Politics Essay 代写:Political Innovation Of Development Aid

Politics Essay 代写:Political Innovation Of Development Aid

Development aid is one of the most original political innovations of the twentieth century. Aid has been one of the main points of focus since the Second World War. Some argue that it is not needed and it creates the notion of dependency, but others argue that there is not enough of it (Pattern, 1987). Regardless of the argument it cannot be denied that it is a global issue.

The assumption would be that disadvantaged nations require help from those better of in order to rise out of poverty, and the idea of poverty is connected with the concept of foreign aid including technical flow and financial help from wealthy nations to the poor world. The controversies that rise are not as simple as stated. Many influences such as the modalities through its operations, the scope of aid and problems in connection with poverty and inequality in years to come all impact the future of the development aid.

The flow of aid from rich to poor nations has been negligible and the level of American aid has been less than it has been overwhelmed (Kim et al, 2000). U.S overseas development assistance (ODA) in 1997, indicated "$9.4 billion , made up just 17 percent of the total sum contributed and represented not 20% but 0.5% of American federal spending" (Kim et al, 2000). The figure $9.4 billion represented twelve one hundredths of 1% of U.S GDP. This placed US far below the list of wealthy nations.

Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell argued that official assistance is important in improving people's lives but in reality it is trade and private capital flows that will make the real difference which is much more significant (Kosack et al 2006). Kosack (2006) argued that even the most promising of the developing country face multiple challenges to fund their own development, so therefore development aid is essential to supplement domestic resources. He further argued that the nature of development aid is changing. The donors are encouraging the recipient country to make themselves more attractive to foreign direct investment. However, Jalan (1971) argued that cynicism has bred in human and aid relations the idea of performance in order for developed countries not to give aid to developing countries. This indicated if developed countries became interested in the performance of the developing country, eventually with this excuse of performance the development aid would stop

There are controversies around the rhetoric of altruism and the factors that affect it. Wealthy countries dominate foreign aid policies and arguments indicate that these policies are self interested geological strategies.

Burnside et al (2000) argued that the aid is only effective if policies are good. To an extent we can say that this argument is valid however, this suggestion has been challenged by Hansen et al (2001) on economic grounds as well by Easterly et al (2003) who argue that aid effectiveness is invariant.

Others emphasize the role of Trade. Christopher et al (2004) argued that the current pattern of aid is shifting from aid to trade. Johnson (1967) argued that the current import protecting policies of developing countries will not help to the trade therefore it will not help the recipient country. Wijnbergen (1985) argues that aid reduces competitiveness and aid to Africa should be conditional on the removal of policies against exports. This would mean that a dollar donor resource transferred to the recipient via import liberalization is better than transferred via grants. Alternatively, Temkin (2004) argued it is our moral obligation to help the needy. He emphasizes the roles of International community, IMF World bank to send development aid to those in need. Peter Singer supported Temkin that affluent people in the developed world are morally obligated to transfer large amount of resources to poor people in the developing country. Jensen and Paldam (2006) argue that during the last five years Aid effectiveness discussion has taken a new phase. It has been dominated by family of models, where development aid works on a certain condition. These two models are the Good Policy Model and The Medicine Model. The Good Policy Model appears to be the most influential. It claims that aid gives a good push. This push could be positive or negative. The good economic policies become better but the bad ones become worse. This would mean that therefore aid should be given to those countries with good policies. Where is the second model Medicine Model argues that aid helps all countries to an extent. It argues that aid should be distributed proportionally to the GDP and it should not exceed the optimal. These models have been very influential on International stage. For example World Bank has used these policies to modify its own.

Krueger (1986) argued that the focus of economic effects of aid has motives that have little to do with economic growth of the recipient country. He argued donors have different plans; they may wish to enhance the military capability of the recipient country or promote their commercials or to support friendly government in power that will be politically valuable later. Later, argued that because of these objectives the development impact of aid can be substantially reduced. Pederson (1996) argued that promoting productive investment and economic growth are the main objectives of most aid organizations; however, it is not possible to say that aid contributes positively to growth. He argued that policies of development aid needs to change because the current evidences indicate that problems which built in the current aid system will not only help the growth but it will contribute to undermining of investment and growth and as a result aid dependency occurs. Therein (2002) argued that development aid has experienced a number of transformations over the years. The evolution has been shown to be characterised as an ongoing conflict between the Right and the Left. He further argued that despite the conflict ultimately uses the Right-Left distinction as a conceptual road map to understand development aid offers more advantages than drawbacks.

Other debates about the future of development aid are based on democratization of recipient countries. Knack (2004) argued that development aid policies are focusing in democratization of the recipient countries. They are functioning as a political tool. He argued that aid can contribute to democratization in several ways. This could be achieved through technical assistance focusing on electoral process, the strengthening of legislatures and judiciaries, promotion of civil society including free press and aspects the current debate has analysed. Carothers, (1999) argued that many aid donors include the promotion of democratic government as a major goal of their aid programs. For example, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) alone spends more than $700 million annually on democracy related programs. These programmes include elections support, the strengthening of parliaments, Judiciaries and political parties, and fostering the growth of civil society organizations, such as Union, women and human right groups. Johan et al (2004) argued that in the last few years the perspective about aid has changed and a gradually forming consensus view has emerged that aid works. Empirical studies were also carried out to repeatedly confirming that foreign aid does impact positively on growth. Nevertheless, controversy remains about the overall effectiveness of aid.

McKinlay and Little (1978) found that foreign aid is seen as beneficial for both the donor and recipient country. Maizels and Nissanke (1984) also support the idea that foreign aid as an instrument designed to benefit both parties. Alesina and Dollar (1988) supported the view of development being distributed to needy country which results in benefiting both countries indicating the studies were reliable and they found similar finds.

Alterably Djajić et al (1999) argued that development aid has always carried its objectives. During the cold war these objectives have been strategic, geopolitical and military. He further argued that in the 1990s direct and indirect economic benefits have became a high priority which changed the form amount and direction of development aid in the forthcoming future. Schraeder et al (1998) argued although the policies of development aid between recipients and donor countries have changed since the end of cold war but still remain a controversial issue in the Global North. Most of the citizens of the Global North countries debate the effectiveness of aid and it policies. These debates have been between aid administrators, politicians, and the general public. He also argued that in the United States this debate resulted in deep cuts in aid transfer to most of developing countries. United States is the second supplier of development aid after Japan, the reduction in its development aid will have major consequences in the developing world. Because of the alteration in development aid policies after the cold war era, the current policies are unclear and the question which is repeatedly asked is what considerations drive these policies.

Riddell (1999) argued that the future of development aid looks bleak. He gives six reason why the development aid has stopped in Africa and what consequences this may have in the future development debate. Reasons included, the amounts of aid provided to Africa are not based on Africa's poverty. Also, there are serious doubts about whether the development model within which aid funds are located will be able in practice to 'deliver' the growth and employment generation required.

needs and the gap between aid needs and the aid provided is widening.

Hayden (1997) supported Riddelle's findings that foreign aid as we have known it will not survive the next 20 years. Indeed, foreign aid is likely to cease being an important global activity because most countries in both Asia and Latin America will have developed to a level where other forms of capital and expertise will be more attractive. Foreign aid will be largely confined to sub-Saharan Africa. Here, the international community ill be engaged in a struggle to rescue the concept of development from being overtaken by increasing demand or humanitarian emergency assistances.

　 Scholars, more optimistic about the development aid and encourage other nations to increase their pledges. Sachs (2005) argued that development aid must be raised from 65 Billion globally to 135 and 195 billion a year by 2015 in order to be affective and eradicate the existing problems of poverty. Sachs questioned the current policies which have pursued. He argued that the international community's approaches were incoherent in practice. Also, the International community announced bold goals, like the Millennium development goals, which had vague aspirations rather than operational targets. Sachs findings were of great importance as we know that MDGs are set of unrealistic and unachievable goals set to be achieved by 2015, which seem highly unrealistic.

Many other debate's about development aid circulate around the moral obligations of rich countries to assist poor countries. It is unequal social relations that permit the poor to be economically exploited, socially subordinated and politically marginalized. (Grieg et-al 2007,Lister 2004 p 178). Discussion on how to eradicate poverty moved out of academia and development agencies to become the cry of the street movements, rock bands, eventually the communiqués of G8 meetings (Ghani and Lokhart, 2008). Scientific and technological means to eradicate poverty are now available (Amin, 2003). Most organizations IMF, World Bank and UN put emphasis on Aid increase, in order to eradicate poverty. Some scholars are critical of the complex aid system. The reality of the aid system is that it continues to produce fragmentation and disunity rather than prosperity and harmony Ghani and Lokhart (2008). Aid is vital to poverty reduction though growth. This is not to say growth always reduces poverty, for much depends upon the social structure (Cheru and Bradford , 2005 p.39).

When analysing the debates about the future of development aid one of the major controversies involves identifying the solutions to how development aid enforced a positive effect on devoting countries. More can be done by both the donor and the recipient. Both can work synergistically in order to eradicate the many issues discussed however in relation to the debate concerning development aid more has to be done by both parties in order to achieve stable and efficient reforms to help both parties to a promising future