Foreign Aid Delivery

Developed and developing countries make up the planet. The European, American, and Asian continents are home to developing countries. Countries like the United Kingdom are found on the European continent, whereas countries like the United States are found on the American continent. Countries such as Japan and Korea can be found in Asia. The number of developed countries in the world is lower than that of developing countries. The bulk of developing countries are located on the African continent. The developed and developing worlds are distinguished by the fact that the former is more advanced and has a higher average per capita income. As such, the developed nations have been providing donations and aid to the developing countries for quite a long while. In most cases, the process of aid delivery is achieved through the use of non-profit organizations in the developing countries. The aid donated to these countries is used for very activities like in the development sector, in poverty alleviation, in curbing natural disasters like flooding and hunger as well as to help the situation that mothers and children face.

Joy Sun has identified problems that are associate with the delivery of donated aid to ensure that the aid has reached those it is intended to. In most of her talk, she has pointed out that the problems are associated with the non-profit organizations which she calls traditional methods of aid delivery. She has then proposed solutions which could be used to improve the process of aid delivery with an aim of making it more efficient where it will eventually reach the grassroots.

The aim of this study is to thereby look into the problems and solutions pointed out by Joy Sun concerning the aid delivery process. More so, the study will discuss the possible risks associated with issue of donation delivery process in a case where the process is not looked into as well as the practicability of these solutions.

Problem Statement

The act of aid donation is has been conducted for quite a long period of time. This has been enabled by the economic inequality between the developed and the developing countries. The developed countries have come up as from the post-colonial period. The American and the European continents were the main centers of the Trans-Atlantic Trade (Van der Veen 12). As such, the American continents were able to posses most of the biggest sugar farms as well as other products which were then transported to the European markets since the Europeans colonized the Americans at that point. In the process, the Asian countries also developed due to the fact that they were providing machines and other materials needed for farming to the American and European continents. As such, they exchanged these materials and machines with food products (MacBean and Balasubramanyam 20).

Due to the trade, the three continents were able to grow despite the fact that most of the Asian countries are classified under the moderately developed countries rather than the developed countries. The African continent was also widely involved in the trade but in a negative way. The Africans were seen as very strong and energetic individuals who were forced to work in the American farms. As such, most of the African men were forcefully taken away from their families and their countries and shipped to America to work as slaves. As such, the African continent was deprived all the man power which could have since been used in the growth of the African Continent (Van der Veen 21).

As a result, the aid donation method was adapted in order to help mostly the African countries in the development process. The aid delivery in most developing counties is handled by the non-profit organizations. These are organizations operate based on faith and good intentions rather than profits. The NGOs operate in such a way that they receive donations from well wishers or from charity groups after which they come up with plans and activities through which the donations will help the poor in the developing countries (Gulrajani 45).

The NGOs are mostly located in the developing countries since these countries are the platform through which they operate. Most of the NGOs act as charity organizations where they receive the money directly from donors and they then organize ways in which the donations will reach those it is intended to. In most cases, the organizations are responsible for deciding to whom the donations will go. The governments in the developing countries are also involved in the decisions where the organizations collaborate with the governments in order to identify high priority areas (Van der Veen 25).

The NGOs have been of great help in distribution process for quite a long time. They were very efficient in the past since there were only few NGOs which were able to manage the activities and the donations. In most cases, their intentions could be considered genuine at the time. Some of these NGOs are like the Red Cross team and the United Nations along with its branches. The number of these organizations has gradually grown within the last 20 years and so has the number of resources available for distribution (Gulrajani 43).

In the recent past however, there has been increased cases of scandals in the NGOs of the management and other government parastatals grabbing the donations and using them for personal gain. In most cases, the NGOs are not to be blamed for the loss of funds which are meant for donations. The reason behind this is that the organizations have been there for quite a long time and the only thing that changes in these organizations is the management. With some management teams, there are very many cases of corruptions and mismanagement of funds. Some of the team members use the funds donated to fund their own projects rather than ensure that the funds reach those they are meant to (Sumner and Mallett 39).

Corruption is the biggest crime and the biggest issue in the NGO sector. In most cases, corruption and greed are propelled by the fact that the benefits of working in the corporate world are different from those in NGOs where the corporate world is more beneficial. The managing teams therefore engage in corruption in order to achieve similar levels of income to those of the corporate world. More so, most of the NGOs have been upgraded to become international organizations which raises the amount of spending and as a result, the budget of these organizations hit the ceiling. This leads to reduced resources available for distribution to those the funds are intended to. The risk in this case is that there will be very little development in the developing countries in case this trend continuous (Van der Veen 53).

Proposed Solution

Joy Sun has identified problems and solutions in the donation delivery system. She has talked about the inefficiency of NGOs in the process of delivering donations to the grass roots. As such, she has come up with a solution which involves technology and direct transfer of donations in terms of funds to the poor individuals in the developing countries (Sumner and Mallett 34).

The idea of Joy Sun is to establish a charity organization which will deal with direct transfer of money to the poor individuals through the use of mobile phones. As such they will encourage people to buy very affordable mobile phones in order to ensure that the process is successful. The project will then establish a money transaction platform through which they will be sending the money. The whole idea of sending money directly to the individuals is to ensure that the individuals get a chance to invest the money in the best way they find possible. More so, it will ensure reduced corruption since there will be reduced cases of corruption than when the NGOs are involved (Van der Veen 56).

An experimental study was conducted by Sun and her team in order to assess the applicability of the project. The result of the project proved that the cash received by the individuals were more helpful to them when the individuals invested the money than when the NGOs came up with plans to direct the donations to building schools and hospitals. As such the schools and hospitals benefit the individuals but from the community level rather than from a personal perspective. The money was used by the recipients to improve their living standards. They started small scale businesses which would benefit them from a long term perspective. It was initially believed that the direct transfer will encourage the individuals to waste the money in drinking and other drugs (Sumner and Mallett 65).

The proposed process has very many benefits. To begin with, the process is very cost effective. It ensures that the costs which are associated with budgets, paper works and permits are cut down. More so, the amount of money transaction to the recipient is very low which ensures that a bigger percent of the total donation is used for what it is intended for. In a case where the money could have passed through the NGOs, the money would have reached the intended persons when it is too little to be implemented in any business thus being used for spending where it purchases basic needs like food. The advantage of implementation of the direct cash into business is that it ensures that the individual’s dependency on foreign aid is reduced.

In addition, the direct is heavily monitored order to ensure that it reaches the intended persons. The process majors on the transaction process which ensures an easy task in the follow-up process of delivering the money. This encourages the donors to engage more in the activity of donating since it encourages transparency (Van der Veen 45). Research has shown that most donors had grown very negative about the donations since they do not get to see any positive results in the use of their money. The donors give out of good faith and are therefore very negative if the money is involved in corruption cases where it ends up making the rich people rich. Sun’s project ensures that the donors see positive results of their donation and are also assured of transparency (Sumner and Mallett 78).

The experimental results, for instance, have proven to the donors as well as the investors, who intend to ensure that the project is implemented, that the money has provided positive results. First, the process was 90% and 87% effective in Kenya and Uganda respectively in the ensuring the money reaches the intended recipients. More so, in these countries, the assets of the families that received the money increased by 52%. The income of these families also went up by 34%. The families were also able to put food on the table at a rate of 62% more days than before (Gulrajani 49).

Conclusion

In a nutshell, Sun’s project is quite ideal to curb the issues associated with delivery and distribution of foreign aid in the third world countries. There have been constant issues of corruption and money laundering with the NGOs. As such, Joy Sun’s project uses technology through the platform of give directly which is intended to ensure that money donated from the developed countries is delivered directly to the individuals at the grass root. The project is ideal and cost effective. It is also very transparent since the money transaction is under very heavy monitoring. This gives the donors an assurance of the effectiveness of their generosity and encourages them to keep giving in order to make the world a better place.



































Works Cited

Gulrajani, Nilima. "Transcending the Great Foreign Aid Debate: Managerialism, Radicalism and the Search for Aid Effectiveness." Third World Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 2, 2011, pp. 199-216, doi:10.1080/01436597.2011.560465.

MacBean, Alasdair I. and V. N. Balasubramanyam. "Official Aid to Developing Countries." Meeting the Third World Challenge, edited by Alasdair I. MacBean and V. N. Balasubramanyam, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 133-157.

Sumner, Andy and Richard Mallett. The Future of Foreign Aid. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Van der Veen, Maurits. "Aid Distribution: Data and Sources." Ideas, Interests and Foreign Aid, edited by Maurits Van der Veen, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 259-263.