NationStates Jolt Archive

Now I am not an expert on government aid policy, but what I do know from my fairly limited knowledge is that when any rich country has an aid budget, they split it up between every country that they think needs it. Because there are so many countires that need it, this means that each one gets a tiny ammount of both money and experties to help them set up sustainable development. And the reason that they are spliting it up between every country is nothing more than political correctness. Basicly, they cannot justify giving all their resorces to one country as then the other countries will cry and winge and demand that they need it more. The way I see it, if every first world nation simpely focused all their resorces into one third world nation then more could be achieved. Then when that nation has reached a point of sustainablity, move on to another one. At present, with government aid resorces spread very thinly ammoung the various third world countries that the government sees as needy, very little is acomplished, and we are left with an "Everyones happy, no ones happy" comprimse. Basicly saying "We cant achive anything but we have shown we treet every third world country equally".

Actually a lot of the aid is doled out to secure stability in economically important parts of the world. For instance, Egypt gets aid from the US to stay peaceful with Israel in order to maintain a stable middle east for oil exports to flow.

Thank you for being so honest about your total ignorance on the subject of international aid! That kind of honesty is hard to come by.

Now to help you become more educated on the topic, (and perhaps give you some tips on how to spell words like 'compromise, basically, sustainability and resources' better):

International Aid comes in a variety of forms:

Non-governmental Organisations: these are groups set up for a specific purpose, (ie. helping the victims of a recent natural disaster, or focusing on a specific country). They are charities, and raise money privately from donations in return for tax breaks to the donator (which of course come out of public funds). Aid can be in any form the NGO finds acceptable (digging wells, handing out bibles, buying rice etc).

International Development Agencies: run by governments, these are actual ministries that deal with funds going to developing nations. The amount of money, and the receivers of these funds are determined by national policy. It most certainly is not a case of 'everyone gets a slice'. Nor are the majority of these funds given out 'no strings attached'. Most of them are in the form of 'loans', and are given out based on compliance with the international goals of the government providing these loans. The U.S is famous for tying aid into compliance...the carrot is the money, the stick is the agreements the receiving nations are supposed to sign in order to keep getting the funds.

Then there is the World Bank and the IMF: these are international agencies that are beholden to no one government (supposedly). They tie all aid into Structural Adjustment Programs, forcing governments to privatise social systems, cut down on labour laws and human rights protections in order to 'attract business', and generally dictate how a country is run. The trade off? Aid money that is often funneled out of the country by corrupt leaders, and a debt that leaves many countries too impoverished to pay more than the interest. Economies collapse, social systems are dismantled, and sweatshops thrive.
http://www.devp.org/testA/policy/declarationsj-e.htm][/url]
• In Ethiopia, where more than 100,000 children die every year from easily preventable diseases, the cost of servicing the external debt is four times the amount the government spends on health care.
• In Tanzania, where 40% of the population dies before the age of 35, debt payments are six times the country's health care budget.
• Throughout Africa, where one out of every two children does not go to school, governments pay their creditors in the North four times more than they spend on the education and health of their citizens.


As well, keep in mind that the international aid budget (I'm speaking now strictly of the monies that go freely, without strings attached, a mere percentage of the total), has been drastically slashed in most countries. In Canada, our aid budget was reduced by over 37% in the last ten years. There are less funds, and most of what we 'give' is not given freely.

Another issue is that a lot of aid given internationally does not take into account the unique factors of the receiving nation. Old hospital equipment is often donated to developing nations...whose hospitals may not have enough electrical capacity or the trained personnel to run them. Wells are dug in poor communities, using expensive parts that locals are untrained to maintain, and who cannot afford to buy replacement parts. An old-fashioned hand-pump well would make more sense, but we plop our aid into their laps, useful or not, and expect them to be happy. Millions of dollars that go towards drugs needed for AIDS patients in Africa, or even condoms to cut down on infections, instead has been funneled into 'abstinence' programs. Yes, you are poor and there is AIDs in your country, so don't have sex. Bah.

Fine then answer me this, wouldnt it be much more efective to just have every single western nation send all its aid to one third world country and then when thats set up to fend for itself, deal with another one, and another one, untill it is all done.

Ok so you start sorting out 'country A' which will take an optomistic 5-10 years. How do you stop the mass economic migration from the surrounding countries which are now completely cut off?

Worse still what if surrounding countries begin raiding 'country A' for supplies?

Military occupation?

Ask them to play nice until it's their turn?

You can't sort out the Third world, it has to sort itself out. Until countries begin the process on their own albeit with financial assistance, which some already are, the best you can do is plug up the holes and hope it doesn't sink.

Fine then answer me this, wouldnt it be much more efective to just have every single western nation send all its aid to one third world country and then when thats set up to fend for itself, deal with another one, and another one, untill it is all done.
A lot of the people in the neglected nations would die while waiting for us to get to their nation. Also, after our aid to a nation dries up it may well fall back into the shit because third world countries often have corrupt governments.

What you've described has nothing to do with political correctness. It's also completely innacurate. You obviously know next to nothing about foriegn aid policy.

My own country, Ireland, already focuses on specific countries to an extent, aswell as providing aid to other countries, although we are not meeting our current targets. I am sure many other countries have similiar schemes-

From dci.gov.ie : "An important element of the Ireland Aid programme is its special relationship with certain developing countries. Direct funding is given to programmes and projects which meet basic needs in seven priority countries: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Uganda, Lesotho, Tanzania, Timor Leste, Zambia"

Most Third World countries are so poor because they're ruled by corrupt stooges who pocket all foreign aid, bask in the limelight and live like kings, all the while their populations wither away and starve to death. I can't think of a single Third World country that isn't ruled by a blatantly corrupt, tin-pot dictator.