Aid for Needy Nations

Abstract

Most methods of raising the standard of living in the Third World require investment of money which, by definition, it does not have. International aid is a conscious effort to break this vicious circle with gifts and loans of unprecedented magnitude from the richer to the poorer nations. By 1977 the grand total of official aid had reached £8000 million a year, in addition to which commercial loans and grants from private agencies added approximately another £15000 million.

We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas

(President H. S. Truman, January 20, 1949)

Aid has never been an unconditioned transfer of financial resources. Usually the conditions of aid are clearly and directly intended to serve the interests of the governments providing it.

(Teresa Hayter, Aid as Imperialism, Penguin, 1971)

If foreign aid were indispensable for emergence from poverty, the rich countries of today could not have developed because they did not receive foreign aid. …

(Peter Bauer, Afrika Spectrum, September 1967)