Editing Official development assistance

== Successful example of foreign aid ==

Jeffrey Sachs{{W|Jeffrey Sachs}} has argued that "Virtually every country has needed a helping hand at some point. It's a rule of life."<ref name="SOLIDARITY">[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/lecture4.shtml Reith Lectures 2007 - Lecture 4: Economic Solidarity for a Crowded Planet] - ''BBC Radio 4''.</ref> Cases which have been claimed as successful examples of foreign aid include:

* [[India]]'s Green Revolution{{W|Green Revolution}} depended on international aid in its early years.<ref name="SOLIDARITY" />
* Malawi, in 2007, has started a program to guarantee vital inputs for the poorest farmers.<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/lecture4.shtml Reith Lectures 2007 - Lecture 4: Economic Solidarity for a Crowded Planet] - transcript, ''BBC Radio 4''. Based on earlier comments in the lecture, "vital inputs" refers to "high-yield seeds, fertilizers, and small-scale water management techniques".</ref> "Food yields have soared, in a neighborhood of acute food shortages" says Sachs.<ref name="SOLIDARITY" />

== Foreign aid in comparison to other forms of funding ==

Measured simply in terms of size, official development assistance is dwarfed by a number of other sources of funding, including [[remittances]] and [[domestic savings]].

The real advantage of official development assistance, then, seems to be targeting areas of public need and strategic value which are not currently catered to by these larger aid flows.

== Criticisms of foreign aid ==

Modern foreign aid programs (and to an extent welfare policies in wealthy nations) are often criticized for being ineffective (inappropriate solutions that end up unused) or even causing harm (creating a handout mentality, putting rich foreign aid workers in a poor context and causing envy, supporting corrupt authorities).<ref>A summary of some of the criticisms, with an aid workers own responses, is given at [http://www.amazon.com/review/R2DEVDJMYZZT4E/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm Customer Review of ''The Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business'' by Graham Hancock] - review by Sithara Batcha, May 29, 2006, Amazon.com</ref> This happens through a mixture of incompetence but with [[Good intentions, disastrous outcomes|good intentions]], and [[corruption]].

Critics of the aid industry include Kamal Kar (of the no-[[subsidy]] Community Led Total Sanitation program) and Dipankar Chakraborti (who led in raising awareness of the [[arsenic in groundwater]] problem, both of whom are very critical of subsidies in development. See also the insightful blog by an aid worker on these questions, [http://vasco-pyjama.livejournal.com/tag/aid,aid_work,aid_worker,development Pyjama Samsara (filtered feed)].

Problems with aid include:

* Flight capital: if a [[government]] is [[corrupt]] then the country's wealth may be stolen by corrupt officials, even leave the country as [[flight capital]]:

:* This may also happen with the country's own wealth, in which case it is sometimes argued that this is a more important issue than how much foreign aid is given.
:* Aid money itself may also be subject to theft in this way. However, when the aid is given in the form of goods and services (such as mosquito nets{{W|mosquito net}} this is obviously impossible, or at least much more difficult.<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/lecture4.shtml Reith Lectures 2007 - Lecture 4: Economic Solidarity for a Crowded Planet] - transcript, ''BBC Radio 4''. Note the exchange between Karl Ziegler (emphasizing the importance of flight capital as the key issue, rather than aid) and Jeffrey Sachs (arguing that flight capital does not negate the need for aid or the effective of aid).</ref>

Jeffrey Sachs characterized some criticisms of foreign aid, and refuted it, saying:
:<tt>there seems to be a pervasive misunderstanding, and that is that we're already doing so much, but we're not doing what they want. And this is absolutely not the case, we're doing so little, and also not what they want. That's the point.<ref name="SOLIDARITY" /></tt>

== Notes ==

<references />

* Content which is not suitable for Appropedia can be placed at [http://Issuepedia.org/Foreign_aid Issuepedia:Foreign aid] (not created yet). Please help to ensure that links are placed between relevant pages on the two wikis.

== External links ==

* [[Wikipedia:Official development assistance]]
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20070707005035/http://kevininliberia.blogspot.com:80/2007/01/review-of-robert-calderisis-trouble.html Is Foreign Aid Really Working in Africa?], 2006-02-09. Blog post at ''Kevin in Liberia'', ([[User talk:KevinFryatt|KevinFryatt]]'s blog, with further discussion in comments).
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20090115070047/http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/2005/53037.htm The U.S. Approach to International Development], Bureau of Public Affairs, Washington DC, September 12, 2005, ([[public domain]]).

== Bibliography ==

* Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures,{{W|Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures}} Heidi Postlewait, Kenneth Cain and Doctor Andrew Thomson, 2004, ISBN 978-1401359669 - the memoir of three young UN workers, showing the successes and failures of UN work.

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[[Category:Funding]]
[[Category:Subsidies and grants]]
[[Category:Governments]]
[[Category:International development]]