The Truth About Foreign Aid: Where It Really Goes

No wise military commander would attempt in good sense, to feed a battalion or a brigade with the same amount of food which is only sufficient to feed a platoon.

This is just as no intelligent farmer would in all good judgment, attempts to feed 200, 000 chickens or 200, 000 cows, with the same amount of grains which would satiate just 100 chickens or 100 cows. Otherwise, such military commander will have a very hungry brigade, battalion and such a farmer, would have malnourished livestock of whether chickens or cows!

In foreign aid logic, more is given to platoons commanders and less is given to commanders of battalions and brigades. More is similarly given to farmers with fewer livestock, while much less is given to the farmers with many more thousands of livestock. And those given less are frequently required to do much more, and those given nothing at all, are blamed for poor outcomes, nonetheless.

Such is the nature of foreign aid.

Aid is never directed at places in the world where the need is greatest. Foreign aid has a pattern of being directed at those who are connected. And those with clouts and those with the requisite vehemence and cohesion to pepper donors with complaints when they are not offered aid. NPR Gwen Thompson reporting from two counties in Africa, managed to have repeated for each, the irrelevant fact that these countries are aid beneficiaries of USA and I have never heard any journalist/reporter say the same of Israel, as the American journalist who reports from Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

There are those who are completely ignorant of how foreign aid is allocated both in terms of size and what nations are recipients. Out of such ignorance, some have assumed that so much or even too much foreign aid, have been given to African nations. These ignoramuses therefore argue that foreign aid to Africans is ineffective. Or that it creates dependency. But by the time that you look at the tables and schedules of US Foreign Aid below, you will agree, and see the lie about Foreign Aid. Ignorant people should stop using Africa as cover for the foreign aid which actually flows elsewhere, far from Africa!

There is a reason why Israel never was in a position to have to rely on Bono of U2 or the musicians and artistes who performed We Are the World, Live Aid in support for victims of drought and famine in Ethiopian and Somalia to advocate public charity as form of aid. It is the same reason why Israel for instance never has to deal with the conditionality World Bank and International Monetary Fund stringent strictures, which are frequently imposed on African nations and nations such as Argentina etc. The World Bank and IMF, is seen in developing countries, as tools by which western nations control public policies and the lives of peoples in the developing world. And anyone who has heard of the so-called “Structural Adjustment Program” understands the ruinations it wrought in many developing countries worldwide. Israel receives more aid and more loan guarantees than all of Africa. So Israel does not need the scandalous fund raising theatrics. Israel was never subjected to controls and strictures of The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund or IMF. And why not?