Talk:Aid

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Leonorom, KyuWill25. Peer reviewers: Leonorom, KyuWill25.

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Outdated sources talking about positive or negative effect of aid
Using sources from the 80s and not the current decade to talk about the effect of Aid as good or bad is too out of date now and there is no commentary on whether that summary or conclusion is even true today. Sources as old as the 80s or 90s should not be used to make comments on the nature or effectiveness or positivity or negativity of Aid today.

I was born in 1980. And was taught at school these criticisms about Aid in the early 90s. I am pretty sure the world has changed a lot since then, and people have been criticising and have acted on that criticism. So it is not true to say Aid is negative etc, and ignores the wellbeing of recipients. Please use only current sources, at least from the 2000s and afterwards. Not sources which are giving comments on the situation in the 80s before half the populations of the recipient countries today were even born. And so only what has happened in the recent lifetime of the people alive today is relevant, not what happened before half of the populations in those countries were born.

This is mainly regarding the "Criticism" section of the page. I mean it should be criticism of current Aid. Not historical Aid.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.97.38.7 (talk) 17:48, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Revamping the "Responses to Criticisms of Aid" Section + Improving Aid
I believe that the entire "Responses to Criticisms of Aid" section needs to be revamped. I propose that it be named "Aid Inefficiencies and Ideas for Improvement", as an edit with the larger scope of changing that entire section of the article to be about why aid is less efficient than it could be, and what academic ideas say we should do about it.

Under that section, we could put the work of Dollar and Collier, as well as the work of Easterly, and include all the various criticisms of aid. After giving these cursory mention, we could cite work which gives the explanation for how to best improve aid later in the section (e.g.: Microfinance to Easterly's Macro/Micro aid paradox, and etc). Additionally, I would like to include the criticism of increasing the "efficiency" of aid that many helpful benefits of foreign aid can go unmeasured with various metrics, economic and otherwise. At this time I am unsure where to include this criticism.

I also propose minor edits of the "Where Aid Actually Goes", "Implications", "Impact", and "Possible Improvements" sections, to be renamed "Aid Destinations", "Aid Outcomes and Implications", and "How to Improve the Efficiency of Aid".

This edit on the whole will likely be over 2000 words and include many resources, so I am wondering if it would deserve its own page. If improving the efficiency of aid (and criticisms of "efficiency" increases being a motivating factor) deserve it's own page, how should I organize it. What would it be called?

This is part of a Sociology project in a university course, and intensive scrutiny and time will be placed into any and all editing efforts.

Mctilghman (talk)

Loans
One thing I came here hoping to find out is, how much of foreign aid is actually loan based? People talk about money given to these countries, but there are a lot of loans and loan guarantees.
 * You are right, virtually all "Aid" is loans, albeit with favourable interest rates. Nonetheless they are loans.--Aa2-2004 (talk) 18:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Trying to search for a ref which says what proportion of aid is given as loans...--Aa2-2004 (talk) 18:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Moved from article
This edit of 25 Feb 06 was rightly reverted... however I'll post some of it here (reformatted), as it does highlight relevant topics which are not yet covered by the article. -Singkong2005 13:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * THE PROBLEMS WITH AID.
 * 1.	Dependency on Aid
 * LEDC become dependent on the aid they are at great risk as their economies could collapse if the aid supply is cut off.
 * 2.	Quantity.
 * Donor governments cutting back on promised responsibilities.
 * 1970: governments had promised to spend 0.7% of GNP on ODA (deadline: mid-70s). But, the average among donors is only about 0.25% of GNP (= US $55 Billion a year)
 * Recent European Union pledge to spend 0.56% of GNP on poverty reduction by 2010, and 0.7% by 2005
 * Almost all rich nations have constantly failed to reach their agreed obligations of the 0.7% target.
 * Some donate many dollars, but are low on GNP percent. E.g: USA- one of the lowest in terms of percent of GNP but for the last 4 years, dollars amt have been the highest.)
 * 3.	Equity (fairness)
 * too little aid reaches countries that must desperately need it.
 * Only 27% of ODA reaches the countries which are home to 1.5 billion of the worlds poor.
 * 4.	Predictability.
 * donors can cut off aid at a moments notice.
 * Aid can be used to serve the donors country’s own political interests.
 * Aid and militarism (tied aid) (politics affect what aid goes where and how much is spent)
 * Example: the war on terrorism.
 * credits for foreign militaries to buy US weapons and equipment increase by US $700 million to US $5 Billion.
 * (biggest bilateral recipients: Israel and Egypt)
 * militaristic aid comes at the expense of humanitarian and development interests
 * EU also links aid to fighting terrorism (no cooperation= relations with the economically powerful bloc will suffer.
 * aid money is often fled to various restrictive conditions.
 * As a condition for aid money, many doors apply conditions that tie the recipient to purchase products only from that donor.
 * WIN-LOSE SITUATION.
 * power countries have to spend precious resources on more expensive options.
 * Example: Eritrea- cheaper to build network of railways with local expertise and resources rather than being forced to spend aid money on foreign consultants experts and engineers imposed on the country as a condition of aid.
 * Africa’s fight against HIV/AIDS- the US insists that Africa uses the money it receives from it to buy anti-aids drugs from the US instead of buying cheaper generic products from south Africa, India or Brazil. (US drugs: $15000/ year, generics: $350/ year)
 * 5.	Distribution
 * at times, aid is given to visible projects. (eg big hospitals, universities, drains) at the expense of rural schools, water supply or heath clinics (would benefit more poor people) eg. The Narmada Dam in India.
 * More money is transferred from poor countries to rich, than from rich to poor.
 * Rich countries subsidies for their own agriculture are “cripping Africa’s chance to export its way out of poverty”
 * Eg: US, Europe and Japan spend $250 billion each year on agricultural subsidies cast.
 * Global markets are not friendly to poor nations. Developing countries enter the market as unequal partners and leave unequal gains.
 * More money is transferred from poor countries to rich, than from rich to poor.
 * Rich countries subsidies for their own agriculture are “cripping Africa’s chance to export its way out of poverty”
 * Eg: US, Europe and Japan spend $250 billion each year on agricultural subsidies cast.
 * Global markets are not friendly to poor nations. Developing countries enter the market as unequal partners and leave unequal gains.

Merge with "Aid"?
The current article is very skimpy, at least in comparison with its possible scope. Foreign aid has been around since just after the end of the Second World War. While the Marshall Plan was very successful and paid extremely handsome returns on our investment, other attempts to aid foreign countries made many U.S. citizens extremely angry. Foreign aid is an experiment that has run for about 50 years now, so there should be plenty of studies of the results of various attempts to give such aid. If this article were to be merged with an article on "Aid," which could cover everything from disaster aid to food stamps to church-sponsored in-home nursing, it would either overwhelm the other topics covered or itself be reduced to such a tiny component that its complexities could only be outlined. P0M 06:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

humanitarian assistance or humanitarian aid
I am a bit puzzled that humanitarian assistance is redirected to aid. If it is to be redirected, it makes much more sense to redirect it to humanitarian aid, though maybe it should be the opposite i.e. humanitarian aid should be called humanitarian assistance as this is the term that is commonly used in the sector.Joel Mc 14:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC) How many global aid agencies are there? How much money is being spent every year in humanitarian assistance? This article should include a list of political,ecomnomic, and moral reasonings for foreign aid.

publicprivatedialogue.org
This link: Public Private Dialogue A resource for aid practitioners wishing to promote development through involvement of stakeholders (sponsored by World Bank, IFC, OCED, DFID, GTZ) Was added by an IP address registered to the World Bank Group (publicprivatedialogue.org is a World Bank project). In keeping with our conflict of interest and external links guidelines I've moved it here for consideration by regular editors of this article who are unaffiliated with the site. To me, it doesn't really seem to contain encyclopedic information on Aid, being more of a how-to guide for people wanting to advocate for aid, so I'm inclined not to keep it on this article. -- Siobhan Hansa 18:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Completed Merge: Foreign aid
As there was limited referenced material in the Foreign aid article, I only merged a couple of sentences. For reference purposes anyone wishing to examine the content in more detail may follow this link. Alan.ca 06:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge from Development aid
I propose that the referenced content from Development aid be merged into this article. It would permit the effort to be focussed on developing one good article with references with the possibility of future branching if sufficient information is collected. Alan.ca 06:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC) Both the Aid article and the Humanitarian aid articles are large. Rather than merging, it would seem to me that the aid article should act as an umbrella article that points to more detailed explanations, including the article on humanitarian aid. I'm not sure if this sort of heirachical structure is how wikipedia works (excuse my ignorance), but it would provide more structure and clarity in this particular case (in my opinion). A merger would surely means some information being left out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearcool1 (talk • contribs) 18:52, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality of criticism section
I think the "Indicators of good/bad aid" subsection that someone tagged for neutrality should be removed entirely. As far as I can tell it has exactly one source (the one alluded to at the bottom) and does not represent any sort of consensus on the subject. The Criticism section as a whole also seems to lack sources in some places, particularly in the paragraph starting "Many criticize U.S. Aid...", which seems to contain some person's personal opinion. I'd like to, for example, see some sources for this position: "The IMF can be good at helping countries over a short problematic financial period, but for poor countries with long lasting issues it can cause harm." But, yes, I don't particularly feel like rewriting this stuff myself, so your opinions would be nice. Elithrion (talk) 18:18, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The "some person" you are referring to is William Easterly, whose ongoing arguments with Jeffrey Sachs about the efficacy of aid are probably the most widely known in the field. While the "Indicators of good/bad aid" section is rather badly formatted, the points receive broad consensus among aid workers, even if no one actually follows them. - BanyanTree 08:03, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Adding Response to Criticisms Section
I added the two sections entitled “Response to Criticisms of Aid” and “Recommendations for Improving Aid” to provide a more balanced look at aid. The article was very heavy on criticisms and did not provide possible reforms. Now the article provides a more holistic background on aid with the addition of Sachs, Singer and Collier as references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koconnor3 (talk • contribs) 03:32, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

'' The following paragraph in the middle of the document, under 'Development Aid', just has me puzzled. I thought the topic was Aid, not details about one aid program.''

Foreign aid can be simply defined as donations of money, goods, or services from one country assisting another country. Currently western countries are developing and increasing in the past decade, when it comes to foreign aid. But we are not supposed to just give African money and food but rather offering opportunities for African students to have an ambition. The goal is to create more chances for African people to accept higher education and also is an effective way to save Africans from suffering from poverty. There is a program called “Five College African Scholars Program”. This program is basically dedicated to support the research of individual researchers in Africa, strengthening partnerships and companionships among scholars in Africa and the United States, and augmenting the study of Africa. Talking about the program each scholar will receive a payment of 1,000 dollars a month as a salary base. Also other goods such as airfare fee, laptop computers, housing, health insurance, library privileges, an office, and a modest research allowance are all subjected to US tax. The requirements to apply to “ Five College Africans Scholars Program” is only offered to people who must be a citizen of an African nation, employed full-time at an African university that offers a bachelor, a master or a PHD degree, and there is a limit to the age of 49. There are also limits of accepting people; these refer to the people who hold such as graduate assistants, tutorial assistants and non teaching researchers.

69.171.163.64 (talk) 06:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Images
This article need some new images and pictures, if you want to achieve the "Today's featured article"-reward. --Jarhaugin 21:58, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Dr. Kohnert's comment on this article
Dr. Kohnert has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"- "international relations, aid (also known as international aid, overseas aid, foreign aid or foreign assistance) is – from the perspective of governments" [suggested revision: "Within the realm of international relations, aid (also known as development aid, international aid, overseas aid, foreign aid or foreign assistance) is – from the perspective of governments ..."]

- "Aid may serve one or more functions:" [suggested revision: "Aid may serve one or more functions: In general, it is meant to contribute to the economic, political and/or social development of the recipient country within the framework of economic cooperation of two (bilateral aid) or more states / institutions (multilateral aid). However, it may be given also as a signal "...]"

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Kohnert has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


 * Reference : Kohnert, Dirk, 2008. "EU-African Economic Relations: Continuing Dominance, Traded for Aid?," MPRA Paper 9434, University Library of Munich, Germany.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 18:44, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Article Critique
The article itself is very well cited and provides multiple perspectives of aid, which ascertains the neutrality of the article. However, food aid is primarily mentioned in the form of emergency aid, which doesn't really cover the scope of it. It might be useful to include an additional link to the green revolution in relation to food aid, instead of a brief mention under the intended use section. Mtran920 (talk) 20:04, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Move discussion in progress
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confusion with development aid
This article is missing a clear hatnote and a clear definition, probably also a better article title, so editors have been confused and added lots of stuff that belongs in development aid and not here. Perhaps it should be merged with humanitarian aid or at least be better differentiated from it. --Espoo (talk) 10:00, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

What is the difference between development aid (as described in the article of that name) and foreign aid (as described in this article)? The "aid" article says that developmental aid is a type of foreign aid, but there doesn't seem to be much if any difference between the two. Maybe these articles should be merged? I've written a similarly worded question on the other article's talk page. - 212.130.152.24 (talk) 04:23, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Good points! I suggest we should retain an article with the title Aid to cover things that refer jointly to development aid and humanitarian aid (but not to military aid). The word is often understood in this way. So the articles on Development aid and Humanitarian aid should cover things specific to their respective spheres but leave Aid to cover aspects that span both spheres. The article on Official development assistance should also remain, to cover its own specific subset of aid (i.e. aid defined and regulated as ODA by the OECD). If this is agreed then, yes, a lot of the material from Aid should be incorporated in Development aid and then removed from Aid. Some material would need to travel the other way. Likewise (although on a smaller scale) with regard to Humanitarian aid and Official development assistance. The Aid article ought to have more material on aid that falls outside ODA, such as private aid flows and Chinese aid. --05:07, 15 January 2021 (UTC)Mrmedley (talk)
 * Just to say that I think the proposal by Mrmedley from January 2021 was good and has pretty much been implemented in this way in the meantime. So aid is the overarching article for Development aid and Humanitarian aid. EMsmile (talk) 11:03, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Removed "further reading" list
I've removed this "further reading" list because I think it doesn't add any value and is also outdated:


 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Agree. It looked random even when the items were newer. Mrmedley (talk) 00:09, 11 July 2024 (UTC)