Foreign Aid as a Weapon

Foreign Aid As a Weapon

If we would all just listen to Bono, from the pop band U2, he tells us that what the countries suffering from poverty really need is money. This popular idea in North America, that if we send money over to third world countries we will be able to end poverty, is simply ignorant. After all isn't the saying, "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime." Simply giving money in the form of foreign aid may feed someone for a day, but it is simply a band-aid solution.

There are many groups that think we can stop world hunger by either giving foreign aid to third world countries, or establishing the same farming techniques that first world countries use. Foreign aid creates a dependency on first world countries, and forces our culture onto them. Foreign aid in the form of food, is often grains that the government gives to third world countries so that there is less on the market, therefore keeping the price higher. The types of grains grown in North America are very different than what is grown in Africa due to environmental conditions. By pumping these products into third world countries it creates a want for these countries because they create a 'want' for a country. This want is for the taste of North American foods, which they can barely afford, but it creates more business for North American farmers.

Instead of eating grains grown by small independent farmers in their own country, they eat the grains from North America, such as wheat, which can be less nutritious than what they are accustomed to eating. This forces small farmers off their land, because they cannot afford to feed themselves, driving them to the already overpopulated cities.

Many modernists argue that competition is what drives our economy. If competition is the solution to the problems of economies in third world countries than foreign aid is being very destructive, as local farmers cannot compete with free food, therefore foreign aid is only continuing world poverty and dependency on first world countries.