USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Dark Side of Foreign Aid

The impact from aid has not been proportionate to the amount of money donated. Foreign aid's biggest downside is that no clear, effective system has been put in place to hold aid recipients and their governments accountable for resources illegally taken from public sector coffers – a long-standing, and still very present, trend from Asia to Africa to Latin America/Caribbean to Europe. Unfortunately, the absence of that system reinforces social inequities and perpetuates cycles of political abuse that has led to a sophisticated new form of authoritarianism – one that empowers the elite few, while keeping a majority of people in abject poverty.

Discussions about foreign aid remind me of James Bovard's nominal 1986 article, "The Continuing Failure of Foreign Aid." Analyzing world events over a period of more than 40 years, Bovard argues convincingly that the success of foreign aid is often measured by intentions, not results. Using the U.S. as one example, Bovard writes, "[F]oreign aid has routinely failed to benefit the foreign poor…the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID] has dotted the countryside with "white elephants"…the biggest…of them all – a growing phalanx of corrupt, meddling, and overpaid bureaucrats."

Link:http://thediplomat.com/2013/11/the-dark-side-of-foreign-aid/

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Yona Fares Maro

Institut d'études de sécurité - SA

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