Aid Criticism Quotes

One of the most ridiculous defenses of foreign aid is that it is a very small part of our national income. If the average American set fire to a five-dollar bill, it would be an even smaller percentage of his annual income. But everyone would consider him foolish for doing it.

Africa's salvation doesn't lie in begging and begging for more aid, and as an African, I find it very, very humiliating.

You have to separate the humanitarian impulse from the record of aid itself. We all want to help. Many people would say that it's the moral impulse of the rich to help the poor, but the record of aid has been terrible.

I find the sort of unwitting European American outsider who wants to come to Africa to help is a very problematic construction. It's problematic because you don't want to tell people don't aid, don't help, when people feel a need to.

I have said it before but it bears repeating: Aid is not a gift. The United States provides foreign assistance because it serves OUR interests.

I wish we questioned the aid model as much as we are questioning the capitalism model. Sometimes the most generous thing you can do is just say no.

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority.

When we are shown scenes of starving children in Africa, with a call for us to do something to help them, the underlying ideological message is something like: "Don't think, don't politicize, forget about the true causes of their poverty, just act, contribute money, so that you will not have to think!