The idea of giving foreign aid to those in need may seem noble at glance. Yet, if we look deeper into the issue and observe the outcome, what we discover may not exactly be a positive impact on the recipient countries. An efficient aid-giving program requires more than just good intentions. It would be hard to argue that foreign aid has not done any good, when there are also plenty of cases where foreign aid has been used efficiently. However, as that is rather an exception than a rule, in this essay I will look at the cons of foreign aid claiming that it is actually not fulfilling it’s purpose.
The reasons behind giving aid are simple and somewhat naive. Countries that are better off feel morally obliged to help poorer countries in need. It is believed that aid will improve people’s lives and will reduce poverty. However noble the cause, generous contributions without thorough analysis do not always lead to good outcomes. Actually, some of the aid
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Food is also a common option, but thinking that food is a safe and risk-free option to help the people in the recipient country could prove to be wrong. Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian, from Harvard and Yale respectively, have studied the effects of sending food aid from the United States of America. They did so over a relatively long period of time, from 1971 to 2006 and the research compromised of 125 developing countries. The research shows that the amount of food aid sent to Africa from America is actually mostly based on the weather conditions, not on needs. The authors also conclude that sending more food aid actualy increases the amount of civil conflict in the region. They speculate the reason to be that armed groups of people stealing the food aid as they have seen the same pattern in the past. For instance, during the Nigeria-Biafra civil war in the 1960s, rebel leader Odumegwu Ojukwu took the food aid to feed his soldiers, which helped prolong the conflict for years.