Opinion
Spending more on foreign aid means spending less on ammunition
By Lo Sniderman ’18
March 30, 2017
Tags opinion
With the new administration nearing its first 100 days and President Trump’s contentious policy decisions, it is easy to get wrapped up in domestic issues (see his most recent executive order that nullifies a key part of President Obama’s climate change efforts). National security is one such issue, and it is Trump’s ceaseless boasting about his plan to increase military spending by $54 billion that inspired me to write this article. I would like to breach the realm of domestic policy and look towards combating the world’s most crucial international issue—the global poverty crisis—as an alternate solution to enhancing the United States’ national security. The U.S. is not doing nearly enough to counteract global poverty, and allocating more funding to our foreign affairs budget would have spillover benefits for the United States that even President Trump could get behind.
Let’s put this issue into perspective. About half of the world’s population lives on less than $2.50 a day. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die quietly each day “in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world.” About 1.6 billion people—a quarter of humanity—live without electricity, and the world’s developing countries account for just 2.4 percent of world exports. For obvious moral reasons, fighting global poverty is important. What the majority of Americans fail to realize is that focusing U.S. foreign policy on international poverty is also in our strategic interest.
As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, companies can benefit from operating internationally more than ever. 50 percent of all US exports now go to the developing world, making it no surprise that that the world’s poor is now viewed as the largest untapped market on earth. As people transition from barely surviving into being consumers of goods and products, new markets for U.S. companies’ products emerge. Corporations across the world have already benefitted substantially from the poverty reduction that has occurred in India and China, and business leaders realize that their future earnings are tied to the efforts of U.S. leadership to reduce global poverty.
In 2012, nearly all of America’s top business leaders signed a letter to Congress that urged for congressional support of a strong and effective international affairs budget. Citing the fact that overseas markets represent 95% of the world’s consumers and 80% of global purchasing power, companies like Microsoft, Walmart, Land o’ Lakes and Caterpillar appealed to Congress to better support international development and diplomacy programs. After all, 10 of the U.S.’s top 15 trading partners were once recipients of our foreign aid. In an age where one out of five American jobs is export based, combating global poverty advances U.S. business interests by supporting international companies and spurring job creation here at home.
While advocating on behalf of the world’s poor, I have often heard the argument that saving lives leads to overpopulation which forces people to choose between supporting humanitarian efforts and environmental causes. Actually, the opposite is true; saving lives by reducing poverty also reduces the population growth of developing countries. Women in regions with higher child mortality rates are likely to have more children to anticipate the loss of one or more of their offspring. Helping to improve living conditions within the world’s poorest countries lets people start making decisions based on the expectation that their children will live and thrive. Not to mention, making family planning education and resources accessible to women in developing countries as a complement to poverty reduction measures drives the birth rate down still further. Letting children die now so they don’t strain the planet later is an unfounded (and frankly outlandish) excuse to avoid addressing global poverty.
We now arrive at the reason for addressing global poverty that gets the most attention, the one that the Trump administration should consider before drastically reducing federal funding on education, scientific research and conservation efforts: our national security. The Bush and Obama administrations both focused on the Pentagon’s “three D’s” for protecting the U.S.—defense, development and diplomacy. While our armed forces will always be the cornerstone of U.S. security, they must be complemented by proactively investing in stronger societies and human welfare.
It is no coincidence that the poorest countries on earth are also where we have the most pressing national security concerns. Desolate poverty creates a breeding ground for terrorist organizations and drug cartels, and when people don’t have opportunities for economic self-sufficiency, these organizations become their survival method. We have learned this lesson time and time again—in WWI, for instance, when the dismal conditions in Germany gave rise to the reign of Hitler. Or in Afghanistan, where unstable conditions enabled Al-Qaeda to operate freely and for the Taliban to come to power. More recently, the terrorist group Al-Shebab actively grew in ranks in Somalia by recruiting famine victims. Their methodology was to give people small amounts of money or food in exchange for their help, an easy decision when the choice is between letting your child starve to death and helping out the local terrorist group.
U.S. military leaders agree that development and diplomacy programs are a critical but undervalued component of America’s national security. Just how undervalued they are is reflected in the meager sum allotted to our international affairs budget—about 2% of the Federal Budget goes to improving living condition for the world’s poor, despite the fact that Americans consistently estimate that foreign aid makes up 20 percent or more of our federal budget. Despite the 1970 international agreement of the world’s richest countries to give .7 percent of their gross national income to international development aid, the U.S. falls below even the average country effort of .4 percent, contributing only .19 percent of its GNI. For a country that prides itself on its powerful stance on the world stage, the U.S. is weak with respect to other nations’ efforts to improve international conditions.
Some might say the US has displayed such a lack of effort to combat the global poverty crisis because foreign aid does not work. However, international development programs have reduced the world’s chronically malnourished population by 50 percent in the past twenty years. As the world’s most powerful economy, U.S. aid plays a crucial role in this development process. More than 3 million lives are saved every year through U.S. immunization programs, and over 50 million couples worldwide use family planning as a direct result of U.S. aid’s population program. If combating global poverty is effective and in our national security and business interests, why does so much skepticism still surround the term “foreign aid?”
Hesitation to strengthen our international affairs budget stems predominantly from Americans’ false perceptions about foreign aid. People insist that corruption in developing nations prevents aid from reaching its intended recipients, or that global poverty is simply too big an issue to prevent.
Corruption, however, is by no means a justification for ignoring the plight of the world’s poor. It exists nearly everywhere, including the United States. Besides, there are numerous practices in place to ensure that aid ends up in the right hands. For instance, the Millennium Challenge Account is a funding program that requires countries to address corruption extensively before they can receive assistance from the U.S. Also, consider that foreign aid does not mean airdropping bundles of money in developing countries. You cannot steal knowledge about modern medicine or elementary education, and criminals are not interested in seizing malaria-fighting bed nets, birthing kits and clean water wells.
In regards to the scope of the global poverty crisis, let me assure you that it is not too big to tackle. Solutions are easy, affordable and proven to work, and when people receive the basic tools they need for a foundation, they will lift themselves out of poverty. In 2015, for example, the UN completed its Millennium Development goals which in part sought to cut global poverty in half. This goal was achieved—early. Oxfam estimates that it would take $60 billion annually to end extreme global poverty, which is less than a quarter of the income of the top 100 richest billionaires.
Sometimes when I promote the importance of U.S. foreign aid, people ask me incredulously why the U.S. should address poverty abroad when we have it here at home. To this, I simply say that domestic and foreign policy are not competing interests. Our foreign policy should be focused on international poverty because it is a moral imperative and in our strategic interest. For the same reasons, our domestic policy should focus on poverty at home. Targeting domestic and fighting foreign poverty is not a tradeoff.
Shifting the focus of U.S. foreign policy towards combating global poverty is truly a ground-up effort. Call your senators and ask them to support funding for the international affairs budget. Or better yet, find a specific bill that addresses global poverty and lobby your congressmen to co-sponsor it.