Why Foreign Aid Doesn't Work

Support PolyMatter & watch this video ad-free on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/polymatter-t...
Watch episode 4 of my new Nebula Original series on Nebula: "Why China Has No Allies" nebula.tv/videos/polymatter-w...
Sources: pastebin.com/NQ9ayrt2
Twitter: / polymatters
Reddit: / polymatter
Email: [e-mail]
How I Make These Videos: skl.sh/2OW1YQR
Music by Graham Haerther (www.Haerther.net)
Audio editing by Eric Schneider
Motion graphics by Vincent de Langen
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster
Writing & Direction by Evan
This includes a paid sponsorship which had no part in the writing, editing, or production of the rest of the video.
Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com
Video supplied by Getty Images
Maps provided by MapTiler/OpenStreetMap Contributors and GEOlayers 3
Select footage from the AP Archive

[@purpleguy3000]

This reminded me of a talk I had at school from a charity. They had been doing work with some farmers in an African village, can't remember where, teaching them techniques on how to farm more effectively and building this big communal warehouse so the village could store their crop. When they came back to check on them, they found the warehouse wasn't in use and the farmers were using the same methods as before. Apparently, the farmers they had trained decided not to implement the better techniques because they were worried the less skilled farmers would target them for making more, and the warehouse wasn't used because all the farmers were worried someone would steal their crop so all their work was effectively useless.

[@marlonyo]

Its the equality mentality problem. They need to shift to wealth is the measure of a man mentality and that will be solve.

[@sasi5841]

Oh boy this sounds like a fusion of "the tragedy of the commons" with "crabs in a bucket mentality" this will require centuries long cultural shift to fix

[@matheuroux5134]

@@sasi5841 Your suggesting millions of people need to change their culture based of a comment some guy gives on KZbin that could (and most likely is) 100& made up

[@Sizdothyx]

That's ... That is just plain STUPID, man.

[@jerankorak7997]

I've also read a similar story told by a foreign aid worker. Went to an African farmer. Arranged a contract with him for three years to supply fertilizer, take the money he earned and re-invest it in his farm. At the end of the three years, he was given control of his finances again. The farmer immediately sold all of his equipment, bought large gifts for the rest of his family, and went back to working by hand on fields that had been five times as productive one season ago. He enjoyed the productivity while it existed, but as soon as he had the money himself, all his family and friends wanted free hand-outs, and the tribal structure of his village meant that not distributing his wealth was considered a social taboo on par with pedophilia. So rather than fight the system and stay profitable, he just went back to his old ways and exchanged his money for a reputation as the most generous man in the village.

[@WillowGardener]

Returned peace corps volunteer here. I want to tell a couple stories from my time in a poor West African village.. There was a village near mine who, years ago, was given a grain grinder by an NGO. Pretty quickly, the grain grinder broke down, and there was no agreement among the people about who should pay for it to be fixed. So it just sat there, broken. A few years later, the village got together and bought another grain grinder for themselves, and decided beforehand who was responsible for buying fuel for it and fixing it. It was still operating when I left. There is a road near my village that, for a 100km stretch, is paved instead of gravel. Every 10km along that road, there is a big billboard saying "this road paid for by USAID". Obviously the purpose of that road was not to help anyone, it was to advertise how amazing and magical the US is. The people I stayed with had definitely internalized that message. They thought all Americans were rich. When I tried to share new ideas for farming with them, they laughed and ignored me, and said "Demba. We want pesticides. We want fertilizer. We want tractors. We want a grain grinder." The vast majority of aid has been set up with the deliberate objective of creating dependence in these populations. And it has worked. But the people have been so cowed by the incredible wealth of the US that they no longer believe in their own ability to make changes in their own lives. They were not interested in trying new things to make their lives better, because we had thoroughly convinced them that they were incapable of doing so. We had convinced them that they were lesser. So I think that the analysis here is on the right track. The changes in poor countries have to be fundamentally driven by the people there. But I don't think it would be effective in the long-term to simply provide money. Not least because, at least in West Africa, of all the tribal politics involved around distributing money among the community. It would almost certainly be evenly distributed among prominent men in the community, who would then use it to elevate their status by spending it on livestock or parties. No, what we need to get through our heads is that we cannot raise poor nations up. They must raise themselves up. All we can do is support them. We should be establishing schools in these countries. Not with a particular agenda, not with an idea of what they need to learn. We should offer them the option to learn whatever they want. And then we should respect their right to self-determination. Because we will never be the ones to solve their problems. They must do it themselves. We owe it to them to both respect their independence and to support them in their chosen path. They will come up with ideas we would never have thought of, because they understand the local conditions better than we ever will.

[@cheesypuffs1342]

yup, from what I have seen since 9/11, a lot of USAID & NGO efforts are to bring systemic changes to a country so it creates conditions for dependency. Fascinating to read your analysis on agriculture as I noticed many parallels in exporting America's favorite form of governance. When Norton & Hill + McKenzie Worldwide went hog wild pushing "freedom & democracy," their expectation was if we could change communist china, or any bloc of nations, into neoliberal democratic societies, then the sale of optical scanners, electronic voting booths, proprietary tabulation software would be in the TENS of billions. Not to mention, the growth of multiple political parties would then generate the need for public relations consultancy firms where foreign leaders would essentially have their speeches written for them & their political campaigns & initiatives set by US corporate elites----and not by the citizens of those respective countries. Sovereignty & the right to self-determination be damned

[@adarshmohapatra5058]

Thank you for your perspective & experience. And as an Indian I agree with the right to self-determination & supporting them, while letting them decide their own path. The path to progress might be slow, filled with many twists & turns. But eventually, given enough time, I am sure all nations & peoples will make progress in making their country better, even if it takes decades.

[@WillowGardener]

@@adarshmohapatra5058 I hope that you are right! I have met many wonderful and brilliant people from India. There is truly nowhere on earth like it. The diversity of cultures and religions is incredible. There is so much potential in your nation, and I am excited to see what you all will create when you have the opportunity. I think India's time to shine will be very soon!

[@keithsj10]

People need to stop helping. They need to get it out of their heads that they "need" to help. These people have thrived for their entire existence. Their populations haven't gone down, regardless of what has ever been done to help. Or not. Ethiopia was starving thirty years ago, yet their population has more than doubled. Education would seem to be a good idea, but it's up to them to decide. More money is spent every year on African countries that never actually helps anyone or achieves the desired outcome. It's just throwing good money after bad.

[@suzygirl1843]

That's why I don't like US and UK interfering with Africa anymore. At least China is only building what is necessary for industrial reasons. It's business transaction but Africans still need to learn the skills and do it themselves.

[@yashgulave8366]

There's this movement among African entrepreneurs called 'Trade not Aid' where they are asking foreign buisnesses to invest in their countries and create businesses and jobs and a stable economy so that they don't have to rely on foreign aid. It's really cool and I think people should look into it more.

[@AmityvilleFan]

But that'd create job and solve problems instead of growing dependency. No way!

[@TropospherePixels]

While ideal in concept, there are many reasons why it doesn't occur frequently. most of those poor countries tend to have a terrible security situation, little governmental stability, and rule of law. foreign businesses tend to not want to risk that some bandits are going to rob them and burn their equipment down, or that there will be a military coup that then outlaws the business or raises taxes by 300% from today to tomorrow. There is a good reason that manufacturing production went from Western countries to East Asia rather than Africa, even though Africa tends to have lower labour costs.

[@ZaHandle]

But that actually fixes the problem instead of making you look like you’re fixing the problem

[@Western_Decline]

yes, trade is what China does. Then, the salty West complains about it and spreads ferocious anti-China propaganda.

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

@@TropospherePixels The answer to that is to divert all that aid money to instead be used as insurance money to get that trade going. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up just creating perverse incentives to try scamming said insurance.

[@weirdnomad8868]

As a political science graduate this video doesn't even scratch the surface of why foreign aid doesn't work, even for a summation. For one thing most of the aid is given in the form of loans (with interest). That locks poor nations into a vicious cycle of getting a loan, going into default and then getting another loan to pay back the first one. Besides interest much of the aid has strings attached to it. For example a few years back the US announced that it would give millions to Nigeria in foreign aid to building something, a bridge I think. What they failed to mention was that Nigeria could only use the money if they hired American companies to do the work. The reason poor countries hate China is because their aid conditions are even worse. In Kenya China bragged that they built a dam there but they didn't use any local labor do it, in fact they even brought in their own prostitutes for their workers. Plus Asian culture tends to be very blunt on certain things and many Chinese are openly racist against blacks which isn't good for building positive working relationships.

[@professorx4966]

Agreed! They ignore the obvious CORRUPTION that western nations impose on many of their “foreign aid” attempts. At times it can be a more elevated way of donating to a charity for good PR & a tax write-off. The idea that you can just use capitalism to solve poverty is laughable in many ways but the attempts don’t even sufficiently hide the obviously political intentions from geographically-advantaged/privileged (notice don’t say rich or just western) nations.

[@missmymama1140]

They do employ blacks, but it's usually for low paying, low skill jobs. They have built a stadium, a university and a hotel here. Funny thing, the camp the chinese workers used to use while building the university was also used as a student hostel at some point

[@KwaleAkokundu]

Get your facts straight. Ask chatgpt "How much foreign aid is given in loans vs given in grants". What was the goal, make Chinse buddies or build a dam?

[@piragintheevercorpulent1526]

​@@KwaleAkokunduMy man you're really trying to cite ChatGPT as a valid source?!?! It's not an oracle or palantir.

[@chilloutmo]

There is no conscensus in the political science/social science/economics literature that "aid doesn't work". See for example Galiani et al. (2016), Dreher et al. (2021), Helskog (2024), or Ouedraogo et al. (2020), for studies suggesting that aid is effective in promoting things like economic growth, education, or democracy. Things are by no means as clear cut as this video makes it out to be.

[@pewpewlazers5702]

Foreign aid is a way to control governments in most cases. It’s a political instrument for power.

[@stephenp7708]

And in that respect, it works very well.

[@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986]

It’s given by one political entity (a wealthy nations government) to another political entity (a poor nations government) of course the money is inherently political by its nature genuine charity is selfless and more effective

[@andyc9902]

In placess where there's no democracy. Aid can keep them in check a weird modern colonialism by UN. Sorry to put it so bluntly that's what I think look at congo

[@arthurcpiazzi]

And it has a great ROI, it is almost never about altruism

[@Minty1337]

you're missing the point regardless of corruption, power, governments, politics, etc, there's still the fundamental problem of trying to understand a culture, and climate on the other side of the world.

[@WolfHeathen]

Imagine thinking commercial agriculture is the answer to poverty and not even building a storage barn or making sure there's enough water available.

[@jghifiversveiws8729]

The solution to poverty for most is to escape it rather than make it actually liveable.

[@orkhepaj]

commercial should have mean first find something which is sellable

[@Xenomorphin1]

Yeah this was a bullshit project to throw money at a problem. Sure, they had "a handbook". They had a "team" to go around corruption. But who gives a shit, if it's made by people who never saw the target village? Who are oblivious enough to not think "oh crops need water lol"? This sounds like a feel-good project by an economist, not a single farmer seemed to have been consulted. And the corn being planted when people in the village hate it? That's extreme "let them eat cake" levels of stupidity. It's like they didn't consult anything with the people there, instead throwing dollars at the problem. No different than the aid going through government. Edit: also, the "noone could've predicted these!" - like, everyone could. Even the goats being under the netting, and the children being left out. Animals also need protection from malaria, when there's 15 kids and two goats that feed all of them, you sure as hell are going to put them on the goats. But then again, if that shit costs $1.5, then maybe send them a shitton of it, not "just enough" one per kid or some shit.

[@ricardokowalski1579]

Yes... and these are the "smart ones" in universities, investment funds and political lobbies

[@Neteruk]

Imagine thinking a hungry person should plant food and sell it to buy food. LOL. Commercial agriculture usually means cash crops, these are crops that people cannot readily eat, and therefore is not actual food. It's utterly stupid. Look at Kenya...specifically Kericho. 5 million acres of tea, on land that should be used to plant food that can be eaten. Why? Cause colonial elites want cash...also because of political prestige, an some other empty nonsense. I am Kenyan BTW, so I can point that flaw out (probably do something about it in 10 years).

[@EverettBurger]

About a decade ago, the US government distributed many 'Clean Cook Stoves' to villages in Ethiopia. It was a well intended project. After all, these stoves used solar power rather than more dangerous and polluting energy sources. However, many of the villages rejected these stoves because they were given under the concept that Americans have regarding meal planning. In many of the communities that received these stoves, cooking is done as a community. It is done as a gathering. A small stove for one person simply is not how cooking is done in some parts of the world. So, this project went to waste. One step that was missing from this well intended project was asking the community "how can we help you and what do you need?" Rather than assuming you know what people need, why not ask them?

[@victorraphael8028]

Exactly i think the missing varuable us accounting for the people culture, traditions and asking them what they need.

[@bengoacher4455]

The problem is. Sometimes cultural differences is part of the reason why these societies fail. Maybe not cooking together, that sounds pretty neat tbf. But a lot of these people are reluctant to change. Just as people in the west are.

[@thetaomega7816]

that sounds like those people are too stupid to just use multiple stoves at a get together and instead choose to be poor lmao

[@johnnysupreme5718]

@@thetaomega7816 yeah like I was reading this and I was thinking "You're starving and you won't accept help because it's not the way your community works?"

[@eedobee]

Because they’re poor and dumb and don’t know better

[@AdmiralKarlDonuts]

I was just reading a book on how dictatorships work, and it mentioned how foreign aid enables dictators to survive crises while cutting off aid could help force them to liberalize or be overthrown.

[@jghifiversveiws8729]

It enables tyranny.

[@Croz89]

That can be true to an extent. In cases of extreme poverty, aid could actually allow for a dictator to be overthrown. A hungry farmer will rebel, a starving farmer is too sick to rebel.That can often be why dictators restrict the food supply, if you just barely keep your population alive, they will simply not have the energy to resist your rule. This especially true in extractive economies, where the dictator controls natural resource mines which they can hire overseas companies to extract resources from in return for a few palms greased in the government.

[@ShaggyRax]

Hypothetically speaking

[@YourBlackLocal]

What book? DIctator's guide?

[@il_vero_saspacifico6141]

Yea, sadly It doesn't work, people that are struggling to survive don't have the strenght and resources to ovretrow a governmemt

[@plainText384]

The problem is that "giving money directly to poor people in rural parts of a foreign country" is not super easy to do. If there is no market to sell crops, there's probably also no market to spend your $12000 in. In my opinion working with and getting feedback from local communities is extremely important. But you still need some sort of method of organizing and working together, and with experts and industry, if you want structural changes. Structural problems require more than just individual action from many people with some extra spending money.

[@damnkris]

GiveDirectly is exactly what you are talking about. The best part is that it is heavily science based, with control groups. They have one experiment with a single large cash transfer, and another one with a basic income, so they can research what money delivery method has the best results.

[@Booz2020]

Better Question Is : Why Foreign Sanctions Not Always Working❓As in Western (NATO countries, The US, Canada & Australia)Economic Sanctions on RUSSIA 👀🤔

[@altrag]

The idea is that if people aren't struggling so much, they'll be able to figure out better systems on their own - systems that actually work for them instead of systems that work for us (kind of) being imposed on them. Its much the same argument as things like the free education discussions over this side of the world. You can't just _shame_ people into having a better education. They have to be able to afford it. But without a good education its extremely difficult to get a good job, and without a good job you'll never be able to afford that education. Round and round we go. Just straight up giving those people an education without putting it behind the price barrier (or significantly reducing the price barrier) allows that cycle to be broken. Not for everybody - cost isn't the _only_ barrier to education of course. But its one of the largest barriers in today's world. (Hell. in the US this doesn't even just apply to post-secondary education. K12 education is funded by taxes within the jurisdiction it serves. If you're poor, you probably live in a poor neighborhood. Meaning your schools will be poor, meaning your kids get a worse education leading to worse job prospects and a greater chance that they'll also be poor. Yet another cycle of poverty.) To bring it back to the original topic though, if people have money to spend at a market but there is no market, they will _create_ a market. Again, it won't be _everybody._ There will be plenty of people who just stare at the money and have no idea what to do with it. But as long as even 1-2% of the people have a good idea, the money they received can be used to fund that idea (or at least be able to buy groceries so that they don't have to work as hard and can have some spare time left over to develop their idea). Starving people are rarely the ones who change the world. But lots of things have been invented by people who weren't all that much past the line of starvation. Just having your basic needs met provides _immense_ amounts of opportunity even if the only thing you have beyond that is extra free time.

[@plainText384]

@@altrag you can't create your own market, when there are no goods to be sold and no infrastructure to deliver them from somewhere else. Money without context is just worthless paper.

[@altrag]

@@plainText384 I guess all markets were just magicked into existence by God then? Every market that exists or has ever existed was created by somebody at some point for some reason. There are no goods? Figure out how to make some. $12000 can buy a lot of tools if you know what you need. No infrastructure to deliver your products? Buy a horse or a camel and get your village's products to market the old fashioned way. People are rather creative. The only question is whether they have to resources to indulge their creativity, and in the modern world we measure almost all resources with the metric of money. And of course they're already doing that with the little they have. Giving them a little more simply allows more of them to make the jump. And when enough of them manage to do that, all their individual endeavors start working together and can become self-sustaining (at least until Monsanto sends in the mercenaries to make the area "safe" and ensure those "rebels" don't do anything that might change up the status quo).

[@dsolis7532]

In my country we had a dictator that wrote a book called “The poverty of nations” that basically said all of this. When he has absolute power he builded a basic road system, universities that were basically free, social health, a trains system, a banking system, two utilities companies, an insurance system and all with the money used for the army that he abolished. Today Costa Rica is the one of the richest countries in Latam without any natural resources and probably the problem has been going against the “original plan”.

[@ninamartin1084]

It is unfashionable to say so but very often benign dictatorship is the best form of government.

[@doujinflip]

Unfortunately the "benign" part tends to be very rare.

[@peao010109]

​@@doujinflip True that. However, despite everything, the poor and the rich are getting richer. (Generally)

[@dsolis7532]

@@ninamartin1084 Absolutely the best. I'm sure we haven't has anything as good as him since and we are still rolling on his success BUT it's a Russian roulette with 7 bullets, very easy to have a bad dictator

[@jgw9990]

@@dsolis7532 Dictators tend to be stronger and more brutal if wealth comes from the land, because mines can be worked by slave labour. Costa Rica likely benefitted from having no natural resources because it meant wealth had to be created through the people.

[@chimrichalds5205]

There was some British reality experiment series that gave several people their 'Benefits' (welfare) in a lump sum of a year, based on the idea that, with approx 20,000 pounds, these people would become entrepreneurs rather than scraping by month to month. It followed maybe 6 typical long-term Benefit recipients as they tried to become financially independent with said lump sum. With financial coaching and support from advisors to help them along. Feeling empowered, they initially bought the necessary luxury goods, exotic pets, and other goods/services they had been deprived of. They all then started various businesses, money eventually ran out from bills and expenses, and were back on welfare, most of them before the year. The big success was a guy who provided a party service with his exotic pets and DJ service with some bouncy castles. He supposedly made it past the year, but was back on welfare when his mobile DJ business folded.

[@ProperlyBasic11]

Giving money directly to the people doesn't happen because: 1. It is difficult to actually do logistically 2. It is much easier for corrupt people to divert the money 3. Giving someone 30x their annual income doesn't give them the wisdom or planning for how to handle such a vast sum of money effectively 4. Influxes of currency at those scales can lead to massive inflation, eating away at the very money being given There are plenty of other reasons. It's known to be ineffective.

[@mortyjames5897]

If you hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars to a village full of people living in huts that money is going to get stolen by a local general or police chief as soon as the UN leaves.

[@drmonkeys852]

Also they're an African village in the the middle of nowhere. What are they going to do with pieces of paper? They can't eat them so they are useless. They need actual infrastructure, education, and a proper government with trade relations. Money doesn't magically fix problems, people do.

[@aachoocrony5754]

You're missing the main reason. Foreign aid is often a money laundering scheme and also a way to pilfer tax money.

[@chrisca]

Basically a reverse Mansa Musa for the peoples there

[@PrankyPran]

I disagree with most of this 1) Agreed, but presumably easier than building infrastructure, teaching how to use crops, putting fertilizer, indulging in education campaigns. You just need people to go door to door and give them cash. Not easy, but much easier than the alternative 2) This is the same for any other type of aid. Most can be given to officials who oversee the project who can divert funds. But also, if you can directly use your own officials to make an agricultural experiment like this, I think there's much less corruption if you hire your own officials to just go and physically give them cash 3) Ah yes, the poor people are too stupid to spend money wisely. Apparently, when a Ugandan farmer is having their family starve, they will spend their money on.... what? drugs? idk, I think they know their situation far better than white westerners with fancy degrees who've never lived in that area do. And most people spend it on common sense things like food and education for their kids. Poor people I think are likely much better at spending money than people like us, since instead of wasting on a fancy meal in a city, or on theater tickets, they will spend on necessities or education or a scooter to go to work faster 4) This is maybe the only valid concern. But I think it only mitigates the benefit. You still end up with more money than before, even if each dollar is worth less. Also, influx of currency in other ways can also increase inflation to a point. If I put big influx of currency into an infrastructure project or agriculture subsidies, each dollar is still worth less. Yes, giving direct handouts is far from perfect. But surely, if you want to give aid, it is much better than any other alternative. Your arguments just seem to be against giving any aid at all

[@calexico66]

My view is that we often oversimplify the problem of lifting populations out of poverty, and fail to see the million and one steps that are required. These foreign aid projects seem to result in asymmetric technology transfers without the social and institutional adaptations, where the good intentions of saving children and keeping people fed might result in unsustainable population growth. Without the necessary economic development to generate jobs and creating the conditions for political instability. Many of these countries need to invent and discover their own way to economic development, which they need competent bureaucracies, build the minimal required infrastructure and develop industries to incorporate value added, to get more people with good jobs.

[@victorraphael8028]

But how can they do that if they are poor and their government is corrupt. It is a parodox

[@johnr797]

Basically violating the Prime Directive

[@calexico66]

@@victorraphael8028 look at Botswana.

[@calexico66]

@@johnr797 no, just allowing for people to find their own path. They already were colonized, do you really feel they want some outsiders to remote control them for their own good. That doesn't preclude interaction, or even help, but in the end they will need to find a working development model.

[@johnr797]

@@calexico66 that's why I said basically. It's obviously not a 1:1 comparison. It's just that nations giving foreign aid, which is often not for altruistic reasons anyways, need to have a hands-off approach if they don't want to keep funding these people forever. Otherwise, they have no incentive to develop. There's really no excuse. People point to all kinds of reasons why Africa is so underdeveloped but at the end of the day it's their fault and no one else's. It's like playing a Civilization game and exploring the oceans with a frigate and coming upon an island full of spearmen and 1 population cities.

[@apexpredator2118]

I'd heard a story that in India, the Rockefeller foundation came to a village and supplied people with metal ploughs instead of wooden ones which they used, for more effective ploughing of the field and durability. They trained them and went away, but upon returning after a few years, they saw that they had gone back to using the wooden ones, the metal ones stored away. Upon asking, they were shy, but ultimately admitted to a local that using the metal ones would leave the wood carpenters of the village jobless, hence we went back to their products for their sake. Not all people have the mentality of endless growth and 'development'.

[@ElectricAlien577]

That and giving them advanced tools that they cant produce for themselves just sets up a dependency on importing. When there is nobody left in their society making the things they use within their society, and their economy is completely dependent on imports, they are then completely dependent on us, and we can make them do whatever we want in order to maximize profits.

[@Simon_GH]

To me education is key from top to bottom, coupled with practical infrastructure so people can work on what they learned. That way they can solve their unique issues and progress in general. Foreign aid can help but it doesn't seem to do much and seems to hurt more than it helps in the short/long run.

[@Homer-OJ-Simpson]

Hard to teach them to fish when they are dying because they don’t have mosquito nets. Or dying because they don’t have the medicine they need. Aid works to some extend and this video is clickbait. Aid needs to be a combo of basic necessities such as clean water access, mosquito nets, and medicine but also education.

[@Neteruk]

Bottom to top works better.

[@chaklee435]

People are selfish. If I was born in a developing country and charity gave me a free education, I would be looking to get out and emigrate to a richer nation.

[@joepetto9488]

education is not possible in pre-industrial village based societies, they need to develop further on their own, learn their own lessons and experience, education will come when it does. educating amerindians failed, leaving them alone and allowing them to integrate on their own worked. liberalism and its assumptions about human character are just utter nonsense.

[@Sam-ui1ll]

If you look at all societies that successfully industrialized throughout history you see that a strong government-backed education system was the main institutional mechanism that allowed for their industrialization.

[@MA-go7ee]

Wait, it is WAY too broad to declare that aid 'doesn't work'. It depends on what you think aid is supposed to do. As short term succor? Sure it works. As long term development? It doesn't, however I don't think anyone in the present day has ever claimed it should. A more interesting question is if aid causes more long term harm than good.

[@mausklick1635]

Its not even about foreign aid in general, its just about one project and even that wasn't approached in detail. Easily his worst video.

[@stevensmith2078]

The World Bank economic programs are precisely to help countries graduate to developed from underdeveloped. It’s still not working. Emergency aid as you describe is not the focus of the video.

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

Keep in mind that at least to some extent the extreme poverty in the African countryside might be by design. Because there are few lifestyles more politically disinvested than that of subsistence farmers. I find it baffling though that apparently few people in foreign aid organizations look at how Europe lifted itself out of poverty. Because remember, up to ~200 years ago the majority of Europeans likewise were subsistence farmers living in villages only relatively weakly connected to the outside world. Infrastructure is what lifted Europe out of poverty. Canals at first, then railroads.

[@sionbarzad5371]

Europe pillaged the whole world to ''lift itself up'' as a society, it's not gonna happen again.

[@bensoncheung2801]

👻💬

[@TheoEvian]

Not 200 years ago, the number of agriculture workers in many African countries is not that far from the state of for example Japan in 1930s

[@rambling964]

The thing is, you can read almost any moral out of history. Take the observable fact that the feudal system collapsed after the Black Death, and the systems that replaced it made people richer. One theory is that because labour suddenly was reduced by a third, ordinary workers gained a huge amount of bargaining power. That led to the end of serfdom, the growth of the middle class, the emergence of democratic nations, and ultimately the industrial revolution. A different theory is that the Black Death disproportionately killed the poor and the middle class, which concentrated wealth into the hands of government linked businesses. Those newly much richer businesses could now operate at a much larger scale (and therefore more efficient) production and trade, which provided the incentives for the industrial revolution. Which is true? Maybe both. Maybe neither. Humans are too complex to draw easy conclusions from anything we do.

[@klopferator]

There are many more factors behind the development of Europe. One is reformation. The push for ordinary people to understand the bible themselves instead of just being told by priests what's in there lead to increasing literacy. That paved the way for more education, opening up opportunities to earn a living outside of the family and therefore more effective cooperation between unrelated people with complementing skills and talents. Up until the early 20th century you could see a productivity gap between catholic and protestant regions in Europe.

[@Epidombe]

My teacher of international affairs in college told us that often times “foreign aid” is code for bribe. And it usually goes directly from corporations to leaders, or individuals to corporations, rather than to the people who actually will use it

[@Someone-cd7yi]

The millennium villages were a good idea but only if you don't use a one size fits all solution, so customize is to the unique needs and preferences of the local population. And you need to do it region wide. A single village lifted out of poverty is of no use if the surrounding villages are still dirt poor. You'll need to focus on a central city and the smaller villages nearby.

[@tomdark69]

How would you give money directly to help recipients? In a way that doesn't cause devastating inflation and that makes it hard for some local strongman to come and immediately steal it. I think answering that at least partly reveals why foreign aid comes with strings attached.

[@WolfHeathen]

True. Natural and slow economic growth is necessary for the entire economic system to adjust. You can't just instantly dump a bunch of money in the lap of ever single citizen without completely destroying the value of said currency.

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

Well you could do it by completely undermining their countries sovereignty, making them use dollars or some cryptocurrency. Then you'd also have to allow them access to international markets, bypassing local traffics, import restrictions etc.. You'd basically have to annex them. But for obvious reasons, that is not an option. What they would need is a change in government, but forcefully changing it from the outside would just be annexation again.

[@Lybrel]

"Solve" everything with robotics and automation. In the ideal world, 90% of locksmiths die of starvation and 10% would adapt through innovations that replace them.

[@bimasetyaputra8381]

@@Embassy_of_Jupiter " completely undermine their sovereignty and make them use cryptocurrency" Lmao, smartest crypto bro roght there

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

@@bimasetyaputra8381 how are you under the impression that my comment is pro crypto? It's anti crypto. I'm only highlighting crypto because it would be harder to block and therefore easier to weaponize. I'm highlighting why hyperinflation is not an issue you could easily fix from the outside, because the only thing you could do is basically neocolonialism. If you haven't gotten the memo, undermine another countries sovereignty is a bad thing. The only ethical fix to hyperinflation can come from within the country.

[@istoppedcaring6209]

I know of a project you all know of doctors without borders but you also have veterinarians without borders, our veterinarian was involved with it years ago. They worked together with an agricultural aid program, they pulled out all the stops, got decent equipment, tractors, etc. the veterinarians provided animals and explained how to take care of them, basic stuff but enough to provide for themselves. they thought them how to farm on a semi industrial scale using machinery when all was said and done the volunteers left, they were confident they made a difference they went back a while later, months, years idk exactly, but when they came back it was all gone and they were back to famine and old farming techniques, turns out that the villagers didn't fully realise that they had to make expenses such as buying diesel or gasoline for the tractors, so when the fuel ran out they stopped using the tractors all together, they likely also scavenged the metal though that i don't know. the herds of animals to breed and subsist off were gone, turns out that they just ate them all with no real thought of the future and that is exactly why we fail to help africa, the mentallity, they don't think about next year, or even next month, they live only in the now, there are animals, i am hungry, let's slaughter and feast. We can't help africa if it doesn't help itsself, but the moment we pull out there wil be mass famine and there wil be even more migrants heading to europe. Africa needs to help itsself and to do so they need to be forced to do so, and eventually i expect that coastal regions wil start to expand infrastructure inland, cannals, trains, roads, and also water infrastructure and so on, but first there must be sufrage that angers people towards their own governments, from that democracy must grow, changing the keys of power, requiring the placation of the masses to stay in power, and eventually when the good of the people is actually something their governments are incentivised to care for and no free aid is coming, africa wil crawl out of it's pit

[@ooooneeee]

So when we failed to educate them and teach them long term budgeting it's solely their fault? When we had the resources to engage with local communities more and monitor progress and intervene and didn't do any aftercare it was their fault? Wrong. We failed them.

[@SuperPrem]

I remember you made a video similar to this years ago. Great to see an updated/higher quality version of it.

[@sangomasmith]

"Seeing like a State" by James C. Scott and "The Anti-Politics Machine" by James Ferguson basically cover the issues with these sorts of aid programs. In the end, there's an extraordinary amount of hubris in a bunch of people from halfway across the world believing that they can technocratically solve the issues of a single village, let alone whole societies. Yet the idea they have not just the ability, but the right to do so is incredibly seductive.

[@joelmaynard5590]

Foreign aid kills local business, one of the primary drivers of any healthy economy is fabrics and clothing. How are weavers supposed to compete with foreign aid when their clothes are given for free? They can't. Building the roads is already the best way to help the extremely poor. If you look at the root cause of famine you will always see that it is not caused by a total lack of food but the effected areas are concentrated. With roads and transportation the likelihood of famine is less likely.

[@atropusarbaalish4214]

A capitalist, no matter the size of their company, is still an exploiting piece of shit.

[@XOPOIIIO]

@potsmoker54 What for?

[@Gonzalo_105]

this, this is the primary reason, they keep sending stuff and killing local business

[@jgw9990]

@potsmoker54 many of these places are so under developed that there are few places to buy from. This isn't the west, Africa doesn't have amazon delivery.

[@evancombs5159]

​@potsmoker54 usually foreign aid is not given to people as direct money handouts.

[@Arigatex]

"plz help, we poor" *gives corn* "EW, prison food" bruh...

[@ninamartin1084]

Did they actually ask for help though?

[@Arigatex]

@@ninamartin1084 Fair enough

[@vikinggeorge7007]

"Well you live in a prison already, so why complain?"

[@JatPhenshllem]

@@Arigatex Still not the best response...

[@drabberfrog]

It didn't sound like they were starving, they were just poor and farmed for their own community. What need would they have for a food they didn't like?

[@MajorTymojo]

I absolutely love the very informative videos you make and their insightful content presented in a compelling way. The verbal presentation is so professional I almost didn't do a doubletake at 14mins when I heard "a refreshing breath of fresh air". Sorry, had to make that joke, redundancies are my weakness. Anyways, love the content!

[@SangoProductions213]

Long Story Short: You can't have some central planning committee from some far away country know how to optimize peoples' lives. Life is too incomputably complex.

[@XOPOIIIO]

They learn nothing.

[@ninamartin1084]

This is why the Maoist reforms failed so tragically.

[@milobem4458]

Central planning committees can't even solve problems of their own countries. That's one of several reasons why communism always fails. In this case we have western intellectuals with marxist sympathies, trying to prove once again that "other committees got it wrong, but we will do it right, because we are smarter". It takes special kind of arrogance to believe you can solve the economics, even worse than the ignorance of people who support them.

[@victorcode2075]

I worked on an Australian aid project in a small pacific island, helping to build a power plant. We tried to hire locals to work on site, but they all refused, even though we were paying ten times the average wage there, and had to fly in Aussies to help us finish. I joked at the time I thought the locals were idiots for refusing that much money, but then I realised maybe we were the idiots. We were busting our backs in the scorching heat, while they were fishing at the beach. I now know that the project was just a political bargaining chip to keep their country on side, but now China has offered them even more money so they have turned on us and are allowing a Chinese military presence in exchange for money. They weren't friends, just playing countries off to get the most free money.

[@suzygirl1843]

No. Africans and Polynesians are sick and tired of the West's games. By the time YOU came around, they had already come to the conclusion that you weren't there to help but deliver some kind of Political agenda so they ignored you. US and UK have screwed up and the recent generation isn't falling for the schtick. It's far too late to change tactics now.

[@sonayyalim]

Apparently they didn't like Australia on reasons which you conveniently ignored. Ask your government how they pissed those poor people off.

[@TomorrowWeLive]

@@sonayyalim lmao what do you think you know about history, Turk? What fantasies does Erdogan teach you about Australia "pssed" on the Pacific Islands. Btw, I'm from here.

[@sonayyalim]

@@TomorrowWeLive Apparently Mr. Racist Sheeplover never heard of the opposition. Even those poor people were obviously aware of your trojan horse to sell coal.

[@jgw9990]

@@julm7744 The countries managed by whites tended to be more successful. Rhodesia had living standards for blacks equivalent to western nations. Then in a heroic struggle for freedom Mugabe took over, redistributed all the productive farms to his cronies and killed 3 million people. The place went from a net food exporter to being stricken by famine and life expectancies halved.

[@someonejustsomeone1469]

"Why China has a hard time making allies - a fundamental difference in how it sees itself and others." This is true to a large extent, even down to how Chinese people behave online. They're always an anomaly, either being incredibly formal and responsive or totally dismissive and arrogant of others.

[@TumblinWeeds]

Dude, they’re literally shut off from the rest of the world. How pleasant would you be if you’d been locked in your basement your whole life. They are just people born in worse conditions than us.

[@someonejustsomeone1469]

@@TumblinWeeds your point makes no sense. If you're locked up and you see free light at the end then being patronising to the people on the other side would not be a very good idea.

[@belldrop7365]

@@someonejustsomeone1469 In china, the only good idea is the idea of the gov't.

[@someonejustsomeone1469]

@@belldrop7365 does the government even have an idea? It always acts like it's clueless, screaming like a small boy so that people don't provoke him.

[@belldrop7365]

@@someonejustsomeone1469 If that's all you see, then you're falling right into their lap.

[@monkofdarktimes]

I remember what a warlord said "Aid is not corn, grain, milk Aid is hoes, seeds, tools. That's aid"

[@andyc9902]

Weed 420 too . Keep them stoned

[@Noam_.Menashe]

What warlord knew about corn? Not many existed after the 15th century.

[@evryatis9231]

@@Noam_.Menashe there are still warlords nowadays

[@depauwgerlings]

@@Noam_.Menashe a) corn existed before the 15th century b) There are still warlords

[@andriod8014]

Same applies to poverty in rich countries. Giving them shelter, food, clothes won’t solve poverty, giving them a good work with financial education will do. Very few knows this

[@CaseNumber00]

It seems a lot of their problems were because they didnt want to disturb the people too much, their village, and way of life. Their village was not near an market, an economic zone, and their access to water was 3 miles away. What they needed to do was move the people and the village to easier resource and/or economic access points. It would suck to move but things gotta change to be have better.

[@anesupasipanodya]

Or idk maybe actually consult Ugandans on how they can make more money. Educated ones at least

[@lodestarsd4456]

When you make a claim you have to justify it. You've explained why Sach's project didn't work out but in no way justified the claim that giving money directly is a good solution, much less the best solution.

[@pnyhmsmx]

Considering the channel in this video claimed China giving money with no strings attached without delving deeply. Or in another video claimed it's better for American money to leave shores to China just to buy out American property is a good thing. It's clear that there's a bias

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

That's cos that's likely a topic for a separate video, one that'd likely heavily feature GiveDirectly, which has tested this idea a lot. Long story short, people's assumptions of that solution are often very very wrong. It works better than you'd think. You can read more about simply by googling their name or research into direct cash transfers in general.

[@urieldaboamorte]

I think it should be noted that a lot of great discoveries are being made within Development Economics in order to understand what we can do to erradicate poverty. In 2019, the Nobel was awarded to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty." (RCTs are a golden standard nowadays for testing hypothesis within the field). Of course, unfortunately, these findings take a lot of time to leak into the public. A channel I would full heartedly recommend is econimate. She makes animations about frontier research in Economics, making them very accessible to laymen.

[@joepetto9488]

There is nothing wrong with poverty.

[@ninamartin1084]

@@joepetto9488 The planet was better off when people were worse off financially.

[@joepetto9488]

@@ninamartin1084 The Truth no one wants to hear.

[@DJELEVEN_KENYA]

I'm in a small town Kenya, I think only Africans can understand how to grow Africa. First in Kenya the biggest challenge economically is corruption followed closely by lack of capital to start own businesses (mostly in agriculture). We have the skills especially the youths (boomers won't change their way of doing things ) but no employment to save then start a business is the biggest challenge. I'm leaving corruption for now because I know it's out of my reach, I cannot just go to my local government officials and tell them to employ individuals based purely on merits. And yes giving out the aid to locals directly would work, partly because some will invest and inturn employ others but some will see it as a reward and enjoy themselves with the money. It's another world completely, what worked for western countries may or may not work here. Some come here in Kenya and do very well they live here they even learn Swahili and they give the aid personally they develop a good relationship with the locals, that I think is the best way forward: building personal relationships with the locals and trying to understand their way of thinking, either by meeting with the intended person physically or remotely. You see everything here is much cheaper so a little help would go a long way. Instead of trying to save the whole community and solving all the problems at once, helping one by one on a personal relationship would be a better way compared to food aid to the whole community. That's just my opinion though.

[@zacharywong483]

Very well-written and thought-out examples Evan!

[@brianmulholland2467]

I have vague memories of this Millenium Villages project when it was just getting going being the target of alot of skepticism. Far from the 'how can it fail' attitude expressed here, I remember it being regarded as a vanity project with little to no chance of real success. I think development is something that has to happen organically and from within. You can't impose it from the outside. The video I think hits close to the mark when it says we should concentrate on not hurting the effort more than trying to actively help. I read an interview with a development economist once who was asked how the west could best help developing nations and his remarks were 'Please God, stop helping.' or something to that effect. I think we should lower trade barriers, and then look at the NGO indicies that measure economic and political freedoms. When nations move up these indicies significantly, the reward should simply be to pay off some international loans, provided that the country is transparent enough with it's finances that the money isn't just being pocketed. Each milestone reached like peaceful exchanges of power, establishing an independent judiciary, respecting free press, free speech, property rights, etc...Offer to help pay off some loans to buy them more breathing space. Let the locals then decide through their own political process how to proceed.

[@ninamartin1084]

Something like this already exists, or did - the Mo Ibrahim offer of US$1 million to any African country that could demonstrate effective anti-corruption. To the best of my knowledge this has not yet happened, or maybe it happened and a big deal was not made about it in the media.

[@arwinwest2505]

To be be honest I am quite skeptical with your method. Lower trade barriers, possibly but gradually, since it can destroy local competition with more international companies, but forgiving loans by increases of NGO measures of economic and political freedoms, eh, aren't these group funded by the west's millionaires and billionaires who've shaped their own countries internally? This seems like it will end up with pro-western businesses and politicians controlling the people there, with the west and its multinational corporations increasing control of the country's economy, by privatization and budget cuts on public utilities like hospitals, water and other infrastructure . Are you sure that this method would go well, considering this sounds like it will lead to a similar, albeit indirect, top-to-bottom approach you wanted to avoid. This is a surefire way for some nations to accuse you of intervention of dubious intent in their government. Doing that is like asking North Korea to denuclearize for more infrastructure, it's a loaded question for them. That being said, however, bottom-to-top management works well, so that's that.

[@jimmay1988]

You give free money to a Filipino villager, they will spend it on sweets, alcohol, and other wasted consumables while living their simple lifestyles. Giving a lifetime of free money to people who prefer simple lives, because the it's below the donor's standards, doesn't fix the "problem"! Give actual materials THEY need.

[@ninamartin1084]

Kind of like giving food to street beggars instead of money for alcohol.

[@TumblinWeeds]

Ah yes, except this thought process lead to impoverished neighborhoods with way too many used clothes, so much that the local clothing manufacturers all went out of business and more impoverished. Farmers went out of business because of aid food. As soon as the aid stopped, these people starved.

[@frederik7338]

An overlooked aspect is the economical role foreign aid serves in the relation between 3rd and 1st world countries. The money flow is not an act of charity, it is an instrument to exert economical control: The 3rd would on average pays 3 times the amount in rents on debts to the first world, compared to the money they receive in foreign aid. Also most major infrastructure projects completed using foreign aid funds tend to be done by 1st world constuction companies. This brings every penny of that foreign aid back into 1st world economy, thus boosting itself, rather then the 3rd world, we claim to boost.

[@jessicashirley6634]

Wow, so on point! Love how you clearly presented everything

[@bloomanddoom6537]

the problem under corruption is almost always infrastructure and trust, these are expensive and are prerequisites to economic development. trust in a society can take decades to build and is often why infrastructure doesnt solve the problem. lack of trust leads to corruption which leads to lagging and dis repaired infrastructure which puts us at square 1. technically the guy was right, he just misdiagnosed the problems that needed to be solved, the ones that did need solving would require decades.

[@joonkim202]

I've worked in international aid - health- for couple of years. What I learned is that most of the "charity" funds (80-95%) are used for payroll, equipment, vehicles, travel, adminsitrative expenses etc For the NGO/ aid agency. Only a small percentage goes to the needy. Unfortunately most of the people who work in aid are more interested in keeping their stressless cozy jobs than helping the poor.

[@christiandauz3742]

I don't blame them. I'm working a minimum wage job then helping my Dad out on Saturdays Nothing short of space colonization

[@oohhboy-funhouse]

Everybody talks of the Marshal plan, but never tells us of the 5W that made it work. Not just Germany, how did Japan, Korea, Vietnam, manage to rebuild? Why did Afghanistan fail? Or any other war torn nation bombed into the Stone Age? What are the commonalities or unique elements that aid can't confer. On the other side, why do nations collapse? What are the fundamental pillars required to be knocked out?

[@juniormichael354]

What were the 5W?

[@willblack8575]

its race...

[@oohhboy-funhouse]

@@juniormichael354 What, When, Where, Why and (hoW).

[@IK_MK]

@@oohhboy-funhouse isn't the last one "Who" ?

[@oohhboy-funhouse]

@@IK_MK You're right.

[@jerankorak7997]

One major issue with African nations and foreign aid is the family and tribal structure. In many such nations, keeping wealth from your family is seen as one of the worst crimes imaginable. There are literally hundreds of tales of Africans getting enough aid to start businesses such as bread-baking or wholesaling, only for thirty of their relatives to immediately turn up and demand they get free goods and services. Refusing these requests is seen in the same light as we in the west would view a son assaulting his elderly parents. Being seen as 'generous' is an incalculable virtue to these cultures, while being seen as 'greedy' means immediate and complete social ostracism. The cynical members of these communities are well aware of this, so whenever anyone gets ahead, they are immediately targeted for what amounts of social extortion. It's a deeply twisted system that is virtually impossible to break out of, similar to Middle Eastern honor culture.

[@user-cx9nc4pj8w]

And that's on top of the views towards the structure of the nuclear family. When having many children is seen as being wealthy people will breed like rabbits, and this is not good for long term development. Then there's excluding half of the population from the most important aspects of economic development and wealth creation. When judging how to end poverty we can't just focus on material aspects; you need to look at culture as well.

[@saphironkindris]

The problem is, a lot of groups just kind of throw money and resources into the country, but don't want to actually stick around to make sure things are done right. Because there's no solid group backing these initiatives, they fall apart. You pretty much have to live in the place you're helping full time, for the rest of your life, reinforcing the lessons on a pretty much daily basis until the next generations can take over learning these things as a default. The thing is, when you do that, the local government force start feeling like it's a usurpation of their power/authority, which it kind of is. (cause they're doing a shit job, be it by their own fault or just circumstance.) This usurpation is mainly because you can't just implement these things on a small scale, with one household or something, because otherwise neighbours will get jealous and you risk conflict breaking out. You have to help the entire area all at once, which takes dozens or hundreds, maybe thousands of people, including guards that look a lot like military invaders. It's a difficult thing to do in a way that doesn't end with bloodshed, or the reversion to old comfortable ways. Things won't just magically work perfectly if you dodge the corruption issues, I'll admit, but nothing can be done while it's present.

[@SS-eu2ef]

As an indian i have said this before and i will say it again, real development must come from within ; not from outside. Most indians have realised now that foreign aid is nothing but curse for any developing country as it makes the people and government lazy and as a result creates demand for more foreign aid until the entire country is stuck in a vicious cycle of dependence and laziness that will completely wreck the economy of that country , western countries must do a favour and not send any sort of foreign aid other than food supplies ; any other aid in the form of money should not be sent no matter how poor the country, let the people work for themselves and build their country

[@doujinflip]

South Korea, China, and much of Europe were quite big recipients of foreign aid until recently. What seems to be more important is having a local government that tries to benefit beyond the ruler's tribe to develop the nation.

[@evancombs5159]

​@@doujinflip those countries and regions got a lot of foreign investment. Any aid they received was meaningless. It was the business investment that makes them different. China was also smart in saying, " let some people get rich first". This brought infrastructure and wealth to some regions first which then could radiate out to the rest of the country. If your goal is to bring economic improvement charitable aid is the worst way to do that. The way to bring economic improvement is to establish a city or region which you can build the infrastructure and develop business investments. Then let fruits of that investment expand out to the rest of them country.

[@robertharker]

Curiosity Stream and Nebula are two streaming sites that are very hard to navigate. I am a paid subscriber to both. When I go to either site I am giving a limited number of choices with limited overly broad categories. The link in the description does not take me to the polymatter channel but instead dumps me at a top level page. When I search for the word "polymatter", I do not get results that include the polymatter channel. Search of "china friends", no polymatter results. Search "polymatter china friend", no polymatter results. Terrible site navigation on Curiosity Stream and Nebula are a chronic problem for me. How am I supposed to find something? Why bother making custom content if nobody can find it other than a blind stumble through irrelevant recommendations?

[@awibs57]

This is legitimately true. I really like all the creators there, but there's no internal navigation system. I have to go back to youtube, use it's recommendation algorithms until I find another creator plugging their other series on nebula, then go back to nebula and type in the exact title of the video I want. There's no built-in way to find it organically on the site. Even when you go to the creator's page, it's all a big tumbled mess of every video they've ever made and really hard to find all four or five in a series one after another. I pretty much have to pull youtube up in another tab so it will populate an autoplay list and tell me what the five videos in the series I want are named, then manually search them one at a time. I now pretty much just pay for nebula as a sort of multi-patreon to support the creators I like and watch them on youtube because the nebula site itself is so clunky and hard to use.

[@R.-.]

8:55 Developed nations never imported water pipes at $150,000, they built them themselves. If a village can boost it's argicultural produce, that should free up more workers to make their own aquaduct using whatever local technology they have available.

[@Moses_VII]

I think they need the water to boost the agriculture in the first place

[@MrIansmitchell]

Wooden pipes. That's what we did.

[@Myanmartiger921]

Wow adi you are so smart. No wonder china is crushing the west

[@thekrakenrises9040]

@@Moses_VII wood is available, so the first step would be to make timber pipes

[@petersmythe6462]

It's interesting how difficult this is in practice and provides quite a bit of respect for places where this transformation has rapidly happened by government programs and a country has actually managed to pull itself up by its bootstraps. E.G. China or Vietnam. It also somewhat suggests that preventing imperialistic, predatory behaviors toward these countries or claiming that we know best (about local conditions) is perhaps the most critical aspect.

[@shauncameron8390]

By adopting capitalist reforms and toning down the central planning a bit.

[@aachoocrony5754]

Imperialstic motives and know-how are different things. Both exist.

[@zinjanthropus322]

There are social and cultural factors at play.

[@aachoocrony5754]

@@zinjanthropus322 as well as geopolitical which seems to be ignored here. You know, the less pink part.

[@ManiacMeats]

Pause. The China piece.... They've been throwing money at a lot of investments around the world to build a land & sea silk road 2.0 but I disagree with the characterization of "no strings attached" as we've not seen, just yet, what happens when a country defaults. Separately, some of these loans were given with a stipulation that required use of Chinese engineers & architects must be used. I'll give you this money but you have to use my company to build it.... C'mon son. Although, thanks to you, I'm now going to be paying for Curiosity because... Need input!

[@sret7880]

ok.... so China folked out money (either in form of loan or investment) to build infrastructure in least developed countries and you want the China construction company to hire the inexperience local engineer & architect? and to bear any future inefficiency cost/construction failure? Oh godly logic...

[@orkhepaj]

i hate china too

[@MrAnonymousRandom]

No strings attached refers to political interference. Even the Marshall plan dollars were essentially credits for US made goods. Part of the reason for even using Chinese workers is that they are less vulnerable to local corruption.

[@ManiacMeats]

@@MrAnonymousRandom hmmm.... Perhaps, but I'm not so sure.

[@acmhw]

Your explanation has improved! Thank you

[@SunYat-sen]

I love to see another high quality video by Polymatter

[@thejimmydanly]

Great video, one small issue though. Economic rationality is a necessarily axiomatic given. One cannot act with economic irrationality. This is because economic rationality is simply any human behavior chosen in an attempt to achieve some goal. There is a popular misconception (which has unfortunately even afflicted a great many within the economic academia) that economic rationality means that the most efficient means is always chosen to accomplish the most desirable possible goal. This seems to be a result of a confusion regarding the fact that markets tend towards efficiency and that rationality, a term with a broader meaning outside of its use as a technical term within economics, being the term chosen to describe purposive behavior in economics.

[@Talinoth]

Counterpoint: 1: People burning US Dollars is a thing. That's "irrational" no matter how you look at it. 2: Putting mosquito nets on your goats instead of your own kids is questionable indeed. Frankly, if everything is "economically rational", then *it describes nothing useful at all* and should immediately stop being used in academic discourse. If somebody is "economically rational" no matter how efficient or inefficient somebody's actions are and how much thought they put into them, then the term is useless garbage that provides no new information or insights.

[@thejimmydanly]

@@Talinoth Economic rationality simply means that human action is purposive, which is indeed a useful starting point for economic analysis. It is a technical term that does not mean the same as rationality means in a general context. It makes us understand that, unlike many animals, human action cannot be all reduced to instinct or random behavior. Starting here is important for a plethora of reasons. For one, it shows that human action is towards a goal and that setting market infrastructures to better allow cooperation is a good force for helping people to work towards their goals in a constructive manner is beneficial for society. It also underlines the fact that interference in these market structures can cause unintended consequences, as the interference being used as an attempted means by the actor engaging in the interference does not alter the fact that those within the system are still looking to fulfill their own ends. This is especially important regarding public choice economics, as it removes the obfuscation of state intentions and the intentions of those in the state. It makes it clear that those utilizing the state are self interested acting within the bounds of economic rationality, not automatons working to further the abstract intentions of the abstract entity of the state.

[@thejimmydanly]

@@Talinoth To your point about claiming it is useful to describe those acting inefficiently towards a goal as being economically irrational, it is more direct to simply call the action inefficient. There is no need to muddy the water by incorrectly utilizing a technical term to hint at what can be simply called by what it is.

[@abnerdoon4902]

For all that talk about diversity, people seem to be unable to come to terms with the fact that not everyone thinks the same.

[@ninamartin1084]

Now we need to move onto ecologic rationality if we want to survive.

[@perfectallycromulent]

um, if one problem was that villagers had no way to control crime, i'm thinking that giving a family $12k directly wouldn't lift them out of poverty. it would get them robbed. as for 5% interest on savings, not in the USA, i don't know where you'll find that in a stable economy.

[@salokin3087]

"Leopard skin hats" Hello Mobutu

[@bb2866]

the other prerequisite of course is Intelligence

[@Gamer.Instinct]

You’re telling me the millions we sent to Pakistan for gender studies was bs??? Whatttttt?

[@ryanyang3347]

12:02 How exactly would you "directly give everyone 12000$" without causing crippling inflation. This is why we have inflation in the US right now.

[@ericvulgate]

'foreign aid' is about buying influence and building military bases when countries default on their loans. 'aid' is not distributed to be nice to poor people.

[@AgentSix]

Right when I sat to eat, perfect timing

[@MsRubyet]

It seems to me that a lot of these issues could have been avoided if they’d simply consulted with the local people on their needs

[@Coolsomeone234]

It's always certain countries deciding what's best for others

[@blakedake19]

How in the world you have hundreads of "experts" and literally nobody checked if the basic infrastracture are in place to sustain that economic development? Like water and storage should be the first thing you check when you want to develop agriculture.

[@orkhepaj]

you take a bunch of champagne commies , thats how

[@3MAR443]

You mean New York experts, not experts of Africa. Im sure narcissism doesn't have anything to do with it

[@FOLIPE]

The hierarchical structure, the detachment between the donor and receiver, and the fact that of course the donor is always (justly) mindful of their money, makes this sort of international aid complicated. In Brazil for example a university has created a "system" that allows small family farmers to produce everything they need for their family with some surplus for low cost, and not using monoculture, but using the outputs of a produce (such as for example fish poo) to feed into another steo of the system (fertilizer). This is a far more interesting method than focusing on corn, or a single crop, because it can feed the family with a diversified diet and activate local markets as there's a local demand for food.

[@_tsu_]

Aid used to be huge in India about 35 years ago. The government just banned all food aid for a couple decades and made some programmes to improve farming. Gradually, people worked out ways to thrive without the aid or the benifits and now the whole place is unrecognizable. Even 10 years ago it was a rural backwater but today every house has running water, drainage, electricity, 4g internet, street lights, asphalt roads straight to or just meters from the doorstep. Aid doesn't work at all. It's the people of the country that need to save themselves. Bangladesh is an even better example. They clawed their way up from an even worse situation.

[@clarenceonyekwere5428]

I usually love your videos but I find this a bit lacking. Maybe it's because the title promised a general discussion about foreign aid but the main work got stuck on one example which isn't a "typical" form of foreign aid. It felt a bit rushed. Thanks for trying anyway.

[@JesterWhoHelps]

I'm honestly tired of wasting tax money on other countries when we got plenty of stuff to fix where I live.

[@patrickH206]

This reminds me of a TV drama I watched when I was a kid about Chinese politics in the old kingdom ages. The plot goes like 1) earthquake happened, 2) king granted funds for food and supplies to impacted area, 3) only 10% of the funds arrived at the scene. A good governor then scolded the supposedly corrupted governor who didn't get the money to where it's needed. The supposedly corrupted governor said, "you're lucky to have me handling this, because I am able to bribe efficiently to get at least 10% in. If it's you, it'd be zero percent."

[@MCArt25]

I think the first step would be to let people figure out their problems and solutions, rather than assuming us Westerners know everything about it and just have to teach them our superior enlightened knowledge and skills.

[@cetriyasArtnComicsChannel]

yep this, they keep 'sending aid' but not actually ask what the people really want/need.

[@useodyseeorbitchute9450]

Identified by locals problem on top of the list is a tribe on the other side of river that they have feud going apparently for centuries. Please send guns.

[@Ken-tc3nq]

yea.... you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped

[@catalystgreenhorn9184]

You asked, "Why not give the money to the people directly?" When you already explained in the video that many of the people make very poor economic decisions. Not to mention, logistically, giving money to all the people is actually a lot harder than it seems.

[@shauncameron8390]

Exactly.

[@hendrikstrauss3717]

Man, love your content! I reckon, you have been to university, hence I have a question for you: What would you study if you could choose to start over?

[@TrangleC]

But what was the rationale for "The Big Push" concept? I didn't hear any sales pitch that would explain what supposedly would make this better. What I also don't get is that you said the new concept wasn't about "parachuting in free stuff" and then like 20 seconds later you talk about how the plan was to provide ambulances and provide this and provide that, with other words, parachuting in a lot of free stuff.

[@oohhboy-funhouse]

There is a difference between free parachuting free stuff and sending advisors with it to be used in a systemic way.

[@TrangleC]

@@oohhboy-funhouse Yeah, the latter usually being called "Colonialism" and if it were a movie: "White Savior Propaganda" hehehehe

[@TrangleC]

@@oohhboy-funhouse Besides, foreign aid pretty much always looked that way that a bunch of white people came in, dug wells and built schools and the such, while the natives were standing around, watching them. Then the white people went home again and the stuff they built was left to rot because the natives didn't know what to do with it, or couldn't be bothered maintaining it. That is nothing new.

[@TheInstigator32]

"China gives foreign aid with no Strings attached" 😂 What an absolute joke. Tell that to every developing nation in the past 10 or so years

[@dekippiesip]

No ethical strings attached. You don't need to stop your genocide on an ethnic minority to get the aid, for instance.

[@TheInstigator32]

@@dekippiesip Not at all the type of strings attached they mention. China has created contracts with countries like Sri Lanka for instance in which they've both created and rebuild existing ports to "increase trade" for the country knowing that the loan given would not be something Sri Lanka can pay off thus in the contract it allows China a 50 to 100 year lease of the ports created. China having negative relations with India uses this port to stage military presence and effect what ships can and can not use ports. Sri Lanka is just one country. They've done this all across Africa and the Middle East with railroads, highways, ports, nuclear plants etc. Highly encourage you to look up "One Belt One Road".

[@vatssuyogmishra3194]

@@TheInstigator32 Invested in a Airport where no one lands, loan viability should be checked before giving huge loans if not it's a simple trap.

[@Western_Decline]

@@vatssuyogmishra3194 you people been watching too much western propaganda. Debt trap by China is a lie that’s been debunked by academics.

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

@@TheInstigator32 Nope. You're the one who needs to read up. That port was leased to China by the Sri Lankan govt. itself. It was a commercial transaction, and didn't reduce their debt to China. Which btw isn't as high as you seem to imply - China is just 10% of Sri Lanka's debts, most of which is long term debt that isn't even due. They owe more to Japan lol. And in fact their biggest creditors by are private sector lenders - comprising nearly half of all their debt - who tend to be mostly western financial institutions btw. Their debts to China have also barely budged in years, whereas their private sector borrowings have ballooned in that time - it was less than 40% just a few years ago, and now is pushing 50, while China has stuck as 10%. As for the debt trap narrative in general, it's already been studied and debunked. Even this very channel has made a video on it pointing that out. Look up the How China Lends report, which looked at hundreds of Chinese lending arrangements. Or there's others, such as the one by the Rhodium Group, an economic research firm. They find they “usually involve a more balanced outcome between lender and borrower, ranging from extensions of loan term and repayment deadlines to explicit refinancing, or partial or even total debt forgiveness”. One of the researchers literally called it a 'meme'. One that you've fallen for cos you liked the narrative, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. You can also look up Gyude Moore's talk on China in Africa here on YT.

[@keithsj10]

Excellent content as usual 👍 It's funny to me that no one ever thinks to ask the locals what they actually want. It may ultimately be decided that what they want isn't what they need, but at least they could get some up front perspective on reality instead of sitting in an air conditioned liberal think tank at Columbia University and making all the decisions for them. This happened in Afghanistan after 9-11. The US military went in to build roads and hospitals and schools, but they never asked the locals what they wanted. So the US wasted billions of dollars building things that never got used, got blown up and got vandalized. The copper wiring was more important than a school to those people and the teachers would just leave and go do something else. Not every non-western European society based country wants the same things we do.

[@abnerdoon4902]

We need them to do the same things we do so they can provide low cost labor, export cheap materials and become consumers of our products. We need all countries to be a part of the global system of capitalism. That's why we just can't leave them alone to do their thing.

[@keithsj10]

@@abnerdoon4902 China certainly thinks like you do about Africa. They're actually capable of doing it but more aggressive. Those Africans aren't using the natural resources beneath their feet, China might as well swindle them out of it. They aren't educated enough to even recognize it's happening, much less capable of stopping it.

[@keithsj10]

@Swarmpope one problem, the major problem, was nobody asked the Afghans what they wanted or took the time to understand their culture and what they valued. It was just, "let's throw billions of dollars at this like every other country we've ever destroyed and rebuild it the way WE think it needs to be and everything will be fine." That didn't work. At all. The Soviet Union getting bogged down in Afghanistan for *nine years* should have been one clue that that country wasn't like every other country that had ever been sent back to the stone age by superior firepower. They weren't the same then, they weren't the same after 9/11 and they're not the same now. I had a supervisor in the oil fields in 2013 in Texas who was in Afghanistan to try to rebuild it years after 9/11. He was ordered to help do all that for one section of one city at the time. He was given orders and he tried to carry them out, only to find out that what they were doing wasn't what the citizens that lived there wanted. They wanted the electricity to stay on for starters, but his job was to build schools. They didn't want schools, they wanted jails, police men and electricity. They wanted the rule of law to be carried out first because the ones that didn't want to cooperate were busy destroying everything that was being built. But orders are orders and the troops weren't allowed to enforce local laws, and the local police weren't being paid. It was chaos and the idiots in a closed air conditioned room somewhere in America making all the decisions weren't paying attention to reality. You can't build schools without basic supporting infrastructure which was being ignored. I think they call that putting the cart before the horse. It failed because the "boots on the ground" were being ignored and those boots didn't have free will. They had to follow orders no matter how stupid and pointless they were. If this type of behavior is still going on then no one has learned anything from history. It's no wonder it keeps repeating itself.

[@gamermapper]

@@keithsj10 Very true. However I hope that this won't make people conclude that the Afghans don't value education or health. They do, it's just that hospitals and schools as we know them aren't the only way to get education and health services, there were many different ways to organise such things in human history, the Western way is just the more common one because of history, but not necessarily the only one possible. That's why the Afghans rightfully rejected something they saw as too foreign and weird, not suited to local needs. However if we consulted with the Afghans what would be the best way to help them get education and health services, it would've actually helped them.

[@gamermapper]

@@abnerdoon4902 lmao, that sounds very imperialistic. Not every country or nation has to be capitalist. They should choose what they want for themselves. If they want, they should be able to be communist, and imperialists shouldn't stop them.

[@fil6592]

I know I’m late but honestly this is my favorite educational KZbin, I only wish I could get nebula!!

[@josefk1491]

Well.. There just needs to be major changes. So you need a person who knows the situation well enough to make those changes, and to take note of when the barriers are financial or physical or both. Plus I'm pretty sure foreign aid is mostly just for subsidizing international companies that operate in other countries by subsidizing their governments who subsidize our companies.

[@TV-vz7rf]

Man. The nebula bundle still doesn’t work! Every time I sign up for curiosity stream through the link, it never gives me the nebula half! If I sign up for nebula with the same login that I use for the curiosity stream one, it prompts me to buy it again! The curiosity stream portion appears to work, as I can enter the discount code and get the subscription for a couple dollars a month. However, in the 3 times I’ve tried to sign up for this deal, I’ve never been able to get the nebula portion. Anyone else have this issue? I’m close to calling the customer support here lol

[@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986]

Yes call for the help mine worked fine recently so yours should too don’t waste your money missing it

[@user-ni7ct5vr8u]

I did the bundle before, worked without a problem. However, both Nebula and Curiousity stream are bad services. I just watched a few videos for the whole year I had it, so I cancelled. Save yourself a few bucks by not signing up.

[@iix23]

I sent them an email about this (2 month ago) and it was fixed in less than an hour.

[@iix23]

@@user-ni7ct5vr8u It's 15$ a year to help content creators. Is this really what breaks the bank?

[@user-ni7ct5vr8u]

@@iix23 Oh surely not. But if they just want my money, start a Patreon or something. Don't hide charity as a bad service.

[@Rodasboyy]

It's laughable when a village with nothing to eat doesn't eat corn on the basis of behind "prison food" I'd give up on them and say fuck it

[@brandonmorel2658]

It's a cultural difference.

[@suryanshsrivastava5551]

Coming to this video I thought it was gonna be a rehash of the same video with the same title that wendover did a couple years ago. I am pleased to say that it you have tackled a different side of the same problem.

[@dixonbainbridge3146]

I love these vids, I have already thumbed up before watching because they are always tops

[@rsaunders57]

This points to a possiblly very interesting experiment. Find 3 groups of similar villages; do nothing in the Control Group, invest to help the second group "get onto the bottom rung", and give UBI to the third group in an amount that could be generated by the interest on the investment per villager in the second group. Now you could measure both the impact of investment and the difference in impact that "experts from academia" brings to the problem.

[@TomorrowWeLive]

Or, how about we just keep our money.

[@avderrahmansc7646]

In Arabic, Africa's name (افريقيا) literally means "land of the disconnected" and thus I think Africa's problem is one of economic, infrastructural and human disconnection.

[@doujinflip]

Africa was always cursed with a lack of navigable rivers for its size, which is why it's spent practically all its life as a collection of small tribal kingdoms that nobody (local or colonial) could really consolidate.

[@suckthis1152]

Install wells give them basic solar power for lights and build a main road from the villages to the main city

[@kennj321]

I think a big component of ais should be education and research like the land grant colleges in USA. They were setup in each state to determine the best local farming practices then with help of county agents get information to farmers. Maybe something can be done in Haiti with research universities to determine best way to use local materials to build housing such as pressed earth brick and bamboo.

[@zaydansari4408]

What if we gave that money directly to the people who need it? Well, let’s say you have a village and there are only 10 cows to produce milk and there are only a few potato’s procured per year and there are only 12 eggs produced daily, everyone else has to eat foraged berries and root vegetables. If you give each villager $500 per week, the cup of milk that used to cost $1 now costs $20. Why? Because you increased the supply of money and demand for goods, but this isolated village that can’t trade still only produces that same amount of food. Without growing more food, or being rich enough to compete for importing food from other countries (that requires roads or railroads at the very least) people stay hungry.

[@TumblinWeeds]

Lol it’s like explaining to a child why we can’t just print money

[@TumblinWeeds]

Without direct and easy access to the global economy, extra money is completely worthless

[@johnr797]

In a nutshell, foreign aid is violating the Prime Directive.

[@creepychris420]

we paying the salaries of all these charity workers and advertising budgets of every charity we see ads for

[@Maddin1313]

Me: "What if they don't like corn tho?" PolyMatter: "They call it prison food." Me: "Oof, that bad!?"

[@Neslakim]

Just ask the Irish (1845 - 1849)

[@elizabethdavis1696]

Do a video on if the three gorges dam collapses from flooding, earthquake or if it becomes a military target in a war with Taiwan.

[@nacoran]

Without roads to bring in new goods I suspect just giving money to people would cause hyperinflation. I'd think that instead of trying to export excess crop yield that an earlier step would be to build some food storage to create food security, then, instead of having the area produce more food, have them produce the same amount with fewer workers on less land and then try to get them to diversify. Plant some fast growing timber trees and build a mill on some of the land. Teach bee keeping. Bring in some basic tools for repairing metal tools and making wood things. Upgrade the roads a bit at a time, tying nearby villages together. Hopefully at this point your crop yields are high enough that you have spare labor to start building better houses. Get some textiles going (Yes, I know one of the biggest complaints about aid is that we dump free clothes which suppresses local textile development. We need to not do that.)

[@ReviveHF]

During after 1960s, foreign aid does work in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan(Province of Republic of China), the point is if you've to work hard to achieve the goals. There's an old word to describe this : "No pain no gain".

[@QQr00z]

I speak as someone who knows the history of his people well, and I come from Serbia, which was under the Ottomans for 500 years. After liberation, in the middle of the 19th century, there was a will to modernize Serbia, and literally in a few decades it reached France and other serious European countries. It only took a few brave and determined individuals who wanted, from their own complex, to prove themselves and show themselves, and make their country like others they looked up to, which they did. But it also required the interests of others, such as the Russians, the French and the Austrians, who pushed it all forward. Without them, everything would be much slower. This project could have succeeded if the people of Burundi actually wanted change, but it can't just happen either. Sometimes force has to be used for positive purposes, to be forced to do good. Many migrants from Burundi live in Serbia today, but unfortunately they are all lost souls, who do not do anything here either, and they came here in search of a better life. Now they live as homeless and alcoholics in Europe.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

I remember back in secondary school we learned a lot about geography, and in my class we researched this and determined that simply allowing foreign workers to immigrate and let them send money home was infinitely more useful than foreign aid to the people in need, and I feel like aside from stuff like vaccination most foreign aid should be better targeted to increasing wages and opening borders.

[@matthewmullin8168]

Nah opening borders is not the solution based on what you said, it's creating very liberal visa policies

[@platinumphonesandcomputers]

This exactly works, some good results have come up from Arab country work salaries

[@biggibbs4678]

Countries have every right to close their borders

[@korcommander]

I mean the simplest example is to look at the west. Around 1700 almost everyone on earth lived the same. We had both the collective AND individual will to live better. The Koreans, and Taiwanese come areas with little natural resources and bad geography, and yet managed to pull themselves out. It is a question of will.

[@jessejames9697]

Outstanding content 💪

[@MengsTel]

I am subsubscribed to Cur+nebula but your nubula exclusiv streams dont load but other streams work just fine, can you look into this?

[@racistpandagod]

Problem with foreign aid is that a Duke can just block it, leaving you with nothing but shame and sorrow

[@ravernthebird367]

Coup 👀 Just use captain to steal man

[@wbw911]

you can always challenge

[@FinancialShinanigan]

Give $3.5 trillion in foreign aid, hello hyperinflation!

[@boladenon]

"Actually, I don't like corn" *starves a year later*

[@rayraywa]

My thesis was on Chinese Foreign Aid in Africa. No creator except you understands some of the theoretical nuances involved with these things. I always love the videos.

[@nothanks7892]

If we just gave the 3.5 trillion dollars in foreign aid directly to the people that need it inflation would run rampant in those communities. Is that even a real question... thats your conclusion. Okay WEF thanks for your input we will take it from here.

[@nothanks7892]

I don't think you understand what nobody is suggesting