Foreign Aid--a good thing or bad error?

Question

Any extra comments appreciated.

Kevin--those are great ideas.

dd-great questions. Thank You

Ace-I agree. I think sometimes countries do become depended on Aid-and don't move forward, You answer was great

jbtascam-That was great, very informative. Thank you for that.

yella-You are so right

All of you made good points--hard to pick among so many great minds

Answer 1

It is usually handled poorly. We give money to countries to improve their infrastructure and they buy weapons instead.

We give them food for the starving and it goes to feed already well-fed military troops.

We give loans that never get repaid.

If we are going to give foreign aid, lets do it right. Lets make those kids work off their student loans building/staffing hospitals in the Third World countries. Lets just give them our outdated weapons so the defense contractors can keep 50, 000 Americans employed. Let's have our soldiers handle the food distribution. Let's take mineral rights and land as collateral on those loans and collect when the country defaults on their repayments.

Answer 2

Foreign Aid has several purposes. One is to incline a foreign government or people to be sympathetic to the donor nation. Another may be that the donor nation's government (or people) truly feel that human suffering must be eliminated.

The problem becomes what is the purpose of the aid, and who controls its final use?

In some countries, we are able to provide humanitarian relief directly to the people. We are also able to set up economic programs which are controlled by the government that does the giving. These are the easiest to monitor.

In other countries, we must deal with the government in place, and it controls where the aid eventually goes. Iraq and North Korea are two recent examples of totalitarian governments diverting foreign "aid" to the upkeep of the government. Saddam Husseign used such aid to buy political favors abroad and establish his own regime's security at home. Kim Il Jong uses such aid to keep the army loyal to himself. Very little of such aid actually reaches the people it is intended for.

Another problem is we must recognize when to stop throwing good money after bad. A humanitarian crisis causes an outpouring of sympathy and a call to increase "aid," when all the aid does is allow bad decisions to continue to be made in areas of economic and agricultural policy.

Foreign Aid can be a wonderful hand up for some, or simply the means by which a totalitarian regime stays in power for others.

Answer 3

Foreign aid is one of the noble humanitarian gestures we get to see. But, looking at the big numbers of aid, and the corresponding use it has been put to, many questions come up: -
Is foreign aid really meant for development?
Should under-developed and developing countries start relying on foreign aid as an eventuality, rather than a rescue measre?
How is it possible to make foreign aid reach those who really need it, and not those who actually ask for it (the political lobbies)?
Should developed countries provide it as a alms or just as a gesture in times of need?

We need to be sure about the answers of these questions..

Answer 4

it depends actually.
if the foreign aid comes with no poltical color with it then thats fine aslong as its beneficial to the country and we do not depend on it too much so as to make us lazy enough to be depending on other countries aid. but there may be some drawbacks with it.asides that it can lead to dependency, the country benefited by the aid would be subject to a debt by the foreign power thus giving in to some demands of foreign powers to pay the debt they owe. and this is bad becuase the sovereignty of ones country is now in question whether a country can still stand on its own or not. basically foreign aid is beneficial only if there are no strings attached whatsoever on it.

Answer 5

I think foreign aid many times gets into the wrong hands, we need to come up with a better way to distribute and monitor what we are giving countries so its used for the correct purposes. We also need to invest in these countries so they know that they are worth something and we have a vested interest as well...there are no simple answers...but we have to start somewhere

Answer 6

I think accountability is huge - if the aid is going to corrupt states or dictators, than how can we expect the people of the countryto pay it off, especially if they don't benefit from it? Foreign aid needs to be contigent on stable, democratic regimes.

Answer 7

Why would i question a good moral. Ofcourse, its a good thing. It should just get to the people who need it thats all not some fat ugly corrupted politician.

Answer 8

needs revamping. some aid is good most is bad.

Answer 9

Yellabana is exactly correct!