Financial aid to impoverished nations' governments should be ceased.

Financial aid to impoverished nations' governments should be ceased. It does little to no good, and also creates more problems than it solves. I would like to present some reasons why I believe this is the case, as well as an alternative solution. First, some history is needed. The governments of many countries in the developing world (mainly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia) have been receiving financial aid from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. These two institutions are basically run by the G8 (et al). They impose Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) on the countries as conditions of the loan. Usually these involve cutting spending on social programs, focusing on building the economy, and opening their markets to free trade. This is a traditionally Western view, and it is not actually helping the situation - it is making it worse. 1) Corruption in government reroutes much of the money provided by these loans so that it does not actually reach its intended destination. As such, it serves to increase the gap between the wealthy and the impoverished - this increases the sense of elitism and biases the balance of power even more towards the few that already have it. 2) Bolstering the economy is usually undertaken as increasing production of an already-made commodity. For example, if a country already exports cotton, they use the money to invest in agricultural techniques that allow them to export MORE cotton. However, they still export cotton and import shirts - creating a trade defect. 3) Giving money to the government does not work nearly as well as giving money to the PEOPLE. Monetary aid to governments is a Top --> Down solution. What is needed is a Bottom --> Up solution. Countries as a whole are not benefited from aiding the government. It would be like trying to improve conditions in East LA by donating money to the federal government in DC - the money needs to go where the problem is. ********** Solutions ********** 1) Loan money to individuals - mostly WOMEN. Women are more likely to use capital for activities like education, improvement of the community, and farming. Men, on the other hand, are most likely to invest the money in some way to try to make MORE money, such as a business or market investment. In an impoverished economy, these ventures usually fail. 2) Educating the populace is important, but it is being done backwards at the moment. Many new schools are being built, but the students in them are mostly male. This isn't a case of a 60/40 split - it's more like 80/20 or worse. Educating the female population does two things - first, it creates a larger educated workforce, and second, it DECREASES the fertility rate of a country. The education of women can reduce the fertility rate (children per woman) by 2/3 or more. This controls population growth and also reduces the workload of the woman in the family (the woman is traditionally the homebuilder - the man is working in a city much of the time and sending money back). 3) Incentives should be given to companies that move factories and other businesses to the developing world with the EXPLICIT PURPOSE of returning portions of their product to the country. This could be in the form of reduced tariffs on the goods that were exported. Doing this allows for cotton from one country to be processed in a textile factory IN THAT COUNTRY and returned to the market in the country. This is the basis for economic independence. I believe I have outlined the gist of my argument here - I look forward to a contender. To reiterate - the IMF and World Bank have no business providing financial aid to impoverished governments - The Grameen Bank's microfinance model is much better - Western SAP's have no business telling developing countries how to develop - A Bottom --> Up approach is needed.