Foreign Aid Blogs

As calls for a “Marshall Plan for Haiti” continue to make headlines, an increasing number of reports are beginning to ask: is aid the answer? A recent report from PBS interviews a number of aid supporters and critics, asking them if a massive aid program to Haiti is the best option.  read more »

For Haiti, just about every conceivable aid scheme beyond immediate humanitarian relief will lead to more poverty, more corruption and less institutional capacity, says Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal. After the immediate impact of the earthquake has passed, and the immediate relief efforts subside, “the arrival of the soldiers of do-goodness, each with his brilliant plan to save Haitians from themselves” will take root.  read more »

Dambisa Moyo, economist and author of "Dead Aid", discussing problems of foreign aid to the developing world. Moyo believes that pouring more aid into the coffers of African governments will do nothing to promote healthy economic growth. Instead, she calls for an opening of global trade, lower tariffs and a functioning tax system.  read more »

A recent article by Witney W. Schneidmanin in Newsweek provides an apt description of Dambisa Moyo’s vision for the African continent. Schneidmanin, is critical of Moyo’s insistence on the negatives of foreign aid. But he also seems to support Moyo’s belief that encouraging African countries to access international capital markets, develop domestic bond markets and ensure that local governments obtain international credit ratings, would be far more effective in tacking poverty than taking more handouts from the World Bank and aid institutions.  read more »