Munk Debates - Foreign Aid does more Harm than Good

Part of my vicious 21 hour drive home included listening to CBC Radio, something I generally try to avoid, but occasionally it has some very interesting programming. The programming that caught my attention in particular was a debate held at the Royal Ontario Museum on June 1st as part of the Munk Debates. The issue raised was outlined in a book written by Dambisa Moyo called Dead Aid, where she makes a powerful argument against foreign aid in Africa. As I listened and felt a little more involved in the debate (one being done by accomplished, intelligent people speaking deeply in their area of interest and involvement, a qualification I sorely lack in this respect), I came to an opinion (as all the uneducated are wont to do). I decided I should give this subject to AI, seeing that we briefly touched on it beforehand, but seeing as it was split from another thread and its very existence was confusing at best, I think a new framework may draw more attention.

The arguments made for foriegn aid were essentially that the nature of aid is to help people, and without its presence in Africa, millions of lives touched by HIV/AIDS and hundreds of unaddressed social issues would have run rampant and the cost in human lives would have been far, far higher than it is now. It's true that foriegn aid has granted much needed help to exploited people living in poverty, and the argument for it stresses the strategic application of aid, rather than the current, mostly inefficient system.

The arguments against foreign stressed the nature of Africa becoming self-sufficient, something not currently charted by foreign aid outlines and plans. It stressed the negative impact of aid not being monitored and generally landing in the hands of local warlords, who use this as capital to manage and fund their regimes. It stressed the belief that the aid program in Africa is meant to keep Africa dependant, or at least has that effect as a byproduct of imposing one social method of ruling on a culture where it doesn't so much apply. One of the arguments made was the nature of capitalizing one's property, and how third world countries cannot seem to do so, or reap the benefits of it. There was also the point that, because of the omnipresence of foreign aid in Africa, the functioning of governments has turned from managing the resources of the country in question and providing service to the constituents, as it works here, to the government lobbying foreign aid groups to do all their work for them. Security will be covered by the Belgians, X amount of food supplies will come from the Canadians and so on.

In the end, my viewpoint ends up being that Africa needs to get itself into a state of self-sufficiency, and that the current system remaining in place will only end up becoming an institution that cannot seek its own end (who wants to lose their job because they finished it, aside from craftsmen, I suppose), and one that seeks to keep Africa dependant because there is so much to exploit in that position. Of course, I have no training in this field, and I have no real learning of how these systems functioning, but this is the forum for expressing one's beliefs in a certain field, and learning whether or not they are as correct as we all think they are.

So, what is your viewpoint on foreign aid? Do you think it's beneficial or detrimental? To the continent, or to the businesses that have formed from it's position? Can you think of improvements to be made to the system, or, if you were to get involved in the issue, how would you apply yourself to the solution? And maybe my opinion will go from uninformed to correct.

Here is a Full Transcript of the Munk Debate, and you can view a video of the debate on the website itself, www.munkdebates.com

Foreign aid should be separated into "foreign aid" (e.g. investment) and aid relief.

The main reason Africa is not self-sufficient, besides the fact that many African countries are limited in resources and that Federations, Confederations, and unity organizations have fizzled out through the 1960's-80's period, is due to a neo-colonialist system wherein "foreign aid" is used to build infrastructure suitable for foreign companies. Also any homegrown industries are going to be out-competed easily by the far more industrialized powers of North America and Western Europe unless they impose godlike tariffs which defeats the whole purpose.

Aid relief, although obviously more noble on the surface, is even then sometimes associated with strings attached.

A basic example with the holiest-of-all-holy international organizations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme

A good read on colonialism and how it screwed Africa out of industrial development that could lay the basis for self-sufficiency can be found here: http://marxists.anu.edu.au/subject/a...rope/index.htm

Edit: And for what it's worth, this quote by Lenin is good:

"They [Social-Democrats] are just as much traitors to socialism... They represent that top section of workers who have been bribed by the bourgeoisie, those whom we Bolsheviks called 'agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement,' and to whom the best socialists in America gave the magnificently expressive and very fitting title: 'labour lieutenants of the capitalist class.' They represent the latest, 'modern,' type of socialist treachery, for in all the civilised, advanced countries the bourgeoisie rob—either by colonial oppression or by financially extracting 'gain' from formally independent weak countries—they rob a population many times larger than that of 'their own' country. This is the economic factor that enables the imperialist bourgeoisie to obtain superprofits, part of which is used to bribe the top section of the proletariat and convert it into a reformist, opportunist petty bourgeoisie that fears revolution."
(V.I. Lenin, "Letter to the Workers of Europe and America," Pravda; No. 16, January 24, 1919.)

Furthermore, aid that contradicts the interests of the bourgeoisie of the country trying to send said aid will generally not achieve much. There were plenty of people calling for the US, Britain, etc. to aid the Spanish Republic during the rebellion against it, but then FDR basically said "Oh hey we heard that some American companies are selling oil to the Germans, who are then giving it to the Francoists. But hey, that's all cool and legal, man." Not to mention the total joke of "Non-Intervention" in that conflict ("So, what about all these Italians we have in prisons who quite obviously weren't just some random militia?" "SORRY SIR WE DO NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT PROOF OF THE ITALIAN ARMY IN SPAIN") which gave equal weight to both a sovereign state and rebels who wanted to overthrow it. Good thing those Francoists got aid from everywhere due to their vow to erase the communist boogeyman, whereas the Republic had to suffice with valuable though limited Soviet aid.