Foreign aid: helping the poor - or maintaining power?
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The subject of foreign aid is often raised in modern political debate. How much is enough? Where is the money spent? Who needs it the most? Often the issue centres around whether sending money to developing countries should be a priority for the governments oForeign aid: helping the poor - or maintaining power?
The subject of foreign aid is often raised in modern political debate. How much is enough? Where is the money spent? Who needs it the most? Often the issue centres around whether sending money to developing countries should be a priority for the governments of wealthy states. For example, in the televised leaders’ debates ahead of the 2017 UK general election, the former leader of the UK Independence Party, Paul Nuttall, suggested that he would like to spend £1.4 billion on social care in Britain. How would it be funded? Well, he said, his party would take the money “directly from a foreign aid budget that is costing [the UK] around £13 billion every single year”. When Nuttall later reiterated his argument that there is no need to put up taxes as he would simply use the “money from the foreign aid budget which is costing us £30m every single day”, the leader of Plaid Cymru, Leanne Wood, interrupted: “Taking it away from refugees then, yeah?”. Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon added her support: “Take [the aid] from the poorest people in the world?” A familiar argument then, that foreign aid amounts to a form of state charity. Wood and Sturgeon did not question the... Read more