Talk:Aid
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[edit] Loans
One thing I came here hoping to find out is, how much is loans? People talk about money given to these countries, but there are a lot of loans and loan guarantees.
[edit] Moved from article
This edit of 25 Feb 06 was rightly reverted... however I'll post some of it here (reformatted), as it does highlight relevant topics which are not yet covered by the article. -Singkong2005 13:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
- THE PROBLEMS WITH AID.
- 1. Dependency on Aid
- LEDC become dependent on the aid they are at great risk as their economies could collapse if the aid supply is cut off.
- 2. Quantity.
- Donor governments cutting back on promised responsibilities.
- 1970: governments had promised to spend 0.7% of GNP on ODA (deadline: mid-70s). But, the average among donors is only about 0.25% of GNP (= US $55 Billion a year)
- Recent European Union pledge to spend 0.56% of GNP on poverty reduction by 2010, and 0.7% by 2005
- Almost all rich nations have constantly failed to reach their agreed obligations of the 0.7% target.
- Some donate many dollars, but are low on GNP percent. E.g: USA- one of the lowest in terms of percent of GNP but for the last 4 years, dollars amt have been the highest.)
- 3. Equity (fairness)
- too little aid reaches countries that must desperately need it.
- Only 27% of ODA reaches the countries which are home to 1.5 billion of the worlds poor.
- 4. Predictability.
- donors can cut off aid at a moments notice.
- Aid can be used to serve the donors country’s own political interests.
- Aid and militarism (tied aid) (politics affect what aid goes where and how much is spent)
- Example: the war on terrorism.
- credits for foreign militaries to buy US weapons and equipment increase by US $700 million to US $5 Billion.
- (biggest bilateral recipients: Israel and Egypt)
- militaristic aid comes at the expense of humanitarian and development interests
- EU also links aid to fighting terrorism (no cooperation= relations with the economically powerful bloc will suffer.
- aid money is often fled to various restrictive conditions.
- As a condition for aid money, many doors apply conditions that tie the recipient to purchase products only from that donor.
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- WIN-LOSE SITUATION.
- power countries have to spend precious resources on more expensive options.
- Example: Eritrea- cheaper to build network of railways with local expertise and resources rather than being forced to spend aid money on foreign consultants experts and engineers imposed on the country as a condition of aid.
- Africa’s fight against HIV/AIDS- the US insists that Africa uses the money it receives from it to buy anti-aids drugs from the US instead of buying cheaper generic products from south Africa, India or Brazil. (US drugs: $15000/ year, generics: $350/ year)
- 5. Distribution
- at times, aid is given to visible projects. (eg big hospitals, universities, drains) at the expense of rural schools, water supply or heath clinics (would benefit more poor people) eg. The Narmada Dam in India.
- More money is transferred from poor countries to rich , than from rich to poor.
- Rich countries subsidies for their own agriculture are “cripping Africa’s chance to export its way out of poverty”
- Eg: US, Europe and Japan spend $250 billion each year on agricultural subsidies cast.
- Global markets are not friendly to poor nations. Developing countries enter the market as unequal partners and leave unequal gains.[1]
[edit] Merge with "Aid"?
The current article is very skimpy, at least in comparison with its possible scope. Foreign aid has been around since just after the end of the Second World War. While the Marshall Plan was very successful and paid extremely handsome returns on our investment, other attempts to aid foreign countries made many U.S. citizens extremely angry. Foreign aid is an experiment that has run for about 50 years now, so there should be plenty of studies of the results of various attempts to give such aid.
If this article were to be merged with an article on "Aid," which could cover everything from disaster aid to food stamps to church-sponsored in-home nursing, it would either overwhelm the other topics covered or itself be reduced to such a tiny component that its complexities could only be outlined. P0M 06:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] humanitarian assistance or humanitarian aid
I am a bit puzzled that humanitarian assistance is redirected to aid. If it is to be redirected, it makes much more sense to redirect it to humanitarian aid, though maybe it should be the opposite i.e. humanitarian aid should be called humanitarian assistance as this is the term that is commonly used in the sector.Joel Mc 14:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
How many global aid agencies are there? How much money is being spent every year in humanitarian assistance?
This article should include a list of political,ecomnomic, and moral reasonings for foreign aid.
[edit] publicprivatedialogue.org
This link: Public Private Dialogue A resource for aid practitioners wishing to promote development through involvement of stakeholders (sponsored by World Bank, IFC, OCED, DFID, GTZ)
Was added by an IP address registered to the World Bank Group (publicprivatedialogue.org is a World Bank project). In keeping with our conflict of interest and external links guidelines I've moved it here for consideration by regular editors of this article who are unaffiliated with the site. To me, it doesn't really seem to contain encyclopedic information on Aid, being more of a how-to guide for people wanting to advocate for aid, so I'm inclined not to keep it on this article. -- Siobhan Hansa 18:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Completed Merge: Foreign aid
As there was limited referenced material in the Foreign aid article, I only merged a couple of sentences. For reference purposes anyone wishing to examine the content in more detail may follow this link. Alan.ca 06:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Merge from Development aid
I propose that the referenced content from Development aid be merged into this article. It would permit the effort to be focussed on developing one good article with references with the possibility of future branching if sufficient information is collected. Alan.ca 06:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Both the Aid article and the Humanitarian aid articles are large. Rather than merging, it would seem to me that the aid article should act as an umbrella article that points to more detailed explanations, including the article on humanitarian aid. I'm not sure if this sort of heirachical structure is how wikipedia works (excuse my ignorance), but it would provide more structure and clarity in this particular case (in my opinion). A merger would surely means some information being left out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearcool1 (talk • contribs) 18:52, August 30, 2007 (UTC)
