Does giving international aid sometimes cause more harm than good?

Your country is in shambles, your economy completely collapsed, and many citizens are stuck in poverty. All because you chose to accept international aid and didn’t develop your economy. You became dependent and ungrateful about the one thing you used to accept with pleasure and open arms. This is what will happen if you choose to give or accept international aid.

Firstly, supporters point to clear humanitarian achievements. Aid has contributed to sharp declines in extreme poverty, which decreased from roughly 36% to around 10% globally since 1990. The programs, including PEPFAR, have saved millions of lives by achieving major reductions in child mortality and in disease prevalence. The system operates at low cost, typically staying under 1% of donor-country budgets. The system helps protect strategic interests because it decreases factors which cause conflict and terrorism, forced migration and global health hazards. South Korea demonstrates through its history that aid can establish a path which leads to permanent economic partnerships between countries.

Combating this point, the impermanent benefits from these initiatives get completely buried under the more substantial fundamental issues which exist in the system. Aid creates dependency because it enables governments to delay essential reforms, which include establishing tax systems and fighting corruption, building impartial institutions, and establishing environments that permit local economic development. Governments that depend on external funding lose their need to show results, which lets them keep their corrupt leadership in power. The local population suffers when most of the aid money ends up in the hands of powerful elites who divert funds away from their intended goals.

Finally, Dambisa Moyo and Angus Deaton argue that large-scale aid programs, which have lasted for more than 40 years, failed to deliver sustainable development results while their presence creates disincentives that hinder progress.

In conclusion, the humanitarian value of aid provides immediate benefit, but its long-term consequences create ongoing cycles of poverty and weak governance due to a lack of independence.