The Aid For African Scholars Essay

Many countries around the world receive foreign aid from the United States and other developed countries every year in large sums. This money is dispersed throughout the receiving country, it is the hope of the United States that this will help to create development economically and politically as well as promote the belief of democracy in these countries. The aid is intended to enhance infrastructure within the country so local institutions will be able to create policies to enhance their country. However, this does not always occur in the countries that receive this aid. This is specifically not the case in countries in sub-Saharan Africa that have won their freedom from colonial powers in the last 50 years. The issue of foreign aid in Africa is a major debate that is taking place in the world today most likely because of the lack of developed democratic regimes that exist on the continent today, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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

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

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.

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.

The arguments on aid have been seen largely from two perspectives: idealistic and realistic points of view. The idealist arguments are normative, with no real possibilities of assessing their validity. In contrast, evidence can be gathered to test the economic consequences of aid although different interpretations of the evidence are always possible and disagreements over the conclusiveness of the test are

In came into vogue that economic theory could benefit Third World countries, so humanitarians began to evaluate the best ways to help Africa through the markets [Barnett 100]. Furthermore, leaps were made in bolstering the efficiency of aid efforts, and it was discovered that the most effective systems were conglomerations of the state and NGOs [Barnett 107-108]. This may suggest that humanitarian efforts were transformed into vehicles for disseminating governmental and economic agendas, but conversely, aid organizations wished to increase their impact by cooperating with governments and the markets. Humanitarians were growing to appreciate the codependence of these avenues and that “everything was connected to everything else,” so they leveraged this new insight to the Africans’ benefit [Barnett

   Many critics of America's policies on foreign aid claim foreign countries have used America to build themselves up to a position of self-reliance, then refused to make promised or implied concessions to the US, when they no longer see the need to cater to American interests any longer.  The aid is justified partly by a sense of charity and responsibility towards the world, but there were also political

Some people speak against U.S foreign aid being sent to Africa for humanitarian reasons. Others speak out in favor of such actions. All of us have seen the news tickers with vital headlines about “people being devastated by droughts in Zimbabwe and unhygienic water in Sudan”, but what is their government doing about it. Personally, I’ve asked myself several founded inquiries about where is this foreign aid going to and what are some of the achievements being made. I’ve acquired over time well-built knowledge in relation to the United Nations and the work they perform globally to promote stability and development. I will be bringing in several valid arguments to get to the bottom of this controversial subject of

Africana Studies should not be limited to studying the oppression blacks and the struggle they’ve experienced though that is an important component and the only component usually seen by others. Black studies can be about blacks learning the necessary skills to be constructive members of society, such as financing, business, computer studies, labor laws and the judiciary systems. There are all field that can help the programs once students have mastered them. Having students doing financing can help with simple everyday life budgeting and planning ahead. Studying business as part of the program can introduce students to the possibilities of creating their own business which will result in more black owned businesses. Judiciary practices

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.

4.3. Figure D: It is stated in the article that aid has demonstrated to be have a positive impact on development and economical growth specifically when it is targeted towards a specific objective of the country. For example aid being used towards eradicating certain illnesses. Though, when aid is presented objectively and in large substantial amounts, the overall growth of the country appears to decline. Basically, they explain that aid only works to a certain extent, and there are other solutions that also need to be implemented. The scenario presented for this was Sub-Sahara Africa’s declining

While development aid created opportunities for the improvement and economic growth, but some scholars argued that ‘’dependent development’’ was considered by the fast financial growth and severe income equality (Bradshaw and Huang, 1991). According to Marshall et al. (2007) economic reliance can distress strength in other ways. However, many scholars argued that aid is effective in an environment that is high quality public institutions and capable to manage for development purposes. In one hand, funding has definitely

Over the last 50 years, the world has struggled to maintain an economic balance and stability, while flourishing countries try to maintain a steady income to support its people and relations with other countries. Therefore, when a continent like Africa fails to maintain a stable government and economy, super powers such as America decide to intervene with its relations. Africa has great potential to become another pillar of the world’s economic structure with its mass amounts of uncultivated land. Unfortunately, corruption and irresponsible governments hinder that progress. Foreign aid while helpful should be limited to a yearly amount because it allows the government to repudiate responsibility and gives room for corruption; it creates a

On the issue of aid, Pronk (2001) pointed out that aid can be seen as a catalyst rather than a primer mover, in the sense that aid is not a cause of development but a push or support to development. In the China-Africa relation, the role of aid has been to allow recipient countries to level their investment above domestic savings. Accordingly, Cheney and MacEwan (1966) assess that the function of aid is to enable the economy to expand through its ability to invest. In other words, aid serves as a catalyst. Griffin (1970) cautioned aid ability to act as a catalyst, contending that due to its negative effect, it retards economic growth instead of driving it. For Griffin (1970), aid is an impediment, not a catalyst. Furthermore, Boyce (2002) argued that, to describe aid as a catalyst for development, a sound analysis is essential to measure its negative and positive effect on the economy.