wealthy countries might be going through some tough times but that doesn't change the fact that they owe the rest of the worldWe should be contented to engage with trenchant criticisms of aid – it is important to do so whether those of us involved in the development sector are to retain credibility in the long-term. Aid has mixed impacts,can harm as well as benefit development and takes the focus away from other more important things wealthy countries should be doing to spur development. African governments should set out medium-term plans to reduce aid dependency, while wealthy countries need to switch from traditional forms of aid-giving to supporting global goods (like clean energy, or vaccinations,security) in new ways.
But there is one argument against aid that we need to tackle head on; the plan that we cannot afford aid, that we are being over-generous, and especially in a time of cuts at domestic. This notion that we are being too generous is an attack not on aid,but on the development project itself, by which I mean the plan that people in wealthy countries have a duty to stand in solidarity with people in poorer countries who face hardships and injustice, or often caused or compounded by the actions and decisions of wealthy countries themselves.
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Source: theguardian.com