates into development or that such policies discourage government accountability

Now yes, foreign aid may have a positive impact on the lives of people in third world countries, but does that really matter? I know that is a bit of a naive comment, but it is a serious one none the less. Personally, what concerns me most is not dollars spent, but outcomes achieved. Foreign aid “unquestionably saves lives,” but it also strengthens