Striipes - Grants come with a Price

Can we measure the gap between a developed nation and a developing nation?

Absolutely NO! The gap is deep and broad enough in terms of various aspects such as financial strength, infrastructure, health, education, employment, and so on. Each basic parameter that supports a content life to the citizens is considerably lacking in developing nations as compared to the developed nations.This incepted the process of Foreign aid or development assistance through which the developed nations are supposed to provide development aid to upgrade the socio-economic conditions of the developing nations, especially of the poorer class over there.

In regards to this the developed countries agreed at UN to offer 0.7% of their GNP(Gross National Product) as development assistance to the developing countries,annually. This pledge was taken on 1970 and by 2015 (the year marked as the accomplishing year of Millennium Development Goals MDG) the pledge will be 45 years old. However, considering an annual assistance of 0.7% of Gross National Product from rich countries, 45 years were more than enough to meet the Millennium Development Goals.  But, the results are in front of us, development rate is yet very slow. 0.7% of Gross National Product means billions and billions of dollars, which could have successfully made the intended development in last 45 years but what went wrong? Why only rich grew richer and poor section of 2^nd and 3rd countries still tangled into poverty?

The answer in one line is ‘Foreign Development Aids/Grants comes with a Price’. No doubt the developing nations are providing development aid but more to prescribe and less to empower. The development aid from donor nations has been poor in quality as well as quantity. The quality of the aid is poor because these aids have often come with a price which in some way or other has made the second and third world countries suffer. Tied with various kinds of restrictive conditions, Aid Money as a foreign policy tool appears more benefiting to the donor than the recipient. Cited below are some of the major forms of price that a developing nation pays off to receive the development aid from the Donor countries:

Aid money often gets wasted on conditions like the recipient country must use the overpriced services and goods from the donor country.  Sometimes the recipient is made bound to purchase goods only from the donor nation.

While Aid money is basically meant for the development of the poor section of the developing nations, but in most of the cases the money doesn’t actually  get utilized for the intended purpose, rather it gets consumed by the competent section of the aid receiving nation.

 

For the donor nations the giving away of aid money is more of a trade policy through which they can prescribe their products to the receiving country, and less of a development policy to empower the deprived sections. Toe the line with this,the donor countries aims at establishing their markets in the urban areas of developing countries as there they receive more consumers of their overpriced foreign products.

Moreover,since years, donor nations are failing to meet their obligation of 0.7% of Gross National Product. Although each year many dollars are donated but the amount is much lower on Gross National Product percent. Over the years Aid has increased but still remains way below obligations. The sad news is that most of the rich nations fail to meet the obligation of  offering foreign aid equivalent to their 0.7%of Gross National Product.

Theoverall calculation shows that money is flowing more from the poorer to rich development aid Grantscountries than from rich to poor countries.