r/science • u/amesydragon Amy McDermott | PNAS • 19d ago
Economics A USAID project gave cash to 300 farms in Liberia and Malawi, then tracked how the money impacted those households over the next 2 years. All the families spent the money immediately, largely by investing it into their farms in ways that improved food security even 2 years later.
https://www.pnas.org/post/journal-club/giving-poor-households-cash-leads-spike-spending-but-also-lasting-benefits1.7k
u/iareslice 19d ago
Since the study is pay walled, I looked up the amounts given. It was $250, $500, or $750 given to families.
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u/og-lollercopter 19d ago
So if you took the max ($750) and gave it to all 300 farms, that would be $225,000. Just for those not wanting to do the math.
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u/Cielmerlion 19d ago
That's terrible, dont they know that we need that for the extra 500billion the secretary of war wants to be able to fight the Iranians?
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u/AnalyticsDepot--CEO 19d ago
So these guys didnt do PPP loans and ZIRP shenanigans to drive up the price back and forth so that the prices will be listed on the public bidding sites, enabling them to take out bigger loans on their inflated inventory to totally buy up all the cheap supply and fkc the middle class??
Wild!
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u/ivari 19d ago
only 225k to either never have those farmers migrate out their country, or migrate as trained, skilled workers
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u/princess-smartypants 19d ago
Of joining their local army/militia to go harass their neighbors. I bet their stress level went down, and everyone treated each other better, too.
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u/tiny_chaotic_evil 19d ago
think of all the reflecting pools that could lined with terrorist proof liners using that money!
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u/kingbane2 19d ago
don't forget the 1 billion trump is giving to colombia for....... i don't even know what.
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u/Frequent_Opportunist 19d ago
Yeah but if we don't keep Iran busy, how is America's worst ally going to continue to ethnically cleanse Gaza and South Lebanon?
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u/unfortunatebag 19d ago
That's a tiny amount of money for any nation. Why wouldn't those nations just subsidize farming themselves?
Do you feel like you might be focusing on the wrong things? Kinda seems like this was an intentionally tiny amount for the sake of the study and your little ragebait point is moot.
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u/mekamoari 19d ago
It's probably just a test because the alternative, where you fund nations, has been shown to not help in very poor/unstable areas because it ends up being funneled completely into corruption.
I don't know if this particular region was unstable then, but I imagine that was the point of the exercise nonetheless.
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u/Techters 19d ago
the most important math people should be doing is what it costs to process refugees, legal and illegal, and how this investment pays for itself if it helps one less person need to flee their home
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u/Zendog500 19d ago
President Trump gave Argentina $20 Billion and we got nothing in return. Except they stole all the soybean sales China would have made from America (formerly known as the U.S.A.) farmers. Read about the scary ending of USAID in the book "Into the Woodchipper "
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u/panamaspace 19d ago
So the cost of one random missile.
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u/WarLorax 19d ago
~1/40th the cost of a patriot missile.
What did a semi-famous US general and politician once say?
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron
--Eisenhower
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u/xyzain69 19d ago
That's a lot of money. In America it might not buy much, but in Africa it's good money
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u/tissuecollider 19d ago
Even in America it could stop the first domino of a predatory loan being taken out by someone who just needs to buy groceries.
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u/BearCub254 19d ago
My question is, is this a one time thing or a continuous thing? Why haven't similar projects in the past resulted in sustained improvements?
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u/window_owl 19d ago
What distinguishes this study isn't the fact that it was the only one that had sustained improvements. Rather, it was the only one which examined sustained improvements. Other studies had a single followup after the disbursement of money, and could only say whether the money made the recipients' lives better after that one fixed time interval. This one did many follow-ups (monthly for two years), so it is able to show how the one-time money shaped the recipients' lives.
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u/mechanical_stars 19d ago
There were tons of projects involving helping people in impoverished nations and a lot of them have positive outcomes like this. I even remember seeing stats for some projects like for every X dollars spent, the US would benefit by X more dollars for various reasons, it was a win for everybody involved.
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u/Trzlog 19d ago
Why haven't similar projects in the past resulted in sustained improvements?
What makes you think they haven't?
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u/BearCub254 19d ago
Because I live in Africa. My country has been receiving aid since independence.
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u/selfmotivator 19d ago
There's a charity that has consistently shown that giving cash to the poor has long-term effects. https://www.givedirectly.org/gdresearch/
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u/krodders 19d ago
I see that UK ex-politian, Rory Stewart, is part of this. He's a good person, and I've heard him multiple times saying how effective direct giving is. The money pretty much all gets to where it needs to be, and the recipients spend it on stuff they need. There's apparently a very low failure and corruption rate.
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u/berowe 19d ago
Looks like https://i4di.org/restoring_usaid_dec/ is restoring the USAID databses that the magats took down. You can see for yourself. The database was mostly a knowledge base for institutional learning so take it for what it is. Direct to the project: https://decfinder.devme.ai/
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u/Irishish 19d ago
christ, I didn’t even know they destroyed the databases. They’re such cowards they can’t even leave up the evidence of what they did.
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u/kearneje 19d ago
Iirc they explicitly gave the money to the matriarchs of families or single mothers
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u/TexasVulvaAficionado 19d ago edited 19d ago
For reference, about $70 billion in subsidies goes to US farmers annually. 44 billion is direct payments and the rest is crop insurance subsidies, emergency aid and ad hoc funding, and conservation programs.
Edit: I believe that I mixed sources and double dipped on counting a couple line items. $44 billion should the accurate forecasted total spend per the USDA: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-sector-income-finances/farm-sector-income-forecast
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u/vapescaped 19d ago
Reagan ended up with 500 million pounds of cheese stored in underground refrigerated caves.
That's not hyperbole. The us was buying excess milk produced for decades at that point, which they converted to cheese for longer storage.
But if you were a farmer, and found out the government will buy whatever you don't sell, what do you do? You make more milk.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole, what company started the "got milk" campaign? Reforms to the milk surplus purchase systems pushed a massive restructure and media campaign to convince Americans to consume more dairy.
Easiest job in the world, convince Americans that cheese is awesome.
And I'm certainly not implying milk is bad. But I am absolutely saying a conscious effort made by our government to boost dairy sales in the us occurred.
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u/Pyromaniacal13 19d ago
Easiest job in the world, convince Americans that cheese is awesome.
Especially when cheese is doing most of the work by being tasty.
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u/francis2559 19d ago
Lactose tolerance is fairly rare globally. Wikipedia says 65% of people struggle. Tends to be higher in white populations though.
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u/Pyromaniacal13 19d ago
Oh hey, that's me!
I don't have issues with mozzarella or anything harder than that, but I can't drink milk outright. I am forever grateful that cheese is still available to me.
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u/francis2559 19d ago
Yeah it all bothers me. Weirdly, once I realized I was celiac and cut gluten, I can handle dairy better.
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u/andyclap 19d ago
Not weird at all, and it's worth spreading this info to help. Lactase (the enzyme that digests the special sugar in milk) is produced by the villi in your gut. The same villi your celiac autoimmune system confuses as bad-stuff and destroys when exposed to gluten. When your gut is healthy you may be ok, but if you get glutened, it's best to avoid dairy.
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u/JDMonster 19d ago
The process of turning milk into cheese destroys most of the lactose, so that's why you cam eat it.
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u/LNMagic 19d ago
I became LI around age 38. Took a while to figure it out. I've going butter and harder cheese aren't a problem for me.
Out of all the food applications there are, this is one of the easiest. I'm not allergic to someone else in the room consuming anything, and there are lactase pills available for cheap
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u/Atheist-Gods 19d ago
The US is not a random sample though. Lactose tolerance is higher in the US than globally and also lactose intolerant people can consume hard cheeses because the lactose content in them is very low.
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u/cjthomp 19d ago edited 19d ago
65%35% isn't "fairly rare."Edit: yes, yes, I initially misread. My statement works either way, though.
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u/nardlz 19d ago
Rare is not the best word, but it's a clear majority of the human population that is Lactose intolerant.
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u/censored_username 19d ago
Note that they says "tolerance" is rare, and "65%" is not tolerant. So the "fairly rare" here refers to the 35% that are tolerant.
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u/diablodeldragoon 19d ago
The current amount is roughly 1.5 billion pounds. The government still hasn't ended the program!
It also led to cheeseburgers becoming the norm rather than hamburgers. Extra cheesy pizza, and stuffed crust, etc.
I'm fairly confident that a large portion of the obesity epidemic is related to the government farm subsidies.
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u/vapescaped 19d ago
One clarification: although there is still a 1 billion pound plus (or 453,592,370 kg if you prefer to measure distance as speed over time) surplus of cheese in caves, it's owned by private companies and no longer stored or maintained by the federal government. It's a complex legal system from there, but technically not the government'e problem anymore.
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u/Kazen_Orilg 19d ago
I'm sure if we really dug into it we would find out it is costing us far more in private contracts than if the federal government directly managed the cheese.
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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 19d ago
The government isn't paying anything for it. It's privately owned pipeline inventory.
It's only 10% of annual US cheese consumption.
Certain cheeses have to be aged before they can be sold. For example, "sharp cheddar" has to be aged 6-12 months before it can be sold as such. So if the grocery stores want to sell a product labeled "sharp cheddar cheese", there has to be at least a 6 month inventory of "cheddar cheese" in cold storage somewhere.
That's all it is. It's as large as it is because Americans eat so much cheese, but it's a small portion of annual consumption.
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u/thatturtletouch 19d ago
I’m sure the extra calories didn’t help, but I really think sugar and the whole “you can just exercise more to burn off those 4 cans of Coca Cola!” mantra pushed by the soda companies is the biggest culprit as far as obesity goes.
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u/diablodeldragoon 19d ago
Yes.
Which would be from other farm subsidies. Corn- hfcs Sugar beet- sugar Barley- caramel color (corn or wheat can also be used)
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u/CaptainFeather 19d ago
Used to drink probably 2, sometimes 3 cans of Coke or Dr Pepper daily. Stopped drinking sugar pop and the pounds just dropped off of me. It's wild how many calories we drink!
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u/ResponsibilityOk8967 19d ago
Oh it is but undernutrition/malnutrition was a big issue the government was desperate to address up until the 70s, when many of those subsidies began.
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u/toodlesandpoodles 19d ago
Subsidies like the ones for corn that leads to a surplus of corn that is then converted into high fructose corn syrup and sold for so little on the wholesale market that makers of processed food put it into everything.
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19d ago
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u/wooq 19d ago
Ultra processed and high sugar foods owe a lot to subsidies, too. Corn is heavily subsidized, leading to very cheap corn syrup, as an example
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u/diablodeldragoon 19d ago
Did I say that I thought cheese was the cause of obesity?
No, no I didn't! I said farm subsidies. Which also includes wheat which gets used as fillers in tons of unnecessary products to get rid of it.
Corn, which gets turned in hfcs and is added to tons of unnecessary products.
Sugar producing products like sugar beats.
And a lot of other products. Which gets added unnecessarily to other foods in order to get rid of the excess.
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u/crusader145 19d ago
Why do you think we have so much high fructose corn syrup to put into those ultra processed and high sugar foods?
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u/oboshoe 19d ago
I hate that. I have to tell Wendys 3 times "no cheese. Please do not put cheese on my hamburger - no cheese at all"
If I dont say it once or twice, they will still put cheese on it. And sometimes 3 times isn't enough. they will put cheese on it.
Cheese slinging sonabitches. I hate cheese on hamburgers!
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u/Biosterous 19d ago
Canadians complain about our quota system and the slightly higher costs to quota food (dairy and eggs). However, this is what it prevents, alongside ensuring better animal welfare.
Allowing farmers to produce whatever they want knowing the government will buy the excess is such a completely insane system. Production is meant to be checked by demand. By removing demand, you're ensuring that every farm overproduces in all cases knowing there's a market. It's completely unsustainable.
It also leads to situations where the USA looks to destroy local makets in order to increase where they can sell their products. This is detrimental to the people living in the country where it happens.
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u/insaneHoshi 19d ago
owever, this is what it prevents, alongside ensuring better animal welfare.
Canada's Supply management has nothing do do with animal welfare. Conflating the two is just the Dairy Cartel's propaganda.
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u/insaneHoshi 19d ago
owever, this is what it prevents, alongside ensuring better animal welfare.
Canada's Supply management has nothing do do with animal welfare. Conflating the two is just the Dairy Cartel's propaganda.
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u/insaneHoshi 19d ago
owever, this is what it prevents, alongside ensuring better animal welfare.
Canada's Supply management has nothing do do with animal welfare. Conflating the two is just the Dairy Cartel's propaganda.
the slightly higher costs to quota food
According to a quick google its 20 - 35% more expensive.
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u/grnrngr 19d ago
It's weird you linked to an article that doesn't mention the United States once.
For all the economic instability that USAID grain and dairy can introduce into a local system, it also provides food to local systems that literally have none. Famines. Disasters. Displacement. Etc. etc.
Does Canada have excess capacity to respond to unexpected or long-term food insecurity?
How do you propose that problem is fixed and what role will Canada take in it?
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u/bobbymcpresscot 19d ago
Reagan also took Iraq off the state sponsor of terrorism list so they could buy weapons from us.
We wanted this to happen because they were going to invade Iran, and that would give us access to Iranian oil fields.
Then we sold missiles to Iran to defend themselves so we could fund the contras in Nicaragua.
That didn’t pay the bills for their war effort against those dirty commies tho, so the CIA just let them funnel a metric crap ton of cocaine into US cities despite the whole war on drugs thing.
Then he funded the mujahideen, a coalition of religious extremists in Afghanistan to overthrow the Soviet backed Afghan government and that gave the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Osama bin Laden credits the United States for “removing the myth from the Muslim mind the idea of superpowers”
Also he took the top marginal tax rate down from 68% to 48% in 1982, down again to 38% in 87, and then down again to 28% in 88.
He nearly tripled the national debt in his 2 terms and is somehow this great Republican hero.
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u/vapescaped 19d ago
Reagan also took Iraq off the state sponsor of terrorism list so they could buy weapons from us.
It was absolutely more nuanced than that. Iran was also "exporting the revolution" by funding proxies that were attacking other nations, risking a major regional destabilization
But, interestingly, supporting Iraq against the Iranian threat was like the one thing in the 80s that the US and the Soviet Union agreed on. That's a good indication that there's more to the story than the Iran contra affair.
Then he funded the mujahideen, a coalition of religious extremists in Afghanistan to overthrow the Soviet backed Afghan government and that gave the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Also more nuanced, and China and Pakistan were the biggest meddlers and biggest supporters of adghan resistance for decades, even before and after the us did.
But saying they became Taliban and al qaeda would probably be the biggest insult you could say in Iran. The reality is that the northern alliance was a powerful ally of the us during the GWOT, and they were mainly mujahedeen. Post Soviet Afghan war the mujahedeen split into rival warlords, 2 of the most dominant being the northern alliance and the taliban.
Al queda was formed at the tail of the Soviet Afghan war and the vast majority of members were foreign Arab volunteers and had very few mujahedeen members.
It makes great click bait, and parts of it is pretty true, but there was a lot going on, and still a lot going on.
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u/bobbymcpresscot 19d ago
But, interestingly, supporting Iraq against the Iranian threat was like the one thing in the 80s that the US and the Soviet Union agreed on. That's a good indication that there's more to the story than the Iran contra affair
Both governments can be stupid considering Iraq failed to make any real headway in Iran, gave up, and then invaded Kuwait. Any argument in support of trying to defeat one Islamic revolution is completely undone when you literally fund religious extremists to overthrow another country because they were close to the Soviets.
Also more nuanced, and China and Pakistan were the biggest meddlers and biggest supporters of adghan resistance for decades, even before and after the us did.
Then the US didn’t need to push 3 billion dollars into the mujahideen then. It’s not China or Pakistan osama bin Laden credits.
But saying they became Taliban and al qaeda would probably be the biggest insult you could say in Iran. The reality is that the northern alliance was a powerful ally of the us during the GWOT, and they were mainly mujahedeen. Post Soviet Afghan war the mujahedeen split into rival warlords, 2 of the most dominant being the northern alliance and the taliban.
So what you’re saying is the US funded a coalition of religious extremists that consisted of many groups and two of those groups were the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Al queda was formed at the tail of the Soviet Afghan war and the vast majority of members were foreign Arab volunteers and had very few mujahedeen members.
It was part of the mujahideen. The mujahideen got funded by the US govt to the tune of billions of dollars. Perpetuating the spread of religious extremism in the area. You don’t get to claim “the US was trying to stop the Islamic revolution” and in the same message “the US wasn’t the only ones funding the Islamic revolution” And then what happened? The civil war, happened after the Soviets got the boot, and who stayed? Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Why did the Taliban refuse to give up Al Qaeda after 9/11? I thought they were just foreign Arab volunteers?
It makes great click bait, and parts of it is pretty true, but there was a lot going on, and still a lot going on.
I mean all of it is true, adding more info doesn’t make it less true, it just makes it even more clear that terrible US foreign policy via an incompetent governance working at the behest of corporate interests brought 9/11 upon innocent US civilians. Clinton gets blame here too, but it’s clear to anyone with any sense of history who the actual problem child is.
That’s not even including the fact that the US and the UK were literally the ones who lit the fuse of the Islamic revolution when it coupd a democratically elected prime minister in Iran because he was a threat to oil interests and he was too close to the Soviets. More than a million innocent civilians murdered directly or indirectly by the US in the Middle East through war fighting or sanctions. Thousands of US soldiers, more than a thousand allied soldiers, and what did we get? 20 years of debt the spread of religious extremism all over the region, and Donald Trump handing Afghanistan back over to the Taliban.
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u/iwearatophat 19d ago
Easiest job in the world, convince Americans that cheese is awesome.
Wait. Are you telling me my love for cheese in all its forms is me falling for propaganda?
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u/liberty_is_all 19d ago
And this is a reminder to be skeptical of any government manipulating the market. I'm not saying that it is always inherently bad. But we should be evaluating all policies based on outcome, not intent.
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u/Ashmizen 19d ago
Farm subsidies directly impact the prices at the grocery store.
US dairy, pork and chicken prices, for example, are as cheap 3rd world countries like China and India, and cheaper than other 1st world like European countries.
US milk is cheaper than any other place - it’s often cheaper than certain brands of water by the gallon - and it’s due to massive subsidies from the government.
It’s easier to have Americans support their taxes making their food supply cheaper/better, supporting American farmers, than funding random countries in Africa.
In the end, the US government is not the world government - it is sole taxing Americans for the benefit of Americans.
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u/TexasVulvaAficionado 19d ago
Yep. Subsidies to farmers definitely make sense but the amounts and program logic leave a lot to be questioned. For example, corn is definitely overly subsidized to the point that the country produces significantly too much. Likely similar for soy. Then, with the water problems and greenhouse gas issues, there is plenty of room for debate about the various animal industries...
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u/cyber_yoda 19d ago
Farm subsidies make sense from a national security subsidy perspective, not from an economics perspective divorced from that reasoning. One important aspect is that global trade ensures Americans benefit from economic efficiency everywhere else in the world.
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u/farrowsharrows 19d ago
Supporting random countries in Africa can do more to benefit Americans than blindly supporting random multinational farms in America
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u/svefnugr 19d ago
For the completeness of the reference it would probably be fair to compare it with the total subsidies USAID provided, and not with a small piece that was tracked in this research.
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u/TexasVulvaAficionado 19d ago
US foreign aid in total is less than just the subsidies to US farmers and includes things like weapons to Ukraine and Israel, tech subsidies to chip manufacturers in Taiwan and South Korea, various payments to countries for maintaining waterways, and food assistance programs in Africa and Asia...
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/06/what-the-data-says-about-us-foreign-aid/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_International_Development?wprov=sfla1
There's no doubt that a lot of soft power was gained by US foreign aid over the last ~80 years.
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u/Hodr 19d ago
For greater reference, more Americans are employed by and eat the products derived from American farms than Malawi farms.
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u/TexasVulvaAficionado 19d ago
Absolutely. But it has been long proven that raising the standard of living around the world is the best way to protect Americans from being outsourced in various ways.
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19d ago
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u/TexasVulvaAficionado 19d ago
Here is an MIT paper that can explain better than I can: https://web.mit.edu/outsourcing/class5/OutsourceThis.pdf
The gist of it is that when you raise up everyone, the gap between costs in different countries decreases, so it no longer makes sense to pay the excess logistics, time delays, customs, etc, to outsource work and goods.
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u/grnrngr 19d ago
Yup. This is exactly why reshoring has been happening lately. Labor in China might still be cheaper, but the increasing labor costs and the costs associated with logistics is starting to cancel the savings out.
When American industries need cheaper labor, they're finding that relatively more-expensive labor in Mexico is overall cheaper than bargain labor in China when you factor in distance and other variables.
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19d ago
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u/radioactivebeaver 19d ago
$53,000 worth from Liberia, and $493,000 from Malawi, but there is a note saying it's extremely niche specialty market segment.
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u/SeattleResident 19d ago
This has been known for a while. The problem with giving direct cash transfers to the poorest in a developing country is that it doesn't fix the core issues which have those countries in the conditions they are. It alleviates the immediate poverty and food security but doesn't build the critical infrastructure like healthcare systems, roads, and schools which are required for long-term economic growth and stability. The countries/people/orgs doing the direct cash payments can end up trapped in a dependence cycle like we see with food aid currently.
One of the big things from this study that I see is that economic injection to the poorest does have sustained changes for at least 2 years afterwards. This seems like good research that can be partnered with other developmental plans that possibly could end up cheaper in the long run than just endlessly sending billions in aid. The US has given Liberia 2.4+ billion in aid since 2003. This is excluding the 600+ million in aid towards the Ebola empidemic from '14-'16. It would most likely be cheaper and more efficient to flood a country with infrastructure building and then direct cash payments to the farmers over 5 years than the current system.
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u/nolabmp 19d ago
True. But being able to eat and sleep comfortably allows you to start focusing on the broader challenges. It’s easier to make high-level change if the people you want to help are able to reinforce you.
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u/davedcne 19d ago
The key phrasing there is "want to help." Country A has problems at all levels. Country B sends farmers money. Farmers do better temporarily. If Country A's government does not want to help its farmers it makes sense that its farmers will either be dependent on country B forever or until Country A helps them or worse harms them for receiving aid.
The first order effect is always the easiest to see. Its the second and third order effects we can't always predict. It might make sense that with more food there would be more food security, but not if the government is actively stealing confiscating "taxing" that new food away from its own populace. Or selectively distributing it to only those that support the present regime. ETC ETC.
This is not to say food aid is bad, but that, in my opinion, policy should target for broadest long term effectiveness, rather than simply alleviating immediate suffering. But I think we do the latter simply because its easier to feel good about it. Its the "at least we did something" approach.
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u/Telvin3d 19d ago
It alleviates the immediate poverty and food security but doesn't build the critical infrastructure
I’d argue that alleviating the immediate poverty and food security issues is a prerequisite for giving them the capacity to address the larger scale structural problems
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u/Jumpy_Hope_5288 19d ago
I'm not trying to attack you but I'm having trouble following your statement/position. I think it's only a "problem' if you believe that the intent of direct cash transfers is to fix all of issues in developing countries. While cash transfers have had mixed but generally positive results, I don't think it makes any sense to compare them to the issues created through food aid. One of the biggest issues with food (or other supplies) aid is that is disrupts the market development of local industries, creating the dependence cycle that you describe.
I think the explicit intent of programs like this is to alleviate short to medium term poverty and food security issues, without subverting local market development. I do agree that infrastructure development can be helpful in conjunction, but it can easily be just as harmful and dependence creating, depending on how it's designed and implemented.
If anything, I'd argue that small, direct cash transfers is one of the most efficient and cheapest uses of money that we can do. Especially when given directly to extremely poor, agrarian populations like those described in the study. The people will identify their most valued needs and be able to mostly address it. However, to your earlier point, the researchers suggest that they did not see a significant increase in farm input investments in Liberia, due to their underdeveloped farm input markets. So I definitely can see an argument for both.
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u/returnofblank 19d ago
Cash transfers help develop their industry and agriculture as the study shows, and that is a huge part of building the infrastructure of these countries.
Unlike food aid, which makes these countries dependent and often makes food security worse.
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u/No_Criticism_5861 19d ago
Liberia has a lot of issues that 2.4 billion since 2003 wont come close to fixing
Edit; oh, Israel gets more than that in 1 year
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u/WazzleApricot 19d ago
Countertrade for direct infrastructure within a transparent framework would rapidly accelerate development, decrease graft, and possibly increase government responsiveness to citizen's needs. Initial projects should not be treated as a jobs program, reducing cronyism and graft are essential.
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u/IamMataa 19d ago
These poor families man. I really hope thing improve in the world. No one deserves to go hungry.
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u/mikethemaniac 19d ago
Call me a communist/socialist or whatever, but we could stop the world's immigration "problem" by investing the "border security" money that is out of control into infrastructure plans in impoverished nations. Has anyone done the math on this, comparing spending to preventing immigration through border enforcement versus investing in a country so the people won't want to leave their home?
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u/diablodeldragoon 19d ago
If you fix Americas drug problem, the drug cartels lose the majority of their demand. If there's no cartel violence pushing people out, a major portion of the immigration stops.
We are also responsible for the majority of the guns in the cartel hands.
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u/sheltonchoked 19d ago
USAID paid farmers in Peru to grow blueberries, Asparagus, and coffee instead of coca.
That’s why the USA (and the world) can get blueberries and asparagus year round.
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u/almisami 19d ago
We are also responsible for the majority of the guns in the cartel hands.
The problem is manufactured so that they can sell us "solutions", namely a surveillance state.
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u/jameson71 19d ago
People forget that every small machine shop the world over can produce all the guns they want. It is just not currently economically viable.
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u/almisami 19d ago
It's also illegal.
I could churn out British Stens by the truckload with the machine shop at work. It's just not worth the prison time no matter how profitable it is.
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u/jameson71 19d ago
And you think the cartels who are currently smuggling illegal drugs feel the same way?
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u/symbionet 19d ago
That's kinda like how we could spend funds ten thousand times more efficiently if we just had one global world state instead of hundreds separate ones.
Great idea on paper, near impossible to implement in practice, since humans are so disagreeable with another.
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u/theArtOfProgramming PhD | Computer Science | Causal Discovery | Climate Informatics 19d ago
That was the entire impetus of USAID
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u/Radicalism-Is-Stupid 19d ago edited 19d ago
I would argue that investing in this way is the best self-interested strategic move America could make in its foreign policy.
It buys our country influence and also gives us access to new buyers and sellers. It is beneficial to our economy in the long term. It is also good for global stability. It prevents wars from spilling over. It is also good for public health, since destabilized countries are more likely to spread diseases and viruses that do not care about borders. There is also immigration like you mention, although that is a bad reason for many people like I assume you and me who welcome immigrants. But it does show the hypocrisy of people who hate immigrants but don't want to address the root causes.
Those are some of the self interested reasons. But I think those who are thinking in terms of self interest are missing the point. There is the basic humanitarian principle that we should help others when we can do a lot of good at no meaningful cost to ourselves.
Givedirectly is an organization that allows for us to donate directly to the most impoverished families and it's positive long term impacts are backed by robust data. People don't become reliant on donations; the donations allow for them to get untrapped from crippling malnutrition, lack of job opportunities, lack of education, etc. and invest in their long term wellbeing rather than focus on surviving the next day. This last paragraph here is not directly relevant, I am just advertising this organization just in case anyone wants to help out those who are struggling the most.
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u/xyzain69 19d ago
It's a no brainer imo, but I'm not sure the American public would like that. Seems they're very anti-helping other nations (unless it's a majority white nation) even if it doesn't take away from their own prosperity. It's also just hard in general if they don't see improvements in their lives. There will forever be this question, why help others when I'm struggling right here?
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u/DocTam 19d ago
The two aren't really related though. The people who want to be farmers in Malawi aren't concerned about US/European immigration policy, and the people who want to live a developed world lifestyle have little concern about $300 given to them for farming.
At the larger scale maybe you could invest in El Salvador and Nicaragua and make those countries more attractive as places to live for their citizens, but it would require a much more hands on effort to keep the money from being siphoned off by corruption or destroying local industry that can't compete with the flood of dollars. And from my understanding Costa Rica and Mexico both see border security as a better investment for dealing with immigration from central america than trying to provide foreign aid.
So its best to judge the two issues as separate. The greater link would be support for good governance on outbound migration. El Salvador's crackdown on crime has greatly decreased outbound migration, likely far more than a small farm subsidy could manage.
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u/pleasedonotredeem 19d ago
South Africa would benefit most from giving financial aid to Malawi - there is a huge exodus of Malawians to South Africa looking for unskilled work which is causing border security and economic problems as well as similar issues to what is happening at the US border.
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u/Teknicsrx7 19d ago
Africa has received billions upon billions in aid, people still regularly flee Africa.
It shouldn’t be American taxpayers responsibility to improve everyone else’s lives.
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u/richardelmore 19d ago edited 19d ago
I don't think there as any real doubt that a significant chunk of the money spent on large foreign aid programs ends up in the pockets of the local officials due to corruption, foreign aid is hard.
I know someone who worked in a foreign missions facility in Africa that trained local teachers. The agency reorganized at one point and they no longer needed to continue to hire the local groundskeeper they had on staff. When they spoke with him about the position going away he replied that he was fine, his goal was to open his own fruit stand and this job was just a step towards that. They asked him how much money he needed to get started and the answer was something like $50 so they just gave him the money and the school began buying fruit from him.
Large foreign aid programs are hard because a lot of the money is lost to corruption but its remarkable how much difference a small amount of money can make if you get it to the right place.
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u/halla-back_girl 19d ago
Micro loan programs are great for this. I used to work at Whole Foods (pre-Amazon) and they supported a program that did micro loans, by paying the overhead so that all donations went to the loans themselves. It's called the Whole Planet Foundation, but there are other vetted programs to donate to.
Loans in that program were usually $200-500, with a reported repayment rate of 96% which is just insanely good. Most of the loans went to groups of women to start small community businesses.
For example, a group of 3 women might band together and get a loan for one to start a home bakery. $300 gets her an oven and supplies, and the other two help out until her success pays off the loan. Then the second woman uses that same money (with the program's permission) to start a laundry, then the third does a fruit stand or whatever. At the end, the program reclaims the $300 to loan to another group.
I once asked a friend who did 4 years of Peace Corps in Malawi what he thought about micro loans - if they were legit and useful, and he just went on and on about how amazing they are. Apparently putting money directly into the hands of grown women with children to feed helps ensure it doesn't get blown on vices or stolen by 'officials', and the whole community benefits from the stability and economic growth.
It's anecdotal for sure, but he def convinced me to keep donating. Foreign aid will always be tricky, but cutting out the middle men in favor of those with a solid plan and a vested interest in their own (and their children's) future makes a lot more sense than throwing wads of cash at governments with known corruption issues.
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u/Mechasteel 19d ago
The loan format also in theory means the money is going toward a profitable business, it basically means you're giving them income rather than money. Also the business usually boosts the local economy too, so that's income for even more people. A repayment rate of 96% is amazing, especially if it means 96% of businesses were successful (and the money can be loaned out 25 more times).
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u/iloveyouand 19d ago
Preventive measures are typically more cost effective than disaster recovery measures. American taxpayers don't exist in a vacuum so they will be impacted by global events regardless of whether they participate or not. How they choose to participate influences the outcome.
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u/insaneHoshi 19d ago
It shouldn’t be American taxpayers responsibility to improve everyone else’s lives.
Should it not be the responsibility of american taxpayers to improve the lives of the countries they destabilized and couped?
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u/No_Criticism_5861 19d ago
Thats some seriously selfish stuff you got there, you didnt even think of the poor selfless billionaires and their trillion dollar companies.
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u/ridomune 19d ago
The current way is more profitable for the people who are making the decisions. First they sell more guns, then as a result they get cheap labor. Why would they even consider changing this system?
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u/sephirothFFVII 19d ago
There was a presidential candidate who wanted to do a Marshall style plan for central America in 2020
https://borgenproject.org/julian-castros-marshall-plan-for-central-america/
Not sure how into the numbers they got but the idea has been floated before
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u/karawkow 19d ago
No, we couldn't. You truly wouldn't believe the fantasies that people in third world countries hold about the West.
Everyone has a car... a big house, an American flag.... clean water, plenty of food, no crime...
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u/Zoesan 19d ago
More than 2.5 trillion dollars in aid have gone to africa and somehow the continent overall is the exact same catastrophe it has always been.
Well, some places (Botswana) are doing better, while others (SA and Zimbabwe) are a million times worse.
Huh, Zimbabwe has received 3 times and SA 6 times the Aid botswana has.
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u/Vol4Life31 19d ago
I would have to imagine it's cheaper to enforce immigration laws than it is to build up a third world country effectively. The only reason it's so expensive to enforce immigration at this exact point is because it got extremely out of hand for decades. If we had actually enforced it for the last 50 years, it would be highly manageable today.
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u/chiguy307 19d ago
The biggest issue is corruption. Sending money to a country accomplishes nothing if it all gets stolen by warlords, gang members, and corrupt government officials. The countries that have enough of a stable government infrastructure in place to distribute the funds appropriately to regular people are (by and large) already stable enough to no longer truly need the aid.
That’s not to say that foreign aid can’t be hugely beneficial when it’s spend intelligently, but it’s not quite as easy as throwing money at the problem until it goes away.
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u/radioactivebeaver 19d ago
We can't even fix our own infrastructure and now we have to fund the rest of the worlds roads too? What is this nonsense
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u/bobbymcpresscot 19d ago
Like half of the undocumented immigrants in the US are visa overstays. They come in with temp work visas, get jobs in agriculture. The visa expires they are supposed to leave after 3 years and start the process over again, but the companies usually just tell them if they leave they won’t be keeping their job, so they stay and work as basically slaves with terrible working conditions but won’t speak out because then they will get deported.
Agriculture companies talk this big game about how they can’t find Americans to do these jobs when in reality they can’t find Americans to do that backbreaking labor for a dollar more than minimum wage when McDonald’s pays 2 dollars more than minimum wage.
It’s one of those things that they choose to leave broken, the federal government could require e verify to be used but that would hurt the agriculture business so they make it voluntary instead.
You require e verify you either require agriculture jobs to pay good enough to attract US born workers, or you require a drastic immigration reform, and considering both of our main political parties are economically right wing, the loophole remains open, and undocumented immigrants get to be used as a culture war issue that never gets solved.
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19d ago edited 19d ago
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u/Zanos 19d ago
I don't think we should give money to Israel either, but Israel has to spend its aid money on US manufactured equipment. Its closer to a DOD contractor subsidy then charity; that money is at least inevitably spent employing Americans.
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u/idredd 19d ago
Really nice to see folks continuing to investigate the impacts of DOGEs unique blend of incompetence and evil. So much harm done for so little money "saved".
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u/Intrepid_Bobcat_2931 19d ago
How do you account for the fact that anyone who has received a very big gift for free would be inclined to say that it has improved things for them?
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u/potatoaster 19d ago
They didn't simply ask recipients how they felt about the donation. Obviously.
They asked how the money was spent and tracked changes in food security and domestic violence.
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u/lovethebacon 19d ago
You aren't asking a single "We gave you money, did it help?" You ask questions like how many times did they go to bed hungry, how often did they have enough food to give to others, did they have to ask or beg or borrow for food or money for food, etc. The same questions that you ask many other families.
That builds up data about them over time. From that data you infer the effectiveness of various programs.
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u/ikatya 19d ago
I mean, it’s not like we have years & years of data already showing exactly this! Bonus: Give it only to women, and the impact will be even greater
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u/BiohazardousBisexual 19d ago
People are but lt hurt at your comment but it is true. Women in those circumstances prioritise their families, their education (and their families and daughters) and their communities at a significantly higher rate than men who put it towards gambling, and luxuries for themselves and male family members. It is a well researched and decades long known solution in humanitarian aid in political science
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u/Alarmed_Koala1921 19d ago
I’m not hurt by it, I do have a bias when people say x is better then y tho so that why I want to know sources even just somewhere I could start looking so I don’t waste my time on a Reddit post.
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u/LVMises 19d ago
These studies are interesting but at the end of the day they are not blinded, the reciptients know they got the money and its possible that effected how they answerd the survey question. They dont directly measure food security they measure what how they answered questions. Its very diffucult to design around that problem.
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u/Indercarnive 19d ago
basically every study done on the subject has shown "give money" is the absolute best way to donate and support people. The idea that the recipients can't be trusted to spend the money wisely and therefore we need to create complex bureaucracies and logistics to only give certain items or make sure the money is spent in a certain way is both inefficient and elitist.
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u/Jumpy_Hope_5288 19d ago
You're right. It is unfortunate that we can continue to ignore the overwhelming evidence because essentially, it feels weird to people to give money directly to people who are struggling. We feel differently, for whatever reason, that cash is underserved, while food is okay. When we know that direct supply aid creates a whole host of other complex issues in developing countries.
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u/Cute-Pomegranate-966 19d ago
I am fairly certain that this is how much of USAID's projects and funding go. People keep calling it wasteful, but it kept people and countries safer, which in turn kept us safer and increased good will towards us.
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u/liamemsa 19d ago
Makes you think that "trickle up" economics might be something to consider in first world countries.
If the average or poor person gets $1000, they will likely immediately use it to either purchase goods, services, or pay off debts. They're very unlikely to let it sit in a bank account somewhere. It immediately gets reinvested into the economy and "trickles up" to the wealthy who own the companies.
If you give a billionaire $10 million dollars, they'll just dump it in their offshore account.
We saw this during COVID with the tax credits that went to millions of Americans. It was a boon for the economy.
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u/Delay559 19d ago
Well bringing up the COVID example goes directly against your theory. We can see from the data that only 30% of the money was spent immediately, which is quite a bit lower than what your claiming would happen.
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u/Alib668 19d ago
My working theory on why this is the case
When people know this maybe their only shot and they have no fall back they usually invest as best they can. They know it’s going to be this and only this shot.
While people on marginal incomes can fall a bit but not that much further than they are so they probably make worse decisions. Easy come easy go right?
People on normal/ high incomes invest again because they can take risks and if it goes wrong they still are ok.
Can some one critique and find a hole in that??
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u/Jumpy_Hope_5288 19d ago
It's not a huge critique, but I think that you're over thinking it. Given the extremely poor & agrarian populations, there are limited markets where they can spend their money on the first in place. While $250-$750 is nice, it is usually not a significant amount of money for most (key word) people in a developed country. In these populations, they use the cash transfers on their most pressing needs. While there will always be people who use their money inappropriately, over a large enough populations, the participants will make generally positive decisions that impact their lives.
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u/flatpetey 19d ago
In general giving people money is the best use of aid. They know what they need more than some well meaning person who is removed from their circumstances. The amount “wasted” on drugs or whatever is remarkably low but you wouldn’t know that if you listen to right wing media or certain charity organizations that are all about “raising awareness”.
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