Space Constraints Will Not Allow For A Complete Overview Of The Vast Literature On Northern Aid Policies Towards Africa

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

According the US Census Bureau, the United States spent $44.957 billion on foreign aid in 2009, in terms of total foreign assistance. Of that, just over $11 billion was military assistance. The nations that received the most foreign aid were Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Pakistan. Some aid went to financial institutions and to aid agencies, and therefore is difficult to classify by country. By regions, Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East were the biggest recipients of foreign aid. The recipients and types of foreign aid are indicative of priorities that the US government has with respect to foreign relations. As many people applaud high levels of foreign aid from the US to poor countries around the world, foreign aid also has its critics. From a domestic perspective, criticisms include the argument that this money would be better used in the United States, and the libertarian argument against all forms of foreign aid in general. It is worth noting that many critics of foreign aid still support aid to support military objectives, which includes the four largest recipient of aid (Traub, 2011). External critics of foreign aid argue that such aid has generally failed to achieve its objectives, for a variety of reasons ranging from rapidly increasing populations to corruption to the promotion of dependency relationships (Bovard, 1986). This paper will analyze US foreign aid in the context of its success and failures and make the case that the United States

Before covering French’s experiences within Africa, it is important to address the two types of influence that China exerts over Africa. This influence or way of controlling their interests within the country is initially subject to a time period during the late 20th century where much of Africa’s foreign policy

Africa has become aid dependent in the sense that “few of its states can carry and routine functions or deliver basic public services without external funding and expertise”(Goldsmith, Foreign Aid and Statehood in Africa). Foreign aid is meant to be used as a means of creating the infrastructure and institutions to carry out the functions of a nation. African nations have become so used to foreigners providing many basic functions and necessities of their people they do not feel the need to provide it themselves. This thinking has allowed for unneeded increases of foreign aid because of the lack of progress made by Africa with the current spending. Western nations have done little to nothing to give African nations incentives to use the foreign aid in an effective manner so that less and less foreign aid has to be provided to

Africa has been the largest recipient of American financial aid for many years now and is thus up for examination as to whether this money is being used efficiently. Foreign aid is a humanitarian necessity in developing countries because it eliminates immediate suffering, helps to prevent this suffering in the long run through administration of medical, hygienic and educational essentials, and gives countries the capacity to have a stance in the international market through economic growth. There is clear evidence of why the USA and others should continue providing financial aid to developing regions in Africa.

Sub-Saharan countries received their independence at various times during the 20th century with approximately $1 trillion dollars being transferred in the form of aid to the African continent. The African content is huge, where its size is equivalent to combining China, Mexico, Western and Eastern Europe, United States, Japan and Iberia (refer to Exhibit 1). The aid that has been provided to the sub-Saharan nation has always seemed to be a band aid approach to helping Africans by giving them food, water, medicine along with other basic essentials needed to survive. Where if you look at the money that has been spent on those developed nations towards getting them to be self-sustaining, a trillion dollar in foreign aid to Africa seems to

In an article published by The Spectator entitled “Why foreign aid fails – and how to really help Africa,” Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson condemn the current system of foreign aid granting and suggest an alternate, more efficient solution. They support their points by deducing that “extractive institutions,” in which incentives for economic prosperity are few, are the culprit of enduring poverty; by providing examples where foreign aid failed to reduce poverty (Congo, Angola, Syria, and South Africa); by giving testimonies from former British Prime Minister David Cameron and multilateral institutions concerning the effectiveness of foreign aid; and by advising an alternative solution to combating poverty, involving diplomatic relations

As the world enters a globalized age, the interactions between nations become increasingly important. What was once a ‘all for one, one for all’ mentality, with nations acting mostly in their own best interests -barring, of course, the alliances made between nations, often military in nature acting against a common foe- has become a question of the common good. What obligation to help, if any, do countries with well developed economies and militaries have towards those nations in need? Nations that form economic alliances with other nations develop more quickly than they could have on their own, and aid from a greater international power can make a large difference in the economy and livelihood of developing countries. The United States, annually, donates somewhere between $30-50 billion to foreign aid, in an effort to help those nations that find themselves torn by war, disease, poverty, a lack of education, and a myriad of other problems. The question becomes one of what role does the United States play in foreign affairs, particularly that concerning foreign aid, and whether the United States is obligated to play that role, and ‘do its part,’ so to speak, on the global stage. Several factors will be examined to determine the answer, namely; the United States foreign aid budget and what the funds actually do, the comparison between the private and public sectors of foreign aid, the benefits of trade versus aid, and the roles of other developed nations in foreign aid.

In early 1990, I was serving as United States Marine Security Guard at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum Sudan during the destruction and fall of the Somali State in east Africa. Of course, history remembers the key figures involved from United States President to the warlord that controlled the country. The question to be asked, “Is how did this happen, and could it been avoid in the first place?” I would argue that International Monetary Funds (IMF) involvement in the early 1980’s set the groundwork and pattern of civil war that remains today.

In the past, the U.S. claimed that if Côte d’Ivoire’s political situation resolved the Administration would reengage to “promote credible and peaceful elections… and increase economic productivity” (Cook 50). The U.S. has not followed through on its promise and has shown no action to increase the help in any of these areas even after the resolution of the civil war, even after the first freely elected president, and even after the creation of a state constitution.

As First World countries, we have developed a way of thinking that says because we are more developed, we now hold all the knowledge necessary to turn a developing country into a developed country. The failure of foreign aid proves this statement to be false. In a majority of cases where aid is given to developing countries, it simply does not work. They are still in the same situation, if not worse, then they were before they received aid. Foreign aid is a failure for three reasons: the aid does not reach the appropriate people, the aid does not always fix the situation in the long-run, and the aid creates a dependence on both the donor country and the aid itself. We have the capability and the desire to be of enormous assistance to the developing countries. The way we go about giving the foreign aid determines whether it will ultimately succeed or fail.

The issue of transnational aid intervention has become a worldwide topic for debate regarding its role in ethics and legitimacy in international relations. Historically, international aid had been provided by developed worlds governments. However, aid provided by the developed world became problematic because of international treaties, violation of state sovereignty, and the spread of capitalist enterprises (Willetts). In addition to, many of the developing world leaders, consider the concept of aid intervention to be potentially threatening and an excuse for more powerful nations to undermine and threaten their state sovereignty through a change in the nations economic and social discourses (Willetts).

On the basis of the viewpoints ascertained above, I firmly agree with author Jeffrey Sachs on the premise of utilizing foreign aid as a tool for economic development and helping improve the lives of others however, regarding policy I contend that state governments should not become the direct beneficiaries of aid. This is to say that instead of providing capital resources to governments which according to Swanson’s article can “make governments more despotic, and can also increase the risk of civil war since there is less power-sharing”1 [3] we should instead focus on a project based-approach forms of foreign aid as seen evident in the combat of malaria in Africa. Such approaches have (according to Sachs) have been successful. For example,

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

Lowrey (1995) supports the fact that there is a theoretical relationship between the Central African Franc (CFA) and France’s inflation rates, and that the CFA members’ monetary policies are, in effect, still determined by France. In the case of French economic aid, various scholars demonstrate how this has traditionally been deployed to maintain influence and power in Africa. As noted above, Cumming (2001) has written extensively about political conditionality as something that the recipient country had to do prior to receiving French aid. Others such as Olsen (2001) also questions the impact of public opinion on the setting up of French ODA.