tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post3746185120989321181..comments2024-03-28T18:32:05.933-04:00Comments on bensozia: Should We Stop Sending Aid to Poor Countries?Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-53843781101199640842021-07-13T11:32:33.652-04:002021-07-13T11:32:33.652-04:00For what it's worth, I've read at least a ...For what it's worth, I've read at least a few articles -- written by former NGO workers and administrators -- that came to the same conclusion (please don't ask for chapter and verse on their names and positions).<br />And as you are, perhaps rightly, skeptical of that "academic analysis," I must ask if you have anything to cite on behalf of the "this aid is working great!" argument.karlGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11890070076159645529noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-40065752356828163652021-07-13T09:15:12.068-04:002021-07-13T09:15:12.068-04:00Given the US Government's literal centuries lo...Given the US Government's literal centuries long sabotage effort of the country of Haiti, I don't particularly feel like our obvious self-interested "aid" is at all a fair point of comparison for basically anything. At no point has sending US money to Haiti ever actually sought to improve conditions - the point has always been to dole out pork, both to our own domestic interests, and to willing Haitian collaborators helping to ensure the status quo and sabotage carry on unabated.<br /><br /><i>A few years ago I read an academic analysis of the impact of aid on the economic condition of recipient countries over the 1960 to 2000 period, and it found that the impact is zero. Countries that received billions in aid were no better off than those that got nothing.</i><br /><br />An "academic analysis"? Which one? By whom? Using what data and methods? Peer reviewed? Fact checked? In any way believably anything more than an opinion piece? Because as it stands, to all appearances your entire argument here might well rest on nothing more substantial than "something I read somewhere once", which I must admit, is not very compelling from the outside.<br /><br />Also how, exactly, do you meaningfully compare a country which is receiving aid against a totally different country that isn't receiving aid? They are different countries, with different economies, different cultures, different natural resources, different infrastructures, different budgets, different laws, different everything. Also, how do you find a proper "control" to compare against? Doesn't the fact that one country is receiving aid and the other isn't inherently suggest their situations are not comparable?<br /><br />Oh, and maybe I'm just overly cynical, but I reflexively distrust anything which argues that "the impact is zero". It's exceedingly rare for something to have absolutely no impact whatsoever - so either you've ended up misrepresenting the conclusions of this analysis through hyperbole, or the conclusions are themselves innately suspicious.<br /><br />You'd need to have some really airtight data and methodology to back up a flat "zero" statement - and frankly I doubt that's the case here, as in my experience the vast majority of the time when someone claims that there's "zero effect", it's because they're cherry picking data and using absurd definitions and measures in order to make the evidence fit the desire argument and conclusion.<br /><br />Deeply, deeply skeptical here, but if you've got some real citations and data, please point me toward it.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com