Although foreign aid programs in the past have turned out to be a colossal waste due to such problems as corruption, the United Nations wants us to pour much more money down the same sinkhole. It is pushing each developed country to give away 0.7 percent of its gross national income (GNI) to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Looking ahead to 2015, the year when the Millennium Development Goals are supposed to be achieved, the United States alone would have to pay more than $100 billion for development assistance under the 0.7 percent assessment regime (as applied against the gross domestic product of the United States projected by the Congressional Budget Office for 2015). Consider that by the end of that same year – 2015 – the Congressional Budget Office projects that the total debt held by the public as a percentage of the GDP will be a whopping 65.4 percent.
Barack Obama demonstrated back in 2008, when he sponsored legislation in the Senate, that he was prepared to have the United States contribute hundreds of billions of dollars in additional aid from American taxpayers to this cause over a span of thirteen years or so. As a presidential candidate, Obama said that “I’ll double our foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012, and use it to support a stable future in failing states, and sustainable growth in Africa; to halve global poverty and to roll back disease.” There is no indication that, despite record deficits and the skyrocketing federal debt attributable to Obama’s runaway spending programs, Obama has backed off of this commitment.
Focusing on money alone as the prime solution to the problems besetting poor countries – particularly Africa – overlooks the tribal, racial, religious and ethnic divisions that have spawned killing fields there. Real progress in meeting the basic needs of the peoples of these lands cannot happen until the slaughter stops. In addition to the direct casualties of war, the violence breaks up the social networks necessary to feed, clothe, shelter and provide health care to the people – right down to the family unit itself. Building more hospitals, for example, will do no good if their staffs and patients are forced to flee from the violence surrounding them and the vital hospital supplies are looted. Development aid and technology to protect the environment will be wasted when the ravages of war continue to destroy croplands, forests, ecosystems and other natural resources. True human development needs the nutrients of sustainable freedoms to grow and prosper, no matter how much financial help from the developed countries is forthcoming to help eradicate poverty and disease in the poorer regions of the world.
Ironically, in the UN’s own Millennium Development Goals Report, which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released with great fanfare at a press conference at UN headquarters on June 23, 2010, the authors recognized the limitations of foreign aid in solving all development problems. For example, they stated in the section dealing with the Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education that “In many countries, educating girls is widely perceived as being of less value than educating boys.”
I asked the Secretary General what the United Nations and he personally were trying to do to change such perceptions that interfere with the achievement of this Millennium Development Goal, and with a separate goal to “promote gender equality and empower women.” He ducked the question, as did the report’s lead author, by citing statistics about improved educational opportunities for girls. Tell that to the girls denied an equal education in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and other majority Muslim countries. Cultural norms – not lack of money – are the main problem in many cases.
Simply throwing good money after bad does not solve complex social and political problems that are deeply rooted in a country’s history and demographics. So-called “Robin Hood” taxes and other redistributionist schemes will end up having the same detrimental result as we are witnessing now in left-leaning countries like Greece and Spain. Incredibly, Spain’s prime minister is now co-chairing the MDG Advocacy Group, carrying with him the same fatally flawed philosophy to champion on the world stage.
Given President Obama’s own proclivities for unrestrained social spending and wealth redistribution, we will likely be falling into this same trap.
Where pray-tell are we and the G20 nations going to get the money to support this monstrosity of all foolish UN endeavors? We give too much in Foreign Aid and to the UN already. Time to cut those strings.
If the socialist nations of the G20 want to pursue further degredation of their economies to help the UN then by all means jump off that cliff. Everyone with half a brain knows this money will disappear into the sink hole that is the UN.
I have very unsuccessfully tried to get more people to pick up this little news bite that blew me away when I first discovered it. It shows the entire UN and its programs is not there to address needs but to distribute the wealth so here goes.
Feed the starving Ethiopians. That is the appeal we hear every few years, an appeal brought forth with the imagery of of some wretched skin bone and huge belly only kids, guaranteed to touch the heartstrings of all. Every time the number go up, those three million starving kids from 1980 have by now morphed into 10 million, the starvation there is so bad that the population has doubled in that time. Unfortunately the water resources or the fertile lands have not doubled, neither has the infrastructure such as schools and hospitals, all for the very simple reason: Global warming. The profligate west is ruining the planet causing all this starvation, they had better pay up or else. An even more serious consequence of this west-caused-global-warming-drought is the huge increase in the number of landslides. specially in mountainous countries like Ethiopia. In the good old days before the west screwed up everything, most villages were surrounded by forests, the roots of those trees held the soil in place during the rains and absorbed the water. For some unaccountable reason those forests have disappeared, most be global warming so when the heavy rains hit that bare hillside it comes crashing down on them.
I tend to get carried away when I broach the subject of the horrors WE caused in Africa so back to the point I was trying to make. Last year the Ethiopians were starving again and as usual the world came to the rescue. For those starving Ethiopians they bought 73,591 tons of food for $ 40,431,278. Now comes the surprise, you will never guess where they bought it. In Ethiopia, the part that is not starving where there are thousands of non-starving farmers making a very good living selling food to the World Food Program of the UN. The non-starving farmers of Bangladesh have sold 44,284 tons for $ 21,256 to feed the starving Bangladeshis. The non-starving farmers of Uganda have sold 117,195 tons to the UN for $ 49,778,310 to feed the starving Ugandans. The non-starving farmers of Kenya have sold 27,126 tons for $ 10,790,660 to feed the starving Kenyans. The non-starving farmers of Pakistan, the UN's biggest food supplier, sold 267,088 tons for $91,431,178 but to be fair, only $46 million of that went to feed the starving Pakistanis, the rest must have gone to the neighbouring starving. Go down the list of starving countries and you will find that they supplied a total of $771,703,352 worth of food to their own starving countrymen, some 70% of the total.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, they will soon discover that towns Like Johannesburg, Beijing, Singapore, Hong Kong, Lagos and Cairo do not produce enough food to feed their populations, help is urgently needed.
The worlds biggest food exporters like USA, Canada, Brazil and Australia are not very well represented in the lists of food suppliers, the USA for example sold them only 6893 tons, the main thing they supplied was the money to buy in the starving countries. The World food Program is quite adamant on their website, they do not want donations of food, the logistics of it are far too expensive, just give them the money and they will find the…. best way to stretch it as far as possible.
In other words, they are not there to feed the starving, they are there to give them your money. By now you know the UN philosophy, the wealth of the third world belongs to its oligarchy or kleptocracy, the poverty is the responsibility of those wicked Westeners who have suppressed them for years.
Ciccio, very well said! I often wondered why we would give money instead of training them how to grow their own food and clean their own water. The fact is, they don't need the training. They just need less corruption in their own governments. I hate the thought of our money going to folks that, for lack of honest representation, are hurting. It isn't our fault!! As M. Thatcher said "the only problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples money." We're broke already! We can't afford to give more to those corrupt governments. If Socialism works so well for them, let the other Socialist Countries step up.
I find it worrying that the UN wishes to impose global taxes. Whilst I'm not a global government conspiracist, the capacity to levy taxes over soverign states is a serious issue. With the devolvement of government to Scotland and Wales in the UK, the capacity to impose taxes was a critical issue as it is more broadly with the increasing economic centralisation of the EU.
A group of "elitists" and their political puppets are making every effort to install global governance. This will not be a government of compassion that advances the human condition, but rather one of divisive paradigms that perpetuate ever increasing monitoring of individual activity, infringment against personal liberties, supression of critisism of government, increased racial tensions, and destruction of the standard of living achieved in middle class American society.
This is not a conspiracy theory. These people openly state that world goverment is their goal that they know how to get the job done, and once it is done they will be the ruling class.
Ay Rand wrote this: The Democratic Party platform of 1960 summarized an economic bill of rights which Franklin Roosevelt wrote into our national conscience many years ago.” Bear clearly in mind the meaning of the abliterated concept of “rights” when you read the list which the platform offers:
“1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.
“2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.
“3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.
“4. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home and abroad.
“5. The right of every family to a decent home.
“6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.
“7. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accidents and unemployment.
“8. The right to a good education.”
We have our own problems. MIAMI – A federal program designed to help impoverished families heat and cool their homes wasted more than $100 million paying the electric bills of thousands of applicants who were dead, in prison or living in million-dollar mansions, according to a government investigation.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spent $5 billion through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program in 2009, doling out money to states with little oversight of the program. Some states don't verify applicants' identifies or income. For example, the program helped pay the electric bill of a woman who lives in a $2 million home in a wealthy Chicago suburb and drives a Mercedes, according to the yet-to-be released report obtained by The Associated Press.
The Government Accountability Office studied the program after a 2007 investigation by Pennsylvania's state auditor found 429 applicants received more than $162,000 using the Social Security numbers of dead people.
Corruption is the only world wide epidemic. How long will we remain suckers for
every phony UN pitch that comes along, the hucksters should be put on chain gangs
somewhere in the third world, all American states qualify. I support missionaries
to Africa that do marvelous work under threatening circumstances but quite often
flee for their lives but never give up. The UN is a failure, if the money was given
to established Church groups actually on the ground doing the work it could be
cause of great change but that will not happen, the UN is evil…………….William
I am absolutely amazed at how terrific the stuff is on this site. I have saved this webpage and I truly intend on visiting the site in the upcoming days. Keep up the excellent work http://www.magicjewelrybox.net/Pandora-Bangles_9_…
It does not take safest time for them to place a quantity solutions money for hard times actually the time to be at liberty. May possibly check this out piece and when I could My husband and i like to would suggest your site various useful methods or a guidance. You can make up so next subject material considering this document. I wish to research more information reasons for things!
This really is my current exceedingly amateur works, amazing dreams. Which i stubled out onto getting chilly tools by means of reminiscences tremendously in truth discussion. Coming from all including type of solutions from your subject material, it's enjoy this is a really in unbelievably well-liked web pages. Offer the unquestionably significant cost.
This is an awesome article. Thanks for posting