What are the pros and cons of foreign aid?

What are the pros and cons of giving aid to sub-saharan Africa?

• What do you think?

• Answer:

  Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the poorest region in the world, and there are numerous other serious problems with the area that the governments in Sub-Saharan Africa need help to overcome. The most obvious problem in this region is extreme poverty. this has proven to be the only area in which the UN's first MDG may not completed. in Sub-Saharan Africa, HALF of the people live on LESS THAN $1 A DAY. Poverty in Africa has cost thousands of lives and, according to Jeffrey Sachs, breeds terrorism. Mr. Sachs' statement is supported by the fact that there are in fact Al-Qaeda locations in Sub-Saharan Africa and the group's first attack was in Africa. Another problem is the disease. HIV/AIDS is extremely prevalent, as well as countless other deadly diseases such as tuberculosis and parasitic diseases that are long extinct in other areas. the H5N1 Bird Flu Virus strain was also detected in Nigeria this February, which poses a serious threat to sub-saharan Africa and the entire world because: 1)it is very likely the disease will spread rapidly because birds have not yet been quarantined and, given the scarcity of food, it's very unlikely infected birds will be slaughtered 2)flu experts have said that the H5N1 Bird Flu virus strain, though not humanly communicable at the moment, may become communicable through humans, which would put the entire world in great danger yet another unfortunate aspect of Sub-Saharan Africa's current state is war. Civil wars have been raging in this area for numerous years, and the crudely drawn territories left by the countries like France and Portugal, of which many sub saharan africa countries were colonies, cause on-going dispute. There have been 200,000 killed as a result of civil war and countless other refugees. As Bob Geldof said, "if this scale of destruction was occuring in Europe, people would be calling it World War III...and rushing to provide aid." Inarguably, sub-saharan Africa is in a dire state and needs to get rid of its problem. Another reason the U.S. should give aid to sub-saharan africa is because of its rich natural resources. The area has massive amounts of colton, which is used in cell phones. The area also has oil wells (that are being bombed in wars), in quantaties so great it could provide the U.S. with 10% of its oil. Perhaps the most pressing reason we should give aid to this region is little known. In 1970, the United States of America, along with over 20 other developed nations met at an UN Earth Summit and pledged to give .7% of their Gross Domestic Product. This was to be acchieved by 1975. Yet, over THIRTY YEARS LATER, the United States is only giving .16% of their GDP, and is giving the very least of those 22 countries who pledged money, %-wise, a highly despicable thing, considering the U.S. is one of the most affluent nations in the world. THE CONS:there are corrupt governments that will embezzle the money. Sub-Saharan Africa has been given billions of dollars and they have not improved their state at all; in fact, the more money they get, the worse they become. This si because the corrupt governments get richer and more powerful with every dollar in aid that they get; in fact, the former president of Nigeria was found to have smuggled over $500 billion. Yet another reason we should not give aid because even if it reaches the citizens, it's not always used properly. For example some country(i forgot which one) used their aid money to build a highway, although there were barely any cars in the country. Countless projects have been poorly placed and left unfinished furthermore, aid creates independence, which actually hampers their development. For example, Asia was once equally as poor as sub-Saharan Africa. From 1976-2000, they received significantly less aid than Sub-Saharan Africa, yet grew much more. thus, aid given will be useless and there is no way to make sure the money is properly spent...which leads us to the option of humanitarian aid humanitarian aid to sub-saharan africa is also not a very good solution because of all the diseases are there. so what do you think now? i hope you READ IT ALL!AND IF NOT GO BACK AND READ IT! I DEMAND YOU DO SO!!!