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International Aid

Topics: Development Assistance Committee, Country classifications, Developed country Pages: 2 (426 words) Published: October 2, 2010
Developing countries and least developed countries comprise over a half of the globe needing assistance from the developed countries. International aid is a voluntary transfer of resources and funds from one country to another with the objective of providing benefits to the recipient country. While distribution of international aid has strong supports on its favourable elements it also has problems associated with it. What are the arguments for and against international aid? This essay will consider both the arguments for and against international aid.

There are numerous problems created by foreign aid. The first problem is of aid dependency. It simply means till what extent a nation’s budget is dependent on international aid. Foreign countries provide a lot of aid in terms of cash, goods or services and technical support but it makes this vulnerable to aid fluctuations. “Aid dependency dampens the spirits of creativity, invention and innovation” (Chand and Nisha 2003, p. 112). For example,

Additionally, there is the disadvantage of dependent decision making. “Aid provided to least developed nations at times has strings attached to them called tied aid” (Chand and Nisha 2003, p. 112). Such aid requires the receiving country to behave in a certain manner and to accept certain conditions out down by the donor country. For example, the Australian aid for institutional development in Fiji given worth $10 million required Fiji to use Australian experts and computers sourced from Australia. In this manner a large proportion of the aid funds flowed back to the donor country. Hence, hooking nations in such contracts when providing aid can be a problem for the recipient country. However, there are arguments that support international aid. This essay has so far discussed the arguments against international aid and now it will consider the factors that favour international aid. These factors can be categorized as growth of a country, reduce social problems and improve...
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