When countries, for whatever reason, are unable to reduce their own levels of corruption, it is then important to discuss the options available to the global community. Foreign aid is often discussed as either a boon or a burden in the fight against corruption in developing countries. Money can potentially be used to pay officials and domestic security forces more, decreasing the incentive to supplement one's income. On the other hand, the aid can also be used to strengthen an autocratic government's position and contribute directly to increasing corruption.
According to an article on Breitbart.com an aggregate news site, "[excepting] Israel, eight countries receiving the most US foreign aid are the eight most corrupt countries in the world..." which, if true, is a startling fact about the efficacy of foreign aid. Another article on policynetwork.net cites a report correlating the rise of foreign aid levels with increasing corruption. The author, Wolfgang Kasper, states that hope for reducing corruption in some of the most corrupt countries rests with
"[the] young people [who] are now becoming freedom and corruption fighters, who no longer share the fatalism of their fathers in the face of corrupt officials, oppression and poverty. It is time to listen to Third-World corruption fighters, confine overseas aid to emergencies, such as Asia's tsunami in 2004 and Pakistan's earthquake in 2005, and tie all aid to stringent conditions of corruption control"Fortunately, in a contrasting article, the Anti-Corruption Research Network found in an empirical study, that "attention to combating corruption has been rather effective for the multilateral donors. However, this was not found to be the case for bilateral donors." There have been several papers written about the effectiveness of multilateral policy implementation over bilateral ones in the general sense. It follows that this would be the case with aid and corruption, possibly giving the world an option in this fight.
In the end, as with all policy, I firmly believe that it comes down the the fact that the best intentions do not ever guarantee positive results. Policymakers would best serve those in need by examining as much information as possible before sending foreign aid. In this case, the worst thing that can happen isn't wasting money. Its impeding or even regressing the development of countries whose people cannot afford for life to get any worse.
You bring up some really great points and present both sides well. I completely agree with your argument that the worst thing is aid further impeding development of countries that are in dire need. A point that really resonated with me from one of the articles we read was to improve the quality of aid rather than the quantity. Pouring in billions of dollars to help a country proves to be ineffective if there is no accountability of where the money is going and to whom. I can only hope that the future of aid revolves more around accountability and greater selectivity.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there needs to be greater accountability for how foreign aid is spent. The only thing I struggle with, and am torn about what to do, is whether to punish nations that are corrupt (either by economic sanctions or a withdrawal of aid), or by still trying to help the innocent citizens involved. There is also the hypothesis that trade and economic relations between countries significantly improves relations, and maybe improving relations through economic correspondence is more effective for battling corruption than trying to achieve such goals through retaliatory measures. I'm really not sure what the best path would be.
ReplyDeleteForeign aid absolutely needs more monitoring. Bill Easterly, who we discussed in class, says that 75% of aid goes directly to government. The other 25% goes for technical assistance, which is sending our own people abroad to provide skills that local people lack. Easterly believes that we should focus our aid on "searchers" rather than "planners." Planners have large goals, and according to Easterly, basically dump money on a problem and hope it gets better. Searchers, however, try to improve the issues little by little. I think our aid would be a lot more effective if we gave it to specific organizations rather than directly to another government because organizations have a lot more knowledge on specific problems than the government, and would be more easily monitored by the aid-giving country.
ReplyDeleteI found it very interesting that "attention to combating corruption has been rather effective for the multilateral donors." "However, this was not found to be the case for bilateral donors." Perhaps the reason multilateral donors are more successful at combatting corruption is because multiple countries negotiate the terms of foreign aid. Bilateral donors often seek strategic goals with foreign aid such as US aid to Pakistan and US aid to Mexico. The US is strategically setting up ally governments to combat the war on terrorism and the war on drugs by giving foreign aid to these governments. It seems that bilateral donors at times place more importance on these strategic goals than fighting corruption and encouraging economic growth.
ReplyDelete