FREE ESSAY ON SHOULD THE DEVELOPED NORTH INCREASE AID TO THE LESS DEVELOPED SOUTH?

SHOULD THE DEVELOPED NORTH INCREASE AID TO THE LESS DEVELOPED SOUTH?

Should The Developed North Increase Aid to the Less Developed South?
The question at hand is not whether aid from the developed north should be given at all,
but whether or not it should be increased to help ease the suffering of the developing
countries in the south. Every country, whether rich or poor, should have compassion for
the suffering. However, it is not the duty of the developed north to completely take care
of every developing country. In the present, there are serious problems that need to be
addressed dealing with how aid is given out: misuse of funds by governments, the
corruption it creates, economies it destroys, lack of votes it buys at the United
Nations, and finally the question of who has priority. Therefore, until these issues are
dealt with in the near future, aid should be kept to a minimum. 
? Response to Readings in Taking Sides 
James P. Grant, in his article favoring the increase of foreign aid to the developing
south, notes that poverty in this world is a large problem that has continued to rise for
years. It wasn?t until the 1960?s that the mobilization of medical help, better
sanitation, clean water, money spent on education, and other measures began to save lives
and make the quality of living better for millions. However, he also states that even
though aid is being provided, it is still not enough, and leaders like the United States
and the European community should take the initiative to donate and assist more each year
just like the Japanese have done. The only problem with this statement is that both the
European community and the United States are pressed for money. The European countries,
especially leaders like Great Britain and Germany, have devoted much of their aid budgets
towards helping other countries within their system grow stronger before the European
system goes completely into full force. Whereas the United States? budget deficit forces
many government agencies, including the Agency for International Development(AID), to
lose funding. Furthermore there is no reason to send billions of dollars over seas when
northern countries like the United States and Great Britain currently face the highest
levels of child poverty that either country has seen in over 25 years. In addition to
poverty, other domestic problems such as rape, robberies, and murders in this country
still exist. Until domestic issues are solved, any future increase in foreign aid should
also be kept to a minimum. 
The purpose of a nation is to look after its own citizens to insure that they are free
from harm, stay healthy, receive public utilities, and become educated. If protecting a
nations? people require its country, for example, to send aid to an African country to
help prevent the spread of HIV, then foreign aid is acceptable. However, if there is no
immediate threat to US security, then aid and foreign involvement should be kept to a
minimum. In other words, aid should only be offered when a clear gain for that country
can be achieved. There are not enough resources to save the destitute and sick of the
world out of compassion alone. Special interest groups such as Peace Corps, private
donations, and volunteers serve the purpose of helping others. It is all right for a
country to help provide these groups with the necessary resources required to carry out
their missions safely; however, it is not the duty of a country to take care of all
nations alone. 
As advocates of the no side, the editors of The Economist firmly believe that the north
should not increase aid to the developing south on account of past misuse, unfair
distribution of aid among countries, and lack of results. Furthermore, foreign aid does
more than just ease the suffering of the impoverished. Health care expenditures account
for only 2% of the entire aid budget as a study by the World Bank in 1988 showed. The
rest of the 98% goes toward the financing of military campaigns to restore peace and help
set up and keep new and existing democracies running, saving the environment, supporting
economic development, and lastly to control population growth. Therefore when people
claim that the US and other countries do not help out as much as they could or should,
they are overlooking the big picture. In reality, the United States does more to foster
environmental research and protect other nations with military assistance than most
countries. 
? United Nations Voting Pattern Suggests No Benefit of Foreign Aid
The Agency for International Development (AID) firmly believes that foreign aid
influences the recipients? actions and helps gain support for the donor?s interests
worldwide. However it is ironic to note that despite the large amounts of money being
pumped into developing nations across the world, those receiving funds have not always
cooperated fully as AID suggests. For example, if you look at the voting record of every
country that has received money from United States, you will see no pattern correlating
aid with support for US interests. Therefore this proves that votes as well as friends
are not being bought, so to speak, as the government may have initially wished. As
evidence, with the exception of Israel, the top ten foreign aid recipients voted against
the United States in 1997 an average of 54% of the time and countries like India, Laos,
and Lebanon voted against the US approximately 70% of the time despite the fact that each
country received millions of dollars in foreign aid. 
? Misuse of Foreign Aid
Monetary assistance and help towards those in need is a wonderful thing, and facts point
out that it saves millions of lives every day. However, there are serious flaws in the
assistance effort that need to be addressed before any future increase in spending
occurs. First of all, it has been shown that the economies of those countries receiving
aid are only worsening due to the way in which the poorly run and/or corrupt governments
spend money. Economies are also worsening because assistance is spent on consumption and
expanding the government rather than investing it or benefiting the poor. In other words,
money is consumed rather than used wisely because it is often stolen by the corrupt elite
ruling classes of the developing countries and used for personal uses. A prime example of
this includes Zaire and its infamous ruler Mobutu Sese Seko. Estimates suggest that Sese
Seko stole over 4 billion dollars of foreign aid over a 24-year period from 1970-1994.
This 4 billion accounted for over ? of all aid given to the country during that time.
However, during the twenty-four year period, the IMF continued to offer assistance and
monetary aid despite knowledge of Mobutu?s corruption. To make things worse, Zaire?s
economy was 40% less productive after Mobuto left than when before he came to power.
Similar economy drop-offs occurred throughout Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle
East during this time period as well. With that in mind, it makes you think twice about
the usefulness of foreign assistance. In addition, aid often times, as it did in the
Philippines, postpone the urgency to reform by switching the focus from finding ways to
implement plans promptly to looking at ways to obtain more aid. When countries receive
free money with no direct orders how to use it, it is very difficult to insure that it
will be used properly especially when the leaders know that more aid will continue to
flow each year. This therefore encourages the country to maintain sub par levels of
economic standing year after year in order to remain eligible for financial aid. 
On a different note, by analyzing the military budgets of all developing nations, it is
clear that countries of the south spend anywhere from 3-15 times more of their resources
on national defense. Education and health care as a result get pushed to the back burner,
and because of this, literacy rates, citizen health, and life expectancies are lower than
the rest of the developed world, and continue to stay below national levels. Even when
money is spent on education, for example, the money is not spent equally on all people.
It is usually the richer and/or more educated who receive aid first, thus belittling the
whole aid effort. For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa during the 1980?s, about 600 times
more money was spent on the higher education than on primary education, thus obviously
favoring the already literate to succeed. The key to reforming agencies like AID, who
even admit that their organization?s performance is ?on the road to mediocrity or worse?
, lies in finding a way to control the direction of monetary aid once lent to the
government. Direct government lending creates dependence of those receiving countries on
the lender, encourages corruption, and leaves spending up to the corrupt elite, further
worsening the situation for the welfare of the citizens. If northern countries were given
the right to direct all cash flow once inside the country, we would see a definite
improvement in the economies and health of the people in all southern countries. 
It was the belief of the Clinton administration during his term that assistance prevented
social collapse. The President also once remarked that ?every dollar we devote to
preventing conflicts?.brings a sure return in security and savings.? However, was it
really worth the millions of dollars to interfere in the conflict in Rwanda and Somalia
when no immediate threat to the US existed? Who put the US in charge of taking part in
the domestic affairs of other sovereign nations anyway? Foreign aid and assistance is
fine as long as it is distributed properly. However, direct intervention is not. One
quarter of the United State?s foreign assistance budget last year went towards the
funding of military operations and interventions. But why pay money to fund military
operations when the money could be used more wisely to help save the lives of thousands
instead? The idea of social disorder within a country is difficult to predict, and a
majority of the countries that have disintegrated due to instability received small
amounts of aid from the north. Therefore this furthers the idea that money is often times
misused. 
? Impact of Foreign Aid
Another point to make is that aid is not distributed based on need, but rather on wealth.
For example, countries like Russia, Israel, and India receive more aid each year than
many other poorer countries like Somalia, Kenya, or Mali, which in turn means that aid is
not reaching the most destitute. Unfortunately, this also implies that foreign investors
care more about their personal gain than for the betterment of the lives of those they
govern. In fact, many times countries will offer aid but will only allow the money to be
spent within that country, thus helping to improve the economy of the lender. Moreover,
statistical data confirm that foreign investors prefer to invest in countries with higher
wages, and higher wages for the most part imply wealthier countries. This may seem odd at
first, but it makes sense if you look at the reasons why. Wealthier countries are more
productive, stable, and offer a more educated workforce from which foreign investors have
more to gain from. All of these examples together support the notion that aid is not
always as useful as it could be and that lender?s should find more appropriate means for
distributing resources before increasing foreign assistance budgets. 
In conclusion, if only there was a way to prevent the misuse of funds by finding ways to
control the use of money, increase support at the United Nations for US policies, and
distribute aid according to need, then the increase of foreign aid would be acceptable.
However, until that point, any increase in foreign aid is nothing more than a waste of
money into the hands of the corrupt and a method to destroy the countries in which money
is flowing into.