End Foreign Aid. Now!

Another issue that is being largely ignored by the media favored presidential candidates is foreign aid. I suppose the topic is not very sexy, but at a time when we are experiencing a credit crisis and Americans are losing their homes and will soon be wondering where their next paycheck is coming from, foreign aid seems like an important topic to discuss. It is also no small matter – since 1960, the rich countries of the world have transferred, sorry, I mean, provided 2.6 trillion dollars in aid to developing countries.

A wise man once said that “foreign aid amounts to taking money from poor people in rich countries to give it to rich people in poor countries”. Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has been quoted as saying, "Corrupt African leaders have stolen at least $140 billion from their people in the 4 decades since independence." Corruption is the biggest, but not the only problem with foreign aid. There is also the problem of giving money to countries that do not have the infrastructure or educated work force to use it towards development. Since independence in the 1960s and 1970s the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, have seen their food production fall by roughly 20 percent and per capita GDP fall at a rate of half of one percent annually. If foreign aid is successful, than what accounts for these statistics? I realize that a portion of aid money has always gone to education. As a teacher currently living in a recipient country, I can tell you first hand it has not worked in this area either. In Zambia, after 43 years of independence, schools are still woefully resourced, in many instances staffed by teachers who do not have college degrees and crammed with up to 50 students per class and Zambia currently is a success story both economically and politically on the continent.

The opposite extreme from Zambia is her neighbor to the south, Zimbabwe. Once the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe has fallen on hard times in the last decade due to the wrongheaded policies of its dictator, Robert Mugabe. It has the highest rate of inflation in the world, currently at 100,000 percent. Unemployment is at around 80 percent of the work force. Shelves are empty and the people are facing starvation. Yet Zimbabwe currently receives about $700 million a year in international aid (source: all Africa.com- “Zimbabwe: Mugabe's Last Stand”). Where does the hard international currency go? As recently as the 1990s Zambians would drive down to Harare to do their shopping. Now Zimbabweans come to Lusaka to live.

The fact is that foreign aid does not work and is a waste of money. While there have been some success stories in the developing world since independence movements swept across the globe in the 1960s and 1970s, those countries probably would have become successful without foreign aid anyway. Many developing countries in the world are one coup or fraudulent election away from dictatorship. As we have seen in Zimbabwe, years of foreign aid have been wasted and permanent development has become an elusive pipedream. The British government estimates that Zimbabwe will now need three times the $700 million a year in international aid it currently receives to help it back on its feet. If granted, what is the guarantee that we won’t be having this same conversation about Zimbabwe in 20 years?

At a time when the United States is 10 trillion dollars in debt, it is preposterous to continue giving aid to developing countries. We are throwing money we do not have down an open sewer and financing the opulent retirement of dictators around the world. Additionally, this is one more program that allows the Federal Reserve to print more dollars and further debase our currency.

Instead of foreign aid, our policy should be one of free trade and business deals. Lowering trade barriers would benefit all - American workers and companies and developing countries. Africa is mineral rich. In Zambia recent geological findings point to oil and uranium reserves underground. The focus should be on American companies cutting business deals in countries like Zambia to extract oil, uranium and other resources from the ground. U.S. companies would benefit from such deals, but the bigger beneficiaries would be the developing countries which gain tax revenues, jobs, and infrastructure. The biggest winner of all may be the U.S. taxpayers who will no longer see their hard earned money go down the drain.

Kenn Jacobine teaches History and English for the American International School of Lusaka, Zambia. Send him email at lovesliberty@gmail.com.