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>Why are journos so dishonest? No. The whole complex is to blame here, the scientists didn't do some rigorous open ended work. All of the scientists of course

>Why are journos so dishonest? No. The whole complex is to blame here, the scientists didn't do some rigorous open ended work. All of the scientists of course already believed that foreign aid is effective and beneficial (it is generally neither, especially not in the way it is actually practiced, where you dump random things into some poor place of the world and then leave) and are now gathering evidence to support that position so that articles like this can be written. It is of course somewhat hilarious to claim 300k deaths without being able to point to a single actual death. All of this pseudo debate exists to mask the actual question under contention. Given the enormous amounts of resources the west has poured into the poorest places on earth, when do we see the positive results? The only measurable result is that over time only more and more is needed, which of course simultaneously undermines the premise of foreign aid and paradoxically makes it more important.

jhp123 1y ago
> Given the enormous amounts of resources the west has poured into the poorest places on earth, when do we see the positive results? The impact of aid programs is well studied. Here is one of hundreds or thousands of studies showing a measurable positive impact in terms of lives saved: https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/assessing-pepfars-impact-analysis-of-mortality-in-pepfar-countries/ https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/assessi...
- constantcrying 1y ago
  There is one really great way to measure if helping someone works. If foreign aid would work, then we would see it declining over time, as the recipient have used their aid to solve their problems, the exact opposite is the case. Foreign aid does not solve any problems, in fact it allows countries to not solve their problems and instead create new problems, which then also need to be addressed by foreign aid.
  - jhp123 1y ago
    PEPFAR, discussed in the link I posted, is aimed at the HIV epidemic. The HIV epidemic is in fact being solved by the approach of international cooperation and aid: transmission rates are already down by 50% from their peak in the late 90s. The supply of foreign aid is usually not determined by need but by willingness of the donor countries. So when foreign aid makes progress against one disease or crisis, the money is redirected to the next most pressing issue. This doesn't mean it is useless or is not solving problems. It is true as a philosophical point that sometimes, an attempt to solve a problem backfires and even worsens the problem. But it is also true that an attempt to solve a problem sometimes solves the problem. You've offered no evidence that foreign aid is ineffective or backfires in any way, just a handwaving story, against the hard quantitative evidence I linked in my comment above.

jhp123 1y ago

> Given the enormous amounts of resources the west has poured into the poorest places on earth, when do we see the positive results? The impact of aid programs is well studied. Here is one of hundreds or thousands of studies showing a measurable positive impact in terms of lives saved: https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/assessing-pepfars-impact-analysis-of-mortality-in-pepfar-countries/ https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/assessi...

constantcrying 1y ago
There is one really great way to measure if helping someone works. If foreign aid would work, then we would see it declining over time, as the recipient have used their aid to solve their problems, the exact opposite is the case. Foreign aid does not solve any problems, in fact it allows countries to not solve their problems and instead create new problems, which then also need to be addressed by foreign aid.
- jhp123 1y ago
  PEPFAR, discussed in the link I posted, is aimed at the HIV epidemic. The HIV epidemic is in fact being solved by the approach of international cooperation and aid: transmission rates are already down by 50% from their peak in the late 90s. The supply of foreign aid is usually not determined by need but by willingness of the donor countries. So when foreign aid makes progress against one disease or crisis, the money is redirected to the next most pressing issue. This doesn't mean it is useless or is not solving problems. It is true as a philosophical point that sometimes, an attempt to solve a problem backfires and even worsens the problem. But it is also true that an attempt to solve a problem sometimes solves the problem. You've offered no evidence that foreign aid is ineffective or backfires in any way, just a handwaving story, against the hard quantitative evidence I linked in my comment above.