# Should Western countries stop sending financial aid to Sub-Saharan Africa? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 16, 2016, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-western-countries-stop-sending-financial-aid-to-sub-saharan-africa/743318 "2016-01-16T10:13:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dajn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@Dajn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dajn)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-western-countries-stop-sending-financial-aid-to-sub-saharan-africa/743318/41 "2016-01-19T04:34:47Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > There’s two huge misconceptions with foreign aid: first, that the US and other countries spend a lot of their national budgets on foreign aid; and second, that a lot of foreign aid is simply sending a check to some government somewhere. > > In reality, foreign aid is about one percent of the US budget; and most foreign aid projects involve some kind of specific effort - anything from building infrastructure to funding an NGO to hold a conference on labor reforms. > > The county that seems to be following the OP’s advice to let the market sort it out is China. Chinese companies come in, build big mines or whatever, pay workers shit, import the raw materials, and sell the fruits of the exploited labor to Walmart and whatnot. That should be the focus of people’s outrage. Haha. I quess it is china’s world. Godspeed china. You win ---
**Author:** ![T.M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ad7895/32.png) [@T.M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.M)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-western-countries-stop-sending-financial-aid-to-sub-saharan-africa/743318/42 "2016-01-28T10:40:41Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > If only the left understood this to be true about most free products and services. This is sadly true. I used to be a shoe salesman, we had some cheap but good quality leather men’s shoes that just sat on the shelves, we doubled the price and sold the lot ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-western-countries-stop-sending-financial-aid-to-sub-saharan-africa/743318/43 "2016-01-28T16:26:51Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > There’s two huge misconceptions with foreign aid: first, that the US and other countries spend a lot of their national budgets on foreign aid; and second, that a lot of foreign aid is simply sending a check to some government somewhere. > > In reality, foreign aid is about one percent of the US budget; It is worth pointing out that non-defense discretionary spending is only about 15% of our budget so foreign aid is 5-10% of our discretionary spending. To put it into perspective the 30-40 billion we spend on foreign AID is about half what we spend on food stamps (our biggest program) and about twice what we spend on NASA. The Top 5 recipients of foreign aid are in the middle east (including Israel and Egypt). The West Bank and Israel recieve more foreign aid per capita than anyone else… by a LOT (at about $1/person/day) > **[United States foreign aid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid#Amounts)** > > United States foreign aid, also known as US foreign assistance consists of a variety of tangible and intangible forms of assistance the United States gives to other countries. Foreign aid is used to support American national security and commercial interests and can also be distributed for humanitarian reasons. Aid is financed from US taxpayers and other revenue sources that Congress appropriates annually through the United States budget process. It is dispersed through "over 20 U.S. governmen Th... > [@](#): > > and most foreign aid projects involve some kind of specific effort - anything from building infrastructure to funding an NGO to hold a conference on labor reforms. A lot of our foreign aid seems to be military assistance. > [@](#): > > The county that seems to be following the OP’s advice to let the market sort it out is China. Chinese companies come in, build big mines or whatever, pay workers shit, import the raw materials, and sell the fruits of the exploited labor to Walmart and whatnot. That should be the focus of people’s outrage. Are they paying these African laborers more than they were making before? Would they be better off without the Chinese or are you just saying the that the Chinese should be paying them more? ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-western-countries-stop-sending-financial-aid-to-sub-saharan-africa/743318/44 "2016-01-30T17:39:31Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > If millions people in Sub Saharan Africa will die due to the denial of humanitarian help that would be causing deaths of these people. I hope it does not happen. Failing to solve someone else’s problem is NOT the same thing as deliberately murdering them. Taking this logic to its extreme means we are responsible for every death anywhere in the world because we theoretically “could have” stopped it, which is absurd. Further, “genocide” means the deliberate and systematic destruction of a certain people. To categorize a famine as “genocide” is absurd. Feeding and caring for these people is the responsibility of their own governments. In many cases, by providing “humanitarian” aid we are subsidizing their poor governance. For example: A certain country must spend X amount of money on food, and instead the rulers spend it on corrupt luxuries. If a western nation intervenes and sends food aid, we are in fact subsidizing his corruption. If they know that wealthy western nations will continue to provide their needs, there is no reason to reform their governance or spend the money correctly. We are, essentially, abetting their corruption. Further, I think OP (and most other critics) completely misses the point of foreign aid. We are not helping these people out of the goodness of our hearts. Foreign aid, the Peace Corps, and other “humanitarian” programs are extensions of our foreign policy and our national power. This is the “soft power” by which we influence countries to work for our benefit. It takes astonishing naivete to think that the goal of these programs is humanitarian assistance for its own sake. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-western-countries-stop-sending-financial-aid-to-sub-saharan-africa/743318/45 "2016-02-01T22:52:08Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Maternal mortality has fall by 44% in sub-Saharan Africa since 1990, and child mortality is at an all time low. The death toll of HIV/AIDS has begun to reverse, in some places dramatically. Guinea worm and polio are about to be eradicated. Secondary school enrollment rates rose 48% from 2000-2008. Real income has risen 30% in the last 10 years, and as a whole the growth rate is projected at 6% a year. Africa has gone from 3 democracies to 25 since the end of the Cold War. The number of coups per decade has halved. When I arrived in Cameroon in 2006, my town didn’t have a single library and the nearest internet connection was three hours away. It had just received cell phone reception for the first time. Now, everyone is posting baby pictures on Facebook. > > There are still huge, massive problems, and every country has a different story. But overall, Africa is growing at a remarkable pace and today is the best time in history to be African. I agree with this, I think after decolonisation and the cold war, Africa had double shocks much like the ones experienced in Eastern Europe and the ex USSR, and now is on course to recovery. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-western-countries-stop-sending-financial-aid-to-sub-saharan-africa/743318.md?page=2)