Foreign Aid ... why, why, why?

[Toogoodtobeforgotten]

On R4 this morning. JH asking a representative from Rwanda why they have made the decision to sponsor Arsenal FC £30m to advertise the country as a tourist destination. JH explained the UK gave Rwanda £60m in aid last year. (This is the gist of the context here).

JH also asserted in the interview that Rwanda has a poor human rights record and refused inspections that would ascertain if the country had dedicated torture facilities.

The spokeswoman was unrepentant for both the decision to lodge £30m with Arsenal and for Rwanda's human rights record.

So why is this country knowingly giving aid to a country with human rights issues and who has decided they can afford to sponsor a football club? Makes me want to puke in righteous indignation.

The lack of historical political and economic understanding on this thread it mindboggling. If you can't be bothered to educate yourself properly on a subject, why believe you have anything close to a valid opinion to share?!

Bill Gates tackles the issue here ...
www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Who-Should-Get-Foreign-Aid
As someone who has put his money where his mouth is, resulting in literally millions of lives saved, i think his views are worth a read.

Rwanda is a fantastic country. I have been there several times. For those of you who may not remember it had a horrific genocide and has had to rebuild itself since then. Rwanda is one of the few countries that used its aid sensibly. The roads work, there are functioning traffic lights - the infrastructure is incredibly impressive. I travel around developing countries extensively and Rwanda is one of the best run countries I visit. Tourists go there to see the gorillas (mainly) and generate a huge amount of revenue for the country. It's massively beneficial to attract tourists.

There is still a lot of work to be done though. Health services are still lacking - hard to attract good medical staff permanently and West/Central Africa are still fighting things like Ebola. One of the people who worked there (a local) had a son who died after 2 weeks from a chest infection. They just simply didn't have good enough facilities to treat him. A lot of money goes into trying to shore this up but there's a lot of work to be done.

There was a political issue between rwanda/UK around aid/visas but I think they resolved that. I can only speak from what I see on the ground but they are one of the few countries where I don't think giving aid is an issue. I think it's more of an issue in India (where the economy is ok) and places like SA where there is now widespread corruption.

That Bill Gates article is interesting, but dodges the issue of governments’ responsibilities.

“Even though there will be fewer and fewer poor countries, there will still be very poor people. And they will be concentrated in fewer places—many of them the very same countries that are moving out of the low-income tier and into middle-income status. Today 70 percent of the world’s poorest people live in middle-income countries, and that percentage will likely go up”

Most foreign aid gets stolen by the politicians/army - most of them have multi £million properties in London. That is why so many Africans are arriving in Italy etc as ‘assylum seekers’.

Aid should only be used for contraception, the massively increasingly population on the continent is destroying wildlife. I have been to several African countries and seen it first hand

UK foreign aid is NOT given directly to governments - it is given directly to charities and NGOs who work directly with the people who need help. Also the UK supports DEVELOPMENT and not just aid, so encouraging a country to become more self-sufficient e.g. through trade, tourism etc so that they no longer need aid money in future is a good long term plan.

Countries with governments who have poor human rights records need the money more than anyone - it's the people who are being tortured who are supported by this money, not those doing the torturing...

Sponsoring people to go to university is all very well and good, but what about the children who don't have even the most basic level of education because they live in abject poverty/are female/have lost absolutely everything due to to conflict? Or those who die needlessly every day because they don't have access to the basic healthcare and sanitation that we take for granted?

Aid is a controversial subject in the UK, but please try to see beyond the Daily Mail headlines...

Loopy
I would say that the article simply doesn’t address it rather than dodges it.

Elvander - well said!

Ref where foreign aid ends up - From direct experience I know that DFID are very hot on following through their investment to results.

This is a very interesting discussion. I have 2 observations:

1: I had never considered Rwanda as a holiday destination before, but do now so perhaps the Arsenal sponsorship is working already!

2: I completely understand why people bring up the Indian space programme, but if the Indian government isn't going to help it's poorest people does that mean we shouldn't try to help them? It is just an accident of birth, there but for the grace of God etc...

Oh and a third 😀 having been to parts of Africa and having seeing the Chinese investment there, it strikes me that Europe is going to be irrelevant soon!

But Bill Gates’ article not mentioning it at all is odd, as it’s relevant to his arguments.

If a country has a certain level of economic income but government doesn’t address issues, eg infrastructure, education, inequality, healthcare, welfare, how and to what extent should other governments and NGOs provide aid?

“it's the people who are being tortured who are supported by this money, not those doing the torturing...“

That may not always be the case. Am sure governments and NGOs work extremely hard to do good things with their money - and with the services, goods and infrastructure it pays for - and that people and organisations “on the ground” do too, but it’s very challenging.

Loopy

It’s a good question. Aid can come with strings / incentives - and should, esp for middle income countries.