Hi, getting visibility among core literary public is benchmark
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2. Intimate Speakers: Why Introverted and Socially Ostracized Citizens
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Biju
P R
Author,
Teacher, Blogger
Assistant
Professor of Political Science
Government
Brennen College
Thalassery
Kerala,
India
My Books
1. Political Internet: State and Politics in the Age of Social Media,
(Routledge 2017), Amazon https://www.amazon.in/
2. Intimate Speakers: Why Introverted and Socially Ostracized Citizens Use Social Media, (Fingerprint! 2017)
Amazon: http://www.amazon.in/dp/
1. Political Internet: State and Politics in the Age of Social Media,
(Routledge 2017), Amazon https://www.amazon.in/
2. Intimate Speakers: Why Introverted and Socially Ostracized Citizens Use Social Media, (Fingerprint! 2017)
Amazon: http://www.amazon.in/dp/
Aid is money, projects, food,
medical care, programmes etc which is specified to help countries in difficult
situations. In fact there are three main forms of aid; emergency, humanitarian,
and economic, aid. Reports reveal that aid money contributes up to 40 per cent
of most African countries national budgets and it also goes on to say that
African has received over 500 billion dollars in economic aid for the past few
decades (Sikombe March 13, 2013).
Foreign
aid, the
international transfer of capital, goods, or services from a country or
International Organizations for the benefit of the recipient country or its
population. Aid can be economic, military, or emergency humanitarian (e.g., aid
given following natural disasters) reads Britannica encyclopedia[1].
Also Dictionary.com defines it as economic, technical, or military aid given by one nation to another for purposes of relief and rehabilitation, for economic stabilization,
or for mutual defense[2].
There are very interesting
statistice about aid and its non-re;osation in Africa in respect of social and
economic development. For instances; the amount of aid given to Africa is put
at $30bn while corruption alone costs $148bn a year says George
Ogunbande in an Internet post[3]
. at the same time many people argue that for the past 60 years around, Africa
has received $1 trillion in aid. That means pouring water into a leaking basket
and was helping these corrupt politicians and establishment increase illicit
wealth in the name of teeming millions. Africa has been designing failed
projects that will continually keep these African countries in the Dark Age and
bottom cracks. Aid seems something like sending high protein biscuits to
countries experiencing famine and drought; expecting that these biscuits will
work a fantastic miracle the next day altogether.
Bigger chunk of the foreign aid to
Africa received just end up in private bank accounts of some ‘vested interest’
in foreign lands under fake names and so on. In Africa; foreign Aid fuels
corruption, fires war, starts conflicts, pays to kill innocent people
especially the poor and the weak, and spreads dependence on foreign aid
unnecessarily with out developing self relaince. This is how foreign Aid
destroys Africa in full swing. Foreign aid turns African governments into
monsters and causes them to destroy the very own people they were supposed to
be protecting, promoting and helping. Many African leaders stay in power for
decades just because they receive free aid money to pay the military and
private killing machines to enable them remain in power forever with out being
challenged by people.
More to the point, turning
governments into Frankenstein, monsters and devils, foreign aid brings in a lot
of other negative incentives and bad tendencies. Outside people notice Africans
as even poorer just because they give food to Africa in the form of aid. In
short, Poverty is getting worse and innocent people continue to die while
African leaders continue to pile billions of dollars in private bank accounts
in foreign lands and that is because foreign aid to an African government
is free-money, unaacounted, and they need not give any account and balance
statement for this huge amount being offered. Put in some other way, foreign
aid disenfranchises the poor African only because pitiable and deplorable
Africans are not able to hold their governments accountable and responsible.
One other very negative aspect of Foreign aid in Africa countries is that,
altogether it discourages investment, self-reliance, creativity and entrepreneurship[4].
Aid is prominently seems to pour in
to Affric in three main forms-Military, Humanitarian and Official
Development Assistance.
Problems
of the Military Aid
The military aid was higly
problematic. It was used by the United States until 1957 when they stopped
adding it to their aid figure. Quite often, Military aid is one of the most intolerable
and unacceptable forms of aid in present history, that majority of these aids
help the dictator in Africa suppress its people and its aspiration for freedom,
democracy and development. Just see for instance, uprising in Egypt had
seen that the government used various military tanks to oppress and expel the
people and they were killed in this process by such arms and ammunitions.
Quite terribly these military tanks, arms and weapons were received from
the international community especially military industrial complex.
Moreover, Military aid like NATO were sent to
countries like Libya etc on March19,
2011 that the main reason why this was done was to kill or bring to justice the
regime of Moammar Gadhafi who had been ruling for 42years (1969-2011). Far more
convincing is that innocent citizens were killed in this process with out any
mercy. There were some deliberate and calculated missile attacks on citizens in
the pretence of expelling Gadhafi from power. So many atrocities were committed
by the NATO forces in which UN felt it was acceptable because of one man and
aid has been a platform for dominating Africa by Western imperial forces.
Problems
of the Humanitarian aid
Another important distortion due to
aid that is envisaged by Africa is that of humanitarian aid. That material or
logistic assistance provided for human purposes are often provided during
natural disaster, famines, wars and drought; that which is also known as
man-made disaster. Therefore, it sure that when this happens, obviously the
international communities, vociferously rush in with rescue materials like
blanket, health care, high protein biscuits , clothe and so on so forth until
they feel they have received enough by depleting and exploiting, then the
countries with humanitarian purposes move on to another country, quite discordant
and deforming.
Sincerely and honestly, it is sure
that African dictators have become adamant and unbending to either relinquish or handover
power or share the power with the opposition. It is evident that Dictatorship
has crippled the African continent and thereby making the people dependent on aids
from Western countries. For example the Somalia famine in 2011has seen millions of people across East Africa were
affected by one of the worst food crises in recent memory frowning entire
continent. In fact Somalia was hit the hardest and somber. On 20th of July,
surprisingly the UN formally declared famine in two regions of Southern Somalia
that is Southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle altogether mean time. Two months
later, of course it increased that
number to six shocking every one. Quite a relief, the UN officially declared the
famine over in February 2012; but warned that millions are still in need of
assistance and aid[5].
So the problem with this aid is
that the donors do not care about the region and people. In fact their aim is
to dump what they have planned and designed for the people and region, whether
it is relevant at that point in time or not. In the late 1970s and late 1990s,
the Norwegians went to Kenya to help the Turkana tribe people in form aid. They
built a fish freezing plant for them and when they finished the plant; quite
interestingly they discovered that the Turkana tribes do not fish; instead
often they raise goats[6].
Problems
of Official Development Assistance
The official development
assistance (ODA) is a phrase invented by the Development of
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to
measure aid and indicate its various implications. In fact, The DAC first
used the term in 1969. Ever since, it is broadly and widely used by academics
and journalists as a convenient indicator of international aid flow to poor
income countries. Obviously, it includes some loans given to these countries
for assistance in development purposes. With out any doubt, this is the best
aid amongst the three types of aids. The loans are given to these nations to
help improve certain sectors of their economy and thereby providing jobs and
various infrastructures for the benefit of all citizen and weaker sections.
Foreign aid has usually and
traditionally been seen as something provisional that can only complement
existing national resources and efforts of a struggling nation to come out if
its bad signs. Yet, it seems more and more aid has acquired something of a
permanent nature and affects like a cancer cell. In many African countries nonetheless, it has even become a
considerable force in the national economy and making those countries more or
less completely dependent on foreign aid for all its domestic economy. Although
its major objective has been and continues to be the fighting of poverty by
supporting economic growth and development in the least-developed countries of
the world, few are the leaders like filmmaker Sembene and President Wade, and
African and otherwise fir that matter, who have realized that aid alone cannot
ensure economic growth and sustainability, and that this dependence on outside
sources of revenue can be only detrimental to the goal of long term sustainable
development and economic progress. Hitherto, studies have begun to show that
there is little positive connection between foreign aid, growth, sustainability
and development. Most of African region continues to fall behind the rest of
the world by virtually any measure despite prolonged aid efforts and work, but
to what extent are foreign aid and investment the source of this demise, seems
confusing? Notwithstanding the growing world wide disillusionment with the
performance of aid, the farmore frowning aspect is trying to show that foreign
aid is the source of this general economic demise or to analyze the extent to
which aid works[7].
In rural agriculture, in health
care, in economic planning, in employment generation, in food assistance, and
in gender sensitization or so more, the foreign aid has routinely failed to
benefit the poor people of the world. Obviously, the case of Africa, Asia, and
Latin America, the U.S. Agency for International Development has dotted many
countryside with ‘white elephants’ that is; near-empty convention centers, idle cement plants and abandoned roads;
perhaps the biggest white elephant of them all may be a growing phalanx of
increasingly corrupt, intrusive, and overpaid bureaucrats and governmental
machinery (Bovard, January 31, 1986).
Instead of breaking the
"endless cycle of poverty," foreign aid has become the opiate of the
Third World. AID and other donors have encouraged Third World governments to
rely on handouts instead of on themselves for development. No matter how
irresponsible, corrupt, or oppressive a Third World government may be, there is
always some Western government or international agency anxious to supply it
with a few more million dollars. By subsidizing political irresponsibility and
pernicious policies, foreign aid ill serves the world's poor[8].
Aid cannot be blamed for all the
slip-up and blemishes made in the projects it bankrolls and finance. On the
other hand, by providing a seemingly endless credit line to governments
regardless of their policies, Aid effectively discourages governments from
learning from and correcting their mistakes and pitfalls. Giving some Third
World governments perpetual assistance is about as humanitarian as giving an
alcoholic the key to a brewery and beverage shop.
Foreign aid is welcoming and
accptable but there should be some renewed approach to deal with the aid
programmes. Aid can bring more damage than advantage if not utilized appropriately.
The fact is that Africa, Latin America and Asia can have far reaching impacts
due to foreign aid. In most cases these part of the world are powerless to make
use of the real potential of aid to divert to grasp of soico-economic
development because loads of factors affect and obstruct it. Now it is better
to refrain from aid dependent economy to a more self reliant economy with the
development and sustenance of social capital, civil society and critical middle
class. Nevertheless, aid agencies smother a negative and depressing portrait of
Africa to the world and following of this pessimistic hype about Africa, people
believe and see Africa as a place filled with starving children, uncivilized
and nomadic people, poverty stricken people, unemployed where AIDS is just as
common as the average flu and violent generation. On account of this
unconstructive exposure to outside world, investors tend to shy away from
investing their money in a continent that is depicted in such a way as
unfriendly and inimical.
In fact, foreign has done little
good to poor and developing nationalities. It is just another form of exploiting
and dominating imperialism accomplished in new forms. So aid is good but on
what ground and for what matter it is given and stipulations on how it is to be
utilized create lot of problems for many African, Asian and Latin American
countries. Therefore, developing countries are unable to make use of the real
potential of foreign aid rather they are victimsed for their debt trap at the
altar of foreign aid pogrammes. Therefore, Foreign aid does no good. It is used
by rich countries especially USA and other Western nationalities as a tool in
foreign policy and pump funds to developing countries as a strategic policy for
their military and other imperialist concerns. For USA aid is a political
project and foreign policy component. For many other erstwhile European
colonial masters, aid is still a new form of civilizing mission by which
Whiteman’s burden is done and articulated in a new form of cultural project.
A plethora of literature surfaces
about the impacts of foreign aid on Africa and other parts of the world where
poor people live and struggle to survive. Quite often, most of such literature
gives a clue that nine of the donor countries give it for real development of
poor nationalities. Instead most of aid programmes are hidden political project
and question of power game in world politics.
Obviously aid in ny form such as
military, humanitarian and development assistance are full of umpropriety,
mismanagement and corrupt that only lead to polarize and disperse African
society in particular. So the socio economic development was not in effect
attainable as aud dud nit result in the real purpose for which it was served.
Instead of motivating growth and
development as was its original intention, the foreign aid in reality hinders
development and brings about and even aggravates poverty and umeployement. At
the same time as reforms might diminish some of the harm caused by the programme,
the real causes for the failure of foreign aid lie down in the nature of the
programme itself.
Foreign aid impede the development
of those attitudes necessary for survival; industry, thrift, and self-reliance that
are essential for economic growth and development for most part; it shadow
lines of investment and disfigure cost data, that resulting in a massive waste
of scarce resources. In addition, it politicizes life in the recipient country
altogether and thereby diverting energy
from economic to political activities. It
trim down pressure on the recipient governments to sustain an environment favourable
to private enterprise and thereby discouraging private investment. Also by
providing money to governments on the basis of the poverty of its subjects, aid
altogether gives the ruling elites in the recipient countries a vested interest
in policies that impede or prevent economic development[9].
References
Bovard,James.
(January 31, 1986) The Continuing Failure of Foreign Aid, Cato Policy Analysis
No. 65, (http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa065.html)
accessed on 19-03-2013
Sikombe,
Aaron. March 13, 2013, is Aid Helping or killing Africa? TUMFWEKO,
(http://tumfweko.com/2012/04/30/is-aid-helping-or-killing-africa/) accessed on
13-03-2013.
[1] See
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/213344/foreign-aid
[3]
George Ogunbande,
End of foreign aid in Africa, NIGERIA INTEL, (http://www.nigeriaintel.com/2013/02/09/end-of-foreign-aid-in-africa-2/) accessed on 19-03-2013
[4] How Western aid destroys Africa,
(http://www.africaw.com/how-western-foreign-aid-destroys-africa) accessed on
19-03-2013
[5] George Ogunbande, Opinion: Why
foreign aid is still bad for all of us,
(http://www.ynaija.com/opinion-why-foreign-aid-is-still-bad-for-all-of-us/)
accessed on 19-03-2013
[6] Ibid.
[7] See Foreign aid to Africa, (http://everything2.com/title/Foreign+aid+to+Africa) accessed on 19-03-2013
[8] James Bovard, (January 31, 1986)
The Continuing Failure of Foreign Aid, Cato Policy Analysis No. 65, (http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa065.html) accessed on 19-03-2013
[9] David Osterfeld, February 01, 1990, The Failures and Fallacies of
Foreign Aid,
(http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-failures-and-fallacies-of-foreign-aid#axzz2O0VIVsjJ)
accessed on 19-03-2013
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