Australian Aid to Foreign Countries (Persuasive) Should We Support Foreign Countries? Australia’s contribution towards foreign aid is a necessary and important investment required to tackle global inequality. Global inequality is a term used to describe the extent to which income and wealth are distributed in an uneven manner among the World’s population. A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University reports that the richest 1% of adults alone accounted for roughly 40% of global assets in the year 2000 and the richest 10% of adults accounted for roughly 85% of worldwide income. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth. The Cost Is Less Than …show more content…
Africa, for example has received over US$ 500 billion in Aid over the past 50 years and yet, despite these massive inflows of cash the continent still remains mired in poverty, disease and systemic corruption. Some of the problems in using aid as a vehicle for development include: 1. Most Aid programs are poorly structured and constrained by conditionalities. This undermines the independence of recipient countries and the management of their economic affairs. 2. Providing Aid through governments of poor countries erodes accountability because many corrupt officials seize the money before it reaches their citizens. 3. Because many poor countries are dependant on donor handouts they fail to prioritize the generation of domestic resources. This creates a chronic dependency on Aid, stifles creativity and undermines the dignity of people. Should Australia Decrease the Amount of Money Donated to Foreign Aid? Yes, Australia should slowly decrease the amount of money donated to foreign aid over a period of time. This is important, as it will encourage poorer countries to stand on their own feet. If poorer countries continue to rely on the generosity of donators to support their economic growth they are doomed to generations of poverty. This cannot be allowed to go