Does Government Aid and Charities Actually Help Poor Countries Long Term?
Poverty, Inc. is a movie that completely changed my view on how aid is affecting poor countries all across the world. We would like to think all these charities as well as governmental aid is doing great things for these people, but it is actually just hindering them. Government aid as well as the charities mainly donate specific things on a large scale once or several times. The donations are great because the poor are receiving free things, but what people do not think about is what businesses just lost all of those consumers. The unintended consequence of this the business that was taken away from the locals which then has the possibility of putting the owner out of business. When people need new of what was donated, they will have nowhere to buy it after.
How Can We Help?
When a natural disaster strikes a country, I believe that the government aid or charities could send food and supplies for several months, but there needs to be a stopping point. In the movie, a man talks about how these countries need people to teach them to fish not just give them fish. These people need jobs in order to support their families which will also help build the economies. Another thing that is not helping these poor countries is when other governments subsidized certain products. In the 1980s, Haiti was producing enough rice to fulfill the demand of the country as a luxury item. The United States’ subsidized rice could sell for way less than Haitian rice. This put the Haitian farmers out of business which hurt their economy. Overall, we need to teach the people how to fish, not just give them food. Another reason we need to create more jobs in Haiti is for their families. The couple in the video went over to Haiti to adopt a child as well as start up their own orphanage. What they came to find out is that most of the children in Haiti’s orphanages have parents that simply just do not have the money to take care of them. Some of their parents still see them on a normal basis as well. The parents just simply cannot find jobs in order to support them, so the orphanage is the best option. This is simply appalling. We need to find a way to help build their economies up by teaching the people not just giving them free things.