How foreign aid is frittered away.

There is a ton of foreign aid which is supposedly going to feed the poor people. But most aid does not make it to the poor people; it is frittered away on administrative costs. Only 1/3 of the aid actually makes it to the people it is intended to help.

This money is sent to foreign countries with no adequate verification as to how it is being spent after it gets there. Therefore, it lines the pockets of the rich, while taking away from the poor, similar to Robin Hood in reverse. This is a massive waste of taxpayer money, courtesy of the GOP Congress. No wonder you can’t trust Republicans with your money.
In addition, burdensome restrictions by donor countries hamper recipients’ abilities to use it for their needs. Some of the restrictions are listed below.

Here are some examples of how the money is being wasted:

Phantom Aid is aid that is diverted from poor nations for other purposes within bureaucratic aid systems. This includes aid that is, among all G7 donations:

Not targeted for poverty reduction, estimated to be worth US$4.9 billion
Double counted as debt relief, totaling US$9.4 billion
Overpriced and ineffective- Technical Assistance, estimated at US$13.8 billion
Tied to goods and services from the donor country, estimated at US$2.7 billion
Poorly coordinated and with high transaction costs, estimated at US$9 billion
Too unpredictable to be useful to the recipient – lack of data prevents an estimate
Spent on immigration-related costs in the donor country; totaling US$1.5 billion
Spent on excess administration costs; totaling US$0.4 billion.

According to the report, the US Phantom Aid rate is around 90%.

Here is Action Aid’s take:

Says ActionAid International USA Policy Analyst, Rick Rowden, “what this comes down to is that the US government is spending the tax dollars of well meaning Americans on bloated, inefficient, and manipulative programs that do little to help the poor. This is inexcusable when you consider that a child dies every two seconds from hunger somewhere in the world.”

Here are their recommendations:

The report argues that the share of real aid is unlikely to increase unless a system of genuine accountability, which balances the interests of donors, recipients, and the poor, can be put in place.

In addition, the report calls for a new International Aid Agreement that will hold donor countries accountable. This agreement should include clear policies from developing countries on the criteria for accepting aid; mutual commitments from donor and recipient countries; national and international review forums; and new mechanisms for increasing the amount and predictability of aid to the world’s poorest countries.

Real aid consists of only 0.07% of G7 countries’ incomes; the report recommends an increase to 0.7%.

Statistics which should give one pause; from the report:

–30,000 children a day die from a preventable disease. That means 1,250 per hour, 20 a minute, and 1 every three seconds.

–100 million children have no access to primary education.

–800 million people go to bed hungry at night.

There have been many reports about Americans being less than generous. On page 5, Norwegian aid money is almost 40 times as likely to be real aid as American aid.

Much of the aid that donor countries send is tied up in burdensome regulations which smacks of the old colonialist mentality in display both during the 19th century and during the Iraq War. Faiza, an Iraqi, writes:

Poor shallow people, I really pity them, they are still living in the old concept that they ARE the leaders of humanity
And they sent the sun for Iraq after their great war, bringing light and knowledge for poor Iraqis..
These kind of people, will be defeated one day..
Sooner on later, they will go out of existence
And there will be peace and freedom for all nations from these sick minded bugs!

Some of the regulations include massive rules and regulations which hamper a country from meeting its own needs. Another example involves donor countries requiring host countries to buy their country’s products (Read: Halliburton?). To give a local example, ask any local school official what he or she thinks of the feds or the state dictating to them how aid should be spent. The same goes for foreign aid.

In addition, there is the possibility that the Wolfowitz-led World Bank might sweeten their aid offers in return for host countries supplying troops to Iraq or wherever Bush wants them to go (Iran?).

Making countries supply, say, 1,000 soldiers as a prerequisite for foreign aid will only bring more hardships to these countries. As anybody who has an immediate family member in the military will tell you, life can be hard. They will say that they worry all the time any time the phone rings. How much more burdensome will it be for these families if you add the factors of starvation, lack of a good education, and disease ready to strike at any moment?

This demonstrates a clear contrast between liberal thinking and conservative thinking. Liberal thinking emphasizes the mutual interests of the donor and the recipient. The conservative model involves the same old failed colonialist policies of the past, where the “enlightened” masters think they know better than the savages down below them. The possibility of John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz taking this kind of thinking to a 21st-century level must be called for what it is: A reactionary solution which will only trigger more starvation and distress.