In Africa, there are three types of foreign aid and all have negative effects. Though we have several advantages, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. How aid affects development in developing sub-saharan Africa is what we should look at.
In my view, the main problem with foreign aid in Africa is that it seems to be politically impossible. It risks making Third World countries dependent on handouts. According to statistics, if we put together how much total foreign aid Africa receives we see that what we export is more. That is the reason why I foreign aid fails in Africa.
The problem with foreign aid is that they will always bring food to help our people but they don’t share their knowledge on innovation skills to produce food in the dry areas of the sub saharan Africa. Some are not even willing to fund some of our people who come up with ideas of food production in these places. This makes our people to over depend on foreign food aid rather than find ways to produce their own
Foreign aid is never truly aid. What happens is that we receive a loan from a foreign government. We repay that loan with interest over time. Then we have to purchase goods or services services from that country that gave us aid. These goods are for the project in question. So companies over there will make profit. As you can see, we’re channeling interest and profit to foreigners yet locally we’re calling it foreign aid. Also remember who sponsored the research inquiries into the kind of projects we ‘needed.’ You guessed it, the same foreigners through their aid agencies that donate to our research organizations.
In my view, there is no ‘pro’ to foreign aid.
A more accurate term is ‘foreign deal’ not aid. This is because all support coming into Africa, and Kenya in particular, from foreigners has strings attached. I can’t get into the details right now, but trust me, I have worked for international organisations as a donor and also worked for local NGOs as a donor-recipient so I know what I’m talking about.
These countries don’t love us or any developing country for that matter. Their primary objective is to secure funding and this they can only do if the problems they claim to support persist. At the national political level, our government is forced into lope-sided agreements by foreign ones which are labelled ‘aid’, ‘assistance’ or ‘partnerships’ when they are in fact serving the interests of one party.
So, what do I propose? Read my letter to the president where I tackle foreign policy and what I believe needs to be done to ensure Kenya is self-reliant -> https://www.fatumasvoice.org/robert-munuku-letter-president/
Foreign aid comes with strings attached. The countries giving the aid have expectations in return. It is an enslaving tactic for the recipient nations.