Review: Players and Issues in International Aid

Title: Players and Issues in International Aid
Author: Paula Hoy
Publisher: West Hartford, Connecticut: Kumarian Press, 1998
ISBN: 1-56549-073-8

Quick, how much does the US contribute to foreign aid, as a percent of its GNP? Two percent? One percent? No. Paula Hoy points out that the amount of US foreign aid is only 0.117 percent of the US GNP. Her Players and Issues in International Aid is a relatively objective primer to who gives money to whom, what organizations are involved, and who has strong opinions one way or another.

In large part, Hoy's book lets the reader decide what the numbers mean. (After all, the US has one of the highest GNP's in the world, one could argue, making it not surprising that foreign aid is so small as a percentage.) The facts are all referenced, and the outline complete; this makes the book interesting reading, but it is by no means something one can breeze through. The overall message seems to be that there is definitely not enough being done to help, but it's not always clear how "help" can be given.

Sometimes (but not as often as might be imagined) political bias shows through in the book by the charged terminology used: "But then came the 1994 congressional elections and the new Republican majority quickly silenced Clinton's idealistic notions for foreign aid. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee [Jesse Helms] immediately caught the nation's attention by holding hostage much of foreign policy... to press his own demands for major changes in U.S. foreign policy, including the elimination of USAID" (37).

In most cases, however, issues are thoroughly examined for what they are, bringing to light even shortcomings of NGOs: Many times they "do not differentiate very well among residents of poor communities," overlooking those who are poorest. They many times fail "to understand or even realize the larger context in which they operate," they often go where the money is, and they seldom "challenge each other or engage in self-criticism" (102-103). The book ends with excerpts from others such as Jesse Helms who are less than friendly to foreign aid.

Players and Issues in International Aid is a book that must be read for many reasons. It brings to light the disparities that have long existed, yet remain unknown to (or ignored by) many. It gives a grand overview of what aid is and who contributes, and once in a while makes an effort to investigate the complex issues of how much of aid actually helps. Certainly not the least of this books strengths is its facts, the collection of which should be read and then kept handy for those days when a country might be wondering how to become involved in the world around it. A few of those facts are listed below.

"...thirty-five thousand children die every day from malnutrition and related diseases, and fifty million people live in extreme poverty" (1).
"...in the United States, the international affairs budget is a mere 1 percent... [but] over 20 percent of federal spending in 1996 went to social security, and over 15 percent went to defense" (1).
"...358 billionaires control more assets than the combined annual incomes of countries where 45 percent of the world's people live..." (2).
"...the richest 40 percent of developing countries receive twice as much aid as the poorest 40 percent... Egypt and Israel, whose economies are far stronger than those of almost every country in Africa, receive nearly a quarter of all U.S. foreign aid, most of which is military or 'strategic' assistance" (7).
"Only about a tenth of all international aid goes to social development sectors such as education, primary health care, and reproductive health, and in the U.S. aid budget, only 0.1 percent goes to basic education and a mere 0.3 percent to basic health care" (8).
While groups such as the Heritage Foundation (11) call for "trade, not aid," "...trade barriers imposed by industrialized countries cost developing countries approximately $100 billion a year, which is nearly double what they receive in aid" (12).
During the Reagan administration, "Military aid decreased from 25 percent of total aid in 1978 to 37 percent in 1988. Meanwhile, development assistance aid decreased from 33 percent to 26 percent over the same period... Instead of objectives such as the alleviation of human suffering, aid during the Reagan years was more likely to be directed toward influencing the foreign policy behavior of recipients and ensuring that so-called friendly foreign governments stayed in power" (25).
Economic Support Funds (ESFs), "in the words of a State Department official, helped 'allies in dealing with threats to their security and independent" — even if those threats were coming from their own citizens protesting a repressive form of governance. Some of the largest ESF recipients during these years were also the world's most notorious human rights violators: Marcos in the Philippines, Doe in Liberia, and Mobutu in Zaire" (26).
"...the first three days of the war in 1991 cost the United States more than one and a half times its total ODA [Official Development Assistance] for a full year" (29).
"Whereas approximately $34 of an American family's annual taxes goes toward official aid, in Denmark, roughly $900 per family is added to the aid budget" (29).
"Despite assumptions to the contrary, the U.S. foreign aid budget is a mere 0.117 percent of its GNP, the lowest percentage in the world" (37).
"...funds for development and humanitarian assistance were cut from $8.4 billion in 1995 to $7 billion in 1996, and development aid to Africa was cut by 22 percent... As David Lumsdaine points out, the United States could double its foreign aid expenditures by reducing military spending by just 3 percent" (40).
Because of World Bank structural adjustment loans in the 1980's, which brought with them a required reduction in government spending in the recipient countries, "... the first and most drastic cuts were made in the social service sectors such as health, education, and welfare... Although hardly exculpating the World Bank's disregard for the impact of its mandates on the poor, it is important to point out that recipient governments sometimes ignored viable options to mobilize funds other than these drastic cuts... In the nations of sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest countries in the world, military spending rose from 0.7 percent of GNP in 1960 to 3 percent of GNP in 1990" (51).
Hoy quotes William Savitt's claim that the debt crisis of the 1990's was a crisis of international banking, not a development crisis; "And so it was the crisis of international banking that was declared over by the beginning of 1990... For the other half — for the borrowers, the governments, and above all, the people of the South — the crisis grinds on" (73).
At the World Food Summit, held in Rome in November 1996, the director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) "articulated the warped priorities at play in the world when he reported that the national budget for the UN food agency is 'less than what nine developed countries spend on dog and cat food in six days and . . . less than 5 percent of what the inhabitants of one developed country spend each year on slimming products to counter the effect of overeating'" (83).
"The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh is probably the most well-known of all Southern NGOs and has become a model for microenterprise programs throughout the world..." "The bank loans, which have to be repaid within one year... [have resulted in] a repayment record of 98 percent" (122).