Foreign Aid Quotes

“[Internationa] Aid is just another praetorian business enterprise.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living

“[I]t takes so little effort and money to get rid of malaria, to bring in clean water, to give people a chance at an education. When you don't have hope, that's when people start to do weird, horrible, violent things. That's at the bottom of it. It's just a question of prioritizing. The funds are there."

(The Power of One: Belief.net Interview; July 2005)”
― Susan Sarandon

“A majority of people in these surveys also said that America gives too much aid--but when they were asked how much America should give, the median answers ranged from 5 percent to 10 percent of government spending. In other words, people wanted foreign aid 'cut' to an amount five to ten times greater than the United States actually gives!”
― Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty

“If Syria is to rise from the ashes it needs a united Arab world which has one thing on its agenda, not the falling of a dictator for we have seen many of those fall, but the reemergence of a prosperous Arab nation, one that is not reliant on foreign aid but is self-sustained and set on its way to become powerful once again.”
― Aysha Taryam

“China should significantly augment the foreign aid and public goods it provides, so it can use these as a bargaining chip in its efforts to get more say in global decision-making”
― Wang Yizhou

“Investing in foreign aid would also help achieve China's strategic objectives, since aid could become a powerful tool in the expansaion of China's influence.”
― Wang Yizhou

“...international peacebuilders usually arrive in new theaters of deployment with a clear sense of belonging to a specific group – a group markedly different from local populations.”
― Severine Autesserre, Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention

“Throughout Peaceland, inequality permeates the relationships between interveners and local stakeholders.”
― Severine Autesserre, Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention

“Never forget to put the beneficiaries on top of your organogram!”
― Geir Furuseth

“What holds back many poor countries is the people who live there, including their governments. A society which cannot develop without external gifts is altogether unlikely to do so with them.”
― Obianuju Ekeocha, Target Africa: Ideological Neocolonialism in the Twenty-First Century

“Air Marshal Nur Khan, a war hero and former Pakistan air force chief, had once likened Pakistan’s aid dependency to ‘taking opium’. Speaking to an American diplomat soon after the loss of East Pakistan in December 1971, he said, ‘Instead of using the country’s own resources to solve the country’s problems, the aid craver, like the opium craver, simply kept on begging to foreigners to bail him out of his difficulties.’ Nur Khan proposed ‘a Chinese style austerity programme’ for Pakistan although he doubted if ‘many Pakistanis had the conviction and dedication to put up with the sacrifice that such a programme would entail’.”
― Husain Haqqani, Reimagining Pakistan: Transforming a Dysfunctional Nuclear State

“Fifty years and several other threats and aid suspensions later, Pakistan continues to nurture a sentimental opposition to aid, while seeking foreign assistance remains an integral part of the economic strategy pursued by successive governments, both military and civilian. There are reasons Pakistan’s economic managers have not given up on external aid despite rising remittances. Although remittances enhance the country’s foreign exchange reserves, they are spent by millions of individuals and do not enhance the government’s treasury. Only aid provides budget support in hard currency and can be used for buying military equipment that Pakistan constantly needs.”
― Husain Haqqani, Reimagining Pakistan: Transforming a Dysfunctional Nuclear State

“Democrats fight where they have policy concerns... war for democrats is just another way of achieving the goals for which foreign aid would otherwise be used. Foreign aid buys policy concessions, war imposes them... democrats would much prefer to impose a compliant dictator,... then take their chances on the policies adopted by a democrat who must answer to her own domestic constituents”
― Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics

“Redirecting funds from foreign aid to domestic projects is like watering your own garden before tending to your neighbor's—you'll both enjoy the bloom.”
― Dipti Dhakul, Quote: +/-