he can't give an example of them because he doesn't realise how corrupt these countries are.
he might want to watch the opening scene of black hawk down to get an idea where the food aid goes
Well, a quick google gives you a list of projects which have a high success rate - but I'll put a list below of strategies which have been proven to be effective (not all do & I agree efficiency can be increased, as with any project).
Aid (foreign, international) is split into two key areas.
Humanitarian aid & developmental aid.
To put it roughly, the humanitarian aid is for disasters, droughts & other natural events (some of which we in the west are part responsible for due to the effective of climate change & the fragility of the local ecosystem) - developmental aid is intended to help them get on their own two feet & look after themselves.
MIT based study
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Abhijit Banerjee and Ruimin He have undertaken a rigorous study of the relatively few independent evaluations of aid program successes and failures.
They suggest the following interventions are usually highly effective forms of aid in normal circumstances:
- subsidies given directly to families to be spent on children's education and health
- education vouchers for school uniforms and textbooks
- teaching selected illiterate adults to read and write
- deworming drugs and vitamin/nutritional supplements
- vaccination and HIV/AIDS prevention programs
- indoor sprays against malaria, anti-mosquito bed netting
- suitable fertilizers
- clean water supplies
Aid is split into many different sub-groups.
Types
- Project aid: Aid is given for a specific purpose e.g. building materials for a new school.
- Programme aid: Aid is given for a specific sector e.g. funding of the education sector of a country.
- Budget support: A form of Programme Aid that is directly channelled into the financial system of the recipient country.
- Sector-wide Approaches (SWAPs): A combination of Project aid and Programme aid/Budget Support e.g. support for the education sector in a country will include both funding of education projects (like school buildings) and provide funds to maintain them (like school books).
- Technical assistance: Educated personnel, such as doctors are moved into developing countries to assist with a program of development. Can be both programme and project aid.
- Food aid: Food is given to countries in urgent need of food supplies, especially if they have just experienced a natural disaster. Food aid can be provided by importing food from the donor, buying food locally, or providing cash.
- International research, such as research that went into the green revolution and many vaccines.
I do agree with one thing, aid is a temporary solution & it would be far better to create an environment in which aid wasn't needed - the only way of actually stopping aid is to change the system at the core to make poverty impossible.
All large political & social systems are corrupt, it's nothing new - a percentage of insurance is fraud, a percentage of our benefits bill is fraud, some corporations are involved in illegal tax avoidance, a number of MP's were scamming expenses, a have normal people working "cash in hand" - I fail to see why charity or international aid should have to live up to an unrealistic standard to get any support.
Yes it needs to be improved, yes we need to do more to deal with the corruption in these nations we are attempting to heal - but on the other side, we need to do more to reduce the negative effectives of climate change, we need to stop selling weapons to undesirables in the region, we need to stop saddling the third world with unsustainable debt, we need to stop working with the select few in these nations who are exploiting the people (via resource theft).
Like it or not, we indirectly benefit from the suffering of these nations & we have a duty to our fellow human beings to do something about it & support changes to the system to do it.
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