Giving Away Foreign Aid to Africa is a Good Idea

And fun I shall have. Thank you for responding so quickly. "The USfg has a foreign budget set aside with many government programs that have the funding to help other countries." However, the government should not have such a fund in its budget, because as I said earlier, a proper government governs its own people, and does not support an entirely separate people. "Say the African farmer gets sick with an non lethal bout of malaria, how can he farm his crop? He can't. The aid going to Africa has bettered the African economy empirically." However, nobody will buy his crop, because of food being sent to Africa, and the farmed crop becomes useless. "This irrelevant tidbit of knowledge you wanted to sound cool with sharing actually hurts you in the round. Wouldn't you agree that the UN now has a moral obligation to fix the wrong they created? Any moral human would. This one example of how health aid failed does not mean that all health aid fails. I have proven that our aid has worked in the past. Do not assume that all aid will fail because it failed once. Michael Jordan has missed a free throw but that doesnt mean he will miss the rest in the future." What I'm saying is that the UN is known to mess up, and sooner or later, this will become one of those messed-up projects. And an entire continent will be shattered by it. "The thing is that the African people will be more inclined to help America with oil if we are cool with the governments there. If they think that we have turned our backs on them, the will not grace us with their oil. China is spending a bunch of money down there helping them and are getting oil in return. The US can do this to. Abusing Africa's resources? Really? Saving the lives of their people so that they will be inclined to sell us oil is completely moral." In that case, we aren't really giving away aid. We are buying rights to their oil with money. As this is no longer aid being "given away", it becomes irrelevant to this debate. "Sure, monetary aid can be bad." Exactly. This quote wins me the debate. "However, going down with a group of people to build a school in Africa is a perfectly good idea. Paying teachers to teach African children is a perfectly good idea. Contraceptives, Family Planning centers, Insecticide treated bednets, clean water, building wells. All of these things can be done positively for the African people." If only the money actually got to where it was intended to go... http://online.wsj.com... "The African people can't afford to pay for an insecticide treated net. This is the reason why they are not covering Africa to begin with. This is what prompted the USfg to start sending free ones. However, even though his argument is flawed because the people cant pay for them in the first place.. he further loses given the fact we can send vouchers to redeem a net at a local distribution center. If the USfg gave aid in this form not only would it stimulate their economy by helping the ITN dealers, but it would save lives. This is another example of how aid can help Africa." The fact is, the aid just put an entrepreneur out of business, and plunged 150 people into unemployment and poverty. When the UN is the only supplier of nets to Africa, Africa no longer knows how to make nets; thus, they just forgot one of the most important aspects of their survival, and now rely on the UN. Africa's foreign dependence is dangerous. Now, I'd be able to refute your argument about ITN dealers, but I don't have a clue what ITN is supposed to stand for. And what exactly is this "voucher" system that you speak of? "At this point it is clear aid can be good to Africa. In no way is every form of aid good, but aid can be good." Aid can be good, but the majority of it, or the majority of what can actually be said to be free foreign aid, is bad. Thus, giving away foreign aid to Africa is a bad idea. Here's to a good debate.