to help or not to help
To Help or Not to Help: The Samaritan dilemma - Nivedita Ravi
The Samaritan dilemma is a dilemma in the act of charity. This was proposed by James M Buchanan. According to this theory, when given charity, a person will act one of the two given ways: using the charity to improve their situation or look for charity as a means of survival. A similar situation arises when a country receives foreign aid. The donor country is faced with the Samaritan dilemma. Will the country receiving the foreign aid act in a way that will improve the situation or will it look at charity as a means of survival? Foreign aid is not always beneficial for developing countries. What is wrong with foreign aid? Studies in the last four decades have shown that the main objective of developmental aid has not been achieved. Of late, ‘development’ –the main goal of aid is notably become ‘sustainable development’ which is a broader concept than just development. In the case of sustainable development, the aid receiver has a bigger role to play than the donor. In such a case, the receivers had a greater responsibility to look after and the authority of the donors over their own aid declined. The poor outcome involved need not be because of conflicts, it can also arise given the preferences of individuals involved and the incentives generated by the donors. Besides this, there are a number o questions that has to be addressed before giving the aid such as: Why is the country poor, what kinds of reforms does it need, what kinds of investments it requires, who are the stake holders and how are they benefitted etc. All these questions will have to be considered by the donor before giving aid. Now that we know that there are a lot of problems involved in development aid, we have to see how development aid can be used to the optimum satisfaction, so that it benefits both the donor as well as satisfy the country which
The Samaritan dilemma is a dilemma in the act of charity. This was proposed by James M Buchanan. According to this theory, when given charity, a person will act one of the two given ways: using the charity to improve their situation or look for charity as a means of survival. A similar situation arises when a country receives foreign aid. The donor country is faced with the Samaritan dilemma. Will the country receiving the foreign aid act in a way that will improve the situation or will it look at charity as a means of survival? Foreign aid is not always beneficial for developing countries. What is wrong with foreign aid? Studies in the last four decades have shown that the main objective of developmental aid has not been achieved. Of late, ‘development’ –the main goal of aid is notably become ‘sustainable development’ which is a broader concept than just development. In the case of sustainable development, the aid receiver has a bigger role to play than the donor. In such a case, the receivers had a greater responsibility to look after and the authority of the donors over their own aid declined. The poor outcome involved need not be because of conflicts, it can also arise given the preferences of individuals involved and the incentives generated by the donors. Besides this, there are a number o questions that has to be addressed before giving the aid such as: Why is the country poor, what kinds of reforms does it need, what kinds of investments it requires, who are the stake holders and how are they benefitted etc. All these questions will have to be considered by the donor before giving aid. Now that we know that there are a lot of problems involved in development aid, we have to see how development aid can be used to the optimum satisfaction, so that it benefits both the donor as well as satisfy the country which