Poverty and Corruption: Why African Foreign Aid Needs to Change

Ever since World War II, developed countries have been financing the economies of third world countries. Be it from a natural disaster or from the aftermath of war, humans tend to feel morally obligated to help those in need. Although some foreign aid is successful, most notably the Marshal Plan which resurrected many European Countries after the second World War, most foreign aid leads to corruption and the country in need falling deeper into deficit, dragging many of it’s people down into poverty. This has been the case so far with foreign aid to africa and under the current circumstances, appears to be a problem in the foreseeable future. The two most prominent figures surrounding the argument of aid is Jeffrey Sachs, who argues that aid has helped many countries come out of poverty, and Dambisa Moyo, who argues that aid has done nothing but lead to more corruption and poverty in third world African countries. Africa needs conditional aid While some people argue that foreign aid to Africa is the force needed to bring the majority of Africa out of poverty, Africa needs a different kind of aid, developmental assistance to help reduce poverty and corruption.

Africa currently is facing its worst poverty per capita in the past forty years and this is due to the influx of foreign aid in that period of time. In the 1970’s, the poverty per capita in Africa was one in every ten people, nowadays seven out of every ten people are living below the poverty line. The 1970’s was also the time when foreign aid began to copiously flow into Africa. This was due to the philanthropic work of many celebrities which influenced the public to join the giving and help save Africa. In 1985 in London’s Wembley Stadium, a sixteen hour long concert fo...

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...can countries malaria nets, organizations should teach African people how to make the nets so they can create jobs. Instead of giving money for long periods of time which has been proven to fail, rich countries should give monetary aid for a short period of time with instructions of how to grow the economy. The current foreign aid system that is in place has proven that it does not work but no changes have been made. Changes must be made if Africa wants to experience economic and political growth, if not, Africa will continue on its downward spiral of corruption, poverty and aid dependency. Africa should be weaned off aid in the next few years which would force the African governments to get their acts together. Aid needs to be a topic discussed by developed countries governments and a compromise must be made to save the situation in Africa from growing any worse.