really strange China is a leading aid recipient... 2nd largest economy in the world and growing rapidly, loaning enormous amounts of money to other countries like the US, investing enormous amounts of money all over the world, doesn't have enough money to spare to crack the top givers list and in fact they need aid? weird. Though I know there are still millions of Chinese living below the poverty line.
China is off the list now, although they still receive significant assistance. I imagine at some point they will switch from a recipient to a donor country. But for now, even though they have a huge economy, they are still a middle income country.
Random question, cpg: how come when I click on your page, nothing shows up? People with no quizzes normally don't have a link (like Arp2600 down there).
On my "answers are countries" quizzes that have ended up featured you will find a few more type-ins than on most quizzes here... for example I always accept "KSA" for Saudi Arabia, "DPRK" for North Korea, and "ROK" for South Korea. I think usually "ROC" for Taiwan, and "PRC" for China, as well. But the first few are probably because I've lived in Saudi and Korea before and got used to using these acronyms myself.
so..... you haven't taken that many quizzes, then? Welcome to the site. Very topical and timely response, too, as I left the KSA 6 years ago, this comment was made 4 years ago, and Dan started accepting KSA for Saudi Arabia about 2 years ago. Way to stay on top of things.
What??? There are some paranoid Americans on this site, seeing criticism where is none. My point was that there is redundancy here: "foreign" aid is only able, by definition, to come from governments of other countries.
Here's the military assistance quiz re the US - still trying to locate similar data from Russia and Saudi Arabia for some balance, but google searching is getting nowhere.
There is more here than a "grain of salt " compromise of truth. First of all, the quiz does not define aid, and as someone associated with this for some years, that is far from easy. Do we consider food aid the same as military? Are transfers counted the same as credits (often with tight strings attached)? How do we include salaries and benefits to foreign administrators (i.e. money that never leaves the donor country, but is often counted as "aid")? And Israel is strangely absent from the list. This quiz is misleading and should be dumped.
Not true. In 1800 the global average child mortality rate was 43.3%. In the 1950s it was 19.5%. In 1990 it was 7.4%. In 2013 it was under 4%. This is just one metric. But in pretty much all ways life around the world and the global economic situation continues to improve. Thanks, Obama!
There's also the other factor, which is that "development assistance" isn't just about raising people out of poverty, it's often investment by the government giving the aid to open up new markets or expand existing ones for its home companies - hence why some relatively rich countries with large economies (India, Turkey, South Africa, Nigeria) appear on this list.
I think most economists would argue that trade, not development assistance, is the primary explanation for the rise in standard of living in the third world.
I wasn't arguing that developmental assistance is the *primary* explanation for the rise of global wages and living conditions, just against the idea that it does no good and that situations have not improved.
I find it quite ironic that Syria is #1. The West invades and bombs them to try to overthrow their democratically elected president, and when the regime change doesn't work we just throw money at Syria and tell them to clean themselves up?
Democratically elected government? Assad inherited the position from his dictator father. There may be elections in the Robert Mugabe mold, but it's a bit of a stretch to call him democratically elected.
Seems like I'd be pretty happy to meet a colonizer who increased the standard of living in my country, provided advanced technology and knowledge, etc., then left willing.
I don't think they were on a path to land on the moon, develop vaccines, fertilizers, industry, etc. anytime soon on their own.
Blaming the British for every single problem that India has is stupid considering it has been almost 80 years since we left and since other countries that were colonised are doing much better, but saying that the British increased the standard of living in India is sooooo wrong it's not even funny. Read "An era of darkness" by Shashi Tharoor if you actually want to see a point of view besides "we brought them the railway!". Even if you think he goes over the top at times (I do), I think it'd be impossible to read it and come to the conclusion that we made life better for Indians.
I agree, there's no need to be ashamed, but also I see very few people who are currently colonizers. Maaaybe France because they still have many territories, but probably not.
Not that I support india being here , but with the British having looted $45 trillion from India and oppressed Indians for over 300 years , the British ought to pay back.
@jkabq you're right, no apologies are necessary. However, that's because India, despite being treated horribly by the British for centuries, rose up and showed the world their strength. They now have a stronger economy and a better army than the UK.
As in the amount of aid received seems consistent with the population of a country or that countries with higher populations receive aid? Because the latter seems to be the incorrect takeaway.
In the Americas, why aren't places like Haiti, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia etc on the list? Colombia does not make much sense, unless it's due to political reasons ('war on drugs'), suppressing the trade unions etc.
What's with the sudden flood of assistance to Egypt? Looking at the World Bank data, it looks like their aid rose from 1.56 billion in 2020 to 8.25 billion in 2021. I can't think of any notable events specific to Egypt during that time (barring the pandemic of course).
Surprised to see Jordan, Colombia, Kenya, and Uganda up there, I’m gonna guess a lot of this money is going to refugees fleeing from neighboring countries.
We hope that we'll be out of this list in quick time.
Humbly request you to compare costs of our space programs with 'others'.
Some of us are reasonably well educated, all our scientists need not run around building toilets.
We will start contributing to world development in 30 to 50 years time.
Wish us luck!
I don't think they were on a path to land on the moon, develop vaccines, fertilizers, industry, etc. anytime soon on their own.