Putin, in his speech at the Munich Security Conference, mentioned poverty as a security threat. He noted that often the assistance offered to Third World nations is designed to promote the businesses of the donor nation.
"And let’s say things as they are – one hand distributes charitable help and the other hand not only preserves economic backwardness but also reaps the profits thereof. The increasing social tension in depressed regions inevitably results in the growth of radicalism, extremism, feeds terrorism and local conflicts."
Econo-Girl is not an expert on international aid, but these claims would bear looking into.
2 comments:
There is an amount of truth to this. And the Russians would know! All that "aid" the Soviets gave out? What was that for? Charity?
Of course it was! None of the aid was designed to create satellite states to make the Eastern Block more of a threat to NATO! Naaaaaaa.
But is all foreign aid bad? Not really. But you understand how our economic system works. It is driven by profit.
The Iguana has a point, just like Putin has a point. Donor countries give help for investment projects that are often implementing by Western (and donor related) bidding companies. And the Russians know all too well how to play this game. More discretely than the French or the Americans, no doubt, but not less efficiently.
Donors should concentrate on helping where it really counts: relief of course, but also helping people to help themselves, educating, training, transferring know how and technology. Stopping negating their good acts by worst ones, like patenting biological elements, for instance, etc.
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