Wealthy Nations Have an Obligation to Provide Developmental Assistance

*Please forgive my english. This is badly formatted since this was copied from my LD case, and I wanted to see how it is. Other responses won't be so. According to the World Health Organization, 5 and a half million children die every year, strictly under the age of 5. That"s about 15,000 a day, 600 an hour, and 10 or so a minute. That means that before I reach the end of this sentence, some child very likely will die in agony This preventable suffering is morally unacceptable. By extension, I affirm the resolution. Wealthy nations have an obligation to provide developmental assistance to other nations. For the purposes of this debate, wealthy nations will be defined as first world nations. Developmental assistance will be defined as assistance given by foreign nations administered with the promotion of the economic development. Other nations will be defined as third world nations. The negation can"t merely cite examples of aid gone wrong to prove that aid overall is bad. They must prove that, generally speaking, developmental assistance doesn"t benefit. Contention 1: Humans have an obligation to reduce suffering Sub point A: It is our moral duty Singer, 72 if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. [for the sake of argument,] if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean [I"d have to get a new suit] but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing. It makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbor's child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles away. [It is well within the capacity of peoples of rich nations to prevent these avoidable deaths and to reduce this misery. To ignore the plight of people is as morally reprehensible as failing to save a child drowning in a pool because of the inconvenience of getting one"s clothes wet.] Contention 2: Developmental assistance helps reduce suffering and increase human welfare Sub point A: Marshall Plan McFarland, 17 [Imagine post WWII Europe, ravaged by the deadliest war in history economy in ruins. The Marshall plan fixed that, and helped make western Europe what it is today.] the Marshall Plan provided unequaled sums of money to an impoverished Western Europe, stopping a humanitarian disaster and helping spur long-term economic recovery. [Because of the plan] The standard of living in participating countries grew almost 150 percent over the next three decades, [and] set the Europeans on a road to the formation of NATO. Sub point B: It causes an increase in life expectancy and a decrease in child mortality Stanford University of Medicine, 14 Foreign aid for health care is directly linked to an increase in life expectancy and a decrease in child mortality in developing countries, [Stanford] researchers examined health-aid programs [for 30 years in] 140 countries and found that, health-aid grants led to improvements [regarding life expectancy and child mortality] with lasting effects [for years following] Sub point C: Developmental Aid is proven to work Randlet, Brookings Institute senior fellow, 16 (http://solutions.heritage.org...) [According to the Brookings Institute, a multitude of independent studies have shown the positive impacts of aid on development. Aid programs focused on health have saved millions of lives. the Institute of Medicine concluded that [health care AID] has saved and improved the lives of millions. in recent years the preponderance of research has shown a positive impact of aid on growth all published in respected academic journals, In 2015, USAID" improved the nutrition of more than 18 million children. in Afghanistan, less than 1 million children attended schools in 2002, and almost none were girls. Today there are 9 million children in school, including more than 3.5 million girls [because of aid]. ince the end of the Cold War, aid has helped support democratic transitions both by reinforcing broad development progress and by supporting civil society organizations, As human beings, we have a moral obligation to help our fellow creature, and help alleviate suffering. To do otherwise is as reprehensible as letting a child drown because of the inconvenience of getting one"s clothes wet. Past developmental assistance has clearly worked, in the case of the European Theatre and South Korea. As of now, aid has been proven to work in the long term from multiple academic publications and studies, such as those from Stanford, Brookings Institute and the Institute of Medicine. Developmental aid helps reduce child mortality, disease, and poverty and increases life expectancy, economic growth, living standards, and education. To quote Nobel Peace prize winner and Saint Mother Teresa "it is a kingly act to assist the fallen," and I think we have good reason to agree with her. For these reasons I urge an affirmative vote.