Inadequacies of Foreign Aid by zephyo on Newgrounds

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Inadequacies of Foreign Aid

A more academic art on a topic close to me -

US currently provides a vast amount of foreign aid for development - they spent about 26 billion in 2015. Humanitarian aid is part of that, split up mainly into disaster risk reduction (DRR) and emergency relief with only 2% for DRR. (DoS; USAID) DRR has huge potential for saving more lives and money. Recipient countries of humanitarian aid get so much emergency relief that they stop investing in preventing disasters from happening in the first place, knowing foreign aid will bust them out (“Dead Aid” Moyo). Less emergency relief and more DRR will fix that - and save US money. Eric Schwartz, the former United States Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, reports that every dollar spent on DRR saves US $5-10 in losses from disasters compared to a dollar spent on emergency response.

Humanitarian aid isn’t the only aspect that needs fixing, though. Aid in general is constantly misused to manifest war and violence for the recipient government’s benefit. Some recipient governments use it to forcibly relocate and/or suppress citizen’s criticisms of their actions. (Oakland Institute)

US needs to start making smarter decisions in their funding in aid. Increased amounts of aid is not going to solve poverty or bad government. We can start by increasing DRR and going into the actual recipient countries and communicating with the citizens, finding out exactly what they need and not what we think they need.

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If you want to learn more, check out NPR’s Have and Have-Nots (www.npr.org/2013/10/16/2357816…). I would share my research paper, but plagiarism ; P

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Riveet099

2016-04-19 13:08:54

This is definitely a political cartoon worthy of the Pulitzer. The black thing spewing violence and unrest sticks out of the theme for me. Really nice work.

BinaryDood

2016-03-22 21:58:04

wow

VicariousE

2016-03-22 18:59:36

I saw a glimpse of this in a video, glad you posted it here with a backstory. It really reminds me of the first political cartoons our country produced, all the way to the early 20th century. Really hope this image (with credit due) is used to illustrate the problem in the MSM.

It looks as though foreign powers have enough clout in the US to determine how they get their subsidies. I trust your paper gets a good score, this sort of funding needs to be better handled... but the money chickens have come home to roost :p

zephyo responds:

I look up to political cartoons! Really humorous yet serious. What's MSM? Ha yes, the problem isn't the lack of foreign say tho, it's the lack of foreign lower classes's say - the gov't who don't really know much are doing the talking. And thank you!!

richalds

2016-03-19 11:18:30

this is just how America works. its cheaper to pay for preventative care and screenings than the extensive medical bills from millions of sick people. its cheaper to pay for kids education than adults incarceration.

zephyo responds:

America could do with a lot more reforms - especially, as you point out - the way we handle healthcare and jails/criminal systems, but with the Senate always at a standstill it's extremely difficult.