Wealthy nations have an obligation to provide developmental assistance to other nations

I'll assume you are looking to polish your arguments for political purposes, or to apply for grants, etc. To that end I'll furnish counter-arguments that are valid and which you are likely to meet as resistance; after the debate you can polish your approach. The idea of developmental assistance to less blessed nations is appealing if one even has a small fear of God. But in practice, mere developmental assistance unaccompanied by military domination for a time simply does not work long term. The notion of "saving those who are in need right now rather than trying to fix broader issues that will stop violence long term and end the need for violence" is upright and moral. But you said developmental assistance which implies long term. The very assistance provided becomes just another item in a poor economy to be fought over and perpetuates a conflict that would otherwise have been over long ago. It piles up bodies while saving a few for the camera. Think images in America for decades of starving African children eating gruel out of bowl, massive amounts of money and assistance sent and water wells dug and yet still no peace in Africa. The very food and medicine sent becomes strategic supplies for warring factions both to use and to keep away from their opponents and to kill people over.Africa is not Europe. Generic notions of "developmental aid" don't work everywhere. Europe was at least nominally Christian. Africa and the Middle East are not. Pagan religions are notorious for deception, violence and repression as staples of holding on to power. They'll take your stuff to use as a wedge against their enemies.Item 1: The notion of developmental assistance as a stand-alone act of moral bravery and duty assumes free will on the part of human beings, which is not true and assumes easily transferred value and moral systems from one human being to another based on teaching someone "a better way" ..to use an idealized free will. "Feed them now, teach them later" as well assumes fundamental humility on the part of those in need that they do not have. They are deceived someone other than themselves made a mistake that perhaps they can rectify by violence..and sometimes violence is indeed the only way. You can reach out with the food, medicine and the rest only to find the very instant they are well and full of food, their fundamental beliefs about reality force them to see you as an enemy of their pride. To them, you are saying that you personally get to say who lives and dies by supposedly choosing who to help and whom to share your resources with: religious, moral and physical. Staying in your good graces becomes "the point" of their lives..which no human being can bear for long. The giver is resented and hated by the receiver. As the Giving Nation, you pay for your own trouble and the hatred of others against you by trying to do the right thing.Uniformitarianism, the notion that your type of help, no matter what it is works across all belief systems, geographies and governmental models is simply false and attempts to merely make a larger market for those who profession it is to be the face of the Givers. "Developmental aid" isn't going to work for those who actually think Kim el jun is a god. Professional Givers have no job without a sense of supposed guilt by those God has blessed over that very blessing. There are exact parallels between the lie of climate change/global warming and the constant harping of "won't you help?" give aid to poor countries: both assume free will and the freedom to act as one pleases as the basis of blame: climate change essentially claims human beings --because they posses free will-- are to blame for whatever magic numbers look bad on a chart and professional charity groups rely on the same to essentially blame the blessed for the evil of the wicked and the consequences on them.It's one thing to tell someone "I'll cut a piece of my steak off my plate and put it on your plate". It's another for the recipient to understand they will never have a steak on their own with their own belief system and they will keep having to go back to get a piece of your steak if they don't "change their core values".Simply repeatedly saying "one man one vote" or "capitalism" or "communism" or whatever as if those to whom you pass the directions on "how to live in peace and prosper" will just get you killed..right after they get the tech on how to pump oil out of the ground someone else made valuable and keeps valuable. Covering the world in 'renewable energy sources" assumes those with all that energy will be suddenly happy and satisfied and all you have done is to tell them "My job is to tell you what is valuable and how to get it in such a way as to enrich myself." The very "developmental assistance" given is directional and functional and goes to the benefit before God and Man of the giver as well. Who wants to give aid in order for the very persons helped to make war for more stuff and more tech: to show what blessing you have in front of those who do not have them and to help them with those blessings only to be attacked for it. Think throwing pearls before swine.Let's say you go to Yemen. Are you going to force them into Christianity? That's actually physically impossible because no one can choose to be a Christian..God chooses that. So they stay in Islam and animism minus Christian colonialism, which means they stay under the thumb of Islamic Centers like Saudi Arabia or Iran who has the attitude, "you owe your understanding of the universe to us because we invented it and interpret it." That is why they are at war and "need assistance". Thinking that you can give them water wells and medicine and governmental models and different ideal models of behavior and suddenly they will have a viable geographic region of peace and prosperity usually called a nation is fantasy. But you said "developmental aid", not just "save the children now".Minus absolute military domination and forcing Christian principles on them, ( colonialism ) "generic developmental aid" will not work. And that is not theory, that is at least 50 years of evidence in the modern era. Giving aid "as long as you don't tell us we are fundamentally wrong about how the universe works" has never worked and never will.Mother Theresa? Saved the kids on the spot in front of her. Changed anything to keep the kids from being disposed of on the street? No. You can send food, medicine, surgical tents and the like and that is honorable and I think required by God to do. James 4:17 To him therefore who knows how to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin. But economic or any other development without military domination and just simply saying, "I'm not asking you to change or talking you into anything. I'm telling you how it is." is worthless. There is a time when colonialism is the bigger mercy. James 4:4 Adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore is minded to be the friend of the world is constituted enemy of God. In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen