Why trying to help poor countries might actually hurt them

[josephpalazzo]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/13/why-trying-to-help-poor-countries-might-actually-hurt-them/

"The data suggested that the claims of the aid community were sometimes not borne out. Even as the level of foreign aid into Africa soared through the 1980s and 1990s, African economies were doing worse than ever..."

[TomFoolery]

I read not long ago that USAID's imports of rice and poultry to Haiti to feed the hungry destroyed the agricultural industry. Yet I still think many types of aid could be successful if they were administered and overseen better. Dumping millions of dollars of food into a poor country that is still nearly 60% farmers probably isn't a great idea because now Haiti imports nearly half its food while it actually has the ability to feed itself but the people who would produce it literally can't make enough money to feed their own families by farming.

However, the U.S. also provides HIV/AIDS programs in Haiti that have provided antiretrovirals, testing, education, and counseling that has helped reduce the number of people infected not only with HIV but with many other STIs as well.

USAID's education programs have also put tens of thousands of Haitian children through school, trained teachers and provided textbooks for children that would have otherwise had no education at all.

So I'm going to side in the camp that says foreign aid when it's throughly researched and appropriately applied can actually do good things. Throwing food and money at people has always served to just fulfill that adage of "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man how to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime."

[aitm]

When I was 15ish, when pictures of the starving masses of Biafra was plastered all over the news and the great call went out and Americans by far and large donated to help those impoverished. But I looked at the pictures and the background and saw nothing that suggested they could sustain themselves even with  a mass of temporarily aid. There was no infra-structure at all, nothing that would suggest they could even rebound and eventually start their own farms. The land was a disease and they had no way of stopping the child rate.

I wrote a paper about it as if I was an alien accountant. The conclusion was simple supply and demand. A generation needed to disappear in order for the next one to have a better chance of survival. No one wanted to hear that. But after a few years, the eyes turned away and generations started to disappear. It happened in the states too, just in smaller enclaves where the ability to gather food was insufficient to maintain the welfare of the society. No one came to their aid and eventually nature balanced it all out.

[stromboli]

I was in college during the first Ethiopian crisis back in the 70s. My biology teacher was a Zoologist and had other degrees, a very smart lady. She spoke on the crisis not as an  economist but from the standpoint of a scientist, understanding the physiology of the people involved. She said that in that case, where the starvation was ongoing and had been harming the majority of the population, that feeding the masses at that late stage was actually not only pointless but detrimental, because anyone who was that deteriorated physically would not recover, and would likely be a vegetable for life, unable to care for themselves.

So in the end, any aid would be better used to sustain the less affected groups who were not deteriorated physically, and would recover. Because the harm done would only generate a population needing constant care and having no ability to feed itself. And also would only, if perpetuated through breeding, be a damaged gene pool as well.

[aitm]

Our government knew within three hours of delivery that the local governments were hijacking the aid for their personal profit and decided to continue the useless adventure for the sake of our ego.

[jonb]

This is the book which marked Frederick Forsyth's transition from journalist to author. A record of one of the most brutal conflicts the Third World has ever suffered, it has become a classic of modern war reporting. But it is more than that. It voices one man's outrage not only at the extremes of human violence, but also at the duplicity and self-interest of the Western Governments ' most notably, the British, who tacitly accepted or actively aided that violence.

A truly great read from a great Author. And if you don't know of him he is not of the left at all, but a voice that should not be missed. His fiction is also brilliant such as 'Day of the Jackal'.

[Baruch]

When I was 15ish, when pictures of the starving masses of Biafra was plastered all over the news and the great call went out and Americans by far and large donated to help those impoverished. But I looked at the pictures and the background and saw nothing that suggested they could sustain themselves even with  a mass of temporarily aid. There was no infra-structure at all, nothing that would suggest they could even rebound and eventually start their own farms. The land was a disease and they had no way of stopping the child rate.

I wrote a paper about it as if I was an alien accountant. The conclusion was simple supply and demand. A generation needed to disappear in order for the next one to have a better chance of survival. No one wanted to hear that. But after a few years, the eyes turned away and generations started to disappear. It happened in the states too, just in smaller enclaves where the ability to gather food was insufficient to maintain the welfare of the society. No one came to their aid and eventually nature balanced it all out.

But Biafra wasn't a natural event ... it was a civil war.  So when Southerners were having all their stuff burnt by Gen Sherman ... we should just turn lemons into lemonade?  Kumba ya to that.

[Baruch]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/13/why-trying-to-help-poor-countries-might-actually-hurt-them/

"The data suggested that the claims of the aid community were sometimes not borne out. Even as the level of foreign aid into Africa soared through the 1980s and 1990s, African economies were doing worse than ever..."

Giving with one hand, while taking with the other ... colonialism lives.  Also stupid foreign countries (too bad they aren't utopia like the US) harm themselves.  Qaddafi hurt his country by trying to free it from the IMF ... and got destroyed for his trouble.  Good thing all the Libyan gold reserves have been moved to Zurich for safe keeping, yes?

Oh, aid is bad.  Go back in time, stop the Marshall Plan, and just hand all the W Europeans to Stalin's camp system ... it is just survival of the fittest.  That goes for Britain too, Hitler is a good predator.

[josephpalazzo]

Our government knew within three hours of delivery that the local governments were hijacking the aid for their personal profit and decided to continue the useless adventure for the sake of our ego.

It happened in Iraq where Maliki hid billions of dollars to build a fictitious hospital in Baghdad.

[Baruch]

It happened in Iraq where Maliki hid billions of dollars to build a fictitious hospital in Baghdad.

That was the plan all along.  Give baksheesh to repay the Shia for betraying them in 1991.  Too bad the Kurds didn't get any of those $100 pallets of money ... or did that just go to Halliburton?

[josephpalazzo]

That was the plan all along.  Give baksheesh to repay the Shia for betraying them in 1991.  Too bad the Kurds didn't get any of those $100 pallets of money ... or did that just go to Halliburton?

If it was a plan it was ill-conceived. They wanted to remove Saddam, not realizing that by doing so, the Shiites would gain power, a group of people more aligned with Iran, the US arch enemy. It basically backfired. The Saudis wanted Saddam out because he ran a secular government. The US  obliged and removed him, then the Shiites took control. I believe some would call that poetic justice. More appropriately, it was a plan from a bunch of fucking morons.

[Baruch]

If it was a plan it was ill-conceived. They wanted to remove Saddam, not realizing that by doing so, the Shiites would gain power, a group of people more aligned with Iran, the US arch enemy. It basically backfired. The Saudis wanted Saddam out because he ran a secular government. The US  obliged and removed him, then the Shiites took control. I believe some would call that poetic justice. More appropriately, it was a plan from a bunch of fucking morons.

Everything American it seems, is ill conceived.  And yes, the Saudis are idiot masters of us dhimmis.  I want a swimming pool and a pony ... should I kill one million Iraqis, in the insane view that I can get what I want that way?  Wants aren't law or even good politics.  The Europeans aren't showing much IQ either.  The "economic" refugees and "political" refugees are showing good sense.  There is no way I would stay in Iraq or Syria for anything, even if I were born there.  It worked out for my ancestors who got the Hell out of asshat Europe.

[josephpalazzo]

Everything American it seems, is ill conceived.  And yes, the Saudis are idiot masters of us dhimmis.  I want a swimming pool and a pony ... should I kill one million Iraqis, in the insane view that I can get what I want that way?  Wants aren't law or even good politics.  The Europeans aren't showing much IQ either.  The "economic" refugees and "political" refugees are showing good sense.  There is no way I would stay in Iraq or Syria for anything, even if I were born there.  It worked out for my ancestors who got the Hell out of asshat Europe.

So you are inadvertently acknowledging that the refugees, by going to Europe, are choosing a "better" place than their country of origin, and that you, not being in Europe but in the USA, that USA is better than EU. Hmmm... interesting...

[Baruch]

So you are inadvertently acknowledging that the refugees, by going to Europe, are choosing a "better" place than their country of origin, and that you, not being in Europe but in the USA, that USA is better than EU. Hmmm... interesting...

Not exactly.  Immigration doesn't always work out.  It didn't work out well for my Czech ancestors, their homestead land was poor for agriculture and they were forced off the land they came so far to get "for the cost of their labor to farm it".  From their POV, if I were Syrian or Iraqi I would have gotten myself to Europe by hook or by crook long ago.  Similarly Mexicans and other Central Americans ... are smart to come to the US ... I hear more and more Spanish and don't mind it one bit.  If I were Mexican today, I would get the hell out too, but Canada might be nicer than the US.

So no, W Europe isn't better and N America isn't better, but for people who want to better themselves, even if they are elite in their own society ... the perceived opportunities might be better here rather than there.  What actually happens when one arrives ... varies.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I don't have a problem with aid if it's actually delivered to actually help a people, but all too often aid comes in the form of never ending debt to a nation and if the debts aren't paid we topple their government and install a puppet regime to benefit some corporate fancy.