Pros of Foreign Aid

Pros of Foreign Aid
1. Benefits of aid – helps Meet Sustainable Development Goal

(SDG) Targets
In the year 2000, the United Nations developed a 15-year plan aimed at tackling
extreme poverty across the world, thus highlight the benefits of foreign aid to
developing countries. The targets outlined in the plan were named the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While much laudable progress has
been made by some countries towards these MDG goals, other countries have
fallen short. The new SDGs have replaced the MDGs as part of a new 15-year
plan (2015–2030). Much of the foreign aid given to countries today is aimed at
achieving these SDGs. Much of the foreign aid given to countries today is
aimed at achieving these SDGs. You can read more about the SDGs here.
2. Trade for Aid

There is currently much talk in British circles about leveraging the UK’s multi-
billion-pound ODA budget into securing business contracts post Brexit. Some
people think of this as ‘trade for aid’ but the official definition is development
aid given to countries to help their economies. For instance, a country might
have an abundance of a natural resource but require investment in its ports to
enable them to bring that resource to market. Helping to modernise or build a
rail link or seaport network could thus be one example of ‘trade for aid’.
3. Increasing Independence
By helping to develop a strong network of basic education, better infrastructure,
and a physically healthier population concomitant with a thriving economy and
improved access to global markets, the belief is that development aid can help
countries become more independent.
4. It’s Humanitarian
Developed countries are all democracies, and it is thus no surprise that most
citizens of those countries want their governments to do something about
endemic poverty, disease, illiteracy, gender gaps in education and work
opportunities, climate control, and other sectors in countries ‘over there’. When
people see pictures on television of refugees, malnourished children and the
devastation caused by climate change, it is natural for them to want their
government to organise and deliver foreign aid in order to help.
5. Eradicate Disease
Communicable diseases like polio, cholera, malaria, and measles may represent
only minor inconveniences in the developed world, but these illnesses continue
to affect millions of people around the world. Beyond the immediate
humanitarian benefit of saving lives and preventing lifelong crippling injuries,
controlling and eradicating diseases helps prevent their spread around the world,
something that is frightfully easy.
Other diseases being combatted by foreign aid include Ebola, a highly lethal
and contagious disease that was fortunately brought under control in 2014 due
in large part to huge investments of foreign aid by the British government. The
same agency (DfID) that many Britons now wish to see de-funded carried out
outstanding work in preventing Ebola from ever reaching the British Isles.
Cons of Foreign Aid

1. Disadvantages of Foreign aid to developing countries – neglecting
domestic needs
Many people feel that large sums of money should not be given to foreign
countries until major problems such as homelessness, poverty, and inadequate
health care are addressed at home.
2. Foreign aid is wasted

It is true that some portions of foreign aid do get lost if siphoned off by corrupt
local officials, but this has become less of an issue in recent years as all major
donors have developed ways of working directly with the intended recipients of
aid. Nonetheless, it remains true that some foreign aid is either misdirected, lost,
or wasted due to a combination of incompetence and corruption on the part of
local officials.
Of far more concern to foreign aid, watchdogs is what is known as ‘duplication
of effort’, such as when two different donor agencies show up in a village to
build a well while neglecting another village in the region that could also
benefit from a clean source of drinking water.
3. Foreign aid is just colonialism in disguise
Many foreign aid watchdogs believe that some of the biggest donors (like the
UK) overly concentrate their foreign aid on their former colonies (such as Sierra
Leone) to perpetrate old relationships. Also known as ‘soft power’ projections,
it is easy to see how a donor country could give foreign aid with one hand and
then ask for military or business favours with the other.
4. Giving foreign aid makes countries dependent instead of independent
Multilateral organizations closely manage ODA per capita (the amount of
foreign aid per person) in a country in order to monitor how dependent a given
country is on the receipt of foreign aid ‘handouts’. Nonetheless, many countries
around the world are heavily dependent on money coming from outside their
borders (including remittances).
5. Foreign aid promotes favouritism
No donor country or organization offers help to every country; some countries
therefore get help at the expense of others. This kind of favoritism means that
some countries do not get the aid they need while others get more, and there is
little that the recipient nation can do to change things.
• The links between an increase in aid and an increase in living standards are not
clear. Sometimes aid only reaches a relatively small section of the population.
For example, due to corruption.
• Different types of aid might produce different outcomes. For example, aid in
the form of long-term loans might make it more difficult for low-income
countries to escape the cycle of poverty.
• Aid is sometimes given for political reasons rather than the low-income
countries where the need is the greatest.
• Tied aid might mean that low--income countries receiving such aid have to
purchase goods and services from the donor country which are more expensive.
• Long term dependency upon aid might lead to a welfare mentality and reduce
levels of innovation in the low-income country.
• A conclusion might attempt to form an overall judgement on the short term
and long-term efficacy of development aid in relation to the improvement of
living standards in low-income countries.

Pros of Foreign Aid

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Pros of Foreign Aid

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Pros of Foreign Aid

1. Benefits of aid – helps Meet Sustainable Development Goal

2. Trade for Aid

Cons of Foreign Aid

2. Foreign aid is wasted

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