Is foreign aid the solution to global poverty?

Question

A 2005 United Nations report called for a doubling of foreign aid to poor countries as the means to reduce poverty. Yet the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a for-profit microloan bank and its founder, an apparent vindication of the ideas of Peter T. Bauer, Henry Hazlitt, Deepak Lal, and others. As Bauer wrote, “Development aid, far from being necessary to rescue poor societies from a vicious circle of poverty, is far more likely to keep them in that state.…Emergence from poverty requires effort, firmly established property rights, and productive investment.

Answer 1

Give a man a fish, feed him for a day or teach him how to fish and feed him for a lifetime applies here I would say.

Answer 2

Most of the world's problems are due to political skirmishes, 41 major wars, civil wars & man's inhumanity to man. How can you share technology when a general population of a third-world country isn't properly trained or educated enough? The Chinese have made inroads into Africa by building dams, schools, hospitals, etc. at no cost to the host nation. But, for instance, Sudan said that China is expecting mineral and oil rights in return. There always seems to be some underlying tactic to everything and has very little to do with improving the lot of the extreme poor and suffering. Money won't solve global warming or how farmers have over used or improperly used their lands. Money won't solve the destruction of the Amazon River basin, where large areas of timber and wetlands are destroyed every minute each day. That affects climate changes, even in parts of Africa. Foreign aid is only a temporary solution and an inadequate one. Improper use of the earth's resources, greed, and political strife needs to come to an end before we can fully address global poverty.

Answer 3

Just giving money or things will not solve the world's poverty problem. People will work for themselves if they have the means of production, to a point. Not everyone knows how to make an increase. Some "eat their seed potatoes" and hence, have nothing to plant so they see no harvest. Contributing to these organizations (one's you trust) that sponsor the microloans will be a better option. Still, the world's problems will only be finally solved when Jesus returns and sets up His Kingdom. Then truth, justice, mercy and righteousness will be established. Maranatha!

Answer 4

No - I agree with the first answer. Foreign aid to poor countries does no good if it is not used to develop a good economic base where jobs and income can be provided for the people. Many times the foreign aid is only used to provide wealth to whoever is in power at the moment and ends up in private accounts in some place where it is not traceable.

Answer 5

I think foreign aid will help temporary. But the ultimately the previous colonial powers that exploited various regions are now in positions to give back but refuse to do so. See what the colonial powers did was take a lot more than what they gave back entire countries were run like businesses. They colonial powers eventually pulled out and left the regions into the hands of brutal despotic dictators that were installed there for their interest only, in a way they continued the exploitation indirectly through these puppet regimes. So the responsibility to end global poverty falls on these previous global colonial powers.

Answer 6

It depends on the aid. A week or so ago I was listening to NPR, and they were talking to a man who lives in a country where floods are getting worse and worse, and aid workers had taught him and his neighbors how to plant gardens on floating rafts, and that's how he was surviving. And then there's the scientist who just won a $1 million prize for inventing an arsenic filter, and plans on spending the bulk of his prize money building and distributing arsenic filters to third-world countries with water purity problems.

Aid is certainly a step in the right direction!

Answer 7

Has all of the money the US and other countries poured into some of these countries helped overcome their poverty? No, but it has made some really rich people at the top--including the ones that sit on the UN council.

Answer 8

Foreign aid is good only to aid a poor country but not to let other countries be dependent on it. Every country must be self sufficient.

Answer 9

divide all the money in the world and no one is richer then the other person but first make the planet a drug and alcohol free planet, that why it will never be over poverty is here to stay because of drugs,

Answer 10

foreign aid is exactly like domestic aid ie. welfare. one of the worst things to happen to this country is welfare. there should be no food stamp program, none of that crap. it hasent improved the lives of anyone on the program because the government gives just enough to live by.

it doesent work in america and it wont work in other counties. we are just teaching people to live off the government tit. and its our government. and our money.