Razoo Causes: International Aid

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Cause Last Updated:
November 05, 2008

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Aid, Economy, Foreign Aid, Human Rights, Politics, Violence

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International aid is intended to help the poor by giving billions of dollars to their governments. However, the unintended results of indiscriminate giving has too often been to pervert indigenous economic and political systems. The results of ill-considered giving vary from entrenching political corruption and tribal factionalism, to destroying domestic markets and creating economic dependence on foreign handouts. Emphasis needs to shift away from how much money is given, to measuring the results of international aid. The World Bank keeps little data on what its grants achieve - the focus is on how much they give away. International aid can do as much harm as good, especially when...

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Targeted microeconomic development: A 'Marshall Plan'

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Posted 08/22/07 by Jeff Mowatt 0 comments
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Too many god damned professional do-gooders and not enough locally minded non-prof visionaries

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Posted 08/09/07 by Cory Richardson 0 comments

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"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"
The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.
Bono Still Hasnâ€™t Found What Heâ€™s Looking For
U2 rock star and humanitarian Bono has come in for some recent criticism. According to Advertising Age, his (RED) campaign has spent upward of $100 million on advertising to produce a mere $18 million for the Global Fund to support African AIDS programs.
The Foreign Aid Debacle
Ironically, the solution to the foreign aid question is not an end to foreign aid. It is an end to the methods used to fund it. If the countries of the world want foreign aid then let them have it -free-market foreign aid. This is made all the more easy, thanks to the Internet. What taxpayers object to is neither the aid nor the fact that it is foreign but rather that their money is being taken without their consent.
Foreign Aid - A Disaster in the Making
Politicians are bound to politicize disasters, as they do with all other world events, in a way that helps them accumulate more power and confiscate more wealth from their citizens. Specifically, now that they are becoming rather fond of portraying themselves as internationalized Mother Teresas, coming to the aid of anyone, anywhere, as long as it is all paid for by their hard-working, hapless taxpayers, they will be inclined to become champions of ever-expanding foreign aid spending. To do this they will have to ignore the truth about foreign aid: For over half a century, it has been either ineffective or counterproductive in stimulating prosperity.
Canadian Senate Committee on the Failure of Foreign Aid
The Canada standing senate committee on foreign affairs concluded that, after 40 years of aid, little has been done with its $12.4bn in bilateral assistance to propel Africa from economic stagnation or to improve the quality of life on the continent: "Development assistance has been a holding pattern for Africa at best, and a direct facilitator of poor governance and economic mismanagement at worst."
White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
Easterly, an NYU economics professor and a former research economist at the World Bank, brazenly contends that the West continues to fail to enact its ill-formed, utopian aid plans because, like the colonialists of old, it assumes it knows what is best for everyone. Existing aid strategies provide neither accountability nor feedback. Without accountability for failures, broken economic systems are never fixed. And without feedback from the poor who need the aid, no one in charge really understands exactly what trouble spots need fixing.