Quotes about Ineffective Aid

Ellen Key

All philanthropy ... is only a savory fumigation burning at the mouth of a sewer. This incense offering makes the air more endurable to passers-by, but it does not hinder the infection in the sewer from spreading.

Paul Farmer

One of the things we have to acknowledge is that if you look at Haiti, many billions of dollars have gone into development aid there that have not been effective.

Rand Paul

Foreign aid does not go to foreign people. Foreign aid goes to foreign despots and dictators.

Andrew Natsios

If you put too much aid too quickly into weak institutions, you have corruption and failure.

Vaclav Klaus

EU didn't advance our [Eastern Europe] democracy by a single millimeter.

Chip Fulghum

Right after 9/11, the spigot got turned on and a fire hose of money poured out. Much of it was badly monitored and much of it was for stuff that just didn't work.

The "spigot" refers to the fact that immediately after the 9-11 attack, huge sums of money were available and the Department of Homeland Security was created by moving many different agencies from other departments into the new department. There were poor or no fiscal controls, and at the same time the public officials of the new department were under such extreme pressure lest there might be another attack that they went forward with almost every scheme that anyone claimed would make the nation safer. Most were useless and some just frauds, and much money was wasted. What is particularly interesting about this quotation is that a high government official admitted that things were handled badly and money had been wasted.

Dustin Moskovitz

There's a lot of complacency in philanthropy. People figure organizations are trying to do good, and that's enough, even if the results aren't there. But that's wasteful and inefficient. It crowds out better programs.

Douglas William Jerrold

He is one of those wise philanthropists who, in a time of famine, would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks.

Ineffective Aid Quotes