A Human Response in Crisis
The practice of supporting others through mutual assistance, charity, and resource exchange has been deeply embedded in human society for centuries, long before the emergence of the modern concept of development aid. Historically, these efforts were often driven by religious, cultural, or diplomatic obligations rather than structured strategies for economic growth. Though not “development aid” in the contemporary sense, such practices reflect humanity’s enduring commitment to using wealth, knowledge, and resources to foster growth, improve quality of life, strengthen governance structures, and uphold social responsibilities.
While “development aid” is a relatively modern term, the underlying goal of enhancing living standards, expanding opportunities, and promoting goodwill through the transfer of resources and knowledge has deep historical roots. But can we remove the concept entirely? And if so, are we heading toward a system shaped by Wall Street-like dynamics, where positions can be pulled overnight, driven by profit motives and sound bites rather than long-term impact?
It’s crucial to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse within aid systems, but any alternative approach must be grounded in principles that prioritize human development, sustainability, and equity. Without a strong foundation, there’s a real risk of replacing meaningful, long-term progress with volatile, market-driven decisions that prioritize short-term gains over lasting improvements. We wait for a budget review on NASA.
The US: Self-Destruction of a Longstanding Leader in Global Aid
The initial month of Trump 2.0 Administration has bounded rapidly forward with massive funding cuts and lay-offs across the US Federal complex. A concerted frontal assault was launched against the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department, US Food Aid program, and other US-backed humanitarian aid efforts — negatively impacting across many of the poorest counties and regions of the world.
The US has been by far the world’s most generous aid donor for many decades. In 2023, USAID dispersed about $72 billion worldwide in relief and development aid. That’s about 42 % of all humanitarian aid globally. Yet this amounts to less than 1% of the current US Federal budget.
The Executive branch actions against its own specialized agencies has been extremely alarming, without precedent in ferocity, poorly prepared and researched, and largely founded upon falsehoods, misinformation, outright lies and fabrications, and extreme distortions of truth. It’s difficult, for instance, to take seriously a recent video Mr. Musk broadcast widely on his X social media site that claims USAID paid famous actors millions of dollars to participate in a publicity tour to benefit Ukraine. The false claim: that Ms. Angelina Jolie received $20 million, and Mr. Sean Penn got $5 million payments from USAID. Other fake accusations multiplied many times was that Politico news agency in D.C and the Washington Post newspaper were each granted $8 million by USAID. Despite subsequent fact-checking, the reputational damage was already achieved.[1]
Mr. Musk proclaimed the entire USAID a “criminal organization.” And Mr. Trump stated that USAID has been run by “radical left lunatics.” There is “tremendous fraud” going on in American aid agencies, and these organizations “are not aligned with American interests and, in many cases, are antithetical to American values… They destroy world peace, and promote dangerous ideas,” the President asserted.
The Two Sides of the Foreign Aid Coin
How can the experienced and well-informed US citizen respond to this? For this economics writer, aid-agency staffer, long-time global aid student, and media relations professional, watching silently from the Florida side-lines, not responding to such an absurd national controversy was no longer a sane option. Working as staff writer in the public information field — in educational non-profits, the World Bank, UN-System and US foreign aid establishment — in dozens of aid-recipient countries around the world, I’ve spent a life-time examining firsthand the economic and social impacts of US and International aid programs and projects in a very wide variety of activities and fields. These include safe drinking water and sanitation, better food and productive farming, small-scale and handicraft industries, alternative energy, pest management and plant breeding, dams and irrigation, women’s health, primary education, isotope hydrology, arsenic contamination-poisoning, cancer treatment and infectious disease control, and nuclear safety and security – just to name some. I’ve written 3 documentary books on aid outcomes and impacts – including country case studies of two colossal aid failures, Haiti and the Philippines – and I’ve authored dozens of feature stories in global news outlets and UN publications about how our foreign aid affects local people in dozens of poor developing countries – from Nigeria and Namibia, to Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal, to Brazil’s Amazon, the Ecuador’s Andes, and Guatemala’s highlands.
Based on decades of first-hand experience witnessing development aid projects in the field, I can state a few things definitively: first; intervening with money and resources to induce economic and social progress in extremely impoverished settings is difficult and complex; and employing external funds increases the chances of implementation problems, corruption and fund diversion, Second; most economic and disaster relief aid projects result in a mix of benefits, setbacks and side effects, which must be measured in balance to assess their overall success or failure. Simply: there are two sides of most every foreign aid coin. Nothing works perfectly in an imperfect world. Erroneously applying a superficial measure of “efficiency” is simply inappropriate to such socially complex endeavours and situations.
Indeed, if there’s anything clear emerging from this public debate it’s that you can’t reveal anything about aid effectiveness, social impacts or efficiency by examining internal, confidential financial legers and accounts in the Treasury and State Departments in Washington, D.C. The only true impact indicators are embedded deep inside the developing nations – in their giant urban slums and shanty towns, and in the poor rural villages where the bulk of their populations still survive. Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Musk’s “findings” of fraud, failure and kickbacks are unfounded, undocumented bureaucratic fiction, not economic or social reality. Sadly, they’re destructive and dehumanizing political propaganda.
Watching the American foreign aid systems operate for over 4 decades, I’ve seen the pendulum swing from right to left, and reverse. They’ve evolved over time from a focus on basic physical infrastructure – building roads, schools, dams, electricity, drinking water and irrigation canals – to addressing the depths and root causes of “absolute poverty,”
They’ve often evolved from government-led initiatives to private sector and NGO-directed and driven. They’ve focused on rapid industrialization and “import substitution,” and moved over to integrated and “appropriate” rural development; from traditional family farming to Western-style agricultural modernization – ie “Green Revolution” mono-cropping. Over many decades, liberal and proponents in the US political class have favored support for multilateral channels of development and disaster relief aid that are less vulnerable to nationalistic biases and private sector influences. Conservative forces in Congress and policy think tanks have pushed for more aid through bilateral channels, which can be better controlled and leveraged by donor governments.
The Forgotten Success Stories
Economic aid was all too often coupled with military assistance in many counties – often with very devastating results on both fronts. Witness South Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ethiopia, Sudan, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Moreover, in numerous counties – ie. Zimbabwe, Congo (Zaire), Cambodia, Philippines, Uganda, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Haiti no amount of international aid could overcome the legacy of widespread incompetence and corruption, and militarization of extremist regimes in power. However even the casual observer of current aid debates, and White House efforts to expunge all US foreign aid must be asking: Aren’t the current successful, modernized powers in developing world – the so-called “Asian Tigers” — all sizable recipients and very large beneficiaries of US and multilateral development aid? How else can one explain the tremendous economic growth and societal advances of South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Peoples Republic of China — and even India and Bangladesh — without acknowledging the huge volume and positive impacts of economic aid these nations received over many decades?
The Unsung Heroes: Aid Workers
Most notably absent from the foreign aid destruction game going down in Washington DC, is acknowledging the centrality of public service professionals involved in and dedicated to success of the aid-donor community. Whether they’re guiding US food aid distribution for UNICEF, the World Food Program, UNWRA, or Catholic Relief Services, or implementing a women’s health or cancer management initiative of the World Health Organization, the IAEA, or Save the Children, the high integrity, commitment and dedication of aid agency personnel to excellence is always on display for global audiences, should they choose to see it.
They’re motivated to work for the public good and peaceful development, and are selfless in their contributions to program successes. These are not the people the US Government should be letting go. Instead, we should be lauding their efforts with praise and additional public support.
References
[1] see New York Times 2/19/25, “Tracing the Disinformation Used Against USAID.”
Disclaimer
Statements expressed in this blog reflect the personal opinion of the author and do not represent the position or policy of GBPG or entities we are affiliated with. While we strive to ensure the accuracy of the information presented, we make no guarantees regarding its completeness, reliability, or accuracy.
