The Generosity Trap: Why $2 Trillion in Aid Has Failed the Poor

The late Pope Francis commissioned a report on the debts of the poorest countries that was published last week.

I have been several times to Brazil for academic work and the report, headed no less by Joe Stiglitz, reminds me of the words of the late Cardinal Archbishop of Rio, Dom Helder Camara, who said “when I give to the poor I am called a saint. When I ask why they are poor, I’m called a communist”.

Now, let us try to remember that about $2 trillion ($2,000,000,000,000) have been dispersed to the poorest countries in the form of "aid" over the last 50 years.

What aid has not done is to liberate those countries from our decisions about their future.

We have not reformed the international financial and trading systems that keep them poor.

By concentrating on aid, and forgetting about long-term development, we have condemned them to be dependent on our generosity, on what area of help we decide.

The intermediaries - churches and NGOs included - have grown fat on that aid.

Already more than 30,000 people a day die of starvation. This figure was estimated before the pandemic, therefore it is much higher.

When are we going to learn?