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| 7/29 |
| 2002/3/15 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:24121 Activity:insanely high |
3/15 US aid paltry:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1034243
"Not only is the United States the stingiest of all rich-country aid
donors (spending only 0.1% of its national income on foreign aid,
compared with the European average of 0.3%), its aid is particularly
inefficient."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/15/international/15PREX.html
"President Bush today proposed a three- year, $5 billion
increase in American foreign aid to poor nations that support human
rights, adhere to strong systems of law and have open markets."
\_ Whelp! That's that! Our TAX PAYER FUNDED AID is being wasted so
we should just stop bothering and end all aid programs. Thanks for
the link.
\_ Get a f'ing clue. Who exactly footed the bill for all
UN excursions around the world the past two decades? Who
stations the 5th Fleet to guard the Saudi Arabian oil
predominantly used by Europe? The US has been the de facto
national defense of Europe the past 5 decades.
\_ Stationing troops in the Middle East for the benefit
\_ So in the glofified world of political virtue you live name me
one country that would want us to leave. And then
of (primarily) American owned oil companies can't be
called foreign aid, by any stretch of the word or idea.
Most people would consider it thinly veiled imperialism.
\_ You're right. Let's pull out and let the whole area fall to
shit and see exactly how this had no benefit to Europe who
gets the bulk of their energy from the Middle East. It's
funny how if we go somewhere it's imperialism and we're bad
and if we don't then we're isolationist and we're bad.
\_ Did Europe clamor for the US to come to the aid of
Kuwait? Your knowledge is history is very rudimentary.
Kuwait? The only people who cared were the Texas
oil boys and their puppets in Kuwait. If you don't
think American foreign and domestic policy is
in the service of Big Oil, you should at least
consider it.
\_ how does middle eastern oil help texas? as an
alaskan, i can tell you that poeple up there
are more against our dependence on middle
eastern oil than anyone. alsaska has a negative tax
because of *alaskan* oil riches, not oil company
profits in general. i don't see why texas would be
any different.
\_ you do know we get more oil from the US and Canada
than we do from the middle east don't you?
\_ Not Texans so much as Exxon, Mobile, Texaco,
and Chevron executives and shareholders.
\_ So in the glofified world of political virtue you live name
me one country that would want us to leave. And then
ask yourself why you don't live there?
\_ South Korea. And I did.
\_ South Korea wants the American military out of the
DMZ? You're stupid and a liar.
\_ He answered your inane question and you call
him stupid and a liar. You are a dolt.
\_ And what a complete disaster US involvement
in South Korea has been. Great point!
\_ the problem is not with the hard core figures. It has to do with
perception and marketing. US should save that money and spend it
on marketing (setup proxy radio+TV stations) which portrays that
we're not all that greedy and evil. And it should do that in
Muslim countries ASAP.
\_ Why? Why do you care what "The Arab Street" thinks? That's not
who the terrorists are.
\_ Sympathy lends legitimacy. |
| 7/29 |
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| www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1034243 He should start with his own policies Panos Panos BY DIPLOMATIC standards, it has become a dirty battle. One week before George Bush attends a big United Nations conference in Monterrey on how best to finance development, his Treasury secretary is in the midst of a public quarrel about the effectiveness of foreign aid. Led by Gordon Brown, Britain's finance minister, and Jim Wolfensohn, the World Bank's boss, aid advocates want to double assistance to poor countries to $100 billion a year. Mr O'Neill disagrees, arguing that poor countries have received "trillions of dollars of aid" and have "precious little" to show for it. He wants "evidence of what works" before committing any more money. Mr O'Neill is surely right that much, maybe even most, aid has been wasted over the years. He might have gone further, in fact, and said that a lot of aid has done more harm than good, propping up bad rulers and helping them impoverish their peoples. But he is quite wrong to suggest there is no evidence of what works, or where the difference between good and bad aid resides. Precisely because so many poor countries appear to have so little to show for years of foreign aid, the analysis of aid's effectiveness has become a mini-industry (see 53 article). Now would be a good time to put these lessons into practice. Foreign aid tends to work well--that is, it helps to reduce poverty--in countries with good economic policies. In countries with bad policies, it is ineffective at best. Second, aid is better at reducing poverty if it is spent in very poor countries, rather than in less-poor ones. Money spent in certain ways--such as on campaigns to eradicate river blindness and smallpox, or to raise rice yields--has been spectacularly successful. Other spending, such as food aid (which helps rich-country farmers) or tied aid (which must be spent on services from the donor country) is much less use. Judging by his silence on the way America itself allocates its aid, Mr O'Neill has not bothered to acquaint himself with these findings. Most of the money goes, for strategic reasons, to middle-income countries such as Egypt and Colombia. America spends only 40% of its aid on poorer countries, compared with the rich-country average of approaching 60%, which is itself too low. And American aid is not concentrated on countries with good economic policies: its measly African aid budget is scattered across numerous countries, many of them badly governed. America may be the most egregious hypocrite in the aid debate, but it is not the only villain. For all their fine words, many rich countries--with a few notable exceptions such as the Netherlands, Norway and, increasingly, Britain--focus more on foreign-policy concerns than on reducing poverty when designing their aid budgets. Around 70% of foreign aid is still spent bilaterally, even though the studies show that multilateral organisations, particularly the World Bank, reach the poor more accurately. The result of this bilateral bias is that many international aid efforts that could make a big difference--for example, the attempts to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other infectious diseases--are often grossly underfunded. Even today, America spends much more on aid for Egypt than it does on battling AIDS in Africa. Unfortunately, the chances that America's Congress will switch large chunks of aid from Egypt to the deserving poor in Sub-Saharan Africa are about zero. The same is true of France and its bias towards its former colonies. That is why Mr O'Neill's argument against more aid is so misleading, and why, despite aid's sorry record, it is shameful that America's aid contributions are so low. Since the United States chooses to spend its aid so badly, from the poverty-reduction point of view, it can only make good on its avowals of concern for the poor by providing more money--money that, unlike most of its existing aid, is actually designed to reduce poverty. Unfortunately, that point is lost in the current slanging match. Instead of general exhortations to double aid flows, Messrs Wolfensohn and Brown should highlight the countries and programmes where existing aid could be used much better right now. Given its good historical record, health spending should be high on the list. A recent study for the World Health Organisation showed convincingly that a few key investments, costing donors around $27 billion annually, could save 8m lives a year in the poorest countries. America's share of this cost might plausibly be $9 billion, or around $30 per American. Most Americans, including even Mr O'Neill, might regard that as money well spent. |
| www.nytimes.com/2002/03/15/international/15PREX.html By ELISABETH BUMILLER (NYT) 1020 words Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 8 , Column 3 ABSTRACT - Pres Bush proposes three-year, $5 billion increase in American foreign aid to poor nations that support human rights, adhere to strong systems of law and have open markets; new money represents 15 percent annual increase in America's existing $10 billion annual foreign aid budget, which has not grown in decade; international development experts call additional $5 billion significant, although not nearly as much as they say is needed; Bush, speaking at Inter-American Development Bank, is joined by Bono, Irish rock singer and advocate for poor; development experts say Bono has worked extensively in recent weeks with senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Colin L Powell and Condoleezza Rice, to push for increase in aid; United States has come under increasing criticism from Europe and development agencies for its foreign aid budget, which is smallest, relative to size of economy, of any rich nation Please Note: Archive articles do not include photos, charts or graphics. |