November 20, 2015
Adam Davidson has an interesting piece in the NYT Magazine on the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of U.S. foreign aid. He discusses various models of aid, noting that none of them has been a clear success.
In commenting on the issue, the article says in passing that the United States spends $30 billlion a year to help the world’s poor. This figure could be misleading. Most readers are probably unaware of the size of the overall budget, therefore they may think that $30 billion involves a major committment of federal dollars. In fact, since we are spending $3.5 trillion a year in total, this sum comes to less than 0.9 percent of the total federal budget.
In discussing foreign aid, it is probably also worth mentioning the risk of corruption in the aid granting agencies. Foreign aid is a substantial source of money. For this reason it attracts not only people interesting in helping the world’s poor, it also attracts contractors looking to line their pockets. As a result, much of the spending may not end up being very helpful for its intended targets. This has likely been an especially serious problem in Haiti, which is the focus of the piece.
Note: Typos corrected, thank Joe E. and Robert Salzberg.
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