The document discusses the complexities of foreign aid, highlighting that it often fails to reach those in need due to corruption and misuse by local elites. It argues that aid can create dependency in recipient countries and depress local economies, inhibiting agricultural development. Case studies, including Ethiopia and Haiti, exemplify how aid can undermine local farming, leading to reduced self-sufficiency and food production.

1. Group 1
TO AID OR NOT TO AID? THAT IS THE
QUESTION.

2. 1ST POINT
AID MAY NOT REACH THE PEOPLE WHO NEED IT
MOST.
CORRUPTION MAY LEAD TO LOCAL POLITICIANS
USING AID FOR THEIR OWN MEANS OR FOR
POLITICAL GAIN.

3. 1ST POINT
• Aid sent to developing countries rarely reaches the people it was intended to benefit.
• Instead, it is used by oppressive governments to subsidize their military or spent on
projects that benefit local elites, or ends up on the black market.
• Between 1978 and 1984, more than 80% of 596 million of food aid sent to Somalia went
to the military and other public institutions. In El Salvador, 80% of U.S. aid in dry milk
ended up on the black market.

4. 2ND POINT
AID CAN INCREASE THE DEPENDENCY OF
LEDCS

5. 2ND POINT
• Giving aid to poor countries undermines any incentive on the part of these
countries to become self-sufficient through programs that would benefit the
poor, such as those that would increase food production or control population
growth.
• Farmers in countries that have experienced food aid such as Swaziland due
to severe weather have complete given up on farming and thus, caused their
children to know nothing about agricultural skills. Hence the quote:
“Give a man a fish, and you will feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and you will feed him for a lifetime.”
-Lao Tzu

6. 3RD POINT
SOMETIMES PROJECTS DO NOT BENEFIT
SMALLER FARMERS AND PROJECTS ARE OFTEN
LARGE SCALE.

7. 3RD POINT
• Food aid, for example, depresses local food prices,
discouraging local food production and agricultural
development.
• e.g. Poor dairy farmers in El Salvador have found themselves
competing against free milk from the U.S.

8. 4TH POINT
IT MAY BE A CONDITION OF THE INVESTMENT
THAT THE PROJECTS ARE RUN BY FOREIGN
COMPANIES OR THAT A PROPORTION OF THE
RESOURCES OR PROFITS WILL BE SENT
ABROAD.

9. 4TH POINT
• The current Third World land owners, producing for the First World, are
appendages to the industrialized world.
• They strip all natural wealth from the land to produce food, lumber, and other
products for wealthy nations. (Rich natural resources of poor countries are
exploited for the benefits of wealthy nations.)

10. CONCLUSION
• Finally, all persons have a basic right to freedom, which includes the right to
use the resources they have legitimately acquired as they freely choose.
• To oblige people in wealthy nations to give aid to poor nations violates this
right.
• Aiding poor nations may be praiseworthy, but not obligatory.

11. CASE STUDY: ETHIOPIA

12. BEFORE
• Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa.
• Second poorest countries in the world.
• About 90% of the total population live under the poverty
line.
• Around 4.5 million people are in need of food
emergency assistance.

13. AFTER
Reduces people’s incomes
• Food aid is supposed to provide relief for the poor but it has a chance of
reducing price of food and the incomes of farmers. For farmers in Ethiopia to
get the same amount of money as before the food aid, they’ll have to sell
more products for too little money.
Dependency
• Food aid given is actually in the form of surplus food. From this, we can
conclude that these countries will not ALWAYS have surplus food as their
population is also growing. Thus Ethiopia cannot always depend on the
giving country.

14. CASE STUDY: SOMALIA

15. INEFFECTIVE FOOD AID
• Food aid from the WFP (World Food Programme) which are sent to Somalia are
often sold in the market.
• “There's no food,” said Ali Gouled, a camp resident. "When they bring rice,
people take it to town. It flies away from here like a bird."
• Hassan Bilaal, a programme assistant for the WFP, said 80 per cent of the grain
sold in Somali markets had been intended as food aid.
• From Biafra in the 1960s to present-day Somalia, armed groups have seized it
to feed their ranks and to buy weapons.
• In fact, some of the families from the needy who receives food aid sells part of it.

16. BRIEF CASE STUDY: HAITI

17. HAITI
• On March 10, the US was exporting cheap rice to Haiti, undercutting local growers.
• Before: Haitian farmers provided 47 percent of the country's rice (1988)
• After: Haitian farmers are only providing 15 percent of the country’s rice (2008)